Bullet

She had Matthew’s curly auburn hair, cut shorter and more styled, but her face was thi

Matthew kept his arms around my neck while she used a wet wipe on his mouth. Then she put a paler shade of lip gloss on his lips, though they didn’t seem to need any to me. She took the hat from me and put it over his curls. If he’d been any older the outfit would have been embarrassing to any boy I’d ever met, but at three it was actually . . . cute. I would not admit it out loud, but it was.

“Thank you so much, Anita,” Monica said. “I can’t believe I forgot it.”

I could, but I just smiled and kept quiet. Quiet usually worked better between Monica and me. A mass of little girls dressed in the girl version of his outfit bounced up, and he wiggled to be put down. I did so, happily.

Monica watched him run away with the others in his class with that proverbial mother’s look: pride, love, and almost possession. I never doubted that she loved her little boy. It was one of the reasons I was nice to her.

She turned to me, still smiling. “I’m so glad the recital is tonight so I can concentrate on the business tomorrow.”

I nodded, and tried to make my escape. Monica was apparently a better lawyer than she was a human being, or at least Jean-Claude trusted her to do up the contracts that might, or might not, be getting signed tomorrow. I trusted Jean-Claude to be a good businessman.

“Agreed,” I said, and tried to slip away.

She grabbed my arm. I don’t like to be touched by people that I’m not close to. I stiffened under her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. She leaned in and whispered, “If I was being offered a seventeen-year-old boy toy I’d be more excited, Anita.”

Matthew was out of sight so I let my eyes show just how happy that comment made me. Monica let go of my arm, her eyes a little wide, face surprised. “Oh, come on, Anita, what woman wouldn’t be flattered?”

“First, I haven’t agreed to letting him stay in St. Louis when they bring him in from Vegas tomorrow. Second, don’t ever call him a boy toy again.”

“Touchy,” she said, and then her face softened and her eyes glittered with some thought that I knew I wasn’t going to like. “Defensive of him already, Anita. My, my, he must be better in bed than I remember at that age.”

I leaned in and hissed in her ear. “We were all mind-raped by one of the scariest vampires to ever exist, Monica. She used me to feed on his power as a weretiger. She used me, and him, and all the other tigers in a bid to survive even if it meant destroying all of us. You tell me, what part of that was a good thing?” I had grabbed her arm somewhere in all that.

She spoke low. “You’re hurting me.”

I let go of her, and stepped back. She looked up at me, and I think for a moment let herself see me, really see me. She was angry, and for just a moment I knew that she didn’t like me any more than I liked her, not really. Then I watched a different look cross her face, one that most men would have thought was a good look, but a woman knows when another woman is about to drive the blade home.

“Fu

I fled the laughing costumed children and Monica’s knowing eyes. I waved at Matthew as he called my name, all lined up with the little girls in his class. I wanted to be in my seat so I could see him; he’d go on second. Yeah, that was it, I hurried to my seat to make sure I’d see his performance, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. I ran toward my seat and the men waiting for me, because part of me believed that Monica was right and all my words were just a case of the lady protesting too much.

2

I GOT BACK to the foot of the stairs and the still-crowded lobby. I sca

He turned his face toward me as if he’d felt me looking, and I could finally see all that delicate line of face, maybe a little long through the jaw for perfection, but that one line was all that saved him from looking like a beautiful woman instead of a man. Elementary school must have been hell, because short and pretty men don’t usually fare well. He told me that his eyes had originally been brown, but I’d never seen those eyes, the ones he was born with. He’d come to me with leopard eyes trapped forever in those dark lashes, chartreuse eyes green and yellow depending on what color he wore near his face or how the light caught them. Most of the time he wore sunglasses to hide the eyes, but wearing them after dark sometimes attracted more attention than what they hid, and it amazed him how many people could look him in the eyes and only remark, “What beautiful eyes.” Or, “What a great shade of green,” and never make the co

Nathaniel would say, “People see what they want to see, or what their minds tell them they should see most of the time.”

Micah gave me the smile that was all for me. It was made up of love, lust, and just that co