Chapter Four

I worked the next week without incident. I upped my classes, arriving earlier at the gym so that I could catch a morning class before I started work. I didn’t have time for more than four and still could regularly feel energy building in me half way through a shift at the bar.

My father had been a shape-shifter. Well he would still have been a shapeshifter now if no one had witnessed him changing form at the park close to our home. It was in the days of the post Amnesty unrest. People were scared; all the monsters from their nightmares had stepped out from the shadows of superstition to reveal themselves in full technicolour. I’d been ten years old when the Otherworld police came to our door to deliver the news. My mother had stared at the bright orange police car parked outside out house with an expression of horror. She’d even interrupted the sombre officer in the middle of his ‘sad to inform’ speech to ask if he could just move his car to the next street along.

He had been killed by humans that had mistaken him for a Were. I never knew what it was that he had been changing into at the time and as such had never been able to decide if it had been a justifiable error. That was the decision of the judge at the inquest a few months later; a justifiable error of judgement on behalf of the mob that had beaten him to death. The ironic point was that if he had been Were he could have defended himself against them; he’d have had the strength to suffer the beating, he’d have healed the bruises and he would have had the superior speed to have escaped them.

I held half his genes in my make-up. They were the part of me that seemed to convert oxygen into energy, made me as jittery as a caffeine addict after a binge at Starbucks if I didn’t work to burn it off.

I should drop the job, I thought for the hundredth time. I had taken it on the spur of the moment thinking it would be a great source of information but I had learned precious little so far except about the delights of real ale and it was playing havoc with my metabolism. I hadn’t felt this close to losing control since adolescence; I just wasn’t sure why.

Heightened emotion is a trigger; fear or lust could do it. There was no one at Greg’s that I felt anything stronger than potential friendship for, and though they were surprisingly nice guys even that was a stretch. Fear, well Greg was totally intimidating but other than the night I got jumped he hadn’t been directly pissed off at me. There was something that I was missing in all this and it nagged at me like a bad tooth.

Truthfully, I liked the bar better than working at the gym, though I was loathed to risk losing the benefits the gym offered. I enjoyed the back and forth repartee with the regulars over the often stifling girly atmosphere of the gym. The hours were better and I preferred being able to dress how I liked. The gym enjoyed the idea of the staff being individuals but that didn’t run to heavy make-up, rude t-shirts or being able to tell the punters to f**k off; all of which it seemed I could do at Greg’s. Mostly. The gym was trying to be cool but it was definitely goth-lite.

I had thought that working at Greg’s would be courting trouble, all those blood-thirsty Were types crammed together combined with alcohol consumption but it wasn’t like that. There was a relaxed atmosphere, the sort of deep sigh of bonded males you only get with old friends. I didn’t claim to understand it but it also sent my power into an uncontrollable tailspin after only a few hours.

At times like this I became aware of how much I miss my dad. Had he been alive then I could have asked him or maybe I would already know the answer because he would have taught me more.

It was to that maudlin thought that I set my car into neutral and shut off the engine. Mona’s house was aglow with all three windows and the glass panels in the door lit up against the dark January evening. A prickle of fear traced the line of my spine, someone walking over my grave as my father used to say. I snatched my bag from the passenger seat and slammed the door behind me.

My two favourite people stood at the open door to greet me. I turned my gaping jaw into a playful grin and roared like a wild animal dipping into a crouch and showing curled clawed hands. The two girls screamed in delight and tore away up the stairs up to their rooms, as was our ritual. I shoved the double-glazed door closed behind me, annoyed further when it didn’t slam as would befit my temper. Just that modern shush click.

“What the f**k is going on Mona?”

Mona stood at the entrance to the kitchen clutching her hands. “Raymond can’t pick them up until tomorrow morning.”

I took a deep breath, then another; my overloaded lungs released all that air in one huge sigh.

“This is not a f*****g game Mona. We are talking lions and not f*****g kittens here.”

“I know that.” She snapped slapping her hair from her eyes and letting me see the tear roll down her face. “I didn’t know what to do; I can’t tell him.”

Yeah that would be so much worse than eating your own kids. I chewed on the inside of my cheek until I could almost control the urge to scream. “Mona, this is too dangerous, let me take them back to mine for the night. I have a number for a refuge that might be able to help you at short notice.”

Her eyes bugged in fear, raw frantic energy slapped at me. The hairs on my arms lifted and my own power coiled in my belly in response. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

“F**k.” The word was more a cough than actually speech.

Mona had never had this effect on me. Never. She pissed me off, she irritated me and occasionally drove me to a homicidal rage but she had never raised power in me before.

Weres.

However they drew energy must be closely related to mine. And it was just that power that had been keying me off at the bar. I had no idea what that might mean other than total avoidance in future. I truly did not need to get outed as a freak. Panic crawled around me. I stared at Mona for so long her image blurred and melted in my unfocused eyes.

“Sass?”

I wiped a hand over my face, watched my fingers tremble as they passed over my skin. Something bumped against my hip and then again on the other side. I glanced down distractedly to see Mona’s dogs staring up at me. My hands reached down to them instinctively but I snatched them back. I shook my head in clear denial. F**k it. F**k it. F**k it.

So totally stupid. Blind and stupid.

I pressed my back against the wall of the hallway and waited for the whining in my ears to stop, for the tightness in my chest to ease. My world narrowed down to one small spot on the opposite wall as I willed nausea and panic from my system.

All the years spent burning off energy spilled out in front of me, ahead of me was another eternity yet to endure. I wouldn’t always be able to push my body through countless hours of aerobics, jogging, locking down the power within and shielding it from outer sources. The choices I had made as a child mocked me like a never-ending prison sentence.

Choices and promises. F**k it.

As my heart rate slowly slunk below two hundred I blinked at Mona. Holding up my hand to keep her from approaching me. Slowly, carefully I tasted the air around us, tasted the energy grown on the seeds of our combined fears. A glance down at the dogs that sat with baleful eyes only a few feet from me. They tasted the same. More fear. More caution. Their energy tasted the same as Mona’s. Animal. Primal. Delicious.

“Aunty Sass.”

The plaintive whine sounded from upstairs and I realised that I had neglected to go look for my hiding nieces.

“Sass?”

I closed my eyes against Mona’s plea. The last few moments of my cracking façade. “It’ll be okay Mona, I think we can do this.” It sounded far too soft to be me speaking but I watched my stepsister nodding too quickly in her desperate agreement. I pushed away from the wall and headed slowly up the stairs. I could hear small squeaks of laughter and shuffled movements, automatically my lips quirked into a smile. I slid my revelation to the back of my mind and lost myself in child’s play.

Mona hates when I play with the children, she claims that it gives her a headache, that we make a mess, a noise or that the children get too overexcited and then won’t sleep. It’s bullshit. She doesn’t like that they like me.

We tidied up the mess we had made, not very well but we made an attempt. I will never understand how Mona gets hospital corners on her sheets and if I ever do then I hope somebody shoots me because it would surely mean I had had a lobotomy.

We drifted downstairs still breathing hard but happy, taking in the smells of dinner and licking our lips. Mona is a great cook, she makes things that smell and taste delicious but her portions are suited to a two year old’s tea party and I have never once left her table feeling full. The girls tailed off to the living room but I continued down the hall and into the kitchen.

Mona had her back to me, stirring something in a pot on the cooker. Her hair hung in limp rats tails and her clothes hung from her bones to show that she had lost a lot more weight in a short space of time. Certainly since the last time I saw her. It was something that would have pleased her under other circumstances.

“He called.”

I looked up from twirling the blue china mug beside me. Mona had made coffee, good coffee that was not a store’s own brand or had the words ‘value’ or ‘everyday’ printed on the label, but after all this time of being old enough to drink caffeine she still made me white coffee with two sugars. Creamy syrup. I have taken mine black and sugarless since I left home.

“Who?”

“Dominic.” I couldn’t see her face but I could almost feel the eye roll that she gave me. “He offered to ‘help me through’.”

I rolled my lips between my teeth, the lipstick I applied this morning long since dissolved. “That might be useful.”

She spun, wooden spoon in hand and dripping hot water onto the tiled floor. “I will not ask him for help.”

“That’s what I meant. F**k him.” I waved my hand in circle as though snatching back that verbal oversight. She scowled and that alone lifted the hairs on my arms. “Reel it in honey will you? We don’t need you to jump the schedule.”

Her eyes widened and it took a moment for her to remember to blink. Then she frowned and raised her nose to air, just a fraction not the whole Bisto kids routine but enough that I knew she smelt something. Me.

“You smell like fur.” Suspicion made her words slow and cautious.

“I’m working at a Were bar.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Thought I might get some info.”

“Did you?” The spoon still dripped, smaller drops now slipping to the tiles.

I shrugged. “Not really. I got the phone number for some new refuge that is being set up. I figured I might be able to tap them up for some advice.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

I gave her a look. “You tell me; how dangerous are you?”

“I’m not.” She bumped back against the cooker in her surprise, her free hand rising to her chest as if shocked by my accusation. “I think I am supposed to be but I am just so bloody scared of everything. Scared of people staring, knowing, scared of growling when people smile at me because it looks so threatening.”

I took a deep breath, using the time to absorb the information. “Well so far the only trouble I have had has been from humans who don’t like girls liking furry guys.” I watched her assumptions creep over her face. “No, I haven’t made friends in that sense.”

Somehow I can always rely on family to think less of me than anyone else. It made me think about inviting Murphy along to our next family barbecue. My family tend to make me feel contrary.

“Were you hurt?”

I shook my head. I had been rescued by the scary guys from the scarier guys, the thought made me want to laugh but it translated into a tight smile that made Mona flinch. I stared at her back and she resumed whatever it was she had been fussing over.

 

Dinner was delicious but sadly as small as ever. It was the first time I had seen Mona serve meat. She had been staunchly vegetarian since her early teens but it seemed even she couldn't resist the taste of a steak these days.

I studied her as closely as I could without staring but other than the dishevelled appearance and the obvious anxiety I couldn’t see much difference in her. How much of that was will power I wondered. I thought about Greg’s and the patrons there; I hadn’t been able to spot exactly who was and who wasn’t Were. I had suspicions but no definites. Greg was one, a bear, merely guessing at the way he had questioned me, Murphy probably was. I could picture him as the traditional big bad wolf, a thirties cartoon image popped into my head of a wolf in a zoot suit and a trilby hat letching at Betty Boop.

We despatched the children to bed an hour earlier than was average, some fool had been teaching Florence to tell the time so there was a degree of complaint. I offered to do the bath and bed routine but was frowned into submission by my stepsister.

Then we waited.

For hours we sat in the pastel shaded living room watching music television. A cheap euro-knock-off of MTV played hits from the eighties, nineties and naughties whilst we sat, Mona primly in the far corner of the sofa and me with one leg slung over the arm of the rounded chair next to the door. The dogs stayed in the kitchen.

It was early January and it seemed like it had been nighttime forever. It had been dusk when I arrived and outside had been black as pitch since then.

I felt the stir of power in the room before I heard Mona groan. I can’t describe the feeling other than it’s a bit like when you open an oven door to check dinner only the push of air isn’t hot. It’s nothing obvious like someone blowing at you or touching you just a drift of atmosphere that lifts the body hair and makes my skin tingle.

Mona’s face held a sheen of sweat. One minute she had been rolling her eyes at a bad cover version of some eighties hit the next she was sweating and struggling for breath. I dropped both feet to the floor and leaned towards her, studying. Something long dormant within me woke up and stretched gleefully. Inside I felt like I was six again and waiting for Christmas morning. The energy she was giving off tasted so good I was already anticipating the next wave.

Mona slid to the floor with a groan of pain and I followed her, keeping myself between her and the door. I had a sort of plan but it didn’t seem as foolproof as it had done a few hours ago.

Mona lay with a cushion clutched to her belly, her long flared skirt spreading out across the pink carpet and transparent patches growing beneath the armpits of her white blouse. Her breath came in pants, short and sharp, reminding me of years ago when someone’s girlfriend had gone into labour in our kitchen. Power had moved from a brush to a stroke. It ran along my arms and down my back, warm like freshly worn silk, and it stirred the power that lived within me. My body kicked into automatic warning mode but I had to ignore it. Panic flickered and then died as I breathed through the rising rush.

“Stop it.” Mona growled, her voice a good three octaves lower than usual. “You smell like food.”

I blinked and stilled, calling on the silent place that had been a familiar home during my early childhood. Mona gasped and shuddered.

“What did you do?” She gave a squeak of fear. “I can’t smell you anymore.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I licked my lips and thought about how much it would hurt if she killed me. Lots, was the only thing I could think. That was two sets of good advice I had ignored; Greg’s steer clear had been good in theory but I was kicking myself for not grabbing the kids and running now.

For the first time in fifteen years I dropped my shields. The soft silky brush of Mona’s errant power wrapped around me like a straight jacket, constricting, squeezing and tasting of wet fur. Something like having a Great Dane sit on your chest and then lick your face, sweet but incredibly heavy.

Taking a deep breath I placed one trembling hand onto her neck, she had buried her face into her arms and it was the only exposed flesh I could reach. Power intensified, running up my arm like a current.

Mona raised her face to me, brows drawn in to a frown and lips peeled back with the pain. Her eyes were pure gold, lid to lid, the same rich honey colour of a lion. A muscle twitched in her jaw. I drew that rich manic energy into my lungs like fumes and couldn’t stop the satisfied sigh from escaping my lips. I grinned in anticipation; if I was going to die tonight then this was my last meal.

“Let go Mona.” She growled and curled back one lip to show a whole lot of neat human molar. “Do it now.” I shouted.

I swear the power that boiled from her lifted the hair from my shoulders. My shaky plan dissolved under the realisation that whatever she was going to be was just too f*****g big. In my mind I could hear the chant of small, small, small, and then fur spread out beneath my hand. Softer than soft between my fingers, Mona’s neck stretching with tension then shrinking in size.

I drew in the wild energy, sucked it up like thick strawberry milkshake. It pooled in my middle, blending with my own and then I sent it back down my arm and into her. There was virtually no forethought, just a magical eye roll and primitive instinct taking over from me; the dimwit in the driving seat.

I am pretty good when I get out of my own way. In the pool of Mona’s Laura Ashley clothing sat a bemused and mildly miffed lion cub. It looked at me and sneezed in disgust. A laugh bubbled out from my lips and I followed it up with an exultant whoop of delight. Score one to me and nil to painful bloody death.

I scooped up the new Mona and lifted her into the air giving her an affectionate shake before wrapping her into an overly enthusiastic hug. Mona still retained her innate personality in this form because the b***h slashed at me with needle sharp claws. Pain worked as well as pinching in that I dropped her to the carpet.

I sat for a moment with my legs pushed out before me and felt the serene calm self that was now me. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like this. No restlessness, no compulsion to turn cartwheels, not even an unconscious desire to bounce around and verbally spar with someone. I rolled my gaze around the room and took in the vibrant colours that had seemed so insipid earlier, the minuscule squares that made up the television picture and the number of shades that went into making the golden fur of Mona’s pelt.

I moved like an octogenarian, very slowly and very cautiously shifting from my bottom to my knees and finally to my feet. I made my way to the vanity mirror by the door. Outside I could hear the click of nails marching over the wooden flooring, the sound of the dogs, Butch and Emo, pacing the hall.

I approached the mirror as though it might strike out, I actually caught myself leaning back even whilst I stepped closer. I lined myself up and took a deep breath. Then another. I ended up slapping my forehead with my palm in irritation.

The reflection turned and tilted in the exact same fashion that I did but I couldn’t make the connection between myself and the woman in the glass. My newfound serenity faltered slightly as I frowned but I couldn’t hold on to the tension in my face and that weird dreamy look crept back over me.

I was guessing here but what I was feeling seemed like full on sexual afterglow. Every nerve ending soothed, skeleton updated into a funky rubber number that wasn’t doing too well at holding me up but felt fantastic. I could live with this, I thought drunkenly, if it wasn’t for the demon yellow eyes spoiling the whole look.

 

I love kids but I have never had to do any real childcare. Once someone had dumped a two year old boy on my lap and told me to mind him until his father got home, the father being one of my flatmates at the time, it had lasted half an hour but fear had made it stretch out to seem like days.

I woke that morning in a heap in Mona’s bed with the sound of her steady breathing from deep under the covers and two girls banging on the door. I grunted and tried to orientate myself, they translated that to mean, ‘do come in and delight me with your presence’.

“Why are you in mummy’s bed?” Florence stood in the doorway wearing Mona’s expression of disapproval; it was the one I was most acquainted with.

Juniper gasped in horror. “Did she want to tell you off? She only ever shuts the doors when she’s telling off.”

“Unless she’s sexing Daddy.” Florence pointed out.

There were too many conversations that I truly didn’t want to have. Not just now but ever. “Have you had breakfast?” I muttered with barely disguised desperation.

I stood at the kitchen worktop eyeing the rejected rounds of toast piled on the side like playing cards. After several futile attempts at breakfast Florence finally explained the rules to me, in a tone that let me know just how very tiresome and dim I was, that she only ate dark toast with butter and Marmite whilst Juniper only ever ate warmed over bread with spread and jam.

I gritted my teeth, thanked her for the information and jammed more bread into the toaster. The phrase ‘not if you lived with me’ rolled around the inside of mouth but didn’t break free into the room. Despite the provocation my serenity had survived. I must have been half way through my morning coffee before I noticed but there was an absence of the jitters that have ruled my life for so many years.

I was still stuck in my ‘duh’ moment, who would have thought that instead of driving myself into the ground to discharge my obnoxious magic all I would have to do was actually use said magical force, when the doorbell rang. I suppose it taught me that no amount of serenity would ever discharge my sarcasm.

I stumbled into the hall to witness Juniper opening the double glazed door to her father. Raymond. Even the name makes me shudder. I never got around to taking sides in Mona’s divorce mainly because I didn’t like either one of them. Raymond held a special place in my dark heart for trying to touch me up whilst I wore the gruesome pink tulle that was my bridesmaid dress. I never, ever needed to know that my brother-in-law, step brother-in-law at that, was a legman and to discover that at his wedding reception was doubly grim. Still he was no longer limping and had gone on to father two girls so I obviously needed to improve my technique.

“Jessica.” He blinked in horrified surprise at seeing me.

“Ray.” I smirked. Raymond brings out the smirk in me. “Juniper have you got a bag ready?”

Juniper stopped bouncing long enough to shake her head. Raymond rolled his eyes conspiratorially at me, one of those adult-to-adult shared exasperation moments; I curled my lip in response. I asked Florence the same question, twice in fact but by the second time I had turned off the boy band walking in the rain in their pyjamas and she blinked at me like someone waking from a coma.

I dragged out the two ready-filled suitcases from beneath the over burdened coat hooks as both girls bounced like puppies around Raymond’s knees whilst he all but covered his ears to their high pitched squeals.

“We didn’t say good bye to Mummy.”

I handed the two pink air-hostess-style wheeled suitcases to Raymond and the girls ran up the stairs to disturb Mona.

“So what the hell happened for you to be here?”

I cocked my head to one side and studied Raymond’s softening features. He had gained weight since I last saw him, two or three years ago, probably caused by his own self-satisfaction or eating dinners no longer portioned out by Mona.

“Mona took a heavy blow to the head.” He grinned in a way that might be charming on someone who possessed charm. “Then she married you, came to her senses and got divorced.”

There was no time for a retort because two tiny girls who weighed less than my handbag steamed down the stairs like an entire football team. I gave them a dutiful hug and noisy snarling kisses on their necks and bellies and handed them over to Prince Charmless.

Raymond nodded towards the kitchen and the two dogs sitting patiently at the bowls I had filled with dog biscuits.

“You need to tell them.”

I blinked at him blankly and he repeated himself. “You trained your dogs to starve?”

“I trained them to not bite your hands off when you feed them.” He countered.

I rolled my eyes at him, I had been doing that so much I was getting a headache from it. I refused to even look at the dogs until I had waved goodbye to the girls and closed the door.

“F*****g stupid, arrogant, slimy piece of s**t. Go on.” I yelled at the two dogs. They eyed me nervously trying to comprehend the longed for instruction disguised in the angry tone. I repeated the instruction minus Raymond’s love name in a softer tone and wondered where my serenity had gone but the dogs were overly anxious in their confusion by then and they inched forward and drooled over the heaped bowls without touching the food.

I took a deep breath and did a handstand, placing my heels neatly against the wall and repeated the instruction. I could hear the garbled snarfing sounds from the kitchen and the shuffle of bowls being pushed across the floor.

“Why do you do that?”

Mona staggered passed me, robe clutched around herself and her feet shuffling across the floor as though it hurt to move. I glanced upwards to ensure that my sleeping t-shirt and boxers were not revealing more than I liked.

“I like it; it sends the blood to my head.”

“You’re getting a bit old for that surely?”

“Honey, just because you were born too old.”

Mona made a scoffing sound and disappeared into the kitchen. I heard the kettle click on and the fridge open.

“What did you actually feed the dogs?”

I shifted my weight palm to palm. “Dog food, bag under the sink.”

Mona cursed, something she rarely ever did, even with me. I heard the back door open and then the most enormous belch that I guessed wasn’t my stepsister. I dropped my feet to the floor and took my time approaching the kitchen. It was enough to see Mona’s grey face as she watched the dogs clear up their own vomit. The sound of it was enough to turn my stomach and like the coward I am I backed up and headed up stairs to get dressed.

I had reached righteous indignation by the time I got downstairs. Raymond must have known what food the dogs ate and he let me make them ill. Just why would Mona keep food that they couldn’t eat anyway? I was muttering to myself when the doorbell rang and I had my hand on the handle when Mona screamed at me.

I bounced back on my heels instinctively and stared at her.

“It’s him.”

I glanced from her wide-eyed features to the obscure glass in the door. The silhouette was a little too tall and broad to be the Avon lady. I opened my hands asking what she wanted to do.

A fist came down on the central panel between the glass panes as I waited. Mona pushed me aside and pulled open the door.

“Dominic.”

Nine out of ten for frosty reception there, I shifted my weight from foot to foot trying to see the guy’s face.

“So, you made it through.” His voice was warm and intimate, velvet wrapped chocolate. Oh yuck.

“Go away.” Mona jerked her head back. The chain was on the door and I could only guess that he had reached out to her face somehow.

“Not until you leave with me.” If I didn’t know he was some kind of Werecat then that would have been my guess because the man all but purred.

Curiosity warred with irritation; I really wanted to know what this guy looked like whilst burning with the need to tell him to f**k off. I couldn’t look over Mona’s shoulder because the woman was at least four inches taller than me; even in my boots she beat me by an inch. I teetered from side to side like a newly potty trained toddler.

“I don’t want to see you again Dominic.”

Mentally I cheered, although the delivery could use some work since Mona sounded more tired than determined, the words were out there.

He was talking again but I tuned him out and watched the expression on my stepsister’s face. She had no trouble giving me murderous looks over using the wrong spoon in a restaurant yet now when it mattered she gazed up at her tormentor like he was one of the Chippendales.

Snap. Temper flared. I pulled her aside and bumped my shoulder to the wall. Filling her place at front of the door as I took a long slow look at the guy. He was tall, it’s hard to get too much perspective when you’re five foot four and almost every guy has be to looked up at, but the back of my head touched my shoulders. By my reckoning that made him six two minimum. Short neat hair was slicked back, framing smooth olive skin and dark eyes. Those eyes narrowed looking not at me but over my shoulder towards Mona.

I snapped my fingers in his face, I really hate being ignored. “Did you get the bit where she said ‘go away’? Nobody’s playing hard to get here Cat Man it means f**k right off.”

He may have been a lion but he growled, a low rumble in his chest that I was beginning to recognise as a Were thing. Strange how I seem to bring that out in a man.

“This has nothing to do with you.” His gaze never faltered from Mona’s. The intensely focused concentration might have been flattering without the psychosis.

I made a claxon sound. “Wrong. F**k with my family and you get me.” I looked pointedly around his shoulder and nodded, adding a small smile as I did. He wasn't as cocky as he made out because I noticed him flinch with the need to turn around.

“I do not have a problem going through you.”

His eyes glittered as they finally fixed onto mine. I didn’t blink or swallow as I read the intent in his eyes but I did go very still. I was little more than a bug to him and he was more than prepared to squash me. I could always get my revenge by making nasty stains on his linen suit. He pressed his nose to the gap in the door and inhaled sharply.

“What are you?”

I forced a grin and waved, my eyes focused clear across the road at my invisible friend. “My main career is that of prime b***h and I don’t think you actually want to f**k with me. So do yourself a favour and back off.”

This time he turned and looked over his shoulder to see a curtain twitching in the window opposite. When he twisted back to me his eyes were the same golden colour I had seen in Mona’s face the night before. I had spent fifteen years stopping mine from doing that sort of thing and it was more than a little disconcerting to see it used as a show of strength against me.

The move he made was between a nod and a bow, far more of an acceptance of challenge than a dismissal. After watching him saunter down the path I closed the door and would have sunk back against the wall if Mona hadn’t slammed me against it.

“Are you f*****g mad?”

Mona didn’t swear and she didn’t push people around. It looked like some of my constants in life were gone. The ball of my shoulder ached where she pressed it to the hard surface behind me.

“There are rumours but nothing definite.”

“Stay out of my life.”

“Shall I start right now?” I watched her face as she registered the potential in those words. I could go now and leave her to deal with everything and she dropped her hand from me as though I was oven fresh.

“Just don’t goad him.”

“Fine.”

 

Reviews

[Jason Halstead]

Good story continuing, but I'm getting annoyed at being clueless about whatever Sassy's issues are. Is she some sort of super-were able to adopt any shape she wants, or is she some demon-spawned witch able to burn a man to ash with a simple glance? I'm sure revealing her issues over the duration is part of your plan, but from my perspective, I'd really like to know more earlier on. If she was discovering it herself as we went along it would be different, but it seems she already knows most of this stuff so she's just teasing me unnecessarily.

But hey, really, I'm still reading so that means I like it and I see potential in it. I'm largely unfamiliar with the genre though, so I'm not sure what sort of market or demand there is for this sort of thing. But hey, if I'm enjoying it, then I bet there are others that will too.

[deeps]

Such a wonderful addition to the other chapters.
I really liked this chapter.
Love the last lines the best.
Well written

[Jason Halstead]

Right off the bat: "My father had been a shape-shifter. Well he still would have been all those things." All of one thing? Just needs some rewording there.

A little later: "He been killed by humans that had mistaken him for a Were." Wow, you have rednecks in England too? :) (reword the beginning of that sentence)

You explained a lot more about him (dad) and her (Sass). For that I offer my heartfelt thanks. Not too much, but enough plus a hint of details that are superfluously related and thus sate my thirst for knowledge. Well polished!