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"YOU DIDN' T ANSWER MY QUESTION," CURRAN said. "What will it be?"

"No," I said.Advertisement

Curran grinned and my heart made a little jump. I didn't expect that.

"That's it? That's your witty comeback?"

"Yep." Eloquence 'R' Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic - safer that way.

Curran rested his chin on his crossed arms. Really, he wasn't anything special. Today he wore faded jeans and a grayish-blue polo shirt of all things. It's hard to look lethal in a polo shirt, but he managed. Perhaps because it did nothing to hide the definition on his chest or the hard lines of his shoulders. In fact, if he flexed, he'd probably rip it. I knew that under that shirt his body was hard like a suit of armor.

Perhaps it wasn't his body, but the air about him. When he wanted to, Curran literally emanated menace. I had seen him roar in fury and display an icy, determined anger, sharp like a dagger, and I wasn't sure which was more terrifying. The gold fire in his eyes triggered some sort of primordial fear in me, a feeling born ages ago by the light of the young fire, before reason, before logic, when human existence was ruled by the fear of things with claws and teeth and of being eaten. That fear shackled me. I couldn't rationalize it away. I had to fight it with pure will and so far I had held my own, but I had no guarantee I would resist it the next time he decided to treat me to his alpha stare.

Curran looked me over slowly. I did the same, matching him smirk for smirk. Blond hair cut too short to grab. Nose that looked like it had been broken and never healed right, an odd thing for any shapeshifter, and especially for one of Curran's caliber. Gray eyes . . . I looked into those eyes and saw tiny gold sparks dancing in their depths. And my heart made another little jump.

I'm in so much trouble.

"I like the hair," he said.

In the spirit of an off-duty Friday, I wore my hair down. I mostly braided it or curled it into a bun to keep it out of the way, but today it just sort of hung there, a long dark brown wall shifting in the breeze on both sides of my face.

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I flexed my wrist, popping a long silver needle into my palm from the leather wrist guard, grabbed my hair, twisted it into a bun, stuck the needle into it to hold it in place, and showed him my teeth in a little smile. There.

He laughed. "Cute. You ever get tired of pretending to be a hard-ass?"

Cute. I think I would prefer to be stabbed in the eye rather than be called cute. "To what do I owe the pleasure of Your Majesty's company?" And the ruination of my lunch.

"I just wanted some peaches." He smiled.

Since when did a death in the Pack result in such good cheer?

"Is there any particular reason you were asking about the Midnight Games?" he asked.

"I have a passing interest in history." I was on shaky ground. I had no clue if he knew about Derek or not. I needed to cut this conversation short. "Does the Pack require my services as an employee of the Order?"

"Not at the moment." He leaned back, picked up the plate with Andrea's peaches, and offered it to me. "Peach?"

My smile got sharper. During the flare, Curran offered me some soup and I ate it. Later the boudas' alpha, Aunt B, explained the facts of life to me: shapeshifters offered food to their prospective mates. He was at once declaring himself my protector, implying that I was weaker than him, and propositioning me. And I took it. It had amused him to no end. Had I known what the soup meant, I would've eaten it anyway - I was half-dead at the time.

I crossed my arms on my chest. "No, thanks. I'm not accepting any more food from you."

"Ah." He took a slice, broke the fruit in half, and tossed it into his mouth. "Who clued you in?

Raphael?"

"Does it matter?"

His eyes flashed with gold sparks. "No."

Liar. The last thing I wanted was to cause Raphael difficulties because he'd ruined Curran's private joke. "I read it in Greg's notes." I took a couple of bucks out of my pocket, folded them, and stuck the bills between the salt and pepper shakers.

"Leaving?" he asked.

Your powers of deduction are truly marvelous, Mr. Holmes. "Since you have no need of my professional persona, I'm going to return to my duties."

"You're off today."

And how did he know that?

He ate another peach. "The Order has a sixteen-hour shift limit when the magic is down. One of our rats saw you late last night getting an old lady off of a telephone pole. Apparently it was a hilarious affair all around."

"I live to amuse." I rose.

Curran struck at my wrist. His fingers were cat-quick, but I had spent my life honing my reflexes, and he missed.

"Well, look at that." I studied my free wrist. "Denied. Good-bye, Your Majesty. Please pass my condolences to the family."

I headed to the door.

"Kate?" His sudden change of tone made me turn. All humor had drained from Curran's face.

"Whose family?" pqdm.com