Page 5 of Countdown to Murder
“Turtle brains have more layers — not quite a birdbrain, but approaching it. Some true turtles can understand human speech, and I understand most turtle shapeshifters can. King cobras are supposedly the smartest of the true snakes, but I doubt my snake will ever be able to understand human language. She recognizes people we know, and I can usually focus my willpower to keep her from hurting them, but I’m limited by her brainpower when it comes to thought and reasoning ability.”
“Good to know.”
Chapter Two
Mira
I’ve fed a vampire an average of three times a week for around two years. With the exception of the top five vampires in the Chattanooga hierarchy, I’ve been allowed to choose who I’m on the menu for and who’d I’d prefer to avoid. Abbott and Gavin have been gone for a while, so now there are only three who can drink from me whether I wish them to or not — Kendra, Fawn, and Josef.
The first year, it was understood I offered my blood twice a week in exchange for food and a bedroom, along with payment for college classes. After a few months, I was given a paycheck for anything over twice a week, and this gave me spending money for clothes and shoes. At first, all purchases were monitored, and I was forbidden from purchasing weapons. Never mind that I can kill eventhe fastest and strongest supernaturals with my bare hands, I wasn’t allowed even a small knife, at first.
On the anniversary of being free for one year, I was given a paycheck based on how many times I fed a vampire, and I had to pay rent for my bedroom, and purchase a meal plan if I wanted the cook to keep feeding me. Kendra explained this was another step towards me eventually moving out and supporting myself. She wanted to be sure I was fiscally responsible before she turned me loose. I was also free to purchase whatever I wanted, even weapons, though I knew the three vampires were in my head on a regular basis, looking through my memories and thoughts.
During this time, lots of vampires had tried to get me interested in them sexually, and it had never worked — not even when they used their venom to try to arouse me. My therapist told me some people are asexual, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Which is why I wasn’t sure what was happening while I sat and ate, facing Panda. I knew what my clitoris was, I’d just never felt it before.Not like this.It throbbed, and it felt hot, and it was uncomfortable. It’s like my body thought Panda could do something about it, and I was mortified.
I’d been taught as a young child never to let my physical or emotional state make it to my scent. No one would ever know if I was happy, sad, terrified, or evenangry by my scent. Those impulses were broken two decades earlier. I knew my scent wasn’t giving away these new feelings and sensations, and yet, I was still mortified that someone might guess. It felt so naughty to eat with four men while the spot between my legs throbbed and pulsed.
I also understood one of the many reasons the four men in the room were so wary of me had to do with my steady scent signature. Supernaturals are used to defining people by smell, and mine gave nothing away. As far as they were concerned, I had zero emotions. Zero reactions. If I wasn’t a snake, they’d compare me to a computer, but knowing I was a snake made it somehow more frightening for them to think of me as cold and emotionless.
Once upon a time, I’d experienced zero emotions, but this wasn’t the case anymore. If they watched my face, they’d see some of them, but most have become too reliant upon scent to do that. Well, except the birds. An owl shifter in Kendra’s flock was way too clever at seeing my emotions.
I wasn’t prepared to explain any of this to the men, but I realized it might be a good idea to explain at least a portion of it to Panda. I waited until we were alone in the shooting range, standing side by side, facing a table full of weapons and their associated ammo.
“Are we being monitored?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. There are cameras down here, recording, but there’s no way to know if anyone’s watching. Why?”
“Because I’d like to talk to you when I know it’s just us.”
He pulled his phone from a pocket in his tactical pants, touched it a few times, and a tone filled the room. I didn’t like it, but I could live with it.
“That keeps electronics from hearing us?”
“It does.”
“As a small child, I was put through emotions and then beaten if people could smell them. Not just emotions, but physical states, too. Happy, sad, scared, hungry, mad, cold, hot, in pain. Eventually, I was taught not to feel most emotions at all, but even when I did, no one smelled them on me. Years of therapy have taught me how to feel emotions again, but the connection that sends them to my scent appears to be gone forever.”
He turned his back to the table and leaned against it, his hands gripping it beside the top of his thighs. “You’re trying to make me feel more at ease around you?”
“My emotional ability was never going to be normal to start with. Snakes have to work at it. There are special classes to teach us how to feel, how to empathize. Even the little bit I was born with was beaten out of me. I have some of it back, enough Fawn, Kendra, and my werewolf therapist think I can be a functioning member of society. Itseems imperative that I be able to successfully work with you, so this is information you likely need.”
“I’m a Barbary lion. Aaron and Nathan know. Ranger doesn’t. I wasn’t going to tell you because I don’t want Kendra and the vampires to know.”
And now they would, whether I wanted them to or not. Though, since I didn’t know what a Barbary lion was, I still didn’t know much. “Are you going to make me google what that is?”
He smiled. “No. Sorry. It’s an extinct lion. Longer and heavier than African lions, with a bigger mane, in most cases. There are some lions in captivity with a good bit of Barbary lion in them, but none in the wild, and no pure Barbary lions, other than shapeshifters. I have to be careful where Ichange. His Majesty’s lion form is bigger than mine, so most people don’t notice the difference if I’m with him, but when I’m with other lions, it’s obvious. There are plenty of Barbary shapeshifters outside the U.S., but few are here.”
With the exception of the computer people in the control room, the men at Drake Security are larger-than-life. Panda is bigger than most of them, and yet, he’s softer. Most of them look like their faces and bodies (what I’ve seen of them) are chiseled from granite, but Panda’s edges are more round. And yet, he’s still massive. His arms, his legs, his chest. He isn’t fat, but his abs aren’t ripped. He’dput a shirt on before he started cooking, but I’d seen his bare torso in the gymnasium.
I needed to think about something else though, because the spot between my legs throbbed stronger when I remembered his broad shoulders and strong chest without a shirt. I changed the subject.
“Why do they call you Panda?”
“I can give you part of the answer, but I’m not sure we’re close enough for me to give you the whole thing.”
“Okay.”
