“The difference between these two restaurants is alarming considering the differential in injury,” I observed, narrowing my eyes. My virus would swoon again if he took me to a buffet, where I could eat to my heart’s content. “Perfection or buffet? That’s harsh. Dare I ask what will happen to me if I suffer through more than a few bruises or scratches?”
“I will still take you to a buffet, but they will not serve good steak. They will serve scraps of meat that might have been a steak, but they will serve barbecue chicken worth crying over.”
Crap. Barbecue chicken might break me. “What else does that horrible buffet have?”
“A taco bar.”
My virus demanded I go out of my way to take a beating to earn access to a taco bar. “Ugh, tacos,” I said, feigning disgust while doing my best to keep from drooling. “Does anywhere this far north even serve edible tacos?”
Sebastian smirked. “That’s for me to know and you to find out. I expect you’ll be fully tenderized after every one of the bounties, and the big one? I’ll be monitoring you in the hospital by the end of it. Again.”
Damned lion. “I spent five whole hours in the hospital, and that’s only because I passed out in the damned lobby. It’s tiring work bagging six males in one go.”
“You needed two pints of blood, and you cost the CDC ten thousand dollars in neutralizer. The only reason you didn’t get fined for that stunt is because you called the police to keep the blood trail contained until you could clean it up. And you tried to clean it up yourself.” The lion grunted at me, crossed his arms over his chest, and glowered, staring out the window. “I’ve been over your entire file, Wells. It’s a horror show. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”
I grinned. “You probably roared at the wrong vanilla higher up in the CDC, and he felt a need to put you in your place.”
“She.”
Laughing, I checked the navigation panel to confirm where I needed to go, pondering how I wanted to take out the asshole wolf holding a woman hostage after infecting her against her will. “Did you try to flirt with a supervisor, Mr. Mane? And not only that, she was a vanilla supervisor? Damn, you’re bold.”
“Damn it, Wells! I didn’t flirt with her. She pissed me off because she thinks vanillas are worth more than everybody else. I called her out on her bigotry. While roaring. Her boss caught me doing it. I got moved to manage you.”
“And what happened to your supervisor?”
“I believe she was fired for being a bigoted asshat.”
Wait. Sebastian Sumners had a sense of humor? “Did you just call this supervisor an asshat?”
“I absolutely did. That is what she is. And I’m pretty sure I got sent out of the area to prevent the bigoted asshat from causing me more problems. I think they were either trying to reward me or evict me from the pool of eligible bachelors, but they’ve never met you before.”
While not a roar, his complaints over his precarious position as a single male lycanthrope pleased my virus. “It’s okay, Mr. Mane. If I wasn’t uglier than sin, I’d be tempted to flirt with a hot supervisor, but honestly? With my face, flirting is more of a horror show. Could you imagine me trying to simper? How about flutter my lashes?”
I fought my urge to laugh at the thought of me attempting to simper or flutter my lashes at some man. I might be tempted to test it on one of my brothers to witness the chaos and horror.
“Are you capable of anything as delicate as a simper?” Sebastian asked, his tone sliding from annoyed to intrigued. “I’ve seen pictures of where you plastered on enough makeup to make your mother cry, but you were always covered in blood and growling. You really need to work on that. You have this tendency of going to the CDC while dressed like a lady but acting rather crudely. The makeup might work better if you aren’t wearing blood along with your makeup. Frankly, don’t bother with the makeup. That would probably help some.”
“You’re just wondering how a body as hot as mine can sport a mouth so filthy you cringe whenever I open it.”
“That wasn’t quite what I was aiming for, but you do somehow manage to piss me off when you start talking for some reason.”
“It’s not my fault you have a nice roar. It’s also not my fault you make it so damned easy to earn one of those roars. It absolutely is your fault you bristle so nicely. If you didn’t want a cat toying with you, you wouldn’t make it so much fun, Sumners. Now you’re stuck with me, and you only have yourself to blame for that. Personally, my work life has gotten so much better since you called me. Yours? Yours sucks, and I’d feel sorry for you, but one of us is happy. That one of us is me. I’m happy. As a fellow feline, you should be well aware of the superiority of cats, and lynxes are so much better than lions. As I am the best of cat species, I deserve a lion. It’s good to tame the second best in the cat world. Or are lions third best? Tigers are pretty amazing. What do you think, Mr. Mane?”
“Lions are far superior to tigers.”
“Spoken like a true lion.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel of my father’s truck. “What do you think the male lynx father of a bazillion children but only one daughter would do to a filthy lion scented near his only daughter?”
“Murder comes to mind. That tends to be what lycanthrope fathers do to males who come near their daughters without their permission.”
I heaved a sigh. “But I don’t want my father to kill you. If you’re dead, you can’t roar for me, Sumners. This is important to me. Pissing you off and making you roar is one of my joys in life.”
“Once the daughter is happily mated, the fathers tend to only beat a little rather than attempt murder,” he replied. “This is a well-established fact about lycanthrope males, accepted as a hazard of picking a lycanthrope female rather than a human woman. As there are so few single lycanthrope females, most convince a human woman to settle down and accept the virus, as your brothers will do because you’re the only single female lycanthrope lynx alive.”
“Lynxes can be happily mated?” I frowned. “But there’s so much fighting. Also, I’m an endangered species, and this sucks.”
“But is your mother happily fighting?”
Oh. Right. “Yeah, okay. That is an accurate statement. She joyously fights with my father, which is why she’s pregnant with yet another litter.”
“I recommend you actively select the man you wish to be mated to. Part of my job as your supervisor is to make sure that right isn’t taken from you. I’m also responsible for making sure you follow the rules when it comes to acquiring your mate. The CDC has opted for a more intimate approach for agents and bounty hunters like yourself.”
“Ew. I don’t want the CDC all up in my business!”
The lion dared to laugh at me. “Until you’re happily mated, that’s precisely what is going to happen. When you’re happily mated, you’ll be asked about testing a new perfume to help hide your status as a mated female. The idea is to use female agents as bait to catch out-of-control lycanthropes, partnered with their mates. It should lower incidents of forced matings in the field.”
I grimaced, as I’d had a few close calls I’d put a lethal end to. Virus contamination didn’t matter if the would-be suitor died, and I took care to make sure I eliminated anyone stupid enough to try to force me. “You have read my file, I see.”