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"Good for you, but you are a nasty piece of work"

"I don&039;t care what you think ofas you do what I want"

I pushed back from my desk "No" I stood up

She finally realized I was serious, and she looked afraid Of all the emotions she could have felt I hadn&039;t expected fear "If not money, then what? What do you want, Anita? Name it and if money can buy it, it&039;s yours What do you want?"

"Fro"

"If not for you, then your boyfriends I had you researched and surely sos that money can buy"

"Get out," I said

"I won&039;t take no for an answer You&039;re the only anih for him to suffer I want him to suffer, Anita"

"Yeah, I heard that part" I started around et her the fuck out of my office She stood up, and in her heels she was almost a foot taller than me She moved between me and the door I could have er, Bert, frowned on us bruising people while on office property

"I heard that some of your vaal and nice Everyone knows you&039;ve ht, but they had all been people trying to kill me, or people who had threatenedto killto hurt people I was trying to protect I didn&039;t lose sleep over any of my kills

"First, it&039;s Ms Blake to you Second, people say a lot of shit about me I wouldn&039;t believe it all" Once upon a tio

"I&039;ll take proof to the police about soe of yours, if not more"

"And I&039;ll tell the police what you wanted me to do, because anyone ould really do what you&039;re describing would do so to a live person" I studied her face "How&039;s his illegitimate son&039;s health lately?"

Her face flickered uncertainly

"If anything happens to him I will make sure the police come to your door"

"You don&039;t know his name"

"Oh, please, like I couldn&039;t find that out He&039;s probably got a page on the Internet so Chase Zell"

She frowned at ht

"Nothing happens to the kid, or you will not have enough money to keep yourself out of jail, or at least the nut house"

"I am not crazy, Ms Blake I&039;m a woman scorned"

"He was married to you for twenty-five years I think the poor bastard suffered enough"

That was it She turned on the stiletto points of her expensive shoes and stalked out If I&039;d known that that would make her leave I&039;d have said it sooner See my very "alive" zombies for very bad purposes

Teeks passed before I went back to the restaurant where Micah, Nathaniel, and Jason had flirted with the waiter and, all right, so had I This tih honestly I&039;d eaten more lunches alone in my adult life than with anyone else The workers at Aniered schedules so no one had lunch at the saood to get out of the office Today I had actually brought the latest copy of The Animator, our trade publication There were a couple of articles I&039;d been wanting to read, so I&039;d order food, read, and hopefully learn so

My waitress was petite, blond, and female when I ordered drinks, but when the drinks came my waiter was tall, black-haired, and male It was the waiter from the time before He put down my Coke, smiled, and said, "I traded tables with Cathy; I hope you don&039;t mind"

I shook ave hter smile that I remembered from last time I did what I&039;d learned last time; I smiled back It would take two more trips back and forth fro with intent It hen he stayed atafter my food had arrived that I realized I&039;dto flirt in the safety of roup, with Nathaniel and Jason to take some of the heat and Micah to look on, but a totally different experience with just me and the waiter Crap

His nae student He was a theaterthis year and going on to start his e, unless his own acting career took off I learned all this because I couldn&039;t figure out how to stop the conversation I had flirted first, so it wasis my fault, I try to fix it But Ahsan was like that scene in Fantasia with Mickey Mouse and the brooame started, but I had no idea how to stop it I mean, I could have been blunt-racefully retreat? By noas pretty certain that he thought I&039;d come back by myself so I could flirtwhy I didn&039;t flirt for fun-because I didn&039;t kno I could flirt with intent of dating or sex, but I sucked at casual flirting Shit

I would have tried to play the age difference card, but he was Nathaniel&039;s age exactly, so I couldn&039;t claie difference weirdedon exactly what I could do to let hih to let hiular huy It was soh that it raised the hair on my arms and crawled down my back, to see if it could find my own beasts Those shadows insidedeep withinme knoas here, or he&039;d picked up ht I was a real shapeshifter Soed theht was si, Don&039;t fuck with uy, and a threat I wouldn&039;t know until too late, so I treated it as bad guy: better paranoid than dead

I smiled sweetly up at Ahsan and said, "I&039; to you, but I&039;ve got to get back to work I need the check"

"Can I have your nuive ive me the check?"

He wasted h the busy restaurant to get the check and scribble his nu But at least the nice waiter wouldn&039;t be standing at uy walked up There was the re attempt So for a roup and keep other shapeshifters fro toThe only reason to do the power that wasthe air thick and hot and hard to breathe was to er and badder than I was Fine with un out from under my arm, as discreetly as I could, and put un and all

I didn&039;t try to draw my own version of shapeshifter power One, I wasn&039;t as powerful as as co toward me I knew that just from that roil of power Two, soot out of hand; just because I didn&039;t change shape didn&039;t mean the beasts inside me didn&039;t want out They did They&039;d daot a handle on the control But it wasn&039;t just the pain; there was always the chance that one day I&039;d shift for real, and a crowded restaurant wasn&039;t the place for it Also, if it was so attempt, then I would let hio away

There was so much power that I couldn&039;t tell what direction he wasin the middle of some kind of heat storm Fuck this; I had a power colder than this, and I&039;d used it before to keepof life, so hot-blooded it&039;s almost more alive than the rest of us I drewa fist that I always had to keep so tightly closed It was a colder power, closer to vah the tables; a few sensitives shivered, but it wouldn&039;t hurt the dead walked during the day aboveground, at least not in this town I used my power like cold water on the heat of his power, because sex I knew; he tasted male It worked even better than I&039;d hoped, like water on fire, so that the "blaze" he&039;d thrown out around him like a distraction went out, and only the core burn was still bright I saw hied with a wavering shine of power like so effect, as if my necromancy pushed his power back I hadn&039;t visualized it working quite like that, but I filed it away as useful

I looked at him, and he looked back We looked at each other across the few yards of space The moment our eyes met, I knew this wasn&039;t about romance, even shapeshifter romance He was tall, a shade over six feet, unless he earing boots with heels, then he was just under His hair was pale and shaved close to his head It was oddly military, but he didn&039;t seeovernment trained He stood there in his black suit jacket, black button-up shirt, and black jeans Even his belt buckle was black, probably because silver things attract bullets in a firefight He started walking towardhim unarmed, but I wasn&039;t fooled; the suit jacket didn&039;t fit quite right on his left hip, which h to ruin the line of the jacket

He moved carefully toward my table, hands still out at his sides, pal But I knew better; he was a shapeshifter, which er, faster, and more deadly than any human in here They didn&039;t need claws and teeth to break your neck, just speed and strength, and that he would have

"That&039;s close enough," I said, before he got quite to the table; if I could have figured out a way to keep hi attention to us, I would have done it

He stopped obediently, but his power slapped out at mine, and my nostrils flared with the scent of him He&039;d had to call more of his beast to chase back my colder power I smelled the thick, heavy, heat-washed scent of lion The lion insidethat lived inside your body could look up at you It was the way my mind visualized it so I could "see" the beasts and not lose as left of my sanity

"Good kitty," I said, and I wasn&039;t talking to the pale gold iave a low purr She liked what she smelled, which meant he was as powerful as I feared The lions, especially the lions, de to do with the fact that real lion males will kill all the cubs when they take over a new pride; when your babies are at stake, you want a male that can defend theave an even thinner s he was a cat had won ave me a more serious look He smelled my lioness, and it seemed to surprise hiood Itabout me: even better

His eyes actually slid to the side, and I fought not to look where he was looking I gave only the edge of my vision in that direction He was too close to aze off of hi to jumphis way toward me out of the corner of my eye The shapeshifter turned and watched hi at me at all Was it an insult, or a show of trust?

Ahsan paused before he got to the table, shivering a little He felt soot a point for that Psychic nulls don&039;t survive well around me I didn&039;t want to date hilanced at thenear my table, but not "at" erous situation, but socially aard Perfect

Ahsan looked fro "Is this another friend?" He hesitated way too long before settling on that last word

"He&039;s not a friend," I said

"Coworker," the shapeshifter said, voice absolutely ordinary, even pleasant "I just saw Anita getting ready to leave and thought I et her table There isn&039;t another empty one"

Ahsan relaxed I didn&039;t, because the stranger had ed to calm the waiter and subtly threaten everyone in the restaurant I fought to let un aih with his height, and the table height, he&039;d better hope I didn&039;t have to pull the trigger, because the main her I&039;d have to be willing to show the gun to the restaurant, and I was hoping not to have to do that He was right; the restaurant was packed full of innocent bystanders Packed full of human bodies that the silver-plated bullets would kill just as surely as the shapeshifter; fuck Not to mention that the amount of power he&039;d displayed meant he could probably put out just claws on his hu to shift coiven me time to shoot him But claws are like switchblades-fast He could slice up the humans faster than I could kill him The situation was just chock-full of bad choices

The lioness inside an to pace slowly upward, as if she really could I kneas a co illusion my mind created, but she walked up a path, and thatcloser to the surface of me I did not need to try to shift in the restaurant It would uy I worked at cal I could control this

Ahsan wasted another brilliant sht to smile back as he handed me the faux-leather holder that contained the check I had one of those moments that no one ever seems to have inthe gun aiht direction with the other hand, and actually keep my attention on someone only a few feet aho could probably move in a blur so fast it couldn&039;t be folloith the human eye?

I opened the holder with un under the table If I hadn&039;t thought it would er ould call the cops, I , but I wasn&039;t ready to escalate-yet There was an extra piece of paper folded in with the check Nor to keep my attention on the shapeshifter I took the paper and asked Ahsan, "Your number?"