"I can’t convince some of the women from the Circus and Danse Macabre that I’m their teacher, not just a cute guy," Jason said.
"They don’t respect you?" Micah asked.
"They hit on me," he said.
Micah and I exchanged a glance, then both looked back at him. "And that’s a problem for you, how?" I asked.
He grinned. "Okay, I love to flirt, but not when I’m teaching. I can’t play favorites, and I can’t use the class as a dating pool, because that would be playing favorites. I’m trying to get these women to work harder than they’re used to, and they’re trying to flirt in part to get out of the hard work."
Nathaniel explained, "Most of the human women come from a stripper background, and most strip clubs aren’t like Guilty Pleasures, Anita. They don’t really want you to dance at most clubs, just move a little and take your clothes off. Jason is asking them to dance, really dance."
"Dancing is hard work," he said, "and some of these women have used their beauty to avoid hard work all their lives."
"You keep saying women," Micah said. "I thought you were training up some of the male dancers, too."
"We are, but most of them came from Guilty Pleasures, and Jean-Claude always made us put on a real show there. The other wereanimals aren’t arguing about it, either."
"They know if they don’t do what they’re told, it will get back to the head of their animal group," Micah said.
Jason smiled at him. "Yeah, Caleb is sooo not happy that you made him move from waiter at Guilty Pleasures to dancer, O Leopard King."
Micah gave a small frown. "I didn’t make him change jobs; I gave him a choice of jobs that would make him more money, because he was complaining he needed more money. I’m his Nimir-Raj; I helped him brainstorm some alternate jobs. He thought stripping was the lesser evil."
"We got tired of him bitching," I said.
Jason grinned. "He does like to bitch, O Leopard Queen."
I was queen to Micah’s king, but I was still technically human and didn’t change shapes. Blood tests had proved I carried several different kinds of lycanthropy inside me, but I stayed human. The lycanthropy virus protected its host from all disease, which should have meant that I couldn’t catch a second kind once I caught the first, but my body seemed able to collect them. I was one of about forty people worldwide who had managed to be carriers of multi-strains but not shapeshift. We’d been the inspiration for the lycanthropy vaccine that had begun to be used worldwide. My bit for medical science. With every new animal, there was the potential that I could call that animal to me like a vampire. I was really trying not to do that again.