"What's so damn important that you got me out of my weekly staff meeting?"

  Renee pointed at Troy.

  "Troy? Does this mean you found something?"

  "Umm, this is about something else," Troy said, feeling a little embarrassed.

  "Couldn't it have waited?"

  "Nope," Troy said, shaking his head. "It couldn't."

  "Well, then, spit it out; I need to get back to my meeting."

  "I want you to have someone fly Nadinc out here to me."

  "Huh? What the hell, Troy? You want her out at one of the forts? Couldn't we have done this over the phone?"

  "I wanted to be able to punch you in the nose when you told me no," Troy grumbled.

  "You're in a fort, Troy! She's a civilian!"

  "First off, it's 105, it's not like some small frontier installation. And second of all, she's my wife, SJ, and I want her here! With me!"

  "Troy," SJ started to growl.

  "SEAN VALENS JUNIOR!" Renee suddenly bellowed, and both Troy and SJ turned to look at her in shocked surprise.

  "You will immediately send your brother's wife out to him, or not only will I have a talk with your mothers, I will personally ask each and every lioness on the base to come and have a little chat with you as well."

  "What the hell?" SJ said, looking a little shocked.

  "It's the lioness mafia," Natalia said from where she was standing. "Ask your father. But I suggest you send Troy's wife out sometime in the next few hours."

  "Just let her know I sent for her," Troy warned. "I don't want her to think anything bad is about to happen."

  "I'll go talk to Rox," Natalia said and disappeared again.

  SJ just sighed and shook his head. "Fine, I'll do it before I get lynched. But I expect an explanation."

  "Thanks, SJ," Troy said just before SJ popped out.

  "And thank you, Renee. Guess I owe you one."

  "Invite me to the wedding, and I'll call it even."

  Troy flinched at that.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Can you imagine it? I'm getting married. Hell, I'm already married."

  "Oh, trust me, it's been a topic of rabid gossip for days now!" Renee said, chuckling.

  "Do you think you could get Adam for me?"

  "What do you want with him?"

  "I need some advice."

  "From Adam?"

  "I'll get him," a lioness Troy didn't know said and popped out for a moment.

  "Hey, Troy, what's up?" Adam said, showing up a minute later.

  Troy took his arm and led him away from the others.

  "Look, Adam, I need some advice."

  "Okay, this is new," Adam said with a grin.

  "Yeah, well, this is the kind of question I can't go to family about, because they'll either laugh hysterically, or give me bad advice."

  "Oh, don't be surprised if I laugh at you, too!"

  "Look, as one highly disreputable playa to another, should I be looking to set up a pride?"

  "Whoa! Okay, that came out of left field. Why are you asking me?"

  "Because now that I've gone respectable, there are a couple of very interesting ladies I think are entertaining the idea of joining mine."

  "And you're asking me about this why?"

  "Because I haven't talked to Nadi about it, and up until twelve hours ago, the idea of it had never entered my head. Hell, up until a few days ago, I was decidedly single."

  Adam nodded. "Make sure you're comfortable with Nadi first. I like her, by the way; I think she was a good choice."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, first wife should always be one who gets you, and she's almost as much trouble as you are," Adam said with a smile. "Honestly, from what I've seen of her, and what I know about djinn and their caste system, she'll probably be fine with it, especially if you put her at the top.

  "I would advise you to keep it small, though."

  "Why's that?"

  "Cause you're not a lion, even if your father is one?"

  "Does it really make that big of a difference?"

  "It's like part of our DNA or something, plus our beasts help us manage it. You at least got to see how a large one acts, growing up in it."

  "How come you stopped at two? If you don't mind me asking?"

  Adam shrugged. "Because I haven't found anyone else who fit? Ryla and Jenna are two pretty unique personalities. Finding others who'd fit in with them and me isn't exactly easy."

  "You do know Alska and Celeste still have the hots for you?"

  "Yeah, your brother Mike warned me that the next time they come back, they're going to make another play for me." Adam grinned then. "I'm actually looking forward to it. Two succubi? Oh, this has my name written alllllll over it!"

  "Well, thanks, Adam. I gotta go. I still got that project of SJ's to work on."

  §

  Opening his eyes, he suddenly felt a lot happier about things. Nadinc would be here by tonight, if not sooner. After that, well, he'd see about the whole pride thing. All he knew was, if anyone, or anything, got in the way of them finally consummating their mating, he was going to kill them.

  "You fall asleep over there?" Mira asked.

  "No, just doing some magic user stuff."

  "You can use magic?"

  Hearing the disbelief in her voice, he turned to look at her. She was staring at him.

  "My father's a magic user; you know, that big lion dude we all work for?"

  "He is? I thought that was just him being a lion and all."

  "The lion stuff is something completely different. Anyway, I inherited the regular magic stuff; all of us did. So now that you know, get back to work," he said and turned his attention back to his computer.

  "Damn, hot, rich, and a magic user, too," he heard her mutter.

  "I heard that!"

  Mira got really quiet, and he just shook his head and started digging through the data. They'd only gone through the last thirty days' worth yesterday, because they'd been figuring out the formats, and what had been recorded versus what hadn't been.

  As long as he was thinking about it, he wrote up his request for a change in the reporting forms and sent that off to SJ with his reasoning. That out of the way, he went back to breaking down and extracting data.

  Now that he was getting the hang of the way the reports had been written, it was going a little faster. He wasn't sure if he and Mira would have all ninety days of data done by the end of today, however.

  He was also becoming more and more convinced that ninety days wasn't going to be enough. There were between two and four data points per week, and going back ninety days was only going to get him about thirty-eight to forty data points. He was going to need more. A whole lot more.

  "Mira?"

  "Yes?"

  "Ninety days isn't going to cut it."

  "I was afraid you were going to say that," she said with a sigh.

  "We need to go back further; at least ten years."

  "Ten years! That's going to take months!"

  Troy nodded as he thought about his options.

  "Okay, here's what I need you to do. I need you to write up a document on what data we need extracted from the records, and also what format we need it put in so we can import it to our spreadsheets."

  "What good will that do?"

  "I'm going to get some more bodies to help with it. Maybe I'll talk to one of our programmers to see if they can write a program to strip out what we need, to speed things up. Just make sure to include which forts we want it for."

  "Okay. Ummm, can we get lunch first?"

  Troy looked up at the small time display on his monitor. It was almost noon.

  "Yeah, lunch would be good."

  #

  Nadinc was trying to decide what to do with her time now that Troy was gone. Yesterday, after he'd left so early in the morning, she'd spent the day cleaning and sorting all the new clothing he'd bought her. Then she'd reorganized his closets, so she had a place for her things.

  Then she'd ended up cleaning the room—not that it was messy, it was just that she needed something to do. She didn't make more than a few changes, but she knew if she was going to be living here with him, she had to make her 'mark', or 'stake her claim', as some would call it. A subtle reminder that she was in fact his now.

  She was still surprised and happy that she'd been accepted by Troy's mother, as well as his father's other wives. Harems weren't a surprise to her. Back in her homeland, it was quite common for a man to have more than one wife. The rich and powerful often had at least four, sometimes more. Troy's father having seven, plus the two mistresses, was just another obvious sign of his power and status.

  It was also impressive to her how well they got along with each other. The strong sense of family, the cooperation, the closeness, the obvious love they had for one another… She sighed happily. A djinn could get used to this.

  Now if only Master Troy would lay his claim on her!

  "Ah, Nadi, there you are!" Roxy said, coming over to her.

  "Yes, Mother Roxy?" Nadinc asked, a little worried.

  "Please, just Roxy or Rox. You're my son's wife; you don't need to be formal," Roxy said as she steered Nadinc to the couch and sat her down, sitting beside her.

  "Are you sure? I wouldn't wish to offer any slight to you, as you're the house matriarch."

  Roxy smiled at her. "We're a lot less formal here in the west than what you grew up with. So, how are you doing?"

  "Umm, excuse me? I'm not sure I understand the question," Nadinc said a little nervously. When Troy had been with her, she'd felt a lot more comfortable around his mother and the others. Without him here…well, back home, this would normally be when the matriarch would assert her dominance.

  "How are you feeling, how are you coping with all these changes, are you having any fears or problems? You're family now, Nadi, and we take care of our own."

  "Umm, well…" She looked down at her feet. "I don't know what I should be doing here. I mean, the kinds of things I was raised to do back home," she gave Roxy a panicked look, "aren't the kinds of things a married woman should be doing with anyone but her husband."

  Roxy gave a small nod. "So you want to find something to do to contribute to the family?"

  She nodded quickly. "But I have no ideas. I have no skills, no training."

  "Do you know how to cook?"

  Nadinc nodded.

  "Well, we could start you out in the kitchen, helping my son SJ's two wives, who are cooks there. At least until you decide what you want to do."

  "But I have no training, no skills."

  Roxy smiled warmly and leaned over to give Nadinc a hug. "Nadi, as I'm sure you've noticed, we're a very rich and powerful family. We can afford to train you in whatever you want to learn."

  "You would do that?"

  "When I said 'we', that included you, too, Nadi. I honestly don't know what it was that moved my son to take you as his, but I'm starting to realize that it was probably the smartest thing he's ever done."

  "Do you really think so?" Nadinc asked, blushing at the compliment.

  "Yes, I do."

  "I really do miss him," Nadinc said and hugged herself. "We haven't yet…"

  Roxy laughed. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but my son is a bit of a prankster, and we thought it would be a fun trick to play on him. However, I realize now that it was a bit unfair to you."

  "I just…" Nadinc sighed, "…want him. It's usually the other way around; the men want me, and I don't care for them. But now, I want him, and I'm worried that he doesn't want me…" She looked up at Roxy with tears in her eyes.

  "Oh, he wants you, all right!" Roxy said and gave her a hug.

  "But…why…I mean, how do you know?"

  "You have to understand that there's only one thing Troy always takes seriously…" Roxy paused a moment, "well, maybe two now. That's his work. Because he was such a joker and prankster growing up, he was never trusted with a serious job, so the moment he finally convinced his father to give him a chance, he took to it with such utter seriousness and dedication that he earned everyone's respect for his work.

  "Doing his job reliably and faithfully is very important to him, and the job he's currently doing is one that's very important to his older brother, as well as his father."

  "I had no idea," Nadinc admitted.

  "But that still didn't stop him from calling his brother this morning and threatening him with all sorts of mayhem if he didn't send you out to join him."

  "What?" Nadinc said, looking astonished.

  "It would seem my son misses you. Greatly. So much so that he's willing to break a few rules and have his wife, who's a civilian, come out and visit him at the fort he's currently working at."

  "I take it that's not allowed?"

  "Well, not normally, but then, most of the civilians around here are mundanes, and honestly, Nadi, you're not a mundane. You're a djinn, and while your powers may not be as great as some of ours here, you're still powerful in your own way."

  "They're going to allow me to go there and be with my husband?"

  Roxy smiled as Nadinc called him 'my husband'. Her son really had done something smart for a change.

  "Well, all the lionesses, as well as us moms, kinda threatened SJ to let you go see Troy, or he'd regret it."

  "What? Why did you do that for one such as I?"

  "Because lionesses are really big on romantic stuff like that, and we want you to be happy. Plus, it's the first time any of us ever saw Troy threaten to pop his brother in the nose and actually mean it!" Roxy said with a laugh. "So, let's go pack you a bag with a few things, and then we're going to get Dae to fly you out there so you two can be together."

  Nadinc grabbed Roxy and hugged her tight. "Thank you!"

  "You are more than welcome, Nadi."

  Nothing But You

  Troy was sitting across from Mira at one of the tables in the mess area, along with a hundred other people. The food here was pretty good, he had to admit, and while a lot of guys kept stealing glances at Mira, apparently no one was looking to intrude on their conversation. He honestly found that to be curious, but he wasn't going to complain right now. Mira was dropping the occasional baited hook, but mostly it was just light flirting. He could tell she was still interested in him, but that whole bit about 'trying out for wife number two' was still running around her head.

  Currently, he was talking about how he wanted all of the data displayed when it was done, which was on a time-lapse map, with the dots color coded to show what the highest ranking djevel was, and the size of the dot to represent the size of the group.

  He heard someone stop behind him, then Mira looked up, surprised, as a pair of female hands suddenly slid down his chest to either side. The lack of fur made it obvious who it was, though he picked up Nadinc's scent as he raised his head and leaned back into her chest, her breasts pressing into the backs of his ears.

  "Hi, love," he purred.

  "I've been missing you," Nadinc said with a sigh as he rubbed his head back against her.

  "Mira, I think I'm going to be making an early day of it. When you finish that document stating how we want the data parsed, send it to Deidre and Cali Valens. I'll talk to them about it later."

  Getting up, Troy turned around, took Nadinc—who was wearing a flight suit with a dangerously low zipper—in his arms, and laid a nice long kiss on her.

  "I've been missing you, too," he purred.

  "I heard!" She giggled.

  Sweeping her up into a bridal carry, he headed for the exit.

  "Where're your bags?"

  "Your mother took them to our room."

  "Our room?"

  Nadinc smiled. "She got us a private room in the place for special guests."

  "Ah, good, that saves me a trip."

  As soon as they were outside, he turned to head toward the VIP barracks, and saw his mother waving by an open door. "Hi Mom, bye Mom," he said as he passed, and kicking the door closed with a heel as soon as he was inside, he made a beeline directly for the bed.

  Setting Nadinc down carefully on the bed, Troy wasted little time, pulling off his fatigue shirt, kicking off his sneakers, and shedding his fatigue pants. While he had a lycan collar just like every other lycan soldier here, the lessons of your youth tended to stick with you, and like most lycans, he only wore clothing that could be shucked quickly and easily.

  He then reached down, and taking the tab to the zipper of Nadinc's flight suit in hand, he slowly drew it all the way down. The olive-tanned skin looked so soft, smooth, and inviting as she shrugged out of the top of the flight suit, letting it slide down her shoulders and arms, leaving that lovely, full chest of hers naked before him.

  Dropping to his knees on the floor before her, he leaned in and kissed her on the belly, savoring the taste of her skin, as she lowered her now bare arms to his head, running her fingers through the short fur covering his head. Rumbling in contentment, he slowly licked and kissed his way up her body, moving between her breasts as he slowly rose up off of his knees, his hands holding her hips as he slowly pushed her backwards, further up onto the bed, as she laid back on it beneath him.

  Putting a foot on the flight suit she'd slipped mostly out of, he climbed onto the bed as he slid her further onto it, and the rest of her out of the flight suit, her legs coming free and opening for him as he moved between them.

  He took a moment to lick and kiss her neck as he felt her hands making their own journey down his body. When his lips finally came up to hers, she had one hand rubbing his ass, and the other was stroking his chest, slowly moving lower and lower with each stroke.

  Sliding his arms under hers, he took her head in his hands, and continued kissing her, looking down into her eyes. He could see that flicker of something more in her eyes, something those without magic would never notice.

  With a thought and a small gesture, he brought up all the framework spells his father had taught him, as well as a few of his own. She really was magical, and in a few minutes, he was going to make her his. He could smell her desire as well as see it in her eyes. He'd be lying if he said it didn't excite him, that it didn't make him want her even more.