I sighed. "Sure." I was dreading the next few minutes for so many reasons. Cynric had been with us almost a year now. He'd turned eighteen, old enough to die for his country, but I still wasn't sure he was old enough to be my lover. Of all the men in my life, Cynric bothered me the most.
He was my blue tiger to call. Theoretically, I now had enough weretigers whose energy I could drain that my near-death might not touch Nathaniel, if I could pick and choose whose energy I took. The fact that I'd trade Cynric's life for Nathaniel's, given a choice, didn't make me feel any better about Cynric being my lover. He was on the list of people that I called and texted when I had to travel for work. Some of the people on my text list could have contacted me mind-to-mind, like Jean-Claude; not as smoothly, but they could feel me, sense me, we could share sensations and emotions, but that could be very distracting in the middle of hunting down a rogue vampire, or questioning witnesses, so they refrained. The compromise was that I texted them, and called when I could.
"Anita, I'm sorry that the news freaked me a little." His voice sounded even younger than usual, not a kid's voice, but not a man's voice either. He was taller than me and Micah, five-nine now and still growing. His hair was a deep, cobalt blue; in low light it looked black, but it so wasn't. Just as his eyes were two colors, the way some cats' eyes could be, with a paler ring of blue and a darker inner ring that was almost as dark a blue as Jean-Claude's midnight blue. All the pureblood weretigers were born with tiger eyes, not human; it was a mark of the purity of their bloodline. There were occasional throwbacks to human eyes among them, but that usually meant they were survivors of an attack and had started life as human, or sometimes it was just a sign of how even the pure tiger clans occasionally married and bred with a human being. They liked to deny it, but when you're lonely enough, you take what you can find. Cynric was the last pure blue tiger male that we could find. The rest of his people had been slaughtered off long ago; in fact, we weren't sure where he'd come from. The white tigers of Vegas had found him in an orphanage.
I fought the urge to squirm uncomfortably and answered him. "It's okay, Cynric; the news doesn't usually get crime scene footage this fresh."
"And they reported two officers dead," he said.
"You knew I wasn't dead," I said, and kept my voice even.
"I know I would have felt the energy drain if you'd died, but you shield really well, Anita. Sometimes so well, it scares me, because I can't sense you at all."
I hadn't known that. "I'm sorry if that bothers you, but I can't let you guys know about investigations."
"I know, but it's still... I... Shit, Anita, it scared me."
He hadn't cussed when he first came to us, but he'd picked it up from me - or maybe trying to "date" me would drive any man to curse?
"I am sorry for that, Cynric, really, but I have to go question the surviving vampires."
"I know you have to work, solve the crime."
"Yes," I said.
"When will you be home?"
"I don't know; this one is a mess, so it'll take longer."
"Be careful," he said, and again his voice sounded young, fragile.
"As I can be," I said.
"I know you have to do your job." He sounded defensive.
"I've got to go, Cynric."
"At least don't call me that; you know that's not what I like to be called," and he sounded exasperated, and still scared.
I swallowed, took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, "Sin, I've got to go." I couldn't keep the displeasure out of my voice. I hated that he wanted to be called Sin, as short for Cynric. We'd tried spelling it Cyn, but no one could spell it, so he went with the actual word sin. That the only teenager in my bed preferred to be called "Sin" was just rubbing salt in my already wounded sense of self.
"Thank you. I'll see you when you get home."
"It may be after dawn."
"Then wake me up."
I had to count to ten to keep from snapping at him, but