So she’d run. And she’d regretted it.
Shivering, Kat turned back to Anna and lowered her voice. “Josh made my skin crawl. He treated her like a princess, but it was never right. It was like…deathless love that you knew was going to end badly.
It was Romeo and Juliet.” If Romeo had been in his midthirties and had a mullet.
Something feral and angry sharpened Anna’s gaze for just a moment before vanishing. “Sometimes you think someone’s being treated like a princess, but what they’re really being treated like is a favorite pet or a doll. Property.”
Harsh words for the possessive interest Kat had never been able to put into words. Maybe she’d been too innocent to understand then. Now she knew better. “Thanks for looking out for her. I didn’t want to drag her into another mess. Not when she’s getting back on her feet.”
Anna picked up her cup again. “She’s a good kid.”
“For what it’s worth, Anna, I never hated you. Maybe I wanted to, and maybe I hated myself for the urge, but I never hated you.”
“Believe me when I say it’s understandable.” Anna finished her coffee and propped her elbows on the table. “Now, are you ready for the good news?”
That depended on if their definition of good diverged as sharply as their definitions of ditched. “Lay it on me.”
“He’s figured it out. That he’s the one who can get it done.”
“Oh.” Maybe to Andrew, it was that easy. Walk away when he couldn’t handle it and come back when he could. It was instinct after all, and humans weren’t allowed to hold instinct against shapeshifters, no matter how much they’d hurt you. Derek had pulled that one on her for years, smothering her like she was a kid and blaming instinct every time she tried to push back.
Before she could frame a more meaningful response, Sera appeared, squeezing into the booth next to her. “Y’all playing nice over here?”
“Mostly.” Anna tilted her head and sighed. “It’s hard as hell trying to explain some of this crap without losing a lot in translation.”
Sera flipped her ponytail back over her shoulder and pushed a cup of coffee toward Kat. “If you thought coming in here smelling like you spent the night under Andrew is going to distract me from the part where you got shot, you’re going to be massively disappointed.”
Kat flinched, heat filling her cheeks. She’d forgotten—again—and her conversation with Anna seemed a hundred times more awkward now. “Shit, Sera.”
“Don’t ‘shit’ me. You got shot.”
Relating the story from the start took most of Sera’s break, and earned Kat a blistering lecture on communication and asking for help that only ended when the bartender flagged Sera down to pick up an order.
When she was gone, Kat took a sip of her coffee and grimaced when it turned out to be lukewarm. “Do they teach that speech about protecting your people in shapeshifter school?”
“Closest thing to shapeshifter school is Conclave training, and you don’t want to know what they teach you there.”
Kat had more guesses than she wanted. “How to rip up men and torture psychics?”
“For starters. And hey, maybe they’ve expanded the curriculum since I left.” Anna prodded at her cold omelet. “What’s this shit you’re mixed up in that’s got people trying to off you?”
“I don’t even know.” The zip disk was a foot away, tucked safely in her bag, and it took effort not to reach out and touch it. “Someone who doesn’t want me knowing why my mother was so dangerous she ended up dead.”
“Got any leads?” She shook her head without waiting for an answer. “Of course you do, or they wouldn’t be after you. Dumb question.”
“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.