of doing so. This one will be highly satisfying, although I hope I only get lightly beaten in the process of taking the asshole out.”
“Your file didn’t mention how you were infected. Does this relate to your known vendetta against lycanthropes who do this?”
How curious. He’d never expressed any interest in my background before. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“When a man loves a woman, they do unspeakable things in bed with each other. Should they do this at the right time in the woman’s fertility cycle, tiny beings called babies appear. In my case, I was a straggler.”
“You were a what? Did you just say you were a straggler?”
“Yes, I was a straggler. I was conceived later than my identical twin brothers. So, they barely reached term while I didn’t. My parents infected me from within the womb. You know how lycanthropes get. They can’t keep their filthy paws off each other. Don’t make me toss you to my family, lion. I have a lot of brothers, and they take the overprotective brother thing too far. I also have an uncle, and he’ll fight you for fun.”
“Henry Wells, I’m guessing. You being related to him makes so much sense.”
“He’s my uncle. Does this mean I’m the lucky bastard getting the promotion that he’s so excited about? He’s going to be so disappointed when he finds out he’s not being picked.”
“If you’re going to insist on playing this game, very well. You are right. He’s not being picked. He’s not being picked because I’m your handler.”
Well, well, well. I licked my lips. If he had to handle me, I’d be able to make him roar whenever I wanted. Somehow, I must have acquired a guardian angel, and she loved me. While Sebastian counted as a pain in the ass, he came with benefits.
He roared.
I purred when he roared.
Life would be good.
“Wells?”
“Where do you want to meet?” I needed his next roar in person. Nothing else would do.
“Name your location, and I will be there as fast as I can get on the next chartered flight out from where I’m at. Upstairs has a job for you.”
“Does the upstairs pay well?”
“Very.”
“How does Fargo sound to you?”
“Fargo sounds like I could catch a cab and be to the CDC headquarters there within thirty minutes. How long will it take you to get there?”
I could walk to the damned place in five minutes flat without breaking a sweat, but I needed to finish my coffee in a leisurely fashion and secure a few extra bounties, including my main Cincinnati job, which was still unclaimed in the system. “You are lucky I happen to be somewhat near Fargo, and I won’t make you loiter in the lobby for more than twenty or thirty minutes.”
“So help me, if you don’t show, we’ll have words, Wells,” the lion warned before hanging up on me.
Today was turning out to be a great day.
As I was contrary, curiosity often got the best of me, and I wanted to hear Sebastian roar in person, I chugged my drink, nabbed two more bounties for reckless idiot lycanthropes I could bag in the Cincinnati area with little work, and headed for the CDC headquarters down the street. The security guards gaped at my scars, and they spluttered for a few moments before realizing I needed them to register me as a visitor. Gaping beat flinching, although not by much.
One day, I would get through a single day without classifying as someone’s worst nightmare. One day.
Armed with my pass, I hopped onto the big black desk and posed for the moment the lion strolled through the doors, expecting to have to wait for me to arrive.
The security guards didn’t appreciate my presence on their desk, but they kept their opinions to themselves, probably because they didn’t want me to take their issues with my face to their boss. As a general rule, I left the issue of my scarred face alone, as going to management over someone’s natural tendency to recoil when presented with catastrophic facial damage counted as snide, rude, and didn’t help matters for me at all.
I checked my cell, which informed me he’d arrived precisely thirty minutes after I’d hung up on him. Smiling, I crossed my legs, braced my elbow on my knee, and rested my chin in my hand. “Meow, Sebastian.”
He twitched, but he didn’t roar. “And just how long have you been here? If you’d told me you’d be early, I would’ve tried to get here