by R. J. Blain
“Damn it, Wells!” Sebastian roared in my direction.
As always, I purred. “I really like that roar of his. It makes my mornings so nice.”
“You’re a lycanthrope?”
I lifted my cup again in salute. “Of the feline variety, and let me tell you, it is good to be a cat. Now I must go see how many more times I can make that lion roar before he goes insane. It’s the little things in life.” The girl laughed, and I returned to Sebastian grinning and with a spring in my step. “You are cranky this morning, Mr. Mane.”
He checked his phone. “There’s time. If you hurry your ass back to our room, I’ll show you cranky.”
“I’m getting paid, I got a roar, and now I get to see the lion get cranky. This is going to be a great week.”
“You’re something else,” the lion muttered.
“And you like it, so don’t try to deny it, Mr. Mane.”
With my understanding Sebastian would hunt for me the instant he realized I’d slipped out of bed on him, I turned our week stay at the spa into a game. We spent the day at the spa and the evening together in our room, running up the room service bill to terrifying heights. In the wee hours of the morning, I would slip out of his warm clutches and go hunting bounties.
He won if he caught me before I made my hit. I won if he showed up while I was collecting my pay. Even when I lost, I won, as he made my job more pleasant, and without fail, I’d get at least one roar out of him before it was time to head back to the spa to be pampered. While I’d put in for several bounties, I only bagged three of them during the week. Another hunter beat me to the chase twice, one took more time and effort than I had to dedicate to the hit, and the final one crossed Mr. Mane’s lines.
That one liked killing lycanthropes for the fun of it.
As I had a lot more reasons to keep on living than I did even a week ago, I let him cancel my claim on the bid with a note that a non-lycanthrope should handle it to mitigate risk to CDC operatives. His concern amused me.
When it was time to leave the spa, we’d both earned a ridiculous collection of gift bags and baskets for our exemplary behavior, and as we hadn’t racked up even a single incident breaking the spa rules, we both got another basket when we checked out.
Sebastian stole the bill before I could get my hands on it. “You’re not winning this one, Wells.”
“But I ate at least half of the room service.”
“How tragic for you, being wined and dined. Purr for me, little kitty. You can pay me in purrs.”
Ruthless, wicked lion. Rather than purr for him, I huffed, grabbed my basket, and pulled it close. “Fine. This basket is mine, and you can’t have it.”
“Yes, that basket is yours. It is a prize for being possibly the best behaved lynx on the entire planet. I had no idea it was possible for a lynx to masquerade as an angel, but that is your reward for having pulled it off. As lions are perfection, I was given a basket as a gift for gracing this fine establishment with my presence.”
“You are such a lion.”
“We didn’t even receive a single noise complaint,” the woman said with a sly grin. “That is even more miraculous than a lynx behaving like an angel.”
I laughed at Sebastian. “Lions have a reputation, I see. For being noisy.”
His strained sigh amused me almost as much as his roars. “Your establishment’s superior soundproofing is the only reason I earned that basket.”
The woman laughed. “Thank you. We hope you have had a pleasant stay with us.”
Sebastian finished paying for the room, hid the receipt so I couldn’t peek at how excessive our indulgences were, and took hold of his basket. “We’re going to need to make a few trips, and we’re going to be challenged fitting this all into the cab.”
We really would be. We hadn’t even opened most of the presents, and I still had unwrapped boxes from the first basket. “You’re a good distraction, Mr. Mane. I’ll fetch the truck, you guard the presents.”
If I gave the lion a chance to argue with me, he would, so I headed for the door with my basket. While I’d checked on my father’s truck every day, I checked it over again, satisfied it had survived its adventure to Cincinnati without incident. I put the basket on the backseat, got behind the wheel, and eased the monster of a vehicle to the front doors so we could load everything inside.
Everything did fit, although it took us a few minutes to organize it. “This stuff won’t even fit in my place. There won’t be room for me.”
“I’ve decided I’m taking you home with me, although I’ll take you to your current place to retrieve everything you own. From the comfort of my current home, we will look for a home we both like. But I’m indulging in an act of kidnapping.”
The thought of him putting his strength to good use earned him a purr. “Can I struggle?”
“Absolutely. I’m counting on you struggling and wiggling for my enjoyment. I had no idea how much fun I’d have with a lynx who likes putting up a fight, but my life has become so much more enjoyable recently.”
“Which one of us is driving?”
“I’m driving. You’ll be planning and scheming how to approach this serial killer. I’m hoping we’ve gotten more information on him during our week here. I wasn’t really happy with the intel I had on him, in that we had a suspect list but no real proof any one of them is the one responsible.”
“Thus the CDC wanting to throw me under the bus because I meet the general appearance, size, and shape of the other victims.”
“And with the clock ticking for when the CDC and FBI expect the next batch of bodies to show up, they are hoping we can identify the killer—or killers—before that happens, but if we can’t, that we can catch them in the aftermath.” Sebastian sighed and waited for me to get a move on. I climbed into the truck and buckled in. “It worked out you had a week planned at the spa. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to handle you hunting this guy without cementing a mating bond. My virus would have gone ballistic.”
Mine wouldn’t have, not in the same way. Mine would have gone on a murderous rampage. In some ways, I wondered if my virus’s inclination to reject males was so strong she wouldn’t accept mating with an unwanted asshole. All-in-all, I was grateful for my virus’s unusual nature. “Mine just likes to murder unsuitable males. There were jobs I had to seriously fight her over because she wanted to permanently dispatch the asshole where the job was for a live capture.”
“Yes, there was a special note in your file about your general negative reaction to men. I’m relieved your virus just wanted me and wasn’t accepting any other options.”
“You still should have let me pay for my share of room service.”
“You paid for the room and the spa treatments. You did realize that my share was already included, right? You bought a package meant for two people, Harri.”
Oops. “I assumed expensive meant better. I didn’t think it meant I spent double the amount to go by myself. I just liked the schedule. I really did assume expensive meant better, though.”
“It was better. We spent a week being pampered by scantily clad men and women. And we got rewarded for relaxing and being docile. I don’t even know what they were expecting from us. We’re cats. If they want to spoil us, we’re accepting this without complaint. It must be wolves giving us lycanthropes a bad name at spas. I had zero desire to inflict any harm on anybody, although I’m severely jealous over your ability to purr. You purred your way through every session, to the point I couldn’t even get upset half-naked men had their hands all over you.”
“You had half-naked women with their hands all over you, too. And those women were hot, Sebastian. Anyone would question their sexuality when faced with those women. They must have been succubi. Otherwise, why else would they be so beautiful? It really wasn’t fair.”
“They were both lycanthropes, wolves to be specific—and I’m pretty sure they were mated to the men attending you. Didn’t you sniff to check?”
“I’m sure I tried, but in my defense, male wolves stink. It’s like they bathe in cologne, except it is musk of male wolf. My nose went dead after two minutes. It fainted from overexposure to male wolf. That would significantly limit rampages of jealousy, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. Basically, everybody in that room was happily mated, and they’re even happier to be mated after the adventures in the spa. I was very pleased with how frisky you became once I got you back to our room.”
“I’m pretty sure the cheese had something to do with that.” The cheese claimed to be infused with catnip, but I suspected it was actually an aphrodisiac instead. One that transformed me into a lion-hunting freak.
“Is it bad of me to say I might love your family a little? That cheese is something else.”
“And we still have more to enjoy, and because of that special, special box, we can take it anywhere we go.” When I saw my family again, someone was getting hugged. A lot of someones were getting hugged. There would be a cuddle pile of my choosing, and I would hug my entire family into submission. “I’m going to be so sad when the magic on that box wears off.”
“And when it does, I’ll take it to someone to renew the magic. Your box will be fine.”
“It better be. You will experience the full power of a lynx’s disappointment and grief.” I checked my new watch, which I’d put on because I had no plans for bounty hunting—for the moment. “I’m really concerned about how much this watch cost, though.”
“Your family must have been saving up for a long time to get you that basket. I think it’s sweet. Your uncle probably paid for most of it, as he is fairly high up the chain of handlers. I’ll repay him the favor making sure he gets another good hunter to handle, which will more than cover any financial burden he took on for your week in heaven.” Sebastian chuckled and plugged my home address into the navigation system. “Our first stop will be to your home so you can grab clean clothes. After that, I’ll deliver you to your family, so they can confirm you have emerged from the spa adventure healthy and happy. Once your family has been convinced you had a good time, we’ll get my vehicle and start our real hunt. Unless you want to nap on the way, you can do the preliminary research so we can put together a plan. Honestly, I was expecting several weeks of battling with you over this job before you took mercy on me.”
“The fucker is killing women and possibly babies. That’s all I needed to know to cooperate in full, Sumners. I’m viewing this job as a very murderous date, by the way. I want to treat this fucker’s body like a bone we’re fighting over.”
“I’m game, although we do need to collect the appropriate evidence. But you have me on hand for that, so I can handle the procedures for any evidence gathering. I’m hoping it’s more of a matter of shadowing this fucker, figuring out if there are any kids we have to worry about, letting you take your temper out on him so you get your surgery, and then hauling what’s left of the body to the CDC.”
“It must be so hard for the lion to accept he’s not getting this kill.”
“I’ll somehow survive through this, although I will need a long time to recover and a lot of care.”
“Your quality of care will be directly linked to the quality of your roars and ability to make me purr. I am a selfish feline. And once I’m under the knife to peel these scars off and replace them with appropriate skin, I need to purr a lot. To heal.”
“Yes, you are so selfish.” Sebastian chuckled. “You’re something else. For the record, you’re not selfish.”
“I am totally selfish.”
“You’re not a lion. The market on selfish is totally cornered by lions. You, at most, pretend you’re self-centered.”
“I went to a spa for a week, and I took some random man with me. That is totally selfish. I’m the queen of selfishness.”
“And your family did what to make sure you actually went?”
The lion would somehow pay for his crimes. “I mugged them for their pocket change.”
“You usually refuse gifts, so they conned you into accepting a bunch of presents under the guise of it being a welcome package left by the resort for staying with them for a week.”
“That is not just ruthless, you lion. That’s mean. Mean! I don’t have to be conned into accepting gifts.”
“I detect a little lynx is lying to me.”
I hissed at him. “I have no problems accepting gifts.”
“Have your pants caught on fire yet? Outside of the cheese, your family’s gifts have left you a mess. I am proud you managed to put the watch on this morning, however. You, yourself told me your family had to manipulate you into accepting gifts through using the kittens.”
Sebastian Sumners would somehow pay for his transgressions. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“You’re going to have to prove it to me, Miss Murder Mittens.”
I dug through the pile of junk at my feet for my new laptop, which I’d converted to be my work laptop at Sebastian’s recommendation, as he had opinions about the old one. Which had, thanks to those opinions, died a terrible death in a disturbingly sexy fashion.
I was a lynx to the core, and watching the lion dismantle it with his bare hands while naked had done me in—and gotten Sebastian his way. And would result in me finding old laptops he could tear apart while I watched, drooling over the flex of his muscles.
The lion couldn’t be permitted to get away with challenging me. My need to win stirred my virus, and as the game involved Sebastian, she settled in to enjoy the ride. “And how do you expect me to prove it, Mr. Mane?”
“I have a present for you, and I expect you to accept it in front of your entire family without looking horrified I got you something. No horror, no self-deprecation, nothing negative. You must be delighted you received a present. And since you’re receiving a gift from a lion, that’s something special. I mean, lions are truly selfish, and lions do not just get presents for anybody.”
Somehow, he would pay. “What do you mean I can’t be horrified you got me something and decided to show it to me in front of my entire family?”
“If you have no problems accepting gifts, you should be delighted I got you a present. I’m okay if you don’t shower me with public gratitude, but if you have no problems accepting gifts, this should be easy for you.”
“Evil, wicked lion!”
“But you don’t have a problem accepting gifts,” he teased.
“You will pay for this,” I muttered.
“But will you be in my bed while naked while you’re making me pay for my various transgressions?”
“Actually, yes.”
“I don’t see the problem.”
Neither did I. “What were we arguing about again?”
“How best to get proof that Stefan Loureni, our current top suspect in the serial killing of women in a disturbing copy-cat style of Jack the Ripper, is actually the one behind the murders. And if he isn’t, who is.”
“How’d you get a suspect name?”
“I glanced at the case file this morning before we checked out. That’s an upgrade from a week ago, where I had four or so suspects to work with, Loureni being one of them. I believe the FBI did a full profiling of the victims and found connections with him, but that’s not actual admissible proof—all it proves is he has had some form of contact with all of the victims before their disappearances. Most importantly, he’s the only person who has had some form of contact with all of the victims. Since that is the strongest lead the FBI has, the CDC opted for you to work your magic on this case. Considering the number of bodies turning up, how they’re turning up, and the lack of any children being located, dead or alive, they thought it warranted involving you.”
“At a huge cost to them.”
“It’s not a huge cost to them when it’s CDC employees handling the operation. Sure, there’s some general expenses associated with your procedure, but the specialists are in the CDC’s employ, and paying them for a day’s worth of work to put an end to a serious pr
oblem is small change to them. A lot of the expense associated with your operation is to personnel, since they run a heightened chance of contracting lycanthropy during the procedure. The actual cost of the procedure is a fraction of what you’d pay for it.”
“Because it’s not medically necessary. I know. It’s also a pain in the ass to tame the virus, there will be a team of like ten skilled surgeons making sure everything goes right, and then I need a fortune of skin products afterwards and an amorous lion to keep my virus tamed while I heal. That’s expensive, especially for something not medically necessary.”
“According to what the CDC has told me, the actual direct cost of your procedure is two hundred thousand, and that excludes the hourly rate for the surgeons and the use of hospital equipment. In disposable supplies.”
I squeaked. “It’s that much in disposable supplies?”
“Yeah, that surprised me. The cream is some seriously impressive stuff. It requires the highest grade neutralizers I guess, and that stuff is not cheap, and considering how much of the cream you need, your care enters orbit. That base cost is going up dramatically, because that assumed only your face and neck.”
“Maybe we should gift wrap the body and add a little bow.”
“At least you didn’t try to convince me you’re not worth that much.”
“Well, I don’t really care if others don’t think I’m worth that much. I think having a fixed face is worth that much. I just couldn’t afford it.”
“This makes sure everyone walks away happy. So, get that laptop rolling and start reviewing the documents. I asked for everything the CDC, FBI, and general law enforcement has on Loureni to be sent to you. After how good of a time we had in Cincinnati, I think we’ll go to a spa-styled resort in his hunting grounds. Depending on the situation, we’ll come up with a cover story for why I’m around.”
“Or we see if they have any connecting rooms and we reserve both, so you’re spending all of your time with me, although you’re technically in the room next door. But really, I have no intention of bringing him to where I will be sleeping.” I snorted while booting the laptop. “With you, in case it wasn’t obvious. Lions are slow in addition to selfish.”