You were right. I needed ALL the cute! (Also, I need the dik dik. Yes, I do.)

Honestly, if this chapter (and the next one) made it past the editor, I shudder to think what the editor had to cut.

they look like their mom... "she'd died when they were little, like mine."
This is literally the first time that I've heard anything about the twins' mother. I think that LKH made this part up so that she could drop that tidbit about Anita's mom AGAIN. (Because Anita is the only main character!) And because someone probably pointed out to her that if Stephan and Gregory have a father, then they have to have a mother. It's, y'know, biology.

Gregory has shown any personality before now, or if this is just another telling-instead-of-showing thing.
I don't remember Gregory as being particularly unpleasant in the earlier books so much as not immediately willing to bow down before Anita. I certainly don't remember him as being MORE unpleasant than Anita. Also, I think Vivian's color changed during the description of the various guards. But I'm not sure since I've never actually been certain what Vivian looked like.

"Did we depend too much on the rats and the hyenas? Yes. Should we change it? Probably."
She mentions this in nearly every book! I wish something would EVER come of it.

In a gym where everyone else is a large, trained-in-some-way, supernaturally strong man, some are probably going to think a small-looking woman won't be able to keep pace with them.
Anita and I do fitness differently. Even when I'm with a friend, my gym visits don't involve this much talking, gawking or giving a crap about how fast or strong they are. I couldn't tell you how many laps around the track or across the pool the guy next to me did or what he was wearing. The only thing I can tell you is if he got in my way. As long as nothing catches fire and no one dies, I really don't give a crap what the people around me are doing.

Secondly, Anita's the one who starts this "competition" with her crap about not being human. (Which is a LIE. She seems to have forgotten that she hasn't taken the fourth mark, that she'd still be a HUMAN servant, and that Areas is more of a shifter than her, regardless of what he turns into.) I have a hard time feeling sorry for her supposed "gender inequity issues" when she starts it and is so unpleasant to boot. Who knows what Ares was thinking since he never gets to say?

Thirdly, no informal competition I've ever been in with either girls or guys was taken even half so serious as Anita takes this one. Even if Anita "won" the physical contests, she wouldn't have won anyone's respect or admiration, which is what she seems to need/want. The best she can hope for at this point are meaningful looks between the other contestants, the occasionally muttered "psycho" with a heartfelt nod from the other party, and being talked about in unkind terms behind her back.

Ares says he didn't mean anything by it and apologizes.
Ares, who is presumably a were-hyena, probably didn't mean his apology. He merely said it as a means of calming down this obviously out-of-control semi-shifter standing across from him.

Anita running with Nathaniel, Gregory, and Stephen and how they kick everyone else's asses at it.
a.) Most. Boring. Pages. Ever.
b.) Seriously.
c.) Anita's Toilet Time would probably be more useful to the plot. And much more entertaining. (Can you IMAGINE her threatening her poops and ordering them to come out RIGHT NOW because she is the Great and Powerful and Super Sexy Anita Blake?)
d.) I have doubts about any of those three being faster than the people around them, super powers or not. Mostly because everyone in that gym has super speed and none of those four hit the gym or run around the block. Ever.
e.) Okay, Micah and Nathaniel went running once. But that was so that Ronny could be jealous of Anita's sweaty menz and be chastised for not treating them like ladies people.