by R. J. Blain
I realized I’d fallen in with someone who couldn’t be sent into a craft store without adult supervision. “How much did you spend, Sebastian?”
“Too much.”
Of course. “Right. That’s the default answer when the craft store rises up and forces you inside. I don’t want to be the responsible one of this relationship, Sebastian. Maybe we should take turns.”
“But it’s yarn, Harri. We’re cats. We like yarn.”
“But yarn is expensive, especially if it isn’t used.” To my amusement, the resort came to life after dark, with couples filling the hallways and lining up to make use of the elevator. “Busier than I expected.”
“I had a little time before I went to the spa, but most seem to be making use of the hot tubs, sauna, and pools. There are also several spas here.”
“Ten different ones. They’re all part of the same spa, but each one does something different, and it spreads the stuff around the hotel, I guess. They gave me a special map to show me where all of our sessions will be at. Did I pay too much to be excessively pampered? Apparently, my package assumed there would always be two people going, so there are two to four people responsible for pampering us at all times. I had two barely clothed men painting my nails, Sebastian.”
“This is shocking to you, isn’t it?”
“They seemed to like it.”
“I don’t see why that is at all shocking. I very much enjoy when I get to put my hands all over you. I wonder how many incidents they have here with lycanthropes going blind from lust and jealousy by the end of each session.”
I slung my gift bag over my wrist and checked my brochure, which included the spa rules. What I read made me giggle. “Oh. The gift bags are a gimmick. When the guests behave during their sessions, they get a present. The value of the present is directly related to how well the guest behaves. What kind of spa did I bring us to, Sebastian?”
“The kind that understands how lycanthropes tick. A challenge to be best behaved to get the equivalent of a trophy? They probably have minimal incidents, and because repairing the building and equipment is expensive, every time they dodge an incident, they save a lot of money, so bribing guests is really clever. I wonder what really well-behaved lynxes get.” Sebastian eyed my gift bag with interest. “And I’m really curious what well-behaved lions get.”
“Attention from a lynx once back in our room.”
“I am really liking this spa now. And in better news, between rounds of giving each other attention and making plans, I have information on the job that will get rid of your scars.”
“You have my attention.”
“You’ll just have to give me your attention after we enjoy a bath and have dinner. I have you penned in for non-work engagements for at least three hours.”
“You’re a tough boss.”
“I really am, and I look forward to you trying, in vain, to put me in my place. I am the one with the true power here.”
“We’ll see about that,” I muttered.
The bathtub redefined what luxury meant to me. I expected a ledge barely able to handle some bottles and soap, and if I were particularly brave and foolish, a drink. The bathroom devoured a ridiculous amount of space, and a set of steps led up to a dais, which contained a path to the tub itself and enough of a ledge to place a full course meal several times over. Four people could fit in the tub with room to spare. “Is this a bathroom fit for gorgons?”
“A small hive of gorgons probably could do unspeakable things in this tub, yes. But this is meant for two amorous people seeking to have a very good time in a watery environment.”
“This sounds like a quick way to drown.”
“You’re not going to drown. You will be thoroughly attended to, but you will not drown during my careful attention to your person. But before we get to the amorous part of our evening, you have gifts to explore.” Sebastian set the gift bag he’d acquired on the ledge. “You left stuff in the basket, too.”
“We should have catnip cheese to go with our dinner.”
“We absolutely should. I’ll go prepare plates for us, so we can enjoy them with our dinner.”
“If this is romance, I like it and want more of it.”
“Romance is whatever we want it to be,” he replied before strutting out of the bathroom.
Huh. I’d never thought of it like that before. “But what about the sex? Is that romance?”
“Absolutely. Even rough sex is romance if we decide that is what our version of romance is. If you don’t like roses, roses are not romantic and they should be avoided. If you like spankings, spankings are romantic as long as they are done romantically.”
“How can a spanking be romantic?”
“I’m sure there’s a lot of sweet nothings, stroking, and squeezing involved. We could explore that if you’d like. I’m game for anything where we both walk away happy.”
“Can you walk after a spanking? I mean, the one time my daddy took a belt to my ass, walking was not in the picture.”
“What did you do to deserve a belt to your ass?”
“I ran out in front of a car,” I admitted. “It was the first and last time I earned the belt. I am one of three kittens to have earned the belt, and for some reason, it always involved us running out in front of vehicles. He only got the belt out when we participated in potentially lethal activities. I’d say I didn’t experience any lifelong trauma from the belt, but I check four times before crossing the street now, and once I’m across, I check again to see if my father caught me and approved of my caution, so it obviously left a lasting mark.”
“I would be more concerned about your general inclination to kill people for money, personally.” Sebastian returned to the bathroom with the cheese box in one hand and the gift basket in the other. “And I really doubt your father spanking you for running out in traffic led you to become an accomplished bounty huntress.”
“I’m a lynx. We’re murderous, furry little freaks by default. One of my brothers became a land shark.”
“An attorney?”
“Land shark.”
“I bet he loves when you call him a land shark.”
“He really doesn’t, which is why I do it.” As I’d neglected my gift basket earlier, I rummaged through it, discovering several more wrapped boxes at the bottom. “More presents!” I sat on the tub’s dais and took out the first box, which was slender and thin, tearing at the paper to discover what was inside. A white jewelry box lurked beneath the paper, and I lifted off the lid.
To maintain my cover as beyond poor and scraping to get by, I’d never purchased a watch for myself, although my brothers had a tendency to pin me to the floor to acquire my various sizes, including wrist, ring, and neck so they could give me trinkets for the holidays. Like me, most of my brothers kept any gift giving to small or inexpensive things.
Nothing about the watch counted as inexpensive, although it was small and delicate enough I worried I’d break it. I liked the sapphire blue watch face and the moon and star motif decorating it. At a loss, I showed it to Sebastian. “I know nothing about watches.”
Sebastian took the watch from the box, turned it over in his hands, and examined it. “How long have you been planning to come to this spa?”
“For a while. Months, actually. I had to get time off work, so I started making plans a year ago when I won the days off. I told my family I’d be coming here then.”
“This watch cost somebody several thousand dollars, and it has your name engraved on the back of it, so it’s definitely meant for you. This was not a random addition to your room, although the cheese box could have been acquired on short notice, same with the Champagne and flutes.” He smiled and returned the watch to its box. “They probably assumed you’d think it was cheap so you’d wear it. Wear it anyway. These are built to last, and they have really good warranties. Just don’t wear it when you’re planning on making a hit requiring bloodshed. Blood is a bitch to get out of a watch.”
�
�Spoken like someone who knows.”
“Well, I am a lion. Sometimes, someone pisses me off, and I just swat. With claws out. And then people complain because I don’t wear a sign around my neck warning them I can turn my nails to claws at my whim.”
“You’re a hybrid?”
“I’m predisposed to hybridism, but I do not have the hybrid form at this point in time. I can transform my hands into partial paws with claws. This is enough predisposition to count for the law enforcement exemptions, so I’m happy with that. I suspect my boss is hoping I’ll develop full hybridism after mating because of the associated virus spike.”
Nice. I’d scored extra with him. “I get my own pet lion, and he might one day become a fluffy hybrid for my enjoyment?”
“And if I develop hybridism, you might, too, especially since your brothers are predisposed.”
Hmm. Did I want to confess the truth, or did I want to save the truth for some evil surprise? The cat in me wanted to surprise him sometime later. I’d get scolded by the CDC for hiding my status, but unmated hybrid females were hunted. My new status as mated would prevent being hunted by anyone other than Sebastian.
My virus wanted Sebastian to pounce and continue his trend of having his way with me. As my nail polish would survive the transformation, thanks to magic and the nature of lycanthropy, I held out my hand, smirked, and shifted it to my humanoid paw covered with fur and armed with extra-long claws, perfect for shredding through prey. “I’m sorry, Sebastian, but I’ve been naughty. You should reward me for not letting anyone know I have fairly refined control of my transformations. Honestly, I didn’t want it in my file I could, because I had enough trouble with unwanted males sniffing around on my turf.”
I shifted my hand back to human, checking over my polish. I smiled at the bright red perfection.
“You clever, sneaky little kitty. Do you have the complete hybrid form?”
I smiled at the admiration in his voice. “Not quite, but I can transform my legs and my hands, and I get ears and a stubby little perfect tail. Not quite full fur coverage on a good day.”
“Will you show me?”
“You just want me to get naked for you.”
“I absolutely do want you to get naked for me, but I want to make sure I make our future plans accounting for all of your natural weapons.”
“After dinner arrives,” I promised. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you, but I don’t trust the CDC with that status. Until now. The unmated part of things was the problem, really.”
“I get it, Harri. In your shoes, I’d hold that secret close to my chest, too. You told me when we talked about it, and that’s all I care about. We’ll just say you recently discovered it post mating. Mating makes virus levels spike substantially, so they won’t think twice about it when we update your file. But until this serial killer is bagged, we won’t update your file. I don’t want any unnecessary risks during this job.”
“Is that because you’re an overprotective lion in your boss capacity or you’re an overprotective lion in general?”
“All of the above. I won’t lie, I wasn’t planning on letting you do that job by yourself, even if you rejected my advances. It’s too dangerous, and the risks to you are too high. This guy is probably a rapist on top of being a serial killer. Add in the possibility there are children we have to rescue? No chances at all with this guy. Part of the problem will be tracking him down. All I know is that there are some leads in Detroit, where two of the killings took place. Milwaukee had two killings, as did several other smaller cities and town. He seems to hit in pairs before moving on, and he is hunting in the general Great Lakes area. It has been six months since the last set of killings, and the killings are usually ten to twelve months apart.”
I did the math. “We have four to six months at most until more bodies, probably two, turn up? Of women believed to have been pregnant and forcibly stripped of their babies and their reproductive organs. So, you’re in a hurry because you want these two women to survive their pregnancy. And only four months because it takes time to get a woman pregnant unless the rapist asshole gets lucky with his timing or he is part sex demon and can control her fertility.”
“Yes. The thought that we are dealing with someone who is part devil or demon has crossed our minds, but they could also be working with a succubus or incubus. We doubt that, however. The murder of an infant is abhorrent to sex demons. A week shouldn’t matter at this stage, as all evidence points that the women were at least eight months, usually right around nine months, pregnant before they were murdered.”
“So a week at the spa won’t endanger them?”
“We don’t believe so. We don’t even have any real leads, just a general location and a time period. Mostly, I knew you had a set period of time off and wanted to accommodate that. I should have more investigation details by the end of the week.”
His consideration of my customer service job made me smile. “We have some potential leads.”
“What do you mean?”
“Women missing from the right time period, following his pattern. And that’s a pattern. We need to review all of the cases and put together a timeline.”
Someone knocked on the door, and Sebastian went to answer it. “After dinner. We are at the pleasure part of our evening, and the work portion happens after the pleasure portion.”
“Are we ever going to work?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
As the first box had contained an unexpected peril in the form of a watch too expensive for me to even look at, let alone own, I freed the rest of the items from the basket, wondering what other horrors waited. While my older brothers had done well for themselves, had they done ‘stupidly expensive watch for their sister’ well? Had my family entered some form of illegal trade, opting to spoil me with their illicit gains?
What was even going on in my life?
Sebastian returned to the bathroom with two silver-covered dishes, which he set near the tub. Eight more dishes later, he returned to the door, and when he came back, he carried a bottle of red wine and two glasses in one hand and a basket covered with a cloth in the other. “I’m not sure I ordered enough, but this is my attempt to make up for not taking you out to a steakhouse as I promised, although I did get to take you to two buffets I really enjoy.”
I sniffed, and the enticing scent of steak teased my nose. “If this isn’t enough, we have cheese.”
“And if we hit the cheese because we’re still hungry, we’ll either be stoned or frisky, and then we won’t care we’re still hungry.” Sebastian laughed and set the basket beside the platters. “Do you want to open those boxes now?”
I returned the boxes to the basket. “They’re probably expensive, and I’ll freak out. I’d rather eat steak and explore the glories of this tub.”
Sebastian picked up the basket and carried it back to the sitting room before returning, effectively stripping out of his clothes and tossing his poor suit across the polished floors. “You’ll get the strip tease sometime after I’m not starving to death. There’s food for me to eat, so I will eat it. Immediately.”
“I get strip teases? Nobody told me I got strip teases.”
“Being my mate earns you a lot of sinfully good things, and strip teases are only one of them.” He took care stepping around me and got into the tub before starting the water. “Do you want to go through your gift bag? Otherwise, I’m going to start digging through it for the things I’ll be adding to the water.”
I giggled at his desire for efficiency, and I snagged the bag of goodies he’d gotten from the spa, tossed the tissues onto the floor to deal with later, and discovered a ridiculous number of bottles, jars, and bath goodies inside. “You have no restraint, do you?”
“When it comes to you, apparently not. And I was told the tub can handle anything we do to it, as they make sure they’re in good order when they come and clean the room.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Guilty as charged
. I’m done working for the day. Get naked and get that little ass over here. It’s play time, and I’ve scheduled you in for some serious purring.”
I grabbed random bottles and handed them over. “Figure this out. I have better things to do right now.”
Sebastian laughed and took the bottles. “Presents are great until it’s time to get naked, I see.”
“What can I say? I’m a cat, and I’m proud of it.”
Thanks to a big meal and some tender, loving care from Sebastian, I missed the planning portion of the evening, and I woke up five hours before we were scheduled to go to the spa. With nothing else to do, I checked on my bounties, reviewing the cases for one I could handle while the lion got in his beauty sleep. Considering purring in his ear hadn’t woken him, nor had poking him in the ribs, I expected I’d be able to sneak out without any issues.
The most dangerous of my bounties involved an asshole who liked spreading the virus by spiking drinks at a bar or a coffee shop, and he’d been spotted at a pixie dust vendor down the street from the resort. The CDC’s notes on him suggested he wanted others to join him in being miserable and infected against their will.
To confirm the bounty, I needed to catch Mr. Donald Haverly in the act. I got dressed, applied enough makeup to make my face disappear, spritzed myself with the remainder of my perfume, and headed for the coffee shop, planning on enjoying some quiet time unless my target showed up and made an idiot out of himself.
I would need some luck of the good variety.
I ordered a hot chocolate, got extra whipped cream, and resisted the urge to get any pixie dust. While the idea of working under the influence appealed, I needed to do a good job to get my pay.