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"I voted to leave you stranded," Clay muttered

Talin linked her arm with Max’s "Don’t mind him Secretly, he loves you"

"Very secretly" Max’s heart went tight in a good way at seeing Talin so happy They’d beco kids a while back, but he’d known her on and off for years, their beats colliding in New York She’d worked with troubled kids--and Enforce up those kids

But it wasn’t just that He and Talin had a connection, one they’d never really articulated but which was siht in the foster-care system, understood the scars that could leave It wasn’t the kind of thing you could really explain to anyone who hadn’t lived through it

But Clay got it Max didn’t know the big man’s history, but the connection Max shared with Talin was slowly being formed with her mate as well Max had taken them to dinner the last ti well and truly drunk with the leopard Talin had herded the to tear the hides off theht--pushing Max down onto their hotel couch and telling hi rockas punishment, he looked down at the wild mane of her hair "Did you check out the apartment?" He’d e-mailed them the details of the place where he’d been put up for the duration

"It’s near Fisherman’s Wharf," Talin said, "not that far fro Nice area--close to the shops"

Clay glanced up as he stowed Max’s bag in the trunk of the car "You sure you don’t want to tell us what you’re doing for Sascha’s ain--and full of a keen intelligence, as befitted one of Dark-River’s topNot yet" Max put Morpheus in the backseat "Ion" Getting into the seat beside the still silent cat, he strapped up and waited for Clay and Talin to get in Except"What the--" Reaching beneath his thigh, he found hi some sort of a weird pink-haired doll with joints in impossible places

"That’s a Meta to look over her shoulder "They change into aniure out the mechanism, and voila, he had an i"

"Yep Clay keeps buying theh she already has at least a dozen" Talin ining her fingers with her mate’s free hand even as she teased hi brown eyes and he folds"

Clay lifted up her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles "You don’t co, Talin nonetheless blew her mate a kiss

Relaxed by the byplay, Max leaned back in his seat--after checking to ensure a still silent Morpheus was okay--and thought about the e- to board the airjet It had come via the commander’s office

Sophia Russo will h him--his body didn’t seem to want to accept the fact that the woht than consent to tangle with hi ruled by his hore of sixteen, no ht-violet eyes full of secrets tugged at hi the tiht boarded, he’d et an update on Bonner The prosecutor had had nothing new to report on that front, but when Maxwith Sophia, he’d said, "I got curious about her, did so"

Max had been startled by a sudden--and forceful--surge of possessiveness "Why?"

"Those gloves," Bart had replied "I realized I’d seen theo I know they ured out what yet However, I did find out so off his unexpectedly strong response to the idea of Bart investigating Sophia, Max had forced his tone to lighten "You going to le h in his friend’s voice "Seems like over the past year, our Ms Russo has developed a curious little habit of being in close proximity to some very nasty people who decided to mutilate theiven how long she’s been a J" A cop would have to be willfully blind to y It was always i, of course, even if a cop felt so inclined given the nature of the individuals the Js invariably targeted, but the Corps policed itself very effectively--it wasn’t good for their i nuts in public

Even as the thought passed through his head, Max had found hi slowly insane "Why hasn’t she been yanked from active duty?" It had come out harsher than it should have

Bart, thankfully, hadn’t noticed "She’s very, very good at her job," he’d replied "But she’s reaching her use-by-date One of these days, she’s going to disappear just like every other J I’ve worked with over the years"