Page 38 of Murder Mittens

I snuggled into the blanket, breathed deeply, and purred.

“Are you actually awake this time?” Sebastian asked.

“How are you awake? It’s not awake time. It’s time to cuddle with me in bed,” I mumbled, checking the clock, which informed me it was two in the afternoon. “Definitely go back to bed with me time. Or cuddle on you in bed time? Whatever. This isn’t my bed.”

For a rare change, my virus had nothing to contribute, and I could only assume she was pleased with the situation. I suspected the presence of his scent on my blanket had a lot to do with her general contentment.

“You are correct. This isn’t your bed. This is your father’s truck, and I carried you to the truck around noon, after I spent an hour coaxing you into eating breakfast. I was gifted with great endurance from birth, and I work out often. I slept for a while, woke up, got bored, made breakfast, fed you breakfast, and decided to resume our trip. Since I knew you wanted to go to a spa in Cincinnati, I started driving there, although I’m not sure which spa you have a reservation for. There are four that claim they’re lycanthrope friendly. And as I’m not completely evil, I checked into your registered bounties to make sure none of your targets were on the way. There’s one near Cincinnati, but he’s a small fry. I underestimated your desperation to get surgery, as he’s only worth a thousand and is wanted alive.”

“Ah, that guy. He’ll be easy. I’ll just smack him around and tell him I’ll cut his dick off if he resists. That usually gets them to cooperate. It’s the one time being scarred is actually useful for something. When I start snarling those threats while I’m not wearing makeup, for some reason, people believe I’ll follow through. And the ones that don’t think I’ll do it get the snot beaten out of them and dragged to the CDC, where I get paid a thousand dollars for some sport. He’s just a stupid idiot who thinks he can get away with repeat failures to have his virus level checked.”

Sebastian winced. “That’s a very potent threat, and I’d be worried about that one under any circumstance.”

“I wouldn’t actually do that. I’m just very convincing about my willingness to do such a thing to somebody.”

“Well, if some asshole threatens you, I have no problems with you taking names or cutting off important parts of their anatomy. That’s the price they pay for threatening you.”

“I like bagging bounties, Sebastian. Not dicks. Bounties. Bounties give me money. Dicks do not give me money.”

Sebastian made a thoughtful noise in his throat, and he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “There are plenty of dicks who would absolutely give you money.”

“With this face?”

“I’d definitely give you money.”

Somehow, I resisted the urge to laugh at the lion. Somehow. I needed to reward myself with a treat for lunch for my good behavior. “Be sensible, Sebastian. Why would you pay me for what you can get for free? But any money you do give me is going into the fix my face fund, and since that big job we’re starting after I get my spa time is going to be my main fix my face fund, I’ll have to figure out a new plan for all those dollars and cents.” I made a thoughtful noise in my throat. “I’ve actually gotten a decent amount saved up, honestly. I had to open new savings accounts at different banks to store the money for the deposit. They only insure up to so much at each financial institution, did you know that?”

“I was actually aware of that, yes.”

“I actually hit the insurance limit. When I did, I had a panic attack over it, Sebastian. I had that much money, and it wasn’t enough for the deposit for the procedure—for the cheap procedure. They wanted a quarter of the price tag as a deposit. I’m almost there.”

“You have squirreled away more than half a million dollars from your bounties, most of which don’t go over twenty thousand?”

“Yes.”

“Obviously, I did not go over your file sufficiently. Honestly, I didn’t tally your earnings. That wasn’t the private information I was particularly interested in.”

“My mated status?” I guessed. “The number of times I’ve almost gotten myself killed on my quest to fix my face?”

“Your status as mated to me is very important, yes. I have to change that in the system today and register us. My boss will be happy with me. So many of his problems, magically solved. He had been expecting it to take weeks for me to convince you to give me a chance. I’m a really crabby lion when I don’t get your purrs, by the way. I’ve been that way for about a year now, and my boss was really getting tired of it, as I was not getting sufficient purring from someone known to be a pain in my ass. He could only give me so much work involving you, as you are an efficient bounty huntress, so you rarely needed my special brand of attention.”

It made me unreasonably happy I wasn’t the only one incapable of handling life as adults claimed it should be handled. “Are you an idiot, Sebastian?”

“Wells,” he growled. “Wanting to hear you purr doesn’t make me an idiot.”

“No, but your failure to call me and concoct reasons to make me make you roar does make you an idiot. You have my phone number. You enjoy using it. And you could have easily concocted a hundred and one different reasons to abuse your possession of my phone number.”

“Okay. That is a fair statement. I am an idiot. I could have called you.”

“I often had to ignore my virus’s insistence I call you and piss you off enough to roar. I did this because calling you specifically to make you roar seemed rude, and while I’m a lot of things, I try to be obnoxious and frustrating, not rude. Did you get enough purring last night?”

“No. I need more purring today. But first, I need to feed you properly. Our viruses are busy adapting, and you ladies tend to get the short straw on that.”

“Why is that, anyway?”

“I suspect it’s because of the blood type and compatibility issues. Since I’m male, your virus is hard at work making sure you’re compatible with me. My virus just wants to expose you more, and that’s a lot faster to regenerate. I had not expected you to play vampire with me last night, but I am absolutely not complaining about the results. The virus concentration in the blood tends to be higher.”

“Women have to work a lot harder to sufficiently expose men,” I complained.