“Anita,” Nicky said, “if you kill Kane, fine, kill Asher, I’m fine with that, too, but you won’t be.”

I kept staring at Kane’s forehead, and that spot where the bullet would go. I’d shot people up close like this before. I knew the mechanics of it, and exactly what would happen. It was just a different face staring back at me.

“Ma petite . . .”

“Don’t.” That was Micah. “Let Nicky talk to her.” Hearing Micah’s voice helped me listen better to something outside the calm in my head. I felt nothing, staring down the barrel of my gun at Kane; nothing.

“You’re not alone out in the field, Anita,” Nicky said. “We got this regardless of what Kane does. You don’t have to kill him. If you wanted to kill him, I’d be okay with that, you know that.”

I whispered, “I know.”

“But I can feel what you’re feeling, and you don’t want to kill him. You’ve just gone quiet in your head, but your emotions are waiting outside that quiet. You don’t want the emotional fallout if you killed Asher, Anita. I think he’s a manipulative shit, but you love him, and Jean-Claude loves him more.”

“So not worth it,” I said, each word enunciated carefully between almost gritted teeth. I wasn’t really looking at Kane anymore, just at that point on his head where the bullet would go if I finished this.

“No, he’s not,” Nicky said, voice soft, and closer to me, but his closeness didn’t make me want to turn the gun on him and protect myself. Asher I didn’t trust not to do something stupid, but Nicky—he wouldn’t be stupid. He might be violent, but it would be on purpose, with a better reason than not thinking things through.

I drew back from the empty quiet in my head, and the pinpoint concentration that had narrowed down to the aim of my gun and my target, and realized that the energy that had been rolling off Kane was gone. I blinked and saw his brown eyes staring up at me. He’d pushed his beast back in its box. He was still holding his damaged leg, but he was trying to be as still as the injury would let him be, as if he were afraid to move too much, afraid of what I’d do if he did.

“Good,” I said, softly, “very good.”

“What’s good?” Nicky asked.

I eased my finger off the trigger and raised the gun toward the ceiling. I kept looking at Kane’s face, though. “Did you see your death in my face, Kane?”

“I thought you were going to kill me.”

“So did I,” I said. I put the Browning back in its holster at my side. I felt light and empty, not bad, but it was odd. I didn’t usually get to this point and not shoot someone. I felt weird, as if the process were incomplete. I’d tried to explain to friends the difference between what I did and what other cops did, and that was it. Most cops go whole careers and never draw their gun, or if they do, they still think more about saving lives than taking them, but I didn’t. When I drew my gun I almost always got to use it, and using it, for me, meant someone was dead. Legally, lawfully, no review board, no questions asked—dead. I was the Executioner long before I was Jean-Claude’s ma petite.

“Get him out of my sight. Let him heal, but I don’t need to see him do it.”

More guards came through the drapes, as if they’d been waiting for some signal that they could enter without spooking me into shooting Kane. They got their hands under his arms and helped him to his feet. He couldn’t stand, so in the end they formed a cradle with their arms and two of them carried him out of sight—toward medical, I guess. I honestly didn’t care, as long as it was away from me.

I turned toward Asher, looked into that beautiful face, remembered the feel of his kiss, his body, his strength. “I don’t know what is broken inside you, but if you don’t work the issue it’s going to get you, or Kane, or both of you, killed.”

“You will kill us?”

“No, not if you don’t make me, but someone will. Narcissus would have if he’d seen you before Jean-Claude talked him down. You’re away from Belle’s court for the first time in a century, and it’s like you think none of us will hurt you.” I stepped up close enough that the oversized blue shirt brushed against me. It was too close, if I really thought he’d hurt me. I stared up at him, tried to see some comprehension in that gorgeous face, but he was hiding his emotions too hard, and it was like staring at a work of art. You could admire its beauty, but you couldn’t talk to it.

He started to put his arm around me; I thought he was going to kiss me, but I put my hand on his chest and stepped back out of arm’s reach. “The last time you kissed me during one of these little disagreements you damn near ate my lips off my face.”

“I am sorrier than I know how to express for that, Anita.”

“You’re sorry now, but in the heat of the moment you don’t think. Because we’re not cruel like Belle Morte you think we’re weak, but never mistake kindness for weakness, Asher. It’s not the same thing.”

“I understand,” he said.

“Do you? Do you really? Because I don’t think you do. I don’t know how to teach you this lesson without really hurting you. Is that what it takes to get you to behave like a thinking person? Do you only respond to cruelty?”

“No, no, that will not be necessary,” he said, voice as empty as he could make it.

“Look around you, Asher; we aren’t vampires that are bored with centuries of life so that we play at cruel games like children pulling the wings off flies. How Belle did her power plays was professional, but how she ran her court was indulgent amateur shit. I have enough memories to know that she wasted so many people, so much potential that could have helped her, and helped people around her. Jean-Claude regrets that waste and works to make his court different, better. Is there any regret in you, Asher?”

“Yes, of course, I regret some of what I’ve done over the centuries, we all do, even Belle.”

“She regrets losing your and Jean-Claude’s adoration, I’ve felt that when she tried to invade my head, but the only other thing she seems to regret is when things don’t go her way. Still, she’s far more practical than you are.”

“She is also more cruel.”

“Yeah, she is, but she never lets indulging her cruelty get in the way of business, and you let everything get in your way. If you had made Narcissus your animal to call you could have really brought something to the table, powerwise, but instead you threw it away on a whim to please your lover, and never gave a thought to what might happen afterward. It’s like you’re stuck at about fifteen and think nothing bad will happen to you.”

“I have had bad things happen, Anita.”

“I know, which makes your behavior all the more confusing to me.”

“Ma petite . . .” Jean-Claude came to us, but I put a hand up to stop him from coming closer.

“No, I’m pissed at you, too.”

“Why?” He looked genuinely surprised.

“Where were your bodyguards? Everyone else had guards with them, but not you. You are the motherfucking king of America, and you know that he’s dangerous when he’s like this. You should have had personal protection with you.”