families were shifters and which were human like her, but unless someone strolled by on four paws or let some extra color bleed into their eyes, she couldn’t tell. Which was precisely the point, she mused, and made them so dangerous.
“I can’t believe this place has been here the whole time,” she said softly, not wanting to be overheard by any of the other patrons.
“It’s always felt a little touristy to me. Even before—” he caught himself and quickly corrected, “Even in the early days of open access.”
Lilah watched him from the corner of her eye. Before when? Before the big reveal? From what she understood, humans hadn’t been welcome guests until then. What business did he have in the shifter town if he wasn’t of the furry variety?
“Here you go,” Kyla announced and quickly shoved their plates off a tray. “Need anything else?”
They barely shook their heads before she spun away with a promise to return shortly to check on their drinks.
Lilah dumped a packet of sugar into her mug and gave it a stir, eyeing Seth from under her lashes. She had a list of questions a mile long and didn’t know where to begin. Something innocuous would be helpful. She needed to start small and work her way up. “You do this legal kidnapping thing often?”
Seth snorted. “I’d hardly call protection detail a kidnapping.”
“I don’t know,” Lilah drew out her words. “You’ve dragged me into your truck multiple times and we’ve fled into the night for parts unknown. Sounds a little like kidnapping.”
He sat back and gestured toward the door. “You’re free to go whenever you want.”
“And you’re free to follow, I presume?”
Seth shrugged up a shoulder. “I won’t get paid otherwise.”
“Classy,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m glad you see this as more than a payday.”
“You think I’d subject myself to spiked drinks for the hell of it?” He speared a sausage link and waved it in her direction. “That’s an extra bonus for hazard pay.”
Lilah laughed, then leaned in conspiratorially. “I can do it again if you’d like. We could really work the system.”
“If I’m taking all the risk by, say, being poisoned, I’m taking all the reward.”
“Greedy.” She planted her elbow on the table and propped her cheek on her fist, stirring her coffee absently. “How did you get into this sort of work?”
“Jaime, actually. She hooked me up with the security company years ago. Protection services, skip tracing, those are my areas of expertise. I used to do more with them, but these days it’s mostly just when she calls in a favor.”
“Oh? How did that happen?”
Something uncertain flickered in his eyes. “She helped me when I ran into some trouble when I was barely off my mother’s apron strings.”
Lilah softened. She found it hard to imagine the tough, powerful man across from her ever having trouble, but he’d been a boy at some point in his life. “That sounds like Jaime. Her work with teens and young adults was why I applied at the firm in the first place.”
“Did you always know you wanted to grow up to be a bloodsucker, I mean, lawyer?”
“Oh, I’m not a lawyer. I couldn’t handle being in front of a courtroom, hoping my words and explanations of the evidence convinced people to side with me. I know there are law practices that don’t involve trials, but those never really interested me.”
“So, not a lawyer, what then?”
“Paralegal. I make the paperwork go round.” She twirled her finger through the air, then turned serious. “But it’s more than that. It’s giving these kids another chance so their lives aren’t defined by dumb mistakes. They aren’t forgotten once the bill is paid, either. Jaime blocks out time each week and has us check in to make sure they aren’t shirking their community service or falling back in with the bad crowd. I like to think we’re making a difference, one person at a time.”
“How does Jasper Crowley fit into that picture? He must have aged out by now.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Bad luck,” she said sadly. “Extremely bad luck. What’s the line from that movie... ‘I’m not even supposed to be here today’? I usually work under Jaime, but another lawyer in the firm needed the assistance.”
“Why the legal side? Why not social work or something along those lines?”
“Ah,” Lilah said with a pained smile, “that gets us into the time and cost analysis. I couldn’t wait the extra years to even get started,