• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Jean-Claude can handle himself, Anita, as well as anyone in this situation. It sounds like the shapeshifters have you covered for now. Micah is head of the local wereleopards. He didn’t get the job on his winning personality. He’s a survivor and a fighter, or he’d be dead already.”

“Is this supposed to be a pep talk?” I asked.

He gave a sound that was almost a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Well, you suck at it.”

He laughed then. “Which of your lovers is cannon fodder, Anita? Who are you really the most worried about?”

I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and said, “Nathaniel.”

“Why him?”

“Because he’s not a fighter. I’ve taken him to the gun range and he knows the basics.” Then I remembered a moment when Chimera, a very bad guy, had come to town. I remembered an ambush, when Nathaniel had been with me. I’d forgotten. He’d killed someone, and I’d forgotten. I hadn’t even thought how it might have affected him. Some leopard queen I was. Fuck.

“Anita, you still there?”

“Yeah, I just remembered something that I guess I was trying to forget. Nathaniel shot someone, killed him to save me. One of the wererats had gotten killed, and he picked up the guy’s gun and used it just like I’d taught him.” I was suddenly cold down to my toes. All the awful things that people had made Nathaniel do over the years while he was on the street, and it had been me that forced him to kill. He’d done it out of love, but motive didn’t change the end product. Someone was still dead.

“He’ll do, Anita.” There was a tone to Edward’s voice, approval maybe.

“You know, I hadn’t thought about what he’d done until just now. What kind of person forgets that?”

“Did he seem messed up about it?”

“No.”

“Then let it go,” Edward said.

“Just like that,” I said.

“Just like that.”

“I’m not good at letting go.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How much does Peter know about your real life as assassin to the undead and furry?”

“That’s my call, Anita, not yours.” His voice wasn’t friendly now.

“I’d love to argue, but you’re right. I haven’t laid eyes on Peter since he was fourteen.”

“He turned fifteen that year.”

“Oh, so not two years since I saw him but more like a year and a half. That gives me so much more room to bitch at you for introducing him to the scary stuff.”

“I’m just saying that he wasn’t a kid when we met him. He was a young man, and I’ve treated him like one.”

“No wonder he adores you,” I said.

It was Edward’s turn to be quiet.

“I can hear you breathing,” I said.

“You know how I said we don’t chat?”

“Yeah.”

“I finally realized, just now, you’re the only person I can talk about this with.”

“What, Peter?”

“No.”

In my head I went through the list of things that Edward could only talk to me about; nothing came to mind. “I’m all ears.”

“Donna is pushing for kids.”

That stopped me. It was my turn to be at a loss for words. I managed to stumble out some words, the wrong words. “Really? I mean, I guess I thought she was too old to start over.”

“She’s only forty-two, Anita.”

“I’m sorry, Edward. I didn’t mean it that way, I just never saw you with a baby.”

“Ditto,” he said, and he sounded angry now, too.

Worse yet, I felt my throat closing tight, my eyes burning. What the fuck was wrong with me? “Do you ever wish you had a life where you could see babies and shit like that?” I asked, and fought to keep the sudden rise of emotion under check.

“No,” he said.

“Never?” I asked.

“You thinking about a baby?” he asked.

Then I told him something I had never expected to tell Edward. “I had a serious pregnancy scare last month. False positive and everything. Let’s just say it made me reassess some parts of my life.”

“The biggest difference between us, Anita, is that if I have a baby with Donna, she carries it, not me. You would have a lot more trouble doing it.”

“I know, the whole girl thing.”

“Are you seriously thinking about babies?”

“No, I was relieved as hell when I found out I wasn’t pregnant.”

“How’d your lovers take it?”

“You know, most normal people would call them boyfriends.”

“No