The lioness inside me began to pace slowly upward, as if she really could. I knew it was a comforting illusion my mind created, but she walked up a path, and that meant she was coming closer to the surface of me. I did not need to try to shift in the restaurant. It would make me unable to concentrate on the bad guy. I worked at calming my pulse, slowing my breathing. I could control this.
Ahsan wasted another brilliant smile on me, and I fought to smile back as he handed me the faux-leather holder that contained the check. I had one of those moments that no one ever seems to have in movies. How did I pay the check with one hand while keeping the gun aimed in the right direction with the other hand, and actually keep my attention on someone only a few feet away who could probably move in a blur so fast it couldn’t be followed with the human eye?
I opened the holder with my left hand, keeping my right and the gun under the table. If I hadn’t thought it would make Ahsan call the cops, or talk to a manager who would call the cops, I might have flashed the gun to see if that cooled the flirting, but I wasn’t ready to escalate-yet. There was an extra piece of paper folded in with the check. Normally, I’d have unfolded it and looked, but I was trying to keep my attention on the shapeshifter. I took the paper and asked Ahsan, “Your number?”
He nodded, and smiled more happily.
I knew my smile wasn’t up to his, and I thought, What would Nathaniel do? I did my best to put that look into my eyes, but the smile that went with it was not Nathaniel’s, it was all mine, a little bit of come-hither and a little bit of threat, as if to say, When you take a bite I might bite back. It had been Jason who first explained my smile to me, but it was an honest smile, my life being the way it is. It didn’t dissuade Ahsan one little bit. His smile went from bright to serious, and his eyes got that look that a man gets sometimes when he sees something he really likes. Great, now I’d been too intriguing. I should not have to flirt with someone while I’m trying to threaten someone else with a gun; it was too hard to do both.
I glanced at the shapeshifter, and he was smiling wider, as if he understood my discomfort, or maybe I just amused him. But there was wariness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I’d done something that made him more nervous. If I could only figure out what, maybe I could do it again. Once I’d been able to use my petite, female packaging to fool the bad guys, but my reputation among the preternatural set had forced most bad guys to ignore the package and treat me like what I was: a predator that specialized in other predators.
I did the only thing I could think of: I slipped Ahsan’s number into my jacket pocket, and fished out the credit card I’d tucked in the same pocket. I put it in the little faux-leather holder and handed it back to him. I smiled one more time, turned back to my “coworker,” and said, “I didn’t think you worked today.”
Ahsan took the hint and left us alone.
He started walking slowly closer, hands still out. I didn’t tell him to stop, because I realized that the only way to make certain where my bullets landed was to have him so close I couldn’t miss. I was gambling that my own faux-shapeshifter speed would let me shoot him before he killed me. Maybe he wasn’t here to kill me, but whatever he was here for it was nothing good. I would have bet serious money on that.
He got to the edge of the table, hands spread a little more, and said, “May I sit down, because I’d rather not have you shoot me where you’re pointing right now.” He smiled happily as he said it, but the smile never touched his eyes. I knew that smile, those cold eyes. I’d worked with too many men who had it, and seen it in the mirror too often.
“Sure,” I said, “sit there.” I nodded toward the chair that would put him beside me, rather than across.
He started to tuck the chair closer to the table, and I said, “No, keep far enough away from the table so I can see that your gun stays in its holster.”
He gave a little nod, and angled his chair more toward me, one ankle on his knee, so that it was that very guy stance that some did, as if they wanted to frame their groin for inspection. I wasn’t interested, but the lioness was, because she was one of the few beasts inside me that didn’t have an equivalent on the outside. It meant she was way more interested in other lions than was comfortable for me. There was one werelion who was applying pretty hard for the job, but I kept avoiding him. I had enough men in my life.
I had slowed the lioness with my breathing and my pulse, but the image that she put in my head was not very human. She wanted me to drop to my knees and rub across him. She wanted more of his scent on us, more of his skin on us. With a gun in my hand, it was easier to push the thoughts down. I let her know that we were in danger, and that did seem to calm all my beasts. They understood danger, and through me, they knew what a gun could do.
The man kept his hands on his knees, and I moved so that the gun was angled more solidly at his chest. There’d be no collateral damage at this distance, because fast as he might be, he wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet from less than three feet.
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, “if you try to move fast, I will simply pull the trigger, because I know once you move for real it’s my only hope at this range.”
He nodded, still smiling, so that from a distance it would look like we were being friendly. “You moved me in close so you wouldn’t accidentally hit the nice humans. I smell you, Anita; I know I’m not the only kitty-cat at the table. It’s a weakness to care too much about your pets.”
I frowned. “Do you mean humans?”
He nodded, still smiling.
“I carry a badge; it’s sort of my job to care about them.”
“First, let’s be very clear. If anything happens to me, then your people die.”
“What people? You mean the people in the restaurant?”
“No, but knowing you care does make it easier.” He nodded a little behind me. “It’s a visual.”
“If I even feel you move too much, I will just pull this trigger.” The lioness in me snarled at the air, and the edge of it trickled out between my lips. It made the threat better, but it was not a good sign for my control. One problem at a time, Anita, one problem at a time. Talking to myself wasn’t a good sign, either, but sometimes using my own name reminded me that I wasn’t the beast, but the person.
“I believe you,” he said, voice dropping lower. “I will sit very, very still, kitten.”
I would have protested the nickname, but I had called him kitty first. I turned and found Ahsan almost at our 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.