Cipher

“Yeah.” Kat folded her arms and watched as Sera stopped at the table with the toddler again, bending down until the girl got a fist full of Sera’s ponytail. Kids loved her, and Sera loved them back with an outward pleasure that masked the echoes of pain that Kat caught in unguarded moments.

Glancing back at Anna, Kat tilted her head toward her roommate. “She’s doing okay, right? Is she staying with you?”

“Mmm, over the bar. I tried to get her to take the bedroom, but she insists on sleeping on the couch.”

It sounded like a Sera thing to do. “As long as she’s safe. If there are shifters after us…” Anna bristled with power as dominant as Andrew’s. Sera was a quiet submissive who could be bent to a stronger shapeshifter’s will no matter how viciously she fought. “I don’t want to drag her into my crap.”

Before Anna could answer, John dropped onto the booth beside her with a heavy sigh, a kitchen towel slung over one shoulder. “You around next weekend, Kitty Kat? Jimmy Aucoin’s gonna play here Friday night.”

One week, and it seemed like a decade away. She already couldn’t begin to make sense of the events that had transpired—open an email on Monday, wake up in Andrew’s bed on Friday.

By next week she could be married. Or dead. “I don’t know. Things are hectic right now, but if they settle down, I’ll be there.”

“How about you, Lenoir?”

“I don’t make plans, John. You know that.”

He laughed. “Course not. Little rambling Anna.”

“Plans aren’t the best idea in New Orleans,” Kat pointed out. “Making them is lots of fun until you realize someone or something is always going to come along and break them.”

“Those days are over,” John insisted. “The place is finally calming down—and I, for one, am gonna enjoy it.”

Yeah, that was a guilt-punch to the gut.

“Don’t you have shit to do?” Anna asked him. “Chef-type things back in the kitchen? Make me another omelet.”

He said something in response, something no doubt both creative and obscene. Kat heard the sounds, but the words drifted away into meaningless noise as Andrew stepped through the front door.

For a moment, he stood in the late-morning sunlight, and Kat held her breath. The flutter was back, the one she’d had in her hapless innocence, when his mere presence had filled her with imagination with possibilities. Not just the flutter, she had tingles, the kind that came with high school crushes and the driving urge to make out in dark corners.

She had no idea what they were or where they were going, but sometime in the last week he’d resurrected her ability to hope. To imagine something between them besides pain and loss. It was exhilarating.

It was terrifying.

It was kind of turning her on.

Her heart beat too fast, and Anna would hear it. So would Andrew, and Sera, and probably any number of patrons who were shapeshifters she didn’t recognize. There was no subtlety in the world of supernatural senses, and no privacy.

Half the people in the room knew she wanted to jump on Andrew, and the rest could probably make a pretty good guess.

He stopped beside the table and smiled down at her. “I got things squared away with Alec. How’s it going, Anna? John?”

They murmured their hellos as Kat oh-so-carefully didn’t touch him. Considering what had happened last time, being within five feet of him seemed risky enough. Instead she gripped her bag as a reminder to keep her hands to herself. “Sera yelled at me until she felt better, so I’m ready to go when you are.”

“I’m parked right outside.” And he seemed eager to go.

John grinned and slid out of the booth. “Y’all take it easy.” He disappeared back toward the kitchen.

Anna spared a glance for Kat as she refilled her coffee cup from the small carafe on the table. “Let me know if you need any backup, okay?”

That the offer had been made to her, and not to Andrew, was a gesture Kat appreciated. “I will.

Thanks, Anna.”

“You’re welcome.”

Outside, the crisp January morning had her digging a scarf out of her bag. “Sera seems okay. I think Anna is really good for her.”

“I think so too.” Andrew rested his hand on Kat’s shoulder, drawing her closer. “I didn’t clear the trip out to Alec’s house, after all. He gave me a lecture about independence and initiative, so I said fuck it.”

“Go us. Breaking and entering.” Leaning into his side felt nice. Fuzzy, but nice. “It’s not like we’re going to trash the place or anything.”

“Unauthorized entry,” he corrected. “I have a key and security codes.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Would you feel better if we were likely to get arrested?”

Kat stepped off the sidewalk. “I guess not. So how was Alec? I haven’t gotten any email from him in a couple days. Not even the profanity-laced ones when he breaks something.”

“Up to his ears in Conclave crap.” He unlocked the doors and opened hers. “There’s some stuff going on right now.”

“Uh-oh. Worse than usual?”

“No, just—” He climbed in and slid the key into the ignition before falling still, his hands on the wheel.

“Derek and Nick are going to have a baby.”

Kat froze, the seatbelt clutched in one hand. “Derek and Nick—” Oh shit. The faint hurt of not hearing it from her cousin personally was swallowed up by a far more intense emotion—sympathy. “Nick is going to kill him before it’s over. Derek has turned overprotectiveness into an extreme sport.”

“Apparently, she’s fine but doesn’t feel great, so he’s freaking out.”

That was Derek. “The first time I got the flu after he became my guardian, he took me to the clinic three times. Franklin finally had to tell him he was doing more harm dragging me back and forth than he would be by letting me puke my guts out at home. And that was before he got turned and got all the crazy shapeshifter instincts.”

Andrew closed his hand around hers. “He’ll call you after he settles down. Alec only told me because there are rumors floating around already, and he only knows because Derek’s been asking Carmen for advice.”

This time the spark of need was quiet enough to give her hope. Touching Andrew was magic, but maybe there’d come a time when it wasn’t too much magic. “I know. Derek doesn’t call me when he’s worried.”

“‘Worried’ might be putting it mildly. I talked to Derek after the problems Michelle had with her pregnancy. I know he was concerned, especially since Nick and Michelle’s mom died in childbirth.”

It probably didn’t help that Nick was tiny. Kat towered half a foot over her, and Derek was even taller.

Child-birthing hips had never sounded like a compliment, but it suddenly didn’t feel so bad to have them.

“Nick’s going to be okay, though, right?”

Andrew fastened his seatbelt and started the engine. “From what I could gather, Carmen seems to think it’s no big deal.”

“Okay. Then I guess that can go on the worry backburner. Except I really can’t call him and tell him I’m getting shot at by possible cult members.”

“Which is why I didn’t bring that part up. If this thing gets to the point where we can’t handle it, we’ll get some help. Until then, we’re on our own.”

The moment of truth, then. Time to deal with her shit like a grown-up, without having to worry about everyone she knew tripping over themselves to shield her from unfortunate truths. Sliding her hand to the bag, she traced the hard edge of the zip disk. “Then let’s go find out what we’re dealing with.”

Chapter Nine