“Ford—”

  “She’s a predator. It gets your back up. I feel it too, so I understand, but there are bigger and worse here.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” the doorman murmured after noticing I hadn’t kept going.

  “I am.” Ford clapped the man on the back. “Suck it up or get demoted while you work on your poker face. Your call.” He entered the lobby and squatted in front of me. “Here, let me help you with that. The bunny goes over the—”

  I batted his hands away. “I can tie my own shoe.”

  “I can’t tell. You’ve been kneeling here long enough to rethread your laces.”

  Annoyed, I jerked a knot in my bow, which made him chuckle under his breath, but I played it off like I had meant to do it.

  “I’m going to bed.” I waved to the laundry cart. “Night, Bonnie.” I singled out Bishop next. “Thanks for the assist. Call a full meeting at dusk. We need to put our heads together on this.”

  The elevator doors had closed behind me before I heard the first shout. I smacked my palm against the emergency stop button, but it ignored me. Probably because the glide from the lobby to my floor was so short, I was practically there by the time the red light flashed.

  Not trusting it a second time, I shoved open the emergency exit door and crashed into a wall of pale fur. “What in the—?”

  “Bonnie,” Ford yelled. “Bonnie.”

  “Bonnie?” I caught the breath she had knocked out of me. “Explain.”

  The last bit had been directed at Ford, since Bonnie had yet to shift back.

  “She saw you get in the elevator and lost her ever-lovin’ mind.” He wasn’t winded from the run up two flights of stairs, but he was flustered enough his cheeks had reddened. “She tried to pry you out of the booth. The doors are shredded from her teeth. God, her teeth. She bit through that metal like butter.” He tried, but he couldn’t hide his admiration. “Once she saw the shaft was empty, she used her nose to depress the access bar for the stairs and started climbing.”

  Tail between her legs, Bonnie whined pitifully, all but calling Ford a big meanie for chasing her down.

  “What floor is her apartment on?” I exhaled. “Tell me it’s above mine.”

  “First floor,” he admitted. “She’s got a thing about heights.”

  From what little time I had spent with Bonnie, she seemed to have a thing about a lot of things.

  “Can she read English in this form? Did she maybe miss her turn?”

  Pity twisted his features into what wanted to be a smile. “Afraid not.”

  Though she was half the size of my apartment, I still asked, “Do you want to sleep over?”

  Her ears perked, she yipped once, and then she spun around on the stairs.

  “That’s not the potty dance, is it?” I asked Ford. “I don’t have enough paper towels for this.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine.” He backed down a step, then another. “I’ll just leave you ladies to it.”

  “Chicken,” I growled, which earned him a dirty look from Bonnie.

  “Bawk, bawk.” He winked at me. “Night, darlin’.”

  “Come on.” I pivoted on the stairs and started climbing. “I’m beat.”

  On the landing, I held the door for Bonnie and showed her into my apartment. I worried I might have to fight her for my futon, but she curled up on the mountain of scraps and half-sewn projects Bishop had dumped out of my supply bin during his hunt for sheets. Would it have killed him to steal dirty sheets and a laundry cart? I seriously doubted Bonnie cared if her escape route was springtime fresh.

  Sometimes the fact my boss, and therefore Bishop, had access to my place really tweaked my nose, but I had agreed to the terms. I understood why the POA felt I warranted unrestricted access. And, now that I thought about it, maybe that utter lack of privacy was another factor in the absence of any personal life.

  Sharing myself with another person was hard enough without turning it into a spectator sport.

  “Bathroom’s through that door,” I told Bonnie. “Everything else is in plain sight.”

  Her contented huff rustled the cloth beneath her enormous muzzle.

  “I have a meeting to attend at dusk, so we’ll have to make arrangements for you then.”

  A faint whine whistled through her nose.

  “Don’t pout. You’d be bored out of your mind.”

  All that was left to do was turn out the light, change into pajamas since I had company, and hope she didn’t snore.

  Five

  A troupe of chainsaw-juggling lumberjacks woke me ten minutes before my alarm got the chance. Cracking open my eyes, I caught sight of Bonnie, still on four legs, all of which were currently sticking up in the air as she snored louder than some woodchippers.

  A firm knock jolted me upright, making me rethink where to cast my blame, but my sleepover buddy kept right on sawing logs. Probably sequoias. A whole forest of them. Into toothpicks.

  When I opened the door, I wasn’t all that surprised to find Midas standing in the hall, but I was glad I was decent. The red Star Trek pajama set I got on sale at the mall might not give off a professional vibe, but I was home and off the clock, so he could deal.

  “I heard you made a friend.” His gaze slid past my shoulder. “I came to see if you needed anything.”

  “Do you mean a harness and a leash?” I covered a yawn with my palm. “Or a crate and newspaper?”

  The fine hairs rose down the back of my neck when crimson bled into Midas’s eyes as my joke fell flat.

  “Look, I just woke up. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure you woke me up.” I gave him the stink-eye for that. “I didn’t mean I would cage Bonnie or that she was my pet. I was thinking out loud how to disguise her as a dog, which I can tell by the glowing thing your eyes are doing isn’t working for you.”

  A steady rumble filled the space between us, and a wet nose bumped the back of my hand in solidarity as Bonnie sidled up to me, but I shushed her before things got worse.

  “I had a long, miserable morning. I didn’t get much sleep today.” I risked scratching Bonnie behind her ear when I spotted her lip still quivering in silent warning at Midas. “I’m sorry if me trying to be funny before I’ve had my morning café mocha came off as offensive. I didn’t mean anything by it. I know Bonnie is a person, even if she’s a four-legged person at the moment.”

  Goddess, someone needed to shove something in my mouth to shut me up. Preferably some form of chocolate.

  “Bonnie is special,” Midas said gruffly, reining in the temper I excelled at provoking in him. “It’s my understanding you’re aware how special, so you’ll grasp that allowances must be made.”

  “While it’s light-years beyond cool I have an actual fae in my apartment, it’s also illegal for necromancers, such as myself, to fraternize with them. Ignoring that, I can’t afford to sit on my hands until she irons out her kinks.” I checked my phone and grimaced. “I have a meeting with Bishop in an hour. Can you resolve this by then?”

  “Are you a cat person or a dog person?”

  “I don’t know.” Most Low Society necromancers performed no magic, so we required no familiars. “I’ve never had a pet.” I lifted a finger. “Or a sentient not-pet-friend-woman-person.” I pointed at him. “Don’t give me that squinty-eyed look, mister. I’m trying here. This is as good as it gets without caffeine.”

  A twitch in his cheek below his right eye left me unsure if he was smothering a laugh or seconds away from a stroke.

  “Bonnie.” He kept his voice firm but polite. “You have two choices. You can shift and come to work with me, or you can glamour yourself and go to work with Hadley.”

  She whined at me, soft, pathetic noises, and her eyes glimmered, huge and impossibly liquid.

  Basically, she dialed her pouting before bed up ten degrees. She might not be an actual dog, but she knew how to make the schtick work with a sucker like me.

  “Fine.” I exhaled through my teeth. “How does glamour work?”

  “Magic,” he said, and this time I knew he was laughing at me.

  “Can we get this pony-sized dog show on the road?” I started tapping my foot. “Bishop is waiting.”

  “Pick a form that won’t be out of place in a city,” he told her. “A dog is more practical if you’re dead set on patrolling with Hadley.”

  Bonnie plunked on her butt, the claws on her front paws flexing like fingernails drumming, and then her outline shimmered and shrank.

  “What is that?” The snow-white breadbox on knobby knees barked at me, a surprisingly big sound out of such a small body. “Wait. It’s that meme dog. Not Doge, that Shiba something. Shiba Inu? That’s a breed, right? This is…” I snapped my fingers. “A corgi. Yeah. That’s it.”

  “A Pembroke Welsh Corgi.” He examined her with interest. “Look at her tail.”

  “She doesn’t have one.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why didn’t she do this last night?” I turned the question on her. “Why didn’t you do this last night?”

  The much smaller dog, about twenty-five pounds’ worth, lolled her pink tongue at me.

  “Bonnie hasn’t shifted since she joined the pack,” he answered for her, confirming my earlier assumption. “Ford told me she shifted to protect you. When she got stuck, it must have panicked her. She wouldn’t have risked compounding the problem by casting magic she might have trouble controlling.”

  “The city has leash laws,” I reminded him. “She’ll have to wear a collar or harness and a leash.”

  With a twitch of her huge ears, she manifested both and wagged her nub, mostly her butt, with pride.

  Since I wasn’t getting out of this, I accepted my fate. “What do I feed her?”

  “Human food is fine.” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “Hopefully she won’t stay like this for long.”

  “Are you laughing?” I planted my feet and crossed my arms over my chest. “This is funny to you?”

  The tempting curve of his lips thinned, but a gleam sparked in his eyes, which I shouldn’t have noticed but did. Clearly I hadn’t learned my lesson from our earlier clash of wills.

  “No,” he said with false solemnity that hinted at a wicked sense of humor.

  Bonnie woofed at Midas, proving neither of us believed him.

  “Ford’s in the lobby.” He braced his hand on the doorframe, rubbed a scuff with his thumb. “He brought a casserole from his mom for the Randalls.” He gouged the wood with his fingernail. “He’s waiting on you.”

  “He told me Mrs. Randall babysat two of his older brothers.”

  “She has many children in the pack, but Shonda was the only one she birthed.”

  They say it takes a village—or a pack—to raise a child. “He okay to work this case?”

  “His brothers need the closure.”

  That explained why Midas volunteered him. The buffer of years between Ford, his siblings, and Mrs. Randall also clued me in on how he could cut up with me without breaking down over her daughter’s death.

  Curious despite myself, I found myself asking, “Does Ford usually cope through humor and flirtation?”

  “For as long as I’ve known him.” Midas rolled his shoulders. “We all grieve in our own ways.”

  During the past year I had spent enough time around sentinels, most employed with the Atlanta Police Department as a cover, to know he was right. Laughter and jokes were popular coping mechanisms. Alcohol was too. Drugs. Sex. Other vices. Humor was the least harmful, in my opinion, even if the release valve of laughter often got tutted as being in poor taste.

  Stretching until my shoulders popped, I yawned hugely. “Tell Ford I’ll meet him downstairs?”

  Midas noticed the bare strip of skin exposed between my pajama top and shorts, shut his eyes on an exhale, then turned his head. “What happened to using the fire escape?”

  “First Snowball couldn’t fit through the window, and now she can’t manage the stairs. Look at those stumpy legs. Cute? Yes. Practical? No.”

  “Snowball?” he echoed. “Her fae name can’t be pronounced by human—or necromantic—tongues, but you’re going to call her Snowball?”

  “Between us,” I mock whispered behind my hand, “I hope the nickname shames her back onto two legs.”

  Snowball flattened her ears against her skull, but it was no use. The fluffy butt ruined the stone-cold-killer vibe.

  “I could call her Bonnie,” I told him, “which I assume is the name she chose for herself, not one you gave her, but it’s safer if people think I adopted a dog. Snowball will draw less attention, especially from the pack, who might notice me naming a dog after a woman I met just yesterday—today?—who has coincidentally vanished.” I gave her a reassuring pat. “The fewer people who know what she is, what she can do, the better.”

  “I’m starting to see why Bonnie opened up to you.”

  “Thanks to you, Ford has adopted me, and now I’ve adopted her. Maybe it’s contagious. Don’t come any closer, or you might get adopted too.”

  “I’m current on all my shots.”

  This time he didn’t hide his smile, and it was every bit as devastating as I imagined it would be.

  “You have a nice smile. You should use it more often.”

  “If I told a woman that, she would kick my family jewels so hard a crown would pop out on top of my head.”

  The resulting spurt of laughter would have sprayed him had he been six inches nearer.

  “I have to go.” I wiped my mouth. “I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one night.”

  Before I made an even bigger fool of myself, I shut the door and contemplated a shower. I was going to be late to the meeting. There was no getting around that. I might as well be late and clean, right?

  Bonnie padded after me while I gathered clothes, and I would have felt her judgment from a mile away, let alone from across six hundred square feet.

  “What?”

  She barked while she tossed her head toward the door.

  “Don’t sass me.” I grabbed a towel. “It’s called interdepartmental cooperation.”

  Her angular head reminded me of a fox, especially when she pivoted her oversized ears forward.

  “Wipe that look off your face.” I scowled at her snort. “I wasn’t flirting with him.”

  Clearly the girl rule of new haircut, new woman applied here. Or maybe new fur, new woman.

  Bonnie the gwyllgi and Bonnie the corgi were both far more assertive than Bonnie the woman, and none of them knew what they were talking about when it came to me and a certain blond beta.

  Midas couldn’t have hands off written more clearly across his face than if he tattooed it on his forehead.

  I shut Snowball out of the bathroom while I indulged in a shower that tested my water heater’s stamina, then dressed for patrol in jeans gone splotchy from previous bleachings, a tee with a dancing chocolate bar on the front that said Bite Me, and sneakers.

  Presentation was everything in my past life. Not so much anymore. I got to schlub it, and I liked it. There was no point in wearing trousers or blouses or cute boots when goddess only knows what you would step in before the night was through. Jeans, tees, and sneakers? Those could get tossed in the washer along with a capful of bleach, and they would be ready to go again.

  The only time I made a slight effort with my appearance was when I manned my kiosk, which wouldn’t happen tonight.

  “I need to hire an assistant.” I eyed Bonnie thoughtfully. “Do you think Midas would loan you out?”

  An employee who could run the business when a tough case required all of my focus would be amazing. Dare I dream, I might even start turning a decent profit that way too. Anyone I hired had to be trustworthy, trustworthy, and trustworthy. They also had to have big ears to catch all the latest supernatural gossip and have no qualms about passing it on.

  Hmm.

  Bonnie mentioned the alpha expecting her to pull her own weight, so maybe not. Still, it was an idea.

  I would ask her about it tomorrow night, assuming she got herself unstuck by then. Otherwise, I would have to ask her to glamour up a service dog vest.

  Shoving all the maybes, and it might be nices out of my head, I checked my foggy reflection.

  The big reason I cut my hair to jaw length was so I could shower and go without the hassle of drying my thick hair. All I had to do was dump goop on my hands, rake my fingers through it, and I was styled and ready to hit the streets.

  When I exited the bathroom, Bonnie was waiting on me with the handle of her leash in her mouth.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather shift?” I looped it over my wrist. “This doesn’t embarrass you?”

  Tugging on my arm, she led me to the door and scratched at the bottom corner. Since she hadn’t, to my knowledge, gone to the bathroom since we got home this morning, I didn’t hesitate to let her out into the hall, where any puddles would be a pack problem, if you asked me.

  We hit the elevator, and I saw myself scowling in the silver panels at the scent trail I was establishing throughout the building.

  Down in the lobby, Ford was chatting up two women who resembled one another enough to pass for sisters. One noted my arrival and wrote on a business card she pulled from her purse, then handed it to him while maintaining eye contact with me. The other scowled at her sister, who must have called dibs on him.

  The pair walked off before I reached him, who looked at the card, then at me, and tore it to pieces.

  “Don’t snub her on my account,” I teased. “We both know you’ll end up taping the jigsaw puzzle back together when you get desperate enough.”

  “Nah.” He dusted the bits into the nearest trash can. “I would have done the same with or without you.”

  “Off the market?”

  The question came out too interested, and I immediately regretted how easy it was to talk to him. I was starting to worry he wasn’t handling me, that he was genuinely a nice guy and it was my expectation everyone had their own agenda that jaded me into seeing what I expected and not what was there.

 

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