Apparently whoever was in there wanted this recorded.
Fine.
I raised my voice a tiny bit and spoke to the flashing light. “I know you’re in there. If you don’t come out in the next two minutes, I’m going to turn into a snake and bite you, and then you’ll have to go to the emergency room. If I let you.”
If any of my colleagues ever saw the recording, I would have to explain my odd threat.
Then again, Gloria and I both admired the psychiatrist who had installed speakers into his electrical outlets and used them to communicate with a delusional patient in order to break into the patient’s fantasies and disrupt them.
Threatening a camera with turning into a snake might not take much explanation at all, in this line of work.
The panel hiding the camera popped open a few inches, and even through the wall, I could feel the heat of a shifter’s change.
I was ready when the small, brown animal leaped to the ground and tried to dash between my legs. With my own shifter swiftness, my hand darted down and I grabbed it. Luckily, the camera was unlikely to have caught that motion, since it was below the lens’s field of vision. I wouldn’t have to explain how I had moved so quickly.
I did, however, hold the animal up by the scruff of the neck for the camera to record. “Check it out, y’all,” I said. “It was a squirrel we heard on the recording. All clear now.”
Then I tossed it in a cardboard box and taped the top shut. Leaving a note behind for Gloria, I took the odd package over to Janice’s.
“I WAS TRYING TO GET proof that the lamia-bitch was unfit to take care of children.” An hour later, Hank sat on the sofa in Janice’s living room, surrounded by several other Shields and Council members, and spoke sullenly.
“How did that work out for you?” I asked.
Janice shot a quelling look my direction, and I held my hands up in surrender.
“I assume you found nothing?” Yeah, she was better at this than I was.
“No. But I would have, with more time.” He sneered at me, and I bit down on the inside of my cheeks in order to keep from saying something rude in return.
“Very well.” Janice turned to Ed, who stood impassively beside her. “He’ll need to be contained until we determine what to do with him. I think the lions have the best system for that. Will you see to it?”
He nodded and grabbed the prisoner by the shoulder.
“Wait,” I said. “I have one more question for you—it’s not really that important, but I have to know. Why did you change to your human form while you were in the wall? Why not stay a squirrel?”
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did, he sounded surly. “I kept wanting to chew through the cords on the camera.”
Chapter 11
“HEY, KADE!” I CALLED out as I entered his house several weeks later. “You here?”
“In the kitchen.”
I probably could have guessed that from the amazing smells wafting from that direction.
Note to self: always date a were-mongoose who can cook.
He didn’t look up from whatever it was he was sautéing in the pan, but he spoke as soon as I was close enough for him not to have to shout. “How did the appointment with Dr. Smith go?”
“It went great. I am cleared for all activity.”
“Yeah?” The raised eyebrow asked a question, but the lascivious grin that went with it let me know he was on board with the idea.
“Yep. Anything goes.”
“Well, then,” he said, turning off the fire on the stove, “I think these vegetables can wait.”
Shifter-swift, he slipped around the counter and caught me up in a kiss.
I melted into the heat of it for a long moment. When he began walking us toward the bedroom, though, I pulled away.
“Wait,” I said, laughing even as I pushed against his chest. “There’s more. I need to talk to you.”
“Okay.” He stopped, instantly serious, but didn’t let go of me. I loved all of those things about him.
I only hoped he loved me enough for what I was about to tell him.
“Serena is getting released this week, too.”
A smile broke out across his face. “That’s great news.”
“There’s more.” I bit my bottom lip, then took a deep breath. “I want to go with her.”
“To get her settled in her new home? Of course.”
“No. I mean permanently. I want to live with Serena. And the other baby lamias. In the group home.”
This time Kade did let go of me, taking a half step back. I instantly missed his warmth, his touch. But I was sure this was the right step for me.
“I’m not ready for something like that,” he said.
“I know.” My voice was soft.
“So...” he trailed off, brow knitted in thought. I gave him a moment to let it sink in. “Where does that leave us?” he finally asked.
“I think, in some ways, it leaves us exactly where we are now.” I watched his eyes anxiously. “We’re dating. We’re a couple. I’ll just have ... some new responsibilities.”
“I’m not opposed to the idea, you know,” he said.
“I know.” This time, I said the words with a smile. “And I hope that someday you’ll decide to join us. But for now, this is where I need to be, what I need to be doing.”
“Being a substitute parent.”
I shrugged. “Yes.”
“Will you ever get a night off?” A single spark flickered in the depths of his golden-brown eyes.
“Isn’t that what babysitters are for?”
The spark turned to a gleam, and his eyes began to churn. Sliding his arms around me, he pulled me up against his body and met my lips with his own. The fervor of my kiss matched his intensity and heat. “Babysitters, huh?” he said against my mouth as I wound my arms around his neck. “Guess we’d better make the most of our free time while we have it.” And then he picked me up and carried me to the bedroom.
Chapter 12
LESS THAN A WEEK AGO, I’d decided to become a foster mother to at least eight weresnakes.
I was already regretting my decision.
Well, not regretting exactly.
More like... fretting about it.
Maybe more than eight, actually—the doctors caring for the women pregnant with those shifters were only now beginning to determine how many babies there were.
Don’t get me wrong. I like kids. As a children’s counselor, I have to. And the weresnake thing didn’t bother me. After all, I’m a snake shifter myself.
Despite all that, the prospect of taking care of a whole pile of baby lamias—and all that would entail—was beginning to really sink in, and I was becoming more and more anxious by the day.
Especially during those times when I was working my second job as a Shifter Shield—a kind of guardian employed by the shifter Council to police our local shifter population.
Like most other policing jobs, this one involved long stretches of boredom, punctuated by adrenaline-inducing terror.
Not that different from counseling in some ways, come to think of it.