She was one of our vampires, which made her on our side, and she was, but in the end Meng Die was always on her own side. She was shorter than Kelly, slender and altogether delicate with straight black hair caressing her shoulders as she walked. Her up-tilted eyes were a paler brown than Lita’s, or mine come to that. She was wearing a black vinyl catsuit that screamed sex, and dominatrix. The first was true, the second not, at least not in a fetish or professional way. She wanted to be everyone’s mistress if it meant being the boss, the queen, the big cheese, but the outfit meant she was working upstairs in the Circus of the Damned tonight. She made great scenery for some of the acts. Trouble was that the burning intelligence and ambition in her eyes weren’t happy with being set dressing. She wanted more, a lot more. She wanted to go back home to San Francisco, but her old master wouldn’t have her back. She’d probably been days away from staging a palace coup, and he knew it. Jean-Claude had refused her permission to go back and take over the territory by force. We were looking for a territory that needed a new master vampire but didn’t dare send her in as anyone’s second-in-command, because she wouldn’t be second for long.

She gave a disdainful look at Dino as he towered over her, and walked past him as if he wasn’t almost broader through the shoulders than she was tall. “Anita, did you really think you could just dump that many high-level lycanthropes and vampires into our little pool and not have repercussions?” Meng Die asked.

I didn’t understand what she meant, and tried to decide if I wanted to admit I was that lost.

“Of course you did. You’re so powerful that you think you can handle anything, but the rest of us only get the dregs of your power. We struggle more when you make these sweeping changes without telling us first.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, finally. I was too lost to bluff and I was technically the boss of her, so I could admit weakness. She wouldn’t think less of me for it, because she thought so little of me already.

“The Harlequin, Anita, the Harlequin; you killed their dark mistress, the queen of us all, and they went from being her spies-assassins-bodyguards to belonging to Jean-Claude and you. You dumped over twenty of the finest warriors ever to grace vampirekind into our territory, but the real insult was that you dumped in their animals to call, as well. They’d lived hundreds, or thousands, of years because their masters and mistresses were undying.”

“Yeah, they’re powerful and they’re a pain in the ass sometimes, there’s always a learning curve,” I said.

She laughed, high and brittle. “You call it a learning curve; have the werelion show you her wounds. Ask her how she likes being behind the curve.”

I looked at Kelly, and in looking I saw Lita’s face, too. Lita didn’t look any happier with Meng Die than I did. I’d have thought they might bond over their mutual disdain for me, but apparently not. I filed that away for later, and looked at Kelly.

She was even paler, as if what little color she had had drained away. If it had been someone else I might have asked if she was going to faint, but she was a guard, she was a lion, and she was a warrior. She wouldn’t admit it until she fell down. Since I was almost as stubborn, I let it go.

“Kelly.” I said it softly, not angry with her, because somehow I was pretty sure whatever had gone wrong was at least partially my fault. I’d killed the Mother of All Darkness, before she could kill . . . everyone, and by vampire or lycanthrope rules that meant that what was hers was now ours, including her bodyguards, her spies, her assassins, her executioners: the Harlequin. They’d been the closest thing the vampires had to policemen. If a vampire got out of hand and was attracting too much unwanted attention, the Harlequin could be dispatched and the problem would be solved, and it would stay solved, because true death is the ultimate solution.

“How bad are you hurt?” Nicky asked.

“Not bad,” she said, and I didn’t have to be able to “smell” the change in her body chemistry to know she was lying. She wouldn’t look at either of us, and she was fighting not to hunch from the pain, or maybe some muscle, or ligament, was trying to pull her off center. Lycanthropes could heal almost anything, but they could also heal crookedly without medical attention.

“One of you tell me what’s going on,” I said.

“You gave us two lions from the Harlequin.”

“Giacomo and Magda, I remember, what about them?”

“Giacomo and I came to an understanding early.”

“You beat the crap out of him,” I said.

Nicky nodded.

“Did you know that Giacomo didn’t start the fight?” Meng Die said.

I looked at Nicky and raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged as much as he could with all the muscle, and said, “She’s right on one thing, Anita. These guys are supposed to be the best fighters on the planet. We’re lions, we fight. We cooperate from a position of strength; if the pride is safer with you on our side, then you can stay, but if you’re more danger than help, you don’t get to stay.”

“I know you killed two of the male werelions when you took over the local pride.”

“Did you approve their deaths, Anita?” Meng Die asked.

I just looked at Nicky and Kelly, who was trying not to sway in place.

“He asked your forgiveness, but not your permission, didn’t he? And Nicky is your Bride, your tame lion; if he could go against your so-careful conscience, then what do you think the rest of the animals have been doing?”

“Don’t call them animals,” I said.

“Oh, that’s right; you’re progressive and so very American. You want to make the shapeshifters equal with the vampires.”

“You said it, I’m American, and we like this whole equality thing.”

“The great experiment,” she said, and made it sound like an insult.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Once I made it clear that if Giacomo ever tried to fight me again, I’d kill him, he settled in fine. But Magda is a lioness; male lions only fight them if attacked, or for some breach of pride law.”

“She’s the one hurting Kelly,” I said.

He nodded.

I looked at Kelly’s pale face, and knew here was another dangerous person I’d brought into our happy little family who was cutting up my people. Fuck. “Isn’t Magda breaking pride law?” I asked.

“No,” Kelly said in a strained voice, “she’s within her rights to try to move up the dominance hierarchy. I’m the only lioness still standing in her way.”

“She won the fight; I’m sorry, Kelly, but she did, right?”

Kelly shook her head, stopped in midmovement, licked her lips, and said, “Not yet.”

“It’s only a fight to the death for Rex or Regina of the pride, and Kelly isn’t my Regina.”

“Technically, I’m your Regina even though I don’t shift form?”

He nodded again. “The Regina is usually the mate of the Rex, or vice versa.”

“Wait, I thought the lionesses didn’t fight for dominance. If there’s a fight, then the males take care of the heavy lifting in werelion society, just like they do in most weretiger clans.”