Page 86 of Death and Donuts

“After you eat,” I warned.

He took his plate and shoveled some of the food into his mouth.

“I’ll need to call Effora about this,” Shepard said. “Excuse me.”

Since I wanted to hear the conversation, I followed Shepard out to the hall and to his suite. He brought out his phone and called Effora, placing it on speaker.

“Hello, handsome. How may I please you today?”

“You can please me by telling me what you know about creating shifters.”

“Creating them?” She gasped throatily and then burst out laughing. “Darling, when I said it was lunchtime, I meant real food, not me.”

Shepard and I looked at each other in question.

“Effora, this is important. Can you put your snack aside for now?” Shepard asked.

“And deny my meal?”

“Delay. Not deny.”

“You always were good at edging me, Shepard. Very well. Eloise, darling, I’ll feast with you momentarily. That’s a good girl.” Effora sighed. “Lots of good energy in that one. But she is gone. Now, what do you desire, Alpha?”

“What do you know about creating shifters?” he repeated.

“Not much. Why? Are you thinking of adding an extra animal to your menagerie? A lion, perhaps.”

“Effora, I believe a fae gave Adriel the power to shift into a cat.”

“That’s a serious allegation,” she said even though her tone remained playful.

“It is. I have King Curran and the dwarves breathing down my neck and vampires who are on a killing spree. I need answers.”

“If you allowed me to breathe on your…neck, you’d have more answers and fewer worries.”

“And if you don’t want to take this call seriously, then I’ll hang up.”

“Oh, very well. I’ll look into it for you. Why don’t you pop in tomorrow so I can debrief you?”

“I already know what you mean by debriefing, and I’ll pass. Call back when you have useful information.”

He hung up only to get an incoming call from King Curran. Shepard swore under his breath.

I patted his arm. “I’ll see about lunch,” I said and left him to his call.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The womenfrom earlier paused their conversation to greet me when I returned to the kitchen. They had a neat assembly line going where the plates moved down the line of the prep counter and finished on a tray that slid nicely on a baker’s rack.

“Need any help?”

The woman laying out the plates handed me a stack.

“You can take over for me for a few minutes so I can run a plate to Bear. He was out all night and just came back. I want him to eat before he passes out.”

Another woman passed her a plate piled with sandwiches, and she hurried out.

“I don’t know how much longer they’ll last like this before they collapse,” one woman said with a shake of her head. “If it weren’t for what happened the last time, I think Shepard would have already reached out for help from the other packs. After all the pack leaders left, the number of missing persons started to climb.”

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