Harsh, maybe, but a scary reputation was about what you needed in the lycanthropy community—vampires, too. Publicly, we were all civilized; privately, not so much, or not always.
Domino walked in with his black-and-white curls still damp from the shower. The hair showed his mixed heritage, black tiger clan and white, but his eyes were pure black tiger, the color of fire: orange, red, bright, hot tiger eyes that couldn’t pass for human. They were such a startling color that it took a minute to see that he was handsome in his own right, and not just his bicolored hair and fire-colored eyes. He was five-ten, five-eleven, and was decked out in what had become the unofficial bodyguard uniform: black T-shirt, black pants, black shoes (usually boots), and weapons. Since we were in the house and didn’t have to worry about strangers, his shoulder holster complete with .45, extra ammo, and even his backup gun were all visible, if slightly camouflaged in black on black, like dangerous chameleons trying not to be seen in the bright, sunny kitchen.
He came over to me and gave me a kiss, because the rule was if we were sleeping together we could do the usual kiss as a greeting. The fact that we’d woken up together and already had sex, with Nathaniel joining in, meant we could have skipped the greeting, but I knew Domino wouldn’t. He didn’t get enough time with me to suit him, so he’d take all the attention he could get, and give. I didn’t hold it against him. I didn’t even blame him, but part of me felt the pressure from Domino and some of my other weretigers. A near-constant push to have more of me, more time, more love, more sex, and there just wasn’t any more of me to give to anyone. The sex was great, but I couldn’t be the emotional caretaker of this many people, which was why I’d encouraged some of them to find other partners to date-date. Domino hadn’t dated anyone else yet.
He turned from me and stared down at Envy. “Please, move,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, and took a sip of her tea as if to prove how cozy she was.
“Because until someone enters this room who is more intimate with Anita than I am, I get to sit on the other side of her, that’s what we worked out.”
“I know she’s the Queen of Tigers, even I feel the draw of her power, but really, you would all think she’s the only pussy”—and she put a little too much pause between—“cat in the world, the way all of you chase after her.”
“You’re in my seat,” Domino said, quietly.
“This can’t be your seat; you’re not over here much more often than I am.” Her voice was bland, but the point was sharp, because since it was her first time staying over here, it implied that Domino was even less in my life than was true, which was little enough.
He stiffened, his whole body coming to a sort of involuntary attention.
I leaned around Domino so that I could look Envy in the face and said, “You’re in his seat. Move.”
She frowned, that beautiful face going all petulant on me.
Jason said, “I thought you and Domino were friends.”
“Friendly,” she said.
“Friendly,” he said.
“Then be friendly,” Jason said.
Envy sighed heavily and rolled those pretty blue eyes, but she got up so that Domino could sit beside me. I expected her to take the seat beside Jason, but she didn’t. She walked all the way around the table and put that extra sway into her walk like Nathaniel had done. She wasn’t a stripper or dancer of any kind, but she was a wereanimal, and they knew how to move so that any man, or woman, would wonder if those swaying hips would be as good in reality as they were in the advertisement.
I had enough memories, thanks to being metaphysically linked to so many men, to appreciate that sway as the white T-shirt fluttered just below her ass, so that you could almost see something, but not quite. If I’d had the penis that my memories required, I might even have been interested, but girls as sex objects puzzled me, and though I could admire Envy’s physical beauty, it didn’t move me, or make me want to explore it.
She finally sat down, then had to have Jason pass her the tea mug she’d abandoned. She took another sip of her mint tea and watched Domino slide his arm across my shoulders with a look that matched her name. In that moment I knew she had a crush on Domino, or was at least looking for him to supplement once she dumped Richard. Did Domino know, or was he oblivious, or had he already turned her down? Did that explain her overemphasis on the “friendly,” that she’d wanted to be more than friends, but he’d said no?
I rubbed my free hand across my forehead. Trying to manage this many people was a pain in the ass, but it usually hit me as a headache when I started overthinking it. They were adults, for the love of God; they should be able to handle this, right?
Nathaniel leaned in and kissed my cheek. “You okay?”
“Sure,” but I was tense as I tried to lean into Domino’s arm over my chair back. I suddenly didn’t want him touching me, felt suffocated by so much attention. What you’ll enjoy from someone you’re in love with just hits you as clingy from someone you think of more as a sex buddy. Jason was my friend with benefits for real, because he was one of my best friends and the sex didn’t seem to mess that part up, or make us want to have more from each other emotionally. He was probably the least complicated lover I had in some ways; in other ways he was just a different kind of complicated, but then weren’t we all.
“Now that the gang’s all here, why are we here? Jason mentioned something about the rough sex being part of the reason for this informal meeting. Can you elaborate on that, Jason?”