Thomas exhaled once, slow and controlled.
Sylvia reached for her glass again. "Anyway. That was my one useful statement. Now we can return to safer topics, like how I keep adding dominants as friends, and all of you suffer from love as if it's a competitive sport."
Thomas looked at her over the rim of his glass. "That is your safer topic?"
"It is safer than sealed-folder consequences, Andrea's emotional tax fraud, and Dean trying to relocate his wedding anxiety into an infected beast zone."
"I'm not sure suffering from love is less dangerous."
"It is when I'm not the one doing it." Sylvia took a sip, then pointed at him with the glass. "Dean suffers loudly. Arion suffers like a man who thinks staring intensely counts as communication. Nero suffers like he's plotting the annexation of a person's free will."
Thomas's mouth curved faintly. "That sounds like Nero."
"You know him well enough to confirm?"
"Unfortunately."
