So he knew she was a fur-fucker. I just looked at him, not sure what emotion he wanted from me. I gave him a blank face and waited for him to talk. He was in that villain speech mode that only the amateurs do.

“I watched them comfort you, and then watched you flirt with the waiter. You wouldn’t give me back my flirt, so I took yours, and if you take my Ilsa away from me again, I will take your men away from you forever.”

I must have tensed forward, not on purpose, because Jacob put his arm across my shoulders just in case, but I’d been too intent on Bennington ’s words. I’d forgotten for a second that I didn’t want him to touch my back.

I tried to stand up, and he grabbed me, but I managed to get to my feet, but Nicky was there behind me, arms hugging me from behind, and this time he wasn’t distracted by lion hormones. “What the hell is that?”

“Something big that you missed,” Jacob said.

I forced myself not to struggle in Nicky’s grip, but I couldn’t not tense up, or stop the lioness from not wanting them to manhandle her, us. I had a moment of pronoun loss, and that growl trickled out from between my lipsticked lips. Heat came with it in a rush over my skin like a sudden fever. I was suddenly so hot, so hot, but I wasn’t sweating.

“Her skin is hot to the touch,” Nicky said, and his voice sounded strangled, as if he were fighting off his own growl.

“I can feel the energy,” Jacob said.

Bennington stood up, got close to me, trusting Nicky to keep me from hurting him. Nicky tightened his arms around my body, pinning my arms to my sides. He held on tight enough that it was almost hard to breathe. “You wanted to know what our plan is for us to go back to our lives; well, you will use the energy of a human sacrifice to raise Ilsa from the dead. It will be enough energy to make her beautiful forever, mine forever. And once you use murder to raise the dead, you can’t tell on us without risking the death penalty yourself.”

I found my voice. “That’s the errand that Silas is supposed to finish, isn’t it?”

Nicky tightened his grip until it dug my empty holster into my body, and it began to truly hurt, but I didn’t mind; the pain helped me think. It helped me not give in to the snarling lion inside me. If we killed Bennington, the second half of their money was gone. And they were professionals. I didn’t think they’d kill us for free. It was a plan, and besides, we wanted him dead. It’s hard to fight the inner beast when you agree with it.

The lioness charged out of that long metaphysical or metaphorical grass, and began to run full out up that path inside me. She was a golden blur, moving through me.

“Fight it,” Nicky said in my ear.

I glared at Bennington. “Why?”

Jacob was in front of me, blocking my view of Bennington. “Because if you shift, you can’t raise the dead and you’re no good to us. Don’t make us kill you, Anita.”

Nicky spoke through gritted teeth as if it were beginning to be an effort to hold me. “Don’t make us kill your men.”

“Look at me, Anita!”

But all I could see was that blur of gold, and for the first time I didn’t want to put a wall between her and me. For the first time I needed the help, and I would take it.

Jacob grabbed my face, forced me to look at him, but he also touched bare skin to bare skin. I snarled up at him, and the golden blur slowed. Slowed and screamed through me, so that my body vibrated with the sound of her rage, her need, her hunger.

“God, she smells good,” Nicky said.

“Don’t you start,” Jacob said, but he was still touching my face, and the look in his eyes was uncertain, as if he were listening to things I couldn’t hear. His lion was talking to him, too. Would it help me to force them to change?

Jacob said, “Get out, Bennington, get out until we call you. She’s not safe.”

The lioness screamed again, and the sound came out of my throat. It hurt, as if the sound needed a bigger throat, a different mouth, and it rubbed raw things that should never have held the sound.

Jacob had a look on his face, a lost look. “Maybe you can bring our beasts, but if you do we’ll fall on each other and either fight over you, or both fuck you. Either way we might not hear the other phone calls. We might miss calling off our shooters on your other men. They might kill them not because we want them to, but because we missed the call.”

Nicky breathed against my hair, “Put your beast in the deep freeze, Anita, please.” He was holding me tight enough that I knew his body was happy to be pressed against mine. He meant the please.

My skin felt so hot, but it didn’t feel bad like a fever; it felt wonderful. Part of me wondered what it might be like to finally give in and shift, but not today. I couldn’t afford to think that today.

Jacob’s phone started ringing as if on cue. He looked at me. “I have to get this, and you have to regain your control.” He kept his grip on my face, but used his other hand to get his phone out of his pocket.

He watched my face like he’d memorize it, but spoke: “Stand down, just follow and observe.” He started to put the phone away, but it rang again. “Yeah, no, just observe, just follow. Stand down until further orders.”

I realized that was three calls. All of them were safe unless Jacob called back and told them to shoot them. Him dead or unable to phone would fix that.

“Chill,” Nicky said, “chill, damn it.” His words made sense, but he was starting to nuzzle my hair. The lioness had slowed and was sniffing the air. I ground my hips into Nicky just a little bit. He made a soft wordless sound.

“Shit,” Jacob said. He moved his free hand along my neck until he found the hilt of the big knife under my hair and jacket. He got a handful of my hair, moving it out of the way as he drew the knife out. Nicky moved back enough for him to do it. The size of the blade put more of a damper on their amour than anything I could have done.

Jacob held it up to the light. It gleamed, and the edge was as sharp as it looked. “This is as big as her forearm; how the fuck did you miss it?”

Nicky blinked up at the blade. “I was searching her when the lioness did its thing. My bad.”

Jacob sighed, and lowered the blade. I couldn’t read the look on his face. It was partly sad and partly something else. “It’s okay, Nicky. You’ve never been around a Regina when she’s in heat. A pride can tear itself apart before she picks a mate.”

The lioness rolled onto her back, rolling on the ground like any cat. It made me writhe against Nicky, and he didn’t exactly fight the sensation. I was going to lose control, and sex would be the least of what we might do. I tried to think.

“My first pride died that way, because the Regina wanted the strongest Rex, so she waited for the winner. I promised myself I would keep my men away from shit like that.”

Nicky changed his grip, letting me have my arms, picking me up around the waist, lifting me off the ground. My hands went to his arm, holding on, but not fighting. I was out of weapons. What would help me? What would help me stop them? I mean, I was good at sex, or so the men in my life told me, but good enough to make them turn down a shitload of money and betray their other men? I wasn’t that good. No one was that good. If sex wouldn’t help me, I had to stop what was happening. Chill, he had said. I tried to call my necromancy, like I had in the restaurant, but the lion was too loud in my head. I could smell lion. I think it was Nicky, but it was as if the world were drowning in the thick musk of it. I couldn’t breathe past it. I didn’t want cold blood, I wanted hot.

Nicky collapsed onto the leather couch with me under him. The height difference meant that he wasn’t lined up for anything, but his hands slipped under my skirt, and I struggled out from under him, spilling myself to the carpet. Nicky stayed on the couch, staring at me with one wide eye, his breathing labored.