by E A Price
“Excuse me, sir; we’re about to close.” No, they were meant to close ten minutes ago – she was just too polite for her own good. Damn her cowardly niceness!
The male turned and smiled at her, making her inner bird flutter uneasily. He was a good looking older guy, even with the wicked scar over his eyebrow, but he was also… cold – freeze your toes off cold. His eyes held no warmth.
“I’ll just be a minute,” he murmured.
“Okay,” she said faintly.
Georgie busied herself at the register, pretending to dust it while she cast nervous glances in his direction. She didn’t know what species he was; her penguin wasn’t blessed with a good sense of smell – few bird shifters were – but she could tell he was a shifter. Possibly a predator by the looks of him. Tall, broad and dangerous looking.
Her inner bird became impatient. She wanted sushi damnit!
It was with a great sigh of relief when he sauntered toward the exit, flashing her a rakish smile.
“You have a good evening,” he cooed before leaving.
She squeaked in reply, ignoring the huff of her bird. Georgie shook her head. She was uneasy over nothing.
Quickly shutting down the lights and locking up, she made her way out back to her car, stilling as she found her scarred customer leaning against her Beetle.
“That’s my car,” she said tremulously. She glanced back at the store, wondering if she could make it to the door, unlock it and get inside before he caught her. Doubtful she thought bitterly. She wasn’t built for speed.
The male ignored her. “Take her,” he growled.
“Wha…”
Georgie screeched as two huge males appeared out of the darkness and lunged at her. Her bird took over and with a howl she shifted to her penguin. It was enough to distract them, and she knocked them down and made a waddle for freedom. Sadly, the enormous prick she suddenly felt in her back made that impossible. Yeah, that was thanks to Scarface, and it was a tranq dart. She wobbled for a few seconds before collapsing to the ground. She gave a desultory yelp as the three men stared down at her.
“Fuck, she’s enormous.”
“Yeah, what a freak.”
“She’s fat as a human but fuck me penguins should not be that big!”
Scarface scowled. “Shut up. Put her in the van.”
Georgie tried her best to struggle as they puffed and panted lifting her up, but it was no good. Her limbs were not co-operating. She was being taken, and there was nothing she could do about it, and there was no Liam Neeson to save her.
As her vision faded, both penguin and woman tried to sob.
*
Los Lobos
Mercy – to her credit – didn’t say a word as Zane trudged through the office carrying a fish tank.
“Any calls?” he asked hopefully. A new client? A new case?
“No,” she replied tersely.
Note to self, never ask Mercy to rip off a band aid.
She did get up from her desk and leaned against the doorframe as he installed the fish tank, watching him with interest.
“Pretty,” she said when he’d finished.
“Yeah, supposed to be calming.”
He watched as the striped clown fish fluttered to and fro. What? They were pretty. It had nothing to do with that movie - or the new one. He stared at them for a few moments.
“You know you have to feed them and clean them out, right?” said Mercy.
He grunted. “It’ll give me something to do.” Something had to fill his time; work certainly wasn’t.
“They look good anyway. Having something alive in the office, I don’t know. It instills confidence. It says we plan on being here beyond the end of the week… which is when our rent is due.”
Zane grunted again and stared at the fish. Although his bear took a passing interest in them – them being fish and all – he realized he couldn’t eat them and soon became very bored. So far they weren’t having much of a calming effect.
Work was still slow. He was tasked with finding a missing husband last week. He hadn’t been missing long enough for the LLPD to take an interest, so Zane set out to find him. Turned out, the guy was shacked up with his twenty-year-old mistress. The wife was so angry she was blaming Zane – shoot the messenger and all that – and she was refusing to pay up for his efforts.
“I handed out a bunch of cards to the guys at The Magic Room last night,” said Mercy. “I was jiggling my boobs in their faces at the time, so I don’t know how much got through to them, but you never know.”
“Maybe you should go back there full time.” So she could afford to eat and stuff like that.
“Nah.”
“You don’t like stripping?” he muttered as clown fish one butted heads with clown fish two. Yeah, it didn’t seem worth naming them. They’d probably be repossessed at the end of the week anyway.
“It’s not that, it’s easy money, and the girls are great, but it doesn’t have a great future. I’m thirty now, and the boss was already talking about putting me on the day shift.” She shuddered and folded her arms.
Zane raised an eyebrow. “That’s bad?”
Mercy gave him a patient look. “Yeah, that’s bad. They keep the hottest girls for the night shift when it’s busy, and the tips are good.”
“Micky doesn’t think you’re hot?” Zane wasn’t interested in Mercy sexually – she’d taken on a kind of annoying older sister role the moment they met, but even he couldn’t deny she was radiant. He’d seen her at the club – all eyes went to her the moment she stepped on stage.
“Well, when I say hottest, I mean youngest. Thirty may be the new twenty-five for other women. But when it comes to exotic dancing at The Magic Room – thirty is the new forty.”
His bear growled. This sounded like a female thing he wouldn’t understand.
“The day shift is like a wasteland of drunk and unemployable losers – they don’t have much money and don’t care whether the woman they’re looking at happens to be over the hill. I want out before I get the dayshift. It’s like stripping exile. Besides, that guy Christian Hawk is trying to buy up the neighborhood to turn it into a mini-mall or a hotel or something. The club probably won’t be around for much longer. I gotta get out of there while I still can.” She sniffed before adding, “Rich dick.”
Zane nodded, now thoroughly caught up on The Magic Room stripping politics, and stared at the fish.
Mercy inspected her nails. “Maybe you should drum up business.”
“You mean like go out and commit crimes so I can solve them?”
“Couldn’t hurt. And failing that there’s still Mrs. Driver and her missing pet.”
Zane groaned. People should not be allowed to keep wild crocodiles as pets – this was one pet that wasn’t going to be turned in at the animal shelter.
“Yes, I guess I’ll get on that.”
Mercy shrugged. “She paid half the money upfront for us to keep it quiet. She’s the reason we’re paid up until the end of the week. Get her baby back and we can probably go another month alone on what she’s willing to pay us.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Giant crocodiles should never be referred to as babies. His bear huffed. What the hell was wrong with getting a kitty cat?
“Remember she wants the thing back alive.”
“Kind of more worried about me coming back alive, but sure.”
He checked his cell phone, checked his messages. Something from Melissa would be nice. Something from the SEA begging him to come back to work would be even better. Nothing. His bear shifted uneasily inside him. He knew Melissa distanced herself a little because of the divorce, but he thought that was finalized. He’d texted and called her – all to no reply. Maybe she just had a lot to do he thought generously. His bear harrumphed at his reasoning. He usually wasn’t a reasonable guy.
He was probably obsessing over nothing. Sure thought his beast nastily and Zane snarled at him to shut it.
Nope, he wasn’t thinking about it.
Right now he had a missing croc to find. Bah – who needed the SEA anyway?
Chapter Four
Zane pulled a new shirt over his head – the last one having been shredded by an irate croc and his own bear during his shift. Well, at least he could add crocodile wrangler to his resume.
He’d found the beast, hiding in the garden of a rich couple who were out of town on vacation – thankfully, otherwise, they’d be sushi right about now. They had a small artificial lake, and the croc had been enjoying himself in the water, sunbathing and eating any stray rodents or birds that happened to scuttle his way.
And no, he hadn’t wanted to leave his newfound haven.
It had led to a lot of wrestling, the croc pulling Zane underwater and an eventual smackdown between a bear and a crocodile – it was like something from a B-movie horror. But finally Zane prevailed. Fluffy – the monster was seriously called Fluffy – was back with his mommy and Zane would at least be getting paid pretty handsomely for his efforts.
Zane took a sniff of his armpits. He smelled a little swampy, but not altogether terrible. He’d already called Mercy and told her to send the bill to Fluffy’s mommy. But given that they had no other cases to deal with, he decided to head on over and handle one of the other problems in his life.
He banged on Melissa’s door for five minutes before it was opened by a half-naked lynx shifter. His grouchy bear reared back at the scent of sex.
“What?” snapped the broken-nosed lynx. Or rather the lynx that was about to have a broken nose… or worse if his pacing bear got free. Control hanging by a thread. Counting to ten, one…
“Is this… where’s Melissa?” snarled Zane.
The lynx shifter sighed. “Lissy! Wait here,” he growled at Zane. Two…
He slammed the door, and Zane heard the makings of an argument inside.
When Melissa did wrench the door open, she was in a kimono, and her cheeks flushed. “Zane what are you doing here?” she asked impatiently. Three…
“Who the hell is that guy?” Zane tried to look past her into the house. Four…
“He’s… he’s no one. No one for you to worry about.” Five…
“He’s naked and in your house.” Six…
Melissa’s look of panic morphed into an easy smile. A slow, seductive smile. His bear huffed in warning. Seven…
“He’s my cousin – seriously, he’s no one. He’s my deadbeat cousin who turned up on my doorstep looking for a place to stay for a while. I couldn’t say no – when I was growing up, I used to crash at his place all the time when my dad went on a bender.”
A hint of vulnerability entered her eyes and her bottom lip wobbled. Yes, her father had been a drunken asshole, and damn did it ping his sympathy button every time she brought it up. But he wasn’t entirely convinced. Still on seven…
“I smell sex,” hissed Zane. Course it was kind of hard to tell over his own body odor.
Melissa laughed lightly. Eight…
“He hooked up with someone and brought her back here,” she explained nonchalantly.
“But you smell…”
“I’ve been masturbating,” she whispered, biting her lip at her own naughtiness.
His bear squinted. She seemed neither guilty nor embarrassed by that fact.
“I was just about to get into the shower.”
Zane gave her a doubtful look. “It’s 11.30 in the morning.”
“And the only time I really get to enjoy some alone time is when the kids are at school.”
“But your cousin is here…” Her story had all sorts of holes in it.
Melissa shrugged. “Well, what’s good for the goose and all that. He was enjoying himself so I thought I would, too.”
Hmmm. Was he really going to believe this? His bear virtually slapped his forehead.
“Look, Zane,” she cooed and pushed her breasts together in a very distracting manner. “You know you’re my hero for everything you’ve done – my asshole ex finally signed the divorce papers, and I finally got the settlement I wanted… needed. But my kids are still kind of reeling from what happened. I don’t think it would be good for them to see a strange man around here – at least not for a little while. So you really shouldn’t come around.”
“You haven’t returned my phone calls.” Nine…
Melissa reached out and stroked his cheek. “I know. I’ve been busy with the kids and sorting out all the paperwork. Changing my name - that kind of thing.”
With every touch of her fingers, ever syllable uttered from her mouth, his annoyance dissipated, and he couldn’t imagine why he’d been angry in the first place. He plummeted back down to one without another thought. Melissa always did that to him. No matter how furious he was, she could calm him, make him feel better, mollify the raging beast within. And although the bear didn’t like it, he had to admit that she could tame him. Maybe that’s what the bear didn’t like about her – the fact that she could so easily control him, but Zane found her soothing. It was the reason why he’d always carried a torch for her. Probably always would.
“I get it,” he murmured, nuzzling her hand like a love-struck cub, ignoring the frustrated grunts of his beast.
“I knew you would. You’re my rock,” she crooned just a tad too smugly.
Zane pressed his lips together to stop himself from accidentally snarling or telling her where to stick her damn rock comment.
She tickled his neck before sighing. “But you better get going. I don’t really want to give the neighbors anything to talk about.”
“No,” he grudgingly agreed.
Although, really he couldn’t give a crap. Zane wasn’t a bad guy, but he wouldn’t exactly consider himself gallant. Since Melissa swept back into his life, he hadn’t been with another woman. Course, he hadn’t actually been with Melissa either. Which meant he was nursing a pair of very tender, blue balls. He could happily take her up against the house that instant while simultaneously giving the finger to the neighbors.
With apparent reluctance, she pulled her hand away and blew him a kiss. “I’ll call you when the time is right.”
He nodded dreamily as the door was given a resounding slam in his face. He blinked a few times as his lust abated.
Great. Another night spent whacking off in the shower.
Find another woman growled his bear.
Zane shook his head. No. No point in even trying. He’d been out a few times, trying to pick up a random female. None had appealed since Melissa returned.
No, he would just have to wait and in the meantime throw himself into his work… if he could get any.
*
Sky Danvers smiled as the last of her class bid her good night. Olive, the beaver shifter was enthusiastic but perhaps not very well suited to yoga – her limbs just did not want to obey. Not that it mattered, all that mattered was trying, and making yourself feel good. Given the beaver’s happy smile on her flushed cheeks every time she left the class, Sky would say that was a success
She waved as the small, stout woman give an enthusiastic hug to her beaver mate, who turned pink at the attention and his face lit up excitedly. Olive had shyly admitted that doing yoga made her very happy, which in turn made her mate very happy – their sex life was just getting better and better the bendier Olive became. She’d even told her that she would name her first kit Sky. Although Sky wouldn’t hold them to it, she was very touched
Her inner unicorn preened. She was just thankful that she could work in a job she loved so much. Making people happy was incredible.
The smile stuck to her face as she noticed Erik the elk shifter approaching.
Please keep on walking.
She always tried to find the best in everyone. She spent a long time meditating and learning to control herself to the point where she could say that she didn’t lose her temper over anything. But she did struggle when it came to Erik.
He was part owner of the gym. Erik didn’t actually work there; he just seemed to hang around the gym all d
ay, every day, making lewd comments about women, upsetting people with derogatory remarks about their appearances and generally making a nuisance of himself.
He was indecently rude to anyone who wasn’t either fit or toned. Making it known they had no place in his gym. Which was ridiculous – surely most of the gyms clientele were people who came to get fit, because they wanted to lose a few pounds, because they wanted to be toned?
Erik was just an ass. Not something she thought lightly, and not something she was going to lose her temper over she assured her inner animal.
But it didn’t help that he tried to hit on her at every opportune moment with sleazy come-ons. The time he accidentally came into the women’s locker room and cornered her had been a particularly horrific experience. Thank heavens Rhonda the jujitsu instructor came in when she did. Sky was about ready to unleash her inner animal when Rhonda hustled the pervy elk out of there. Showing her beast to Erik was the last thing she wanted.
Darn it. Erik spotted her, and he was making a beeline in her direction.
Sky hurriedly stuffed everything into her backpack.
“Hey,” rumbled Erik.
He was wearing a smirk and not much else. His chest was bare, freshly waxed and gleaming with baby oil, while his bottom half seemed to have been poured into a pair of tight neon green shorts. The outline of his manhood was very visible - barf-inducingly so. She’d seen many of the ladies in the gym giggling over his (allegedly) stuffed package, but she wasn’t sure if they were giggling because they were interested, or because, like Sky, they found him tragically laughable.
“Hi, Erik,” she said in a forced friendly voice.
“Your last class just finished?” He flicked his long blonde hair over his shoulder, and she pressed her lips together to stop herself from chuckling. It was a flirty move used by lots of women – Sky included – yet it didn’t have quite the same effect when a huge elk shifter did it.