03 - You Only Live Nine Times

by E A Price

  Raf bristled unhappily. Yeah, he was worried about her. Now he was scowling at her. She had to wipe her delighted look off her face. She reached over and rubbed his thigh; he liked that, it calmed him – she could tell. Plus, she kind of enjoyed it, too.

  “It’ll be okay, I do this sort of thing all the time.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he muttered, crossly.

  “Hello, my darlings!”

  Raf jumped as a brightly dressed woman erupted into the room. She was prettily plump and had masses of black hair piled on her head. She gave them both a benign smile before dropping onto the empty beanbag. Unlike Kalinda, who gave off a scary ‘don’t fuck with me or I’ll turn you into a toad vibe’, Amanda seemed to be more like a fairy godmother. The idea that this woman would rob a grave seemed preposterous at face value. Either Kalinda had deliberately fed them incorrect information, which she doubted, or Amanda was a really good actress.

  She pointed a green fingernail at Isis and then moved it to Raf. “You must be Issy, the tiger shifter, and you must be Rafael, the human, welcome to the Twin Dragon Clinic. I understand you want help conceiving a daughter.”

  Raf took Isis’ hand in his and raised it to his lips, brushing them over her skin. She almost forgot they were pretending to be married and whimpered. Luckily, she was also an excellent actress and pulled herself together faster than a birthday cake is devoured within the offices of the SEA. Seriously, if anyone brings in cake on their birthday, there’s a stampede to get to it.

  Isis nodded with enormous sad eyes. She even allowed her pert nose to sniffle. “We’ve been trying and trying, but nothing’s been happening. It’s so unfair!” She straddled the line between cutesy little girl pouting and outright wailing. It worked, too.

  “Hush, my dear. Cross-species fertility can be tricky, but luckily for you, there are those of us in the world who are talented enough to overcome your little problem.” Amanda put her hand on her ample bosom and looked up to the ceiling with the hint of a tear in her eye.

  Surely she meant egotistical enough, right? Raf looked in interest in the direction where Amanda was looking, but he just shrugged.

  “Thank god, we met you, Amanda,” he said in his panty-wetting voice.

  Amanda giggled and actually started patting her beehive do. Oh, you are going down, witch, snarled Ms. Kitty. She had to find a way to stop Raf from using that voice of his - it was too gosh darn sexy!

  “Before we get started,” he said, “do you mind if I use the restroom?”

  Son of a bitch! He was going to use that excuse to go and snoop around. How dare he? That was her job! Isis squashed the hand that was still entwined with hers. His face tensed, and his eyes started to water under the pressure.

  “Of course, darling,” cooed Amanda. “Turn left, and then left again and it’s the second door on your right.”

  “Thanks, Amanda,” he ground out. He kissed her hand, and she reluctantly released him. “Be right back, kitten.” She allowed a smile to smother her face, but her eyes were telling him that he was dead. Her tiger was not a happy beast. Why if he thought it was too dangerous for her to snoop did he think she would be okay with him snooping?

  He slipped out the room, and Isis turned back to Amanda, who was studying her with interest. Yikes, under a witch’s glare was not a place you wanted to find yourself.

  Amanda clasped her hands together. “Becky told me you asked for me by name. May I ask who referred you here?”

  Isis leaned back slightly, trying to appear relaxed while not falling off the damn beanbag. “Actually, it was Kalinda of Kalinda’s Magical Emporium. You’re friends, right?”

  The witch’s light blue eyes hardened slightly and were not quite as friendly as a few moments ago. “Of course, we’re all friends in the magical community.”

  Yeah, right. Time for a little confidential girl talk. With a great effort, Isis heaved herself forward and licked her lips. “Between you and me, Kalinda told me that you were the best because you were willing to go the extra mile if you know what I mean.”

  Amanda eye-balled her watchfully for a couple of minutes, and Isis was careful to maintain her goofy, guileless look.

  “It’s my job,” she said eventually, in a gravelly voice, “to help people, by any means necessary.”

  Isis bobbed her head almost violently as Ms. Kitty perked up in interest. “Of course. I’ve been trying to research fertility potions.” She wrinkled her nose. “Most of the early ones seemed to involve human body parts.” She left that fact hanging in anticipation.

  “Yes,” chuckled Amanda, “the early ones were pretty crude. Although, not much has really changed.”

  “So you really do cook up some of those old potions?” Yes, they were about to solve the case, she was about to crack Amanda and prove she had been stealing the bodies. In a few hours she and Raf could be celebrating, and she had a wonderful idea about how they could do that…

  “If necessary,” replied Amanda, evasively. “But we tend to look to other alternatives before doing anything drastic. Look, it’s nothing personal about your guy; he’s lovely and so handsome.”

  “Isn’t he?” asked Isis, sweetly as she tried to blow-up Amanda with her mind. Eyes off witch-skank!

  “But human males don’t tend to do well with female shifters. Fertility tends to be at its lowest between that combination. It may be that your guy’s not up to the job.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For cases like these, I advise a surrogate.”

  Isis acted dumb. “Someone to carry the baby for me?”

  “No, no, no. I mean, you donate us some of your eggs and we fertilize them with the sperm of a tiger shifter matching Raf’s general physical appearance. You want a tiger shifter anyway, and there really is no difference between tigers who have two full-blooded shifter parents and tigers who have one human parent.”

  “How could you find someone who looked like Raf?” Did she have access to a massive bank of sperm? Yuck - gross mental image.

  “We have friends at a sperm bank who are happy to acquire what we need.”

  Yes, apparently so!

  “Does this work out for other couples?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Sometimes we have to use surrogates for both the mother and father, and sometimes it’s better they don’t know.”

  Ms. Kitty growled furiously. If her secret to helping people get their babies was just using other people’s eggs and sperm, then the whole clinic was a con. Damnit! It was all a con! Sure they were helping people get pregnant, but they weren’t really helping them achieve their dream offspring, and they were substituting other people’s eggs and sperm. They allowed their clients to believe they would be getting perfect, beautiful children because they knew they wouldn’t still be in business by the time their children were fully grown. She bet there was a little magic in there somewhere, such as influencing the sex, but the end result was nowhere near what they were promising.

  Kalinda was right. Amanda was a mediocre witch.

  “Kalinda was right, you are a mediocre witch.” Hey, sometimes she just said what she thought.

  Amanda looked like she had been slapped in the face and Isis was tempted to make that a reality. Instead, she pulled out her badge. “SEA, witch, you have a lot of explaining to do.”

  *

  Raf flexed his hand. Man, Isis had a firm grip. It was worth it, though. No way did he want her roaming around potentially running into a guy like Bongo, the witch doctor.

  He walked along the corridors as stealthily as possible. He wasn’t too worried about being caught; he’d just say he was lost on his way to the bathroom. He’d been in a few rooms, but they were nothing special, more psychedelic consultation rooms and then some that looked like birthing rooms. He spotted the couple he had observed entering the clinic earlier, the rhino or hippo shifter and the human. They grinned at him as they walked past, and he returned it with feeling. They didn’t see any reason why he wouldn�
��t be wandering around.

  Everything seemed pretty normal for a clinic. It was fairly quiet, and hardly bustling with life, but that was hardly surprising. The only thing he’d found so far that had a lock on it was a medicine cabinet in one of the birthing rooms, but that definitely wasn’t big enough to fit any dead bodies.

  But then, there was the interesting metal door to consider.

  He approached it cautiously. Searching somewhere without a warrant didn’t sit right with him. But if he wasn’t doing it, he knew Isis would be, and there was no way he would have been able to stop her. The tigress was impatient and impulsive, qualities that both exasperated and excited him.

  He’d just take a look around, and if he saw anything that shouldn’t be there, he’d work doubly hard at getting a search warrant for this place. Maybe he’d petition Judge Schneider. She was a fifty-eight-year-old widow and definitely had a bit of a soft spot for Raf. He realized that after she attended the Commissioner’s last Christmas party and spent the entire evening trying to cop a feel of his ass. Well, if getting a warrant meant he had to submit to Schneider’s fondling, he’d do it – it was a small price to pay.

  He waited for a few moments to see if he could hear anything through the door. Nothing. Well, he might as well get this over with.

  He pushed his way into the room, ready to exclaim ‘hey, this isn’t the restroom’ if anyone happened to be there. Thankfully, no one was. It was like a mad scientist’s lab. The only things missing were brains in jars and one of those machines that randomly created electricity. He inspected the many jars and equipment, mindful of the time he was taking and that someone could easily walk in on him. Some of the jars contained a few things that Raf suspected were obtained illegally – freeze-dried monkey brain for one – but he would need to check on that.

  Raf sucked in a breath as he opened a huge chest freezer and was partially relieved and disappointed to find it empty. If they had an involvement in digging up the bodies, he couldn’t see any evidence in this room.

  Cutting his losses, and believing his absence might be noticeable, he made his way back to their consultation room. So far this whole endeavor had been a disappointment, he only hoped that Isis might have made some progress.

  As he swung back into the room, he froze at the sight of Isis kneeling on top of Amanda, who was screeching and flailing under the solid weight of a five-foot-ten tigress.

  “Ah, Raffy, perfect timing, Amanda was just about to tell me everything.”

  *

  The rest of the day involved Amanda shrieking loudly about calling for her lawyer, searching for Bongo who was nowhere to be found and gently trying to find out just how many couples the clinic staff had been playing Russian roulette with their sperm and eggs. They could find no evidence that the clinic had anything to do with the missing bodies, and Amanda actually seemed to be affronted that they think she might have.

  There were going to be a lot of unhappy couples in Los Lobos. Isis was glad that the clinic would not go on with their questionable practices, but she was uneasy about the potential damage this may cause to the many couples who had been ‘helped’ by the clinic, and their children. Still, the truth would have come out eventually no matter what.

  Raf rubbed his neck. “Call it a night?”

  “Oh, yeah.” The whole situation had been a total clusterfuck, and certainly hadn’t gotten them any closer to closing the actual case they were working on.

  He gave her a smoldering look that just about set her on fire. Or at least one part of her. “You wanna get a drink or something?”

  Or something. Ms. Kitty roared at the endless possibilities flitting through her mind. “Well, I’m supposed to be going out with friends, but I can totally blow them off and tell them I got a better offer… unless you wanna join us?”

  Raf’s lips quirked. “They won’t mind a human horning in?”

  “Oh, they put up with much worse than you,” she said truthfully while thinking of Cutter, the world’s surliest wolf shifter. She still hadn’t figured out how he managed to trick a bubbly hedgehog shifter into mating with him.

  “Okay, cool.”

  “Awesome.”

  Chapter Ten

  Isis smiled at Raf as she led him into the Chinese restaurant. She nodded at Mai, the hostess of The Bamboo Palace and a Pallas’s cat shifter. Mai’s eyes widened with interest on seeing Raf and Isis’ upper lip curled in a warning sneer. Mai flinched and suddenly found her hostess station incredibly interesting. Ms. Kitty huffed. Yeah pussy cat, mine. Grrr.

  She was a little apprehensive about introducing Raf to her friends. She knew they wouldn’t do anything crazy like actually pounce on him, but… well, shifters were different to humans. And what they might see as normal conversation – like zombie talk and sexual heats – it would be a foreign language to a human. Or maybe she was just worried about what they might tell him about her. Undoubtedly it was obvious that she was hardly a saint, but he didn’t want him to think badly of her. Plus, a part of her didn’t want him to meet the perfect, blonde lioness, Avery and decide he liked her better. Two female cats - they kind of had a teeny, tiny rivalry. And while Isis could get over the superficial blow to her pride another man would cause if he chose Avery over her, she knew it wouldn’t be the same with Raf.

  She’d sent Avery a text informing her that she was bringing Raf and that everyone better be on their best fucking behavior. Avery sent back lots of emojis with various hearts and kisses, asking if he was cute. Isis ignored her as her tiger growled in irritation. Damn lioness better keep her paws to herself.

  Isis took a long breath as they approached the table. “Well, Raffy, deep breath and try not to make eye contact…”

  *

  “You’ve met Gunner. The toothy guy is Wayne; floppy hair is Wes. The grumpy one is Cutter and the far-too-good for him woman he’s attached to is Lucie. This is our cutesy, little helper, Jessie. And this old hag is Avery. Everyone, meet Raf.”

  Avery pursed her lips, and her eyes glittered but she didn’t say anything. She was anything but haggish – quite the opposite, but he imagined this stemmed from a kind of rivalry. He didn’t know why. Avery was attractive enough in a blue eyed, blonde, cookie cutter mold, but she wasn’t a patch on the red headed temptress dominating his every thought.

  “Nice to meet you all.” He smiled at them all, and they murmured greetings in return. Apart from Cutter they looked friendly enough. The grouchy looking man grunted and curled his arm around the curvy Lucie a little more tightly.

  “Where’s Erin?” asked Isis, looking around.

  “Bathroom,” rumbled Gunner.

  Isis raised her eyebrows in a comical fashion. “And you let her go on her own?”

  “Well, I, uh…” The big guy’s face dropped, and he glanced nervously towards the bathroom.

  “Mmmm hmmm,” intoned Avery. “Bathrooms can be pretty dangerous – lots of hard surfaces.”

  “Fuck, I didn’t think!” Raf watched with some amusement as Gunner jumped up with a surprising amount of grace and pelted away.

  Avery and Isis snickered. Jessie frowned at them. “You guys are evil.”

  “It’s just too easy,” sniffed Isis.

  Moments later, Gunner returned with a small brunette tucked under his arm. He made a fuss about getting her seated and putting his arm around her. She allowed it with a resigned look on her face. Isis introduced her as Erin, and she gave him a warm smile.

  A waiter came by to take their order and Gunner surprised him by ordering for everyone, and even more so by ordering about five times the amount of food he expected a group of their size to eat.

  “Damn, that’s a lot of food,” he commented to Isis.

  “Shifters eat a lot. As soon as the food arrives, you better hurry up and get some, and watch your hands or you might lose a finger.”

  Raf snickered until he realized she wasn’t joining in. “You’re kidding?”

  “Not at all.” She gave him a patien
t smile and slipped her hand under the table to give his leg a firm squeeze. Blood rushed to his groin and he had to quell the groan that wanted to escape.

  He realized some of Isis’ friends were smirking at him. Hadn’t Isis said something about being able to smell arousal? Fuck, he must smell more potent than a whole bordello. He cleared his throat, willing his erection to deflate, willing the heat to disappear from his cheeks. He needed to change the subject. “So all you guys are shifters?”

  “I’m not, I’m human,” piped up Erin.

  “Really?” Isis told him all her friends worked for the SEA. He really didn’t expect any members of the SEA to be human. He had trouble imagining a human being able to take down a shifter.

  “She’s a psychic,” Gunner told him proudly as he placed a kiss on her temple.

  “How’d you keep up with these guys? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  A smug expression spread over the big guy’s face. “That’s not an issue anymore.”

  “Well, at the moment I’m desk bound because I’m pregnant,” she admitted, as her cheeks turned pink in pleasure.

  Raf ignored Isis’ eye roll. “Congratulations.”

  “But usually it’s not a big issue; I’m not as fast or strong as the shifters on my team, but I have other talents.”

  “Yes, we have no problem with humans being on the teams,” said Isis.

  “What?” exclaimed Avery, grinning madly. “You constantly told me and everyone else that would listen that Erin would make a terrible agent when she was transferred here.”

  Isis’ eyes narrowed. “Well, I meant her specifically not humans in general. And I meant running, and weapons wise – which I stand by. No offense, Erin, but when you run you look like an uncoordinated giraffe and the idea of you pointing a gun at anyone is quite frankly horrifying.”

  Gunner growled lowly, but Erin just giggled. “Gee, why would I find that offensive?”