Blue Moon

I just kept staring at him.

"Say something," he said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. "You mean you'll keep having sex with Lucy."

"Not Lucy, she's … You've met her. She could never be lupa of our pack."

"So you're going to keep auditioning lupas?"

"I don't know if I am or not, but I know if you sleep with Jean-Claude, I have the right to sleep with other people."

I couldn't exactly argue with him, but I wanted to. "You're still trying to get me to give up Jean-Claude."

"No," he said. "I'm just saying that if you're not monogamous to me, then why should I be monogamous to you?"

"No reason, I guess. Except … I thought we loved each other."

"We do. I do." He stood and picked up his jeans from the floor. "But you don't love me enough to give up Jean-Claude. Why should I love you enough to give up everyone else?"

I stared at him and felt tears begin to fill my eyes. "You bastard."

He nodded. He slipped into his pants without underwear, zipping carefully. "The real bitch is that I do love you enough to give up everyone else. I just don't know if I can share you with Jean-Claude. I just don't know if I can stand the thought of you in his bed. The thought of him being with you like that drives me … " He shook his head. "I'm going to take a shower. I've still got trolls to study."

I couldn't even begin to think about what he'd just said. It was too much all at once. When confused, concentrate on business.

"I need to come with you and talk to the biologists. We need to find out if Franklin Niley is the buyer for the land. The guy who lost his arm last night was afraid of him. It takes someone pretty scary to make a man hesitate when he's surrounded by werewolves. Your normal real estate types don't have that kind of juice."

Richard strode back to the bed. He picked me up around the waist and kissed me. He crushed me against him, like he'd crawl in through my mouth and pull me around him. I was breathless when he sat me back down on the bed.

"I want to touch you, Anita. I want to hold your hand and do silly, goofy grins. I want us to act like people who are in love."

"We are in love," I said.

"Then for today, let's throw all the doubts out. Just be with me the way I've always wanted you to be. If I want to touch you today, I don't want to be afraid not to. I want what happened last night to change things."

I nodded. "All right."

"You don't look sure," he said.

"I'd love to go around holding your hand, Richard. I'm just realizing that … Oh, hell, Richard, what am I going to tell Jean-Claude?"

"I asked Jean-Claude how much difference the marks made to you, how much harder you were to hurt physically. He figured out why I was asking. I ended up telling him the whole sad story about my friend and his dead girlfriend."

I looked at him. "What did he say?"

"He said, 'Trust yourself, mon ami . You are not your friend with his so-sad tale. And Anita is not human. Through us she is more than that. Both of us huddle around her humanity like it is the last candle flame in a world of darkness. But by our very love, we make her less human, and more. »

My eyebrows went up. "You remembered all that?"

Richard looked at me, and it was a long, considering look. He nodded. "I remembered because he's right. He's right. We both love you in our ways for similar reasons. It isn't just power that draws him to you. You saw him as a monster. The fact that you don't anymore makes him feel less like one."

"It sounds like you guys have been having some long conversations."

"Yeah, it's been a real male bonding experience." He sounded bitter, tired.

"It also sounds like you discussed whether you were going to make love to me with Jean-Claude before you discussed it with me."

"Never directly," he said. "Never word for word."

"It still sounds an awful lot like asking permission," I said.

Richard was back in the bathroom doorway. "What would you have done if we'd made love and Jean-Claude had tried to kill me afterwards? Would you have killed him protecting me?"

I just looked at him. "I don't know. I … I wouldn't have let him kill you."

Richard nodded. "Exactly. Whether Jean-Claude killed me or I killed him or whether you killed one of us, even if we survived the death with the marks dragging us down to the grave, even if you and I survived, you'd never forgive yourself for killing him. You'd never recover from it. We'd never have a life together. Even dead and gone, Jean-Claude would haunt us."

"So you tested the waters," I said.

Richard nodded. "I tested the waters."

"You asked his permission," I said.

He nodded, again. "I asked his permission."

"And he gave it," I said.

"I think that Jean-Claude knows if he kills me, you would kill him. That you'd sacrifice all of us for one of us."

It was true. It sounded sort of stupid put that way, but it was still true. "I guess I would."

"So if I can stand it, and you want to do it, you date both of us. You share both of our beds." His hands balled into fists at his sides. "But if I can't have monogamy from you, you can't have it from me. Fair?"

I looked at him and gave the barest of nods. "It's fair, but I hate it. I hate it a lot."

Richard looked at me. "Good," he said and closed the door. A moment later, I heard water ru