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“Don’t go far, brother,” he growled. “I only want to talk to my wife. I want you back in this room in thirty minutes. Or, if you won’t do that, then come back with a time and place to speak with Yarli… or offer someone else for my consideration.”

Jem didn’t look back.

He didn’t slam the door, either, but he also didn’t close it. Within a handful of seconds, Black couldn’t hear his footfalls anymore.

Black looked back at Miri only then.

All the fight left him as soon as he did.

It hit him in the same handful of seconds that the intense fight he’d felt in Jem’s light had brought up something nearly as aggressive in him.

“I meant what I said,” he told Miri, his voice subdued. “It doesn’t have to be you. I just thought he might have a prayer of talking to you. And I’m sorry to shove it at you right this instant, with no preparation, but I really don’t think this can wait, do you?”

There was a silence where she stared at him.

Then she let out a low snort and rolled her eyes.

“Well, what am I supposed to say to that?” she asked incredulously. “No? I won’t talk to him? You’ve basically made it impossible for me to give you a real opinion on this, Black.”

“You just said you agreed with me––”

“In principle, sure. But you should have talked to me about how to handle thisbefore,Black. You said you hired me for my expertise, then didn’t even consult me––”

“Do you really think you’re the wrong person for this?” he asked, voice serious. “Or are you just pissed off because you feel like I put you on the spot?”

“Feel like?” she snorted.

“Okay, did,” he said, impatient. “Ididput you on the spot. But honestly, Miri, I do need your help. I’m sorry I lost it on him, but I just don’t expect this kind of thing from Jem. He’s usually so fucking mature and reasonable and irritatingly insightful. I don’t really know what to do with a Jem that’s openly defying me and seems to want to hurt Nick.”

He paused at her silence, then tried again.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Should I pull together a conference call with you, me, and Yarli? We could bring Holo in, too, if you think that would be useful. I can just listen while you and Yarli discuss the best way to handle this. I need to know what’s going on, but this reallyisn’tmy area, so I’m more than happy to hand it off to you.”

Something about the pure guilelessness of his voice andaleimiseemed to take the steam out of her annoyance.

He felt her thinking about how Jem had looked just then, how he’d been acting when he confronted Nick, how he’d acted with Aura, and with her and Black. He also felt her thinking Black was right; there was something going on with him, something beyond whatever “mate shit” needed sorting out between him and Nick.

Something tangibly unstable lived in Jem’s light.

Miri had felt that, as much as Black.

She’d never seen Jem like that before, either, and it scared her.

At the very least, it made her worried for Jem, and for Nick, too.

Black felt her wondering if it had something to do with the fact that Nick had been feeding on Jem for over a year now. Had that exposure to vampire venom reached some kind of tipping point? Was there too much of it in Jem’s light and body?

Nick had confessed to Miriam that Jem could get touchingly emotional with him, that he’d been so vulnerable with Nick a few times that Nick turned into a basket-case himself. But Jem didn’t generally getaggressivewith Nick, not like that. Even at the beginning of their relationship, Black hadn’t seen Jem lose his shit like that, not even when he’d seen someone as a clear threat to his relationship.

He’d gotten jealous, sure, but that was a pretty standard seer thing.

He’d been jealous in particular of Miriam.

That jealousy angered Black at times, even as well as he understood it.

He hated that he understood it so well.

Both him and Jem felt threatened by Miriam and Nick’s friendship at various times, but that wasn’t all of it, as much as Black wished it was. Miri and Nick were close. They were family close. Not only that, if Black and then Jem hadn’t come along, they very well might have ended up married to one another.