Murder Mittens

by R. J. Blain

  “I recommend you actively select the man you wish to be mated to. Part of my job as your supervisor is to make sure that right isn’t taken from you. I’m also responsible for making sure you follow the rules when it comes to acquiring your mate. The CDC has opted for a more intimate approach for agents and bounty hunters like yourself.”

  “Ew. I don’t want the CDC all up in my business!”

  The lion dared to laugh at me. “Until you’re happily mated, that’s precisely what is going to happen. When you’re happily mated, you’ll be asked about testing a new perfume to help hide your status as a mated female. The idea is to use female agents as bait to catch out-of-control lycanthropes, partnered with their mates. It should lower incidents of forced matings in the field.”

  I grimaced, as I’d had a few close calls I’d put a lethal end to. Virus contamination didn’t matter if the would-be suitor died, and I took care to make sure I eliminated anyone stupid enough to try to force me. “You have read my file, I see.”

  “I already told you I had read it. Five counts of lethal force to prevent unwanted mating. I don’t care what your other supervisors said, but well done. If you could hurry up and find a male you like, that’d be exceptionally helpful.”

  “My face makes that hard, Mr. Mane.”

  “I’d say there’s nothing wrong with your face, but anytime the CDC wants to offer full reconstructive surgery to address severe self-esteem issues in an exceptional bounty hunter, there’s something wrong with your face. Personally, I don’t see what everyone has a problem with. They’re scars, and there’s something to be said about a woman who can stand proud in spite of them. But I’m onto you. You hate when people flinch when they see your face. You cover it by doing stupid shit, including making me roar at you.”

  “Oh, I just make you roar because I like it.” Otherwise, I resented how accurate he was about my life. “Enjoying your roar is not stupid.”

  “There are far better ways of making me roar, so yes, it is stupid.”

  While I had the relationship experience of the average rock, even I recognized how his comment could be taken as flirting. Puzzled, I frowned, checked the navigation system, which put us at forty minutes away from our goal with a delightful amount of empty space to drive through. Delaying by an hour or six wouldn’t make much difference in my schedule, as we’d gotten an early enough start—and I had their home address and could commit murder wherever I wanted. “I haven’t painted my nails.”

  “You haven’t what?”

  “Painted my nails.” I held up one hand, careful to keep the other on the wheel, showing off my nails, which I kept neatly trimmed and at a good length for scratching people, unless I needed to adopt my hybrid form. “They’re my best quality.”

  “I prefer your face.”

  I blinked and pointed in the general direction of my scars. “This face?”

  “Yes, that face, unless you happen to have another I’m not aware of. I’m a lion, Wells. I am interested in challenges. Delicate little flowers aren’t really my thing.”

  Huh. I blinked and placed my hand on the steering wheel. “What would happen if I pulled over and took my shirt off to show you the other scars?”

  “I probably wouldn’t be looking for your scars. Also, I was not aware you had more scars.”

  “It’s almost full body coverage. My feet and ankles emerged unscathed, and the scarring really starts at my knees. I’m pretty lucky to be alive. I was caught in a fire as a kid. I am my charming self due to the realization I will never be able to charm a man. The surgery is just for my face because that’s all I’ll be able to afford. I haven’t even asked about the other scars. I can’t afford my face as it is. At best, unless this job pans out, I can only, in a few years, afford the cheap version of my face.”

  “I see.” Sebastian pulled out his phone, tapped at the screen, and held it to his ear. “It’s Sebastian Sumners. Please put a note in the Wells file that her scar removal will be a full body op rather than only facial, as there’s no point in doing the procedure twice. Assume full coverage; from the little I’ve coaxed out of her, the scarring is from her head down to her knees. Excellent. Thank you.”

  Hanging up, he placed his phone in the console. “The problem with your surgery is taming your virus long enough to retrain your body that you shouldn’t be scarred, and there’s little difference between doing your entire body versus only your face. It’ll add an hour or two to the procedure. I have been in a few too many sessions about that operation, how long you’ll be out of service, the difference in your recovery times if you’re mated versus unmated—”

  “There’s a difference in my recovery time if I’m mated?” I blurted.

  “Yes. You’ll heal approximately three weeks faster.”

  “Three weeks faster?”

  “It’s a difference between a week and a month. For your recovery, you’ll essentially be pampered. Think daily spa treatments with creams while your virus replenishes itself. In bad news, they’ll basically be skinning you and applying skin grafts to train your body what your skin should be like. You will be unconscious for that part of the procedure, and they’ll take however long is needed to accomplish this. Only the face doesn’t take long for them to complete. Lycanthropes are sturdier than regular humans, so the operation goes faster. The restoration of missing bone matter is easier. Your virus won’t be actively trying to take away the new bone, where it’s been trained to expect and form scar tissue. If you’re mated, you’d be given a major transfusion from your mate, whose virus will essentially overwhelm yours for a while. If you’re part of a pack or colony, family or others with blood types can help donate blood and virus. Your virus will be so busy assimilating donated virus and blood it won’t be forming scar tissue. You’ll come out with a little scar on your wrist from where you’ll be deliberately bled and given a virus-enhanced transfusion. It’s complicated.”

  I eyed the navigation panel, spotted a dinky ass road ahead, and turned off on it before parking the vehicle. “But what if this non-existent mate isn’t my blood type?”

  “Mated pairs end up with the same blood type. Usually, the female takes the male’s blood type, although not always. The virus makes the changes as required. Depending on how different your blood type is from your mate’s, the process can take from six months to a year. If it’s only polarity, it can take as little as a week during a virus spike. Your operation would be delayed long enough to allow for those changes, and the day of the operation, your virus would be tapped out, your mate’s blood would be introduced, and you’d be given daily care and transfusions to make sure your virus stays down and out for the count until it is retrained. The procedure is much simpler and less painful should you be mated, so the CDC has requested I play matchmaker.”

  “Conditions!” I chirped, as my virus would grieve until our dying day if we couldn’t have ready access to his roars.

  “Really? You have conditions?”

  “Yes, I have conditions.”

  “Okay, Wells. I’ll bite. What are your conditions?”

  “I need to see how you look with your shirt off. This directly relates to my general interest and willingness to put up with a male lion in my territory. Also, I require roars. I’m high maintenance, and roars are a fundamental part of my general emotional health. Your roars make me purr, and lynxes need to purr at least once a day. If we don’t purr once a day, at a minimum, we’re unhappy, and unhappy lynxes make everyone around them miserable. I’m unhappy often, and that should be a crime.”

  Considering I rarely had a reason to purr, I thought my new requirement of having a daily reason to purr was reasonable.

  “According to your file, you’re a candidate for anti-depressants and therapy.” Sebastian shook his head. “You just want me out of my clothes.”

  “I absolutely do want you out of your clothes. You are currently the only male feline I’ve met who isn’t severely offensive to my delicate sensibilities.”

 
; “Is anything about you actually delicate?”

  “My sensibilities around most male felines. And don’t get me started about wolves. My virus hates wolves. Honestly, I hate most unmated wolves almost as much as my virus does. She likes only male felines, thank you. And she hates male felines who flinch at my scars. And she really hates male wolves who flinch or run away because of my scars. I liked a wolf once. He ran away when he saw me without makeup. I even cried for five whole minutes, mostly out of rage he ran away.”

  “I see. And most of your targets are male wolves, which your virus strongly dislikes. Of course, most of the culprits are male wolves, as felines are more thorough in the pursuing of partners and tend to be more methodical in their approach, where wolves are more likely to jump to the chase.”

  While other lycanthrope species existed, wolves were the top dog in pure numbers, which made them statistically the most probable to end up with a bounty.

  The other species tended to take more care. It had taken at least four litters before my parents had warmed up to the neighbors, or so claimed my older brothers.

  I wondered what my parents would think if they found out I liked a damned lion as much as my persnickety virus did. “It makes beating the fucking shit out of the worst transgressors very pleasant. It makes my virus very happy when she eliminates male wolves who violated a woman’s right to choose her mate. I’ll do it again, Sumners. Just you try to stop me.”

  “The whole point is to cultivate you into continuing such behaviors, Wells. Your supply of transgressors is not at risk. And what does your virus want to do with most male felines?”

  “Skin them, because most male felines are vain and annoying—or related to me. My virus only wants related male felines for familial cuddle piles. I hope lions like familial cuddle piles. My mother demanded I bring home a male of any species or I’m probably grounded for life. Apparently, my days as a single feline lycanthrope are over, and they’ll take steps if I don’t bring home a male. They’re talking wolves, Sebastian. Me! With a wolf! There’s nothing wrong with wolves as long as I’m not expected to share my living spaces with them. I don’t like wolves.”

  The wolves always flinched first. If someone told me wolves had zero control of their faces and couldn’t hide their emotions, I would believe it. Lynxes tended to be stunned for a few seconds before flinching, unless I scared a lynx kitten, in which case the crying began immediately.

  “Why don’t you like wolves?”

  “Always with the fucking sniffing! At my turf. Constantly. Without invitation. And they don’t roar. I like roars, not howls. I don’t want a damned howling wolf. Howls are not satisfying. I only like roars. A roar is the sound of satisfaction. That plus that one asshole broke my fragile little heart flinching at my face and running away. That hurt. It took an entire pint of my momma’s ice cream to overcome the grief associated with a wolf, the self-proclaimed romantics of the lycanthrope race, running away upon seeing my face. Also, the mournful howling over having been beaten up by a bunch of angry cats afterwards. So much drama, Sumners. But it took an entire pint of my momma’s ice cream to get over that. And it happens with every wolf, too. I’ve eaten a lot of my momma’s ice cream. And not a word that I call her my momma. But when it comes to the ice cream, she’s my momma.”

  Hmm. Next time I visited my parents, I’d have to tip my father I needed another pint of my momma’s ice cream so he’d buy extra. I wouldn’t be grieving, however. I would be celebrating having gotten multiple roars out of the lion.

  “Roars are the sound of frustration, dominance, or pure pleasure,” the lion replied. “Pure pleasure is a form of satisfaction, just so you are aware. Also, since we’re being open and honest about the relationships with our parents, I, too, have called my mother such things in my adult life. It makes her happy when I call her my mommy. She’s Mom most of the time, but she’s my mommy when she’s had a hard day and needs love.”

  Huh. We’d have to compare notes to see which one of us had the best family. I looked forward to pursuing that discussion later. “I am pleased you are wise enough to make your momma happy with you by calling her your mommy at the appropriate intervals. With that settled, roars are the sound of my satisfaction, not yours. Any satisfaction you get from me making you roar out of frustration is purely coincidental. Most people call that masochism. If that’s what you’re into, I mean, that’s great. It would explain why you insisted I antagonize you in person.”

  With a little chuckle, he relaxed in his seat. “Yet you’re the one who wants to get me out of my shirt.”

  “Hello? You’re a male lion. I’m a virgin, not blind or dead. I’m also a single lycanthrope. Male lions have a reputation of being pretty and being useful. I’m curious, just like a self-respecting feline should be. How do I know if you’re representative of male lions if you don’t take your shirt off? And anyway, if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine, but while my bra is nice, what’s underneath could use some work.”

  “I’m a male lion, Wells. I don’t give a shit if you have scars. Males of any species appreciate female feline flesh put on display. As I’m a male lion, I appreciate when I’m aware the female feline flesh belongs to someone who is capable of taking care of herself. Self-reliance is attractive. The only reason I don’t like your scars is because you don’t like them.”

  I needed more time than I had to think about his statement, what it changed for me, and how his view of me would change when I finally got my scars removed. “Well, I mean, who would enjoy having the kittens scream and cry upon sight of me? That sucks, by the way. Every new litter, I have to acclimate the new kittens to my face. They tend to cry and scream until they’re old enough to understand this is just my face.” I pointed at my cheek, which had undergone the worst of the damage. “I’m not really sure what happened to the bone. Probably debris fell on me. I was not conscious for that portion of the fire, which is probably a good thing.”

  “I can understand how that would be traumatic for someone. Lions are very fond of having little kittens around. If lionesses were more interested in having many litters around rather than only one or two kids at a time, felines would rule over all lycanthropes. But young lions require a lot of attention, and lionesses get cranky when having to deal with two lions. One is bad enough. Two lions test the patience of any lioness. Lions roar. Often. Having to deal with three lions at one time? Superwoman territory there.”

  My virus approved. “How often do lions roar, precisely? This directly influences the bad choices I’ll make in the next few minutes.”

  He chuckled. “I have noticed you seem to develop a severe purring problem when I start roaring at you.”

  How tragic for my pride. He’d noticed my purring problem. “I can’t help but notice that did not stop you from roaring.”

  “I’m a male feline, and I’ve seen my mother cranky enough to understand denying female felines of their joys in life might lead to someone being mauled. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. And you kept coming back for more, so it seemed wise of me to provide. Of course, I would put up a token resistance to make you earn some of those roars. Truth be told, I’d assumed you were a different cat species rather than a lynx, but having seen your file and knowing your call sign, I shouldn’t have been surprised. At all.”

  If his goal was to make me purr, he was doing a good job of it. “As long as I can taunt you into roaring, you can resist however much you want, but I will get my roars.”

  “I am known to roar when frustrated, when I need to establish that I am the most dominant of felines, and when I’m particularly satisfied. That is three ways you could coerce me into roaring for your enjoyment.”

  “You? More dominant than me? I am a lynx, and lynxes are the most superior of cats. We have a monopoly on plush fur, my paws are bigger, and I am a fierce huntress.”

  “We’re going to have to do a comparison of our paws, obviously. And our fur. And we’ll have to posture while doing so.” Sebastian str
etched, and he did so in such a way his muscles flexed beneath his suit.

  Meow. “Keep doing that. That makes you look rather strong. My mother would immediately understand why I might bring home a lion when she sees those muscles.”

  If I wasn’t careful, I’d start purring without being able to use his roars to mask the sound.

  “I see your mother enjoys brute strength. Which lions have.”

  “My mother is half my father’s size, and the rougher he gets, the happier she is. We, that is the rest of my family, myself included, flee when she starts trying to bully my father into using his strength. It’s a lynx thing. We’re rowdy.”

  “As lions are substantially stronger and larger than lynxes, I am sure I can appease your need to struggle. Lionesses enjoy a good struggle before being loved into submission. Lions are patient when it comes to subduing stubborn female felines. How does a lynx compare to a lioness? That is the question.”

  “Lynxes are obviously superior. This shouldn’t even be up for debate.”

  “If you appreciate being subdued, I am concerned about the fate of this truck.” Sebastian examined the cab, making thoughtful noises in his throat. “Perhaps we should handle that other business first, and then I will make appropriate accommodations so you can be properly subdued without damaging your daddy’s truck. I had not scheduled time for subduing a female feline today. I hope you can finish your work quickly, and I have decided that I am going to add additional punishments should you be scratched or bruised.”

  I did not need any guidance from either of my parents to fully comprehend what the lion had in mind. “But will you roar, Sumners?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Five

  We can fight over the body.

  In addition to a paycheck, if everything went well, I would get a lion, and my virus wanted me to hurry up and get to the serious work of taming Sebastian Sumners. If my virus had her way, I would have pulled over, yanked him out of the truck, and secured him on the side of the road without a care in hell who witnessed me snapping and tearing him out of his suit and having my way with him.