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I SAT ON the edge of one of the exaround Doc Lillian&039;s rubber gloves tasted like stale balloons as she fished around in h to cover her ears now, but she was still the same smallish, thin, and terribly competent woman she&039;d been when I first met her She&039;d throhite coat over her dress and hose It was easier to trade the coats than to keep changing clothes Lillian had a thriving medical practice in the human world, but that was because they didn&039;t know she was a wererat Humans didn&039;t want to be treated by soive them lycanthropy of any flavor, but rats had a double proble "romantic" like olves, or wereleopards, et cetera If you were going to be a shapeshifter, everyone wanted to be a big, sexy predator, not a scavenger

"If you were huers out of e trash can that had biological hazard stickers all over it Blood from almost anyone here was usually either shapeshifter, or vah you couldn&039;t "catch" vaes, it was still considered a contagious disease You couldn&039;t beco dirty hospital waste, and come to think of it

"Dr Lillian, has there ever been a case of so lycanthropy from hospital waste?"

She looked startled, then thoughtful, and finally smiled "Not that I&039;m aware of, but we do hospital protocol anyway"

The curtains parted, and Jean-Claude stepped through He still looked perfect in his black leather pants andjacket, only the white shirt in the middle of all that leather was his typical lacy shirt It was like an echo of his original century, though I had enough h hiht to the body, rather than loose and billowy It looked antique in style, but it wasn&039;t It was like a lot of his clothes, touches of olden days, but they were all actually sexy club wear, or at least sexy everyday wear I&039;d never seen Jean-Claude in anything that wasn&039;t theatrical and/or sexy

"Anita," Dr Lillian said, voice sharp

I startled and turned away from Jean-Claude and looked at her

She made a little unhappy mew of her lips, then turned to Jean-Claude "She&039;s a little shocky I think it&039;s a co injured, and worried about Cynric, and" She paused, looked down, and then said softly, "I&039;reat deal to both of you"

"Thank you, Lillian; I know that you do not care for him"

"I try never to question who my friends fall in love with, Jean-Claude"

"I&039;m happy that you think of me as a friend," he said His voice was lovely to listen to, but unemotional, as if he could have used the sa It wasn&039;t necessarily that he wasn&039;t happy about Lillian thinking of him as a friend, butvery careful not to show any emotion It was his version of a cop voice and face, except that where my cop affect was hard to read, a little brittle and cynical, his "cop face" was beautiful, almost seductive You had to know hiless as the smile I could pull out of the air for customers at Animators Inc, when I had ti all my time

Lillian s to see behind the pleasant mask She was harder to fool thanbathtub of yours and help her clean up Enjoy the fact that she&039;s bleeding, before the wounds heal"

"How many stitches would she have needed if she had been more human?"

Lillian looked down, then up, andsteadily at the corner of his jaw, and not aze It was standard practice with vampires not to aze like I did Being a wererat didn&039;t keep you fro bespelled by a vaic" than a standard huh she considered Jean-Claude a friend, she still wouldn&039;tin an al way; Lillian had said I was shocky, and she was right Everything felt a little distant and unimportant

"Ten, maybe fifteen stitches," she said, as if she hadn&039;t wanted to answer the question "Don&039;t let that rier with Asher, please"

"Why do you care how angry I become with him?"

"Because you&039;ve been fair, and just, and haven&039;t overreacted I like that about you It&039;s part of what ood leader"

"You flatter et me to do what you want"

She smiled, and all the lines in her face suddenly showed theer Lillian before sixty got so close She was suddenly pretty I hadn&039;t thought about her one way or the other, until that , just a little Jean-Claude did have that effect on most women

"My feminine wiles aren&039;t up to your standards, but yes, I want you to keep being patient and fair, and the leader we need"

"As you say, ma petite will heal There is no permanent harm done" But his voice was still that pleasant, e what he was really feeling

"Exactly," she said

Jean-Claude came to me and took my hand in his I didn&039;t really need help down froracious about the h these days that it needed encourageement I hopped off the table with his hand in mine

"How&039;s Sin?"

"He is fine Nathaniel and Micah will take turns staying with him to make certain he doesn&039;t have a concussion"

"Good," I said, but ers, as if touching him helped the world be more solid

He swept the curtains aside and led me out I let him lead I was ready to follow someone, and Jean-Claude wasn&039;t a bad choice for it

Nicky and Claudia fell in behind us Nicky had a s around it "How&039;s Ares?" I asked

"Concussion, broken ar, which made Jean-Claude have to stop, too I looked at Nicky "Ares is a special forces sniper, and you did all that in just a few minutes?"

"Like you said, he&039;s special forces, I&039;ht hard and fast, or I&039;d be the one in the hospital"

"I&039; that part, Nicky I just" What was I supposed to say? "It&039;s just that Ares does better than you in sparring practice, that&039;s all"

"That&039;s practice, Anita We&039;re not allowed to hurt each other for real in the ring here, and the ar each other in practice either"

"I guess not What&039;s your point?"

"I&039;h bunch, but they don&039;t fight each other the way lions do It&039;s expected that e the leaders, and they have to be put in their place, or killed"

I realized so of it sooner "I thought Payne and Jesse were away on assignment like the wererats send their roup, but that&039;s not it, is it?"

"What answer do you want?" he asked

"The truth," I said

He shook his head "No, you don&039;t Because you&039;ll get all self-righteous about it, and then you&039;ll feel guilty because you made me the Rex of the St Louis lions, and so you&039;ll blame yourself, and me, but you&039;ll take it out on me, and I don&039;t want that"