Page 30 of Murder Mittens

“Yes.”

“Did he complain?”

“No, not at all. He actually made good yarn suggestions, too. I didn’t know he knitted or crocheted until today, though. But his secret is now exposed. He sews. Our first real fight is over the sewing machine. Right now, we have a joint custody arrangement for the sewing machine.”

“Okay. I see it really is too late for you. Tell us when and where we should pick up your Christmas present, and we’ll make sure he’s unable to escape you. We can be convincing.”

I snickered at the thought of my brothers picking a fight with a lion. Who would win?

Me. I would win. The roaring would be amazing, and I bet my lion would do a fantastic job of beating up on my brothers before they used sheer numbers to overwhelm him.

“You will not harm a hair on his head, you will not damage his face, and you will not wreck his suit. You will also leave his masculinity intact and uninjured.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be of much use to you if we damaged his masculinity.”

The first of the cops pulled up, and I sighed. “I have to go rescue my sewing machine from that cat’s clutches. And help him load it into the truck. I’ll give a call when I have an estimated time of arrival. And no plans for my lycanthrope, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” my brother replied.

I hung up, dug out the little card the CDC gave me that told the police I could legally murder people, and prepared to waste several hours answering questions.

Six

The lion wisely helped only when asked.

The CDC arrived half an hour after the cops to verify my kill and authorize the payment for my work. As Sebastian happened to be around, he cut through the red tape bullshit in record time.

On Monday morning, I would have twenty-five thousand dollars in my bank account.

Yesterday, that money would have gone towards the surgical reconstruction of my face. Today, I had no idea what I would do with it, but it was mine, so it was going into my savings account. If the big job fell through, I’d be twenty-five thousand closer to having my face back.

If it didn’t fall through, I’d probably need therapy to get over actually having money I could do something with.

The sewing machine itself went into a box with a lot of padding and was buckled into the back seat for extra-safe keeping. Its beautiful wooden stand with drawers went into the bed, and as I had issues, I secured it tighter than Fort Knox.

Sebastian observed, and the lion wisely helped only when asked.

Snapping my teeth and growling a warning had been sufficient to make it clear I would personally handle my new baby.

“Joint custody arrangement,” he reminded me.

“You’re losing this one, because this baby is moving in with me, which means you have to move in with me, and my living arrangements are not to a lion’s standards. You and your ego won’t fit in my home. It’s small, and I rent it. It’s the house version of an apartment. I do my customer service work in the equivalent of a small closet. And since you insist on joint custody, you’ll just have to deal with it. I’ll give you a key so you can visit and sew when you need to visit. If I move away, my entire family will have a meltdown, and there’s nothing worse than a bunch of cats indulging in drama all at once. It’s bad enough when one litter has a meltdown, but all fifteen litters having a meltdown at one time? My brothers would make the news. I’d make the news for killing my brothers, too.”

“I have plans for that. My favorite plan involves rope, a struggle, a forced removal of the lynx of my choosing from arrangements not to my standards and moving her to a location that does meet my standards. As I am a lion, I’ll fight an entire lynx clan for the right to do this if necessary. I’ve never gotten to take on an entire lynx clan at one time before, so I find this to be exciting and interesting. As I get to make off with the clan’s only single woman, I’m the winner of this from top to bottom.”

My virus wanted to get straight to the struggle portion of his plan, and she wanted all of the struggling to take place while naked. Considering her general patience when it came to my non-existent dating or sex life, I wouldn’t blame her for her ridiculous amount of lust.

Sebastian wore his suit a little too well, and the knowledge he’d made it only revved my engine in the best ways.

Still, I’d started our questionable relationship being a pain in his ass, and I wouldn’t go down without maintaining my high standards of driving him insane. “I hope you survive. I will be so sad if my daddy kills you. I’ll probably even shed an entire tear over your loss. And then I’d probably get my uncle as my handler, and work would be so bad. So bad. I’d have to get voice-masking software on my phone and never meet him in person. And figure out how to get the CDC to completely mask my identity to prevent the clan from having a meltdown. It wouldn’t end well at all. For the sake of my sanity and ability to fix my face, you must survive through your meeting with my family.”

His glare implied I ventured close to earning a roar, and my virus perked up at the thought of earning yet another one out of him. I grinned.

When caught off guard, even my family grimaced when I grinned or smiled, as it made the missing chunk of bone in my cheek more pronounced. All my expression did was annoy Sebastian into scowling even more.

“Are you going to roar for me, little kitty?” I taunted while doing a second check of the prized stand for the sewing machine. I gave my new baby a loving pat and hopped out of the bed, securing the tailgate into place. “I do like when I make your fragile hold on your temper fray and snap. And then all you can do to me is roar in my face. In case you weren’t sure, I find that to be so satisfying.”

“The next time I roar, it won’t be because you’re doing your best to piss me off, that much I promise. And the longer you resist, the longer you’ll go without hearing a single roar out of me.”