"Do you mean I can't, or I shouldn't?"
He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "We felt your call when you bound our prince to you. I know you can do what you say . . . Mistress, but I would ask you not to do it."
"It's not my first choice, Donny, I just want some alone time with my red tiger to call, that's all."
His breath came out heavy, and then he said, "I will give you the address to meet our guards. They will escort you in to see the queen and prince."
"Great." I opened my phone up so I could jot the address down as a note, and said, "I'm ready to write it down, shoot."
He told me. I typed it in, and then the phone call was over. Donny didn't seem to like me. Fine with me, I wasn't here to win any popularity contests.
I gave Edward the address and he started heading that way. He seemed to know Seattle a lot better than a man on his first visit. I'd asked him if he was familiar with the city, but he'd just smiled that mysterious smile of his and not answered. Mr. Secret.
"Could you do what you threatened to do? Could you call all their unmated males to you like some sort of succubus Pied Piper?"
I thought about it, then finally said, "I'm not sure; maybe. The tigers tell me I put out a call to all the unmated males in the country when I first hit this power, and that was accidental. The clans managed to keep the men from getting on buses and planes and coming to me, but that was an accidental call. If I did it for real and really meant it, I don't know if they could stop them. I also don't know how bespelled they'd be when they got to me, and if they'd all expect sex." I laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. "The red clan numbers in the hundreds. I'm good, but I'm not that good."
"Then best not put out the welcome mat," he said, as he turned onto a narrow side street.
"It was a threat, Edward. I make a lot of threats I hope I don't have to carry out."
"I don't," he said.
"I know, you mean every threat."
He turned and looked at me as he waited for the light to turn green. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but I knew his face well enough to know the whole look. It was his cold stare, the I-could-kill-you-and-not-blink look.
"Save the scary for someone else, Edward."