Tomas stared at Nathaniel as if he’d sprouted a second, ugly head. He had nothing to offer to such a list of disaster and pain. Who did?

   Mercedes found a chair and sat down heavily in it. I glanced at her and she looked shaken, too, but the main show was Nathaniel and Tomas, with Micah sitting solid and holding him. I would have gone to them, but there was a weight to the three of them, the men and the boy. This was between them, until they needed or asked for me.

   “I was still just nineteen when one of the clients tried to kill me. I don’t know if he thought I’d heal, or if he just didn’t care. Gabriel was dead by then, so I didn’t have anyone to protect me. I went to the hospital and met Anita. She made me give up the escort business, but that was okay. I was making good money at Guilty Pleasures, I didn’t need to do the other anymore, and I’d stopped enjoying it, so it was easy to give up.”

   I kept quiet, but I didn’t remember the story quite that way. I hadn’t actually demanded he give up being an escort, I’d just shut down the business as a whole, so none of the wereleopards could do it anymore. It also hadn’t been love at first sight for me with Nathaniel, and the story seemed to imply that, but . . . I kept my mouth shut, because it wasn’t my story. The story is never about the prince who rescues the princess, it’s always the princess’s story, and in this version that was Nathaniel. I was okay with that; princess was never really my style.

   “I’d say you’re kidding, but . . .” Tomas just stopped, staring at the floor as if trying to figure out what to say.

   Nathaniel figured it out for him. “But if I were going to make up a story, that wouldn’t be it.”

   Tomas looked up and nodded. “Yeah, that.”

   “We’ve all been hurt, Tomas,” Micah said, “but what made the difference is that we all three fought to have a life and not let the bad things that happened to us define who we are, and what our life would be.”

   Tomas licked his lips. He wasn’t trying to be cool anymore, or angry. He had nothing to put up as a shield against all that truth and pain. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, finally.

   “Do your PT,” Nathaniel said.

   “Hit the gym when the doctors say you can,” Micah said.

   “Work hard at both,” I said.

   Tomas looked at me, and then back to the men. He licked his lips again, nodding more to himself than to us. “I will.”

   “Promise,” I said.

   He looked at me then, and there was a determination that hadn’t been there before; the anger was in there and would be for a while, but there were better things in his dark eyes now, things that would help him more than they hurt him. “I promise,” he said, and I believed him.

   Nathaniel added, “And if the doctors think counseling will help, don’t just say no.”

   Tomas scowled at him. “I’m fine, I don’t need counseling.”

   “You’re not fine, but it’s okay not to be fine. If you don’t need counseling, then that’s great, but if you do need it, that’s okay, too. My therapist has helped me a lot.”

   “I’ve had therapy,” Micah said.

   “Me, too,” I said.

   Tomas looked from one to the other of us. “I don’t need it.” His voice was very firm, and back to angry.

   “We didn’t say you did, just that if you do, it can help,” Micah said.

   The sullen look was back, so I said, “Work your physical therapy and leave the rest for later, or never. Body first, and sometimes the rest takes care of itself.”

   Something flickered through his eyes; maybe it was doubt. “Really?” he asked, managing to sound both suspicious and a tiny bit scared, which let me know that he’d already wondered about the other kind of therapy even if he didn’t want to admit it.

   “Really, a lot of people treat the mind and body like one is more important than the other, but they’re too interconnected to ignore one for the other. Physical stuff can help the rest a whole lot.”

   He studied my face for a second, and again I saw that unease or small fear peeking out. “PT first, then.”

   I nodded. “Yeah, PT first.”

   I liked that he left it open for other things later, if he needed them. It made me hopeful.

   Mercedes took Tomas back out to the wedding reception. The three of us took a moment to hold each other, and kiss enough that I had to redo my lipstick in the small mirror on the wall. Then a cooler energy slid over my skin, and I watched the two of them shiver at the touch of it, too. It was finally dark enough for the vampires to join us.

   We went back out to the party and found a crowd at the doors. Whispers spilled out from there and into the rest of the crowd. Mrs. Conroy and a few others might not approve, but the excited buzz in the room said clearly that having Jean-Claude, the first vampire king of America, as a guest was a serious social coup.

   We went to him hand in hand, me in the middle of the other two men, because Jean-Claude had his own sad stories to tell, and we knew that the thin scars on his back were whip marks from when he was a live human boy, younger than Tomas. He was king of all the vampires in America now, but he had been a survivor long before and, like us, learned how to thrive.

   He was all long black curls, white lace shirt, and black jacket, so that the shirt and his own pale skin made a dramatic contrast. It was his usual colors, and no one seemed to mind that he’d worn black to the wedding reception. He had to be wearing heeled boots, because he was taller than the bodyguards that flanked him, and I knew they were six feet, but in the heels he was taller.

   His long black curls melted into the shoulders of his black jacket, the high white collar of his shirt setting off the paleness of his skin, but there was a flush of color to all that pallor, like a hint of healthy blush, which meant he’d fed on someone before he came to the wedding. It didn’t take much blood at a feeding for a vampire to be “full.” The movies that made out that a vamp had to drain a person dry to feed were just using fearmongering or dramatic license. Feeding meant that when he took Rosita’s hand to raise it against his lips, his skin was warm against hers. Making sure your skin wasn’t ice cold used to be a way to pass as human; now it was just a politeness.

   Rosita’s dark skin blushed even darker. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than Jean-Claude, and though her daughters had gotten her to exercise with them she would always be a big woman, as she was meant to be, but she simpered and flustered as if she were the most delicate teenager.

   Micah laughed. “That’s something I never thought I’d see.”

   We laughed with him.

   “The first time Rosita met us, she was afraid to shake hands, because she thought she could catch lycanthropy from just touching us,” Nathaniel said.