table. He smiled, thinking I was looking for him, and in a way I was, because there was a second bad guy behind him. He had a blond skater’s cut, complete with a wedge of bangs that covered his right eye completely. He wore an oversized tank top and baggy shorts, which could hide a lot of weapons. How did I know he was a bad guy? Maybe it was the gun in his hand that he hid under the oversized shirt. The shirt was so big it hung off one shoulder and showed off that his upper body hit the gym a lot.
If I’d had concentration left for it, I’d have tried to taste whether he was shapeshifter or human. If he was shifter he was trying to hide his energy, or the energy coming off his friend drowned him out. Either way, he was following behind Ahsan, and he had his gun out. He was wearing exercise gloves like for biking or weight lifting, the ones that covered all the front of the hand. Leather gloves in this heat-seriously paranoid, or seriously had his prints in the crime-stopper databases. Either way, I got to watch him follow the waiter to “our” table. The threat was no longer subtle.
“Nick,” the man at the table called out, in a happy voice, “thought I’d have to eat lunch alone.”
The second man grinned at us both, and it reminded me of Jason’s grin. It even filled his blue eyes with laughter. He was damn near six feet and not built like Jason at all, but there was something about him that reminded me; maybe it was a meaner edge of that urge Jason always had to fight off, to keep pushing a situation. That was not a good personality trait in someone with a gun.
Ahsan made room for Nick to take the seat nearest the waiter, so that he and the first guy were sitting across from each other, and so Nick’s gun was still very close to Ahsan. I still hadn’t figured out how to sign the check one-handed, I couldn’t keep the gun pointed at both of them anyway. I’d gone from having some tactical advantage to none. Shit.
Ahsan had pity on me and held the pieces of paper while I signed, and I even managed to give him a generous tip. I mean, if I was going to get him shot it was the least I could do. His fingers brushed my hand, and I realized he thought I’d given him an excuse to touch me. Normally, it would have bugged me, but I had bigger problems than his fingers tracing over my hand. I even let him take my hand and give it a little squeeze. God knows what he might have said, but he glanced at my two “coworkers” and just wasted one more really good smile on me. I tried to return it, but wasn’t sure I managed. His smile didn’t fade, though; maybe he assumed that I didn’t want to show too much around my “coworkers”?
“He’s cute,” Nick said, in a voice that matched the hair and the clothes, but his hand, under the table, was pointing at me. I didn’t have to see the gun to know it was there, and that he’d hit me somewhere between stomach and chest.
“He’s okay,” I said.
“Oh, come on, don’t play coy. He’s hot.”
“Enough, Nick, this is business.”
“Just because it’s business doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.”
“Nick would enjoy killing your waiter, Anita.”
“Yes, I would,” Nick said, and smiled when he said it, all the way up to his baby blues.
“Sociopath much?” I asked, smiling sweetly, my gun still pointed at the other man, because I wasn’t sure what Nick would do if he saw my arm move in his direction.
“All the damn time,” he said, cheerfully.
“What do you want?” I said, trying to keep an eye on both of them for movement and knowing the moment they flanked me I was not going to win. I could take one of them, but not both, not like this. My pulse tried to speed up, and that made the lioness that had been behaving herself so nicely begin to walk up that metaphysical path. If I lost too much control of my body, she’d ride my pulse and breathing as near the surface of me as she could get. The beasts found my inability to shapeshift very frustrating, and that could lead to some very painful moments for me while they tried to claw their way out. I hadn’t had any of them do that in a while, but the bad guy
I heard Nick take in a deep breath. I didn’t have to see the movement to know he was sniffing the air.
“Don’t move toward her,” the first man said; “we’re all going to be very calm, and that way we walk out of here without hurting any of the nice people.”
“She smells like lion,” Nick said, “but it’s different, somehow.”
“Shut the fuck up, Nicky.” The first guy was angry, and that made his power flare again, which made my lion trot faster. I tried to call my necromancy stronger, to calm all this hot-bloodedness, but Nick chose that moment to let me know that he was powerful, too.
Nick’s power smashed into me like a blow. It stole my breath, so that the blood in my head was suddenly loud and roaring. The lioness snarled, because it wasn’t just me it had hit.
“We’re working, Nicky, not dating,” the first man said, and there was an edge of growl to his voice that you might have mistaken for just a low bass voice, but I knew better. My lioness knew better.
My breath came back in a small gasp. “What the hell was that for?”
“You put your power all over her,” Nicky said, and he sounded sullen. He had enough power to be in the running for top lion, but there were other things to consider besides brute power. Sullen is not my favorite thing.
“You know why I did that,” first man said.
The lioness began to pace more slowly up that hidden path. I felt caution in her, and that wasn’t her usual thought process. Something about the second lion’s energy had made her think more deeply than normal. I would have loved to ask why, or what, but she was truly animal and they didn’t think like that. Something had made her hesitant, almost afraid. But what?
“Yeah, it was part of the plan,” Nicky said, “supposed to show her how powerful you are so she’d cooperate. Did you feel what she could do with her powers over the dead?” Nicky shivered, and I hoped his finger didn’t spasm on the trigger. “It was like water on fire, but it was power. So much power, Jacob, so much power.” Again, he did that shiver, but this time he did move his arm under the table so the gun was pointed at the floor. I appreciated the caution, and it made me think better of Nicky’s wisdom score.
Jacob’s power lashed out, not at me, but at his friend. I got the curl of it like a hot wave washing against my legs. It made me startle, and it was my turn to move the gun to the floor. “I don’t mind shooting you, but I’d like it to be on purpose, not because you’ve made me twitch.”
“Then keep it pointed at the floor,” Nicky said. His power smashed out at his friend, and again I caught that glancing blow. They were both very powerful; it was just a matter of flavor, not strength.
“Stop this, Nick,” Jacob said.
“Do you know how long it’s been?” Nick asked.
“Shut up,” Jacob said, and then he turned to me. “We knew about the wolves and the leopards, and we heard you cut quite a swath up in Vegas through the weretigers. You’ve got Jason Schuyler for your wolf to call, and Nathaniel Graison for your leopard, and even a leopard king in Micah Callahan, and we hear you brought some tigers back from Vegas and have bonded with them. You stole one of Chicago ’s master vampire’s werelions to come down and take over your local pride. He’s your Rex, your lion king. You’re supposed to be all mated up.”
I didn’t like him listing my boyfriends, not one little bit, but he was wrong on one thing. Haven, the local Rex, was not my mate. I had slept with him, but he didn’t share well enough. He’d proven that when he slept over one night and started a fight with Micah, Nathaniel, and me the next morning. Haven had been surprised that I’d joined in on the other men’s side. He’d said, “The women don’t interfere.” I told him he had the wrong girl, and to get out. He’d actually apologized, which for him was a lot, but he was still not on my favorites list. “You got a point?” I asked the current problem werelion.
“Your Rex is lying about you and him. Your lioness doesn’t belong to him.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“Liar, you belong to a lot of people, but you don’t belong to Haven. He’s put out the word that no more werelions need apply for your bed, because you’re his.”
“My dance card is full, so if his lies keep the others away, fine with me.”
“But it isn’t fine with your lion,” he said. He shook his head. “We didn’t know you were an unmated werelion. We wouldn’t have taken the job if we had.”
