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I GOT OUT of the Jeep, which was second in the line of cars behind the already filled garage When ere all houards had their own cars, it was a lot of cars The guards tried to keep the cars down, and changing, so no one watching could figure out how iven time, but it was still a lot of vehicles

I had a sense of movement to the side of the house and made eye contact with Bram for a second; his skin was dark and almost truly black, but in leopard form he was spotted Since others with paler skin were black leopards, I&039;d asked, and learned that your anienetics as a person, but everything to do with the genetics of the line of beasts you descend froh to spotted yellow leopards, that&039;s what you&039;ll be, no matter how pale or dark your huliht; there was just the "seeing" of each other If so hiive him away Bram was ex-military and had been a combat vet before a wereleopard attack had ended his uard partner, Ares, a werehyena and ex-, or acknowledging the guards on duty in any way They&039;d pissed and moaned about it, until we all learned better I wouldn&039;t have waved, but once I would have given the smallest nod

I tried the door handle before trying the key, because not everyone locked the door It opened and I stepped intoroo, and bright h the open archway that led to the kitchen It was a happy et at a party soood tiroup of people who knew and liked each other and had things to share I putbread and bacon filled the air

Micah stood in our bedroo rooold leopard eyes shining in the di it He was ht, built so delicate that almost any clothes hid that there was muscle underneath, and only the athletic set of shoulder to slender waist and hips hinted howa T-shirt that fit us both; we even had a few pairs of jeans that we could share I&039;d never dated anyone as tiny as I was; I sort of liked it

I started to go to him, for a kiss, but what he said into the phone stoppedto need to concentrate on the call "Stephen, you are not your father You will not abuse like he did" Micah pushed his dark brown curls back over his shoulder, frowning Stephen was a olf, so he should have been , but Micah had become de facto leader for almost the entire furry co to be anything but who and what he was; the Ulfric, Richard Zee to have a Clark Kent life and hide that he was also Supere students about biology At least he wasn&039;t at the junior high any outed as a ould have certainly cost hie would have a harder time with it

Stephen and his twin brother had been horribly abused by their father, so he was terrified that his fiancee wanted to have a baby Stephen was convinced that he would abuse a child, as his own father had done Therapy can get you only so far with exorcising your childhood nightmares; after that it&039;s willpower, and you, and people you can trust to hold your hand along the way "I have faith in you, Stephen," Micah said "If you don&039;t want to have a child, that&039;s your choice" He listened for a minute, and then said, "Vanessa is set on children, I know that I&039;iven you the ultimatu leopard king and queen, Niive you power to rule, and it does, but you also end up being part parent, part therapist, part carrot, part stick, part cheerleader, and part disciplinarian I did ood at it

I blew him a kiss; he pantomimed one back and went into the bedroo Stephen down for a while I was honestly beginning to believe that Stephen wasn&039;t going to work through his issues in time to save his relationship with Vanessa, and that was sad, because they loved each other to pieces, but anyone who ever said love conquers all was a fucking liar Love is a good place to start, but it&039;s a start, not an end

I washed my hands in the hallway bathrooo to breakfast with the possibility of blood under your fingernails There wasn&039;t any blood onin fro erms and potential crime scene sch so out of the oven His auburn braid curled on the floor, because it was just that long, falling nearly to his ankles He earing only a pair of jeans so worn they were almost white, and his dark purple chef&039;s apron across his muscular upper chest I knew the apron made his lavender eyes look very close to true purple He&039;d been my live-in sweetie for nearly three years I knehat his eyes looked like in the new apron, or the old ones

Nicky was at the stove in a T-shirt that strained over his massive, muscular upper body He had jean shorts on that had been cut down from an old pair of jeans, so they accoh to carry the extra muscle at just about six feet He had a kitchen towel tucked into the front of his shorts, because aprons were not his thing That he&039;d put on a shirt to protect hi up in a pan was all the concession I&039;d ever seen Nicky make to domesticity He didn&039;t live with us, officially, but he ith us a lot We always had bodyguards, and he was one of the best we had He was also h not exactly hts because he was an exotic dancer, so only to a point Nicky lifted because he was a bodyguard, and he liked lifting His body showed how much His blond hair was cut short in the back and halfway down the sides, a skater&039;s cut, but the bangs were actually a wedge shape, one part in a straight, yellow triangle of hair that trailed halfway down his face It looked very anime, but it wasn&039;t just a fashion statement; it hid his e before he becauard

Cynric - Sin - was the last one at the business side of the kitchen His dark blue hair had grown long enough that he usually put it in a ponytail to cook I got a glier eyes Most people didn&039;t catch that his eyes weren&039;t huers caers were different froer eyes and hair that wasn&039;t always human-normal, like Cynric&039;s deep, al dark blue jeans; he&039;d grown four inches in the last year, so we&039;d had to buy him new pants, so he had no old jeans that still fit That tended to happen when you were eighteen He was taller than Nathaniel, and alh his shoulders didn&039;t have Nathaniel&039;s spread, and he looked damn near y beside Nicky, but then most of the men did I realized that with all three of them turned away from me, Sin didn&039;t look like a little boy anyht rooue and track He was Missouri&039;s quarterback, and we had coaches froe league had started last year, and the aue was one of the top otten on board, and ere probably only a few ue

Gina was setting the table Her dark, nearly black hair was short and curled sort of artfully around her face When my hair was that short, it wasn&039;t artful, just messier, but then some curls are better behaved than others Gina was tall, nearly six feet; her dark gray eyes were looking more at her husband and baby than at the dishes, so the settings were a little crooked as she moved around the table, but I didn&039;t care; perfect place settings were overrated and the happiness on her face as she watched them orth it

Zeke was in half-man form, which meant he looked like most of the movie olves you&039;ve ever seen, except that his eyes were human Usually when sos to go animal, and stick, but for some reason Zeke had done the opposite His blue human eyes were trapped in the face of a , and he had his father&039;s eyes, except it was a very hu enough to prove he was going to have hiswith us because the baby hadn&039;t been getting enough sunlight underneath the Circus of the Daoraphobic when he was outside the underground, like some kind of post-apocalyptic survivor They&039;d been here two months and it hadsome color in his cheeks and was just a ave me a brilliant smile as he turned bread in hisracks by the sink, and took thesoht or emotion chased across his face so fast that I couldn&039;t read it, but it wilted his ses for a minute, whatever it had been He finally said, "Hey, Anita Glad you&039;re home"

There it was, a simple sentence that stood in for a whole bunch of words that et spoken out loud At least he&039;d know not to say out loud, I orried about you, or How could you scare me like that, or risk us, or Richard Zeeman, my onetime serious boyfriend, had been the only one currently on the edges of s out loud It hy he was on the edge ofwith breakfast

Nicky started taking the bacon out of the pan with tongs The bacon looked very crisp, just the way I liked it He glanced back at me and said, "Breakfast is almost ready"

Gina and Zeke said hello, and the baby laughed, that low gurgly laugh that soirl babies never seem to

I said hi to everyone, but walked to meet Nathaniel in the middle of the kitchen floor He&039;d tossed his oven mitts on the kitchen island, and rolled toward e, the roll of his lovely hips that ht, but this shoas all for me It was also the real deal It was hard to explain hoas different, but there was a difference, or maybe as different hat happened next

I smiled and he smiled back His lavender eyes were darker and not just from the purple apron that covered his bare chest His eyes showed his eh truly purple dark eyes were angry hiether in about a month; I knew his face the way I knewinto ave me was one you never saw at the club; it was a smile that filled his eyes with love That he loved me was there in his eyes, in his face, and I knew my face reflected it back like water reflects the sun back at itself, in a blinding dazzle of happy light

My arher fabric of the apron, to the slide of his bare waist and back God, he felt so good, just that much, and it made me close my eyes for a moment He pulled roin He didn&039;t press , so to truly feel if he was happy to see ainst him I didn&039;t, because eren&039;t alone, but he had a sht about it The se of wicked fun, and in his eyes was a confidence that he knew exactly how he affected me, and just how beautiful he was Once he&039;d believed that only his beauty and his ability at sex , but he kneas so iven him a confidence that he hadn&039;t had when I first met him

"Kiss," Cynric said, "so the rest of us can have a turn"

I gave hi cold, Anita"

Nathaniel just leaned his extra height doard, curving his body toward ued with everyone, but Nathaniel just ith it, which made me rise up on the balls of my feet and lean my face up toward his

We kissed, a brush of lips that became a caress of mouths, but chaste by our usual standards I drew back fro up into his eyes at that startlingly close distance I wanted to push ue between his lips, to do so much more with my hands, but we had an audience, and especially the baby There was a ti, assu he wouldn&039;t pay attention, but Mattheas now three, belonged to aof one of Jean-Claude&039;s vampires, and we babysat Matthew soet a kiss from me every time I saw him But what creepedboys, because all the big boys kiss &039;Nita His ht it was cute I didn&039;t Matthew had obviously forht was too young an age to care

Nathaniel and I had discussed how bothered I was about the toddler&039;s attitude, so he just let ainstbread into thick toast-size pieces

Nicky and Cynric came forward at the same time They looked at each other Cynric was nearly as tall as Nicky now, but Nicky was still almost three times as broad across the shoulders and chest, which ile beside hier to call," Cynric said His hands were in loose fists at his sides He was visibly fighting to keep his shoulders fro any of those secondary clues that ht starts

"And I&039;m just her Bride of Dracula, her cannon fodder," Nicky said, but there was nothing in his voice that said he thought that was a bad thing, or a lesser thing

"Exactly," Cynric said

"If ere doing soo first, but this is just us in our kitchen, and by shapeshifter rules I can still beat the shit out of you"