is on you.”
He walked to the SUV and opened the door for Stevie. “Ma’am?”
“Okay,” Stevie said hurriedly. “Nice seeing you again, Matt. Tell your mom I said ‘hi.’”
Stevie scrambled into the vehicle, letting Shen close the door behind her.
“Sir, are you all right?” one of the valets asked Wells, but Stevie wasn’t too worried. No self-respecting lion male would ever have full-humans intervene in a common shifter fight. At the same time she wouldn’t put it past him to unleash his fangs and claws and come after Shen.
Shen, however, didn’t seem too concerned, taking his time to tip the valet, then standing by the open door of the driver’s side so he could remove his sunglasses, put them on the dashboard; take off his jacket, fold it, place it in the backseat; slide into the SUV . . . adjust the rearview mirror and the seat; carefully check the side mirrors, and then, slowly, pull away from the restaurant.
Stevie had seen people deceased for several days move faster.
She looked out the back to see if Wells had attached himself to the SUV like a baboon attempting to flee one of those drive-through zoos, but after a few miles, she felt certain he’d decided not to make the situation worse.
Stevie turned around and got comfortable in her seat.
“You bit his nose,” she finally said.
“If I had a rolled up magazine, I would have used that instead. I went with what was handy.”
Stevie started to shake her head sternly, but the laughter spilled out first. And then it wouldn’t stop.
“The look on his face!” she managed to get out, her arm around her stomach. “I’ve never seen him look like that before, and I’ve thrown things at his giant lion head.”
“That particular expression you can only find on a startled lion male.”
She wiped her eyes. “Conridge is going to be pissed. That did not go well. And I am not talking about your love bite.”
“You don’t just hate the man . . . you hate the man. It was an active thing.”
“Why do you think I used to throw things at his giant head? Because he’s an asshole. Personally, I think I was quite restrained.”
“So now what?” Shen asked as he stopped at a red light.
“We follow the money. You don’t get a fancy lab like that without some serious backers or the government involved.”
The light changed but the SUV didn’t move. Stevie leaned forward to see his face.
“Shen?” she asked softly.
“You don’t think the government is—”
“No.” She gave a little laugh. “No. If someone was testing shifters, just shifters, then maybe. Full-humans that know about our kind see us all as freaks. Maybe a challenge if they’re hunters, but otherwise, we’re just freaks to be destroyed. But to focus on hybrids—that’s a specific sort of hatred. Like when full-blood wolves kill one in their pack because they’re sick or something is wrong with them that we may not see but that they sense. I think that’s what it’s like for whoever is doing this.”
“And I think you’re giving animals that do that sort of thing way too much credit by assuming it’s some kind of instinct. Even animals can be assholes.”
Someone beeped their horn behind them and Shen pressed the gas.
“The question is,” he went on, “whether Wells is doing all this stuff.”
“I don’t know. But I want to look into it. And I want to look into his brother too. The man has, like, four thousand degrees but he would never leave college. He seemed happy there. Now he’s got a lab and backers.”
“How are you going to check out either of them when you—”
“And you!”
“—have pissed Wells the fuck off?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll come up with something.”
“Something that’s actually logical . . . or at least your idea of something that’s logical?
Stevie looked out the window, folded her arms over her chest, and muttered, “So not appreciating that sarcasm.”
* * *
Charlie finished drying her baking pans and utensils and put them away in the cabinet near the stove. She folded up the towel and placed it on the sink rim. All the baked goods she’d created throughout the day were long gone. The bears had come in and wiped the table and counters clean of the last crumb.
She could hear Berg and his siblings talking in the living room while they watched TV. Based on the scorn in Britta’s voice, it sounded like a reality show. For someone who always said how much she “detested” reality TV,