her interest on the Internet. “I mean, there’s not much of a family resemblance.”
Kelli chuckled. “Yeah, knucklehead’s my little brother. Why, he been giving you trouble? Max filled me in on your situation. You’re a cop, right? Bitten on duty?”
“Nothing I can’t deal with.”
It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. She could more than handle one hot guy who kissed like a sex god. Probably by stripping naked and throwing herself at him. “Yeah. I’m a cop, but I wouldn’t say I was bitten so much as in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
She leaned back and sighed in contentment. She’d always been too busy to get her nails done, but this really was rather nice.
“Really? How so?” Kelli’s voice was full of curiosity, and she was nice, unlike her hot, sexy asshole of a brother.
“Tom, that’s my partner, and I were called to a restaurant break-in. One of the quieter areas of town. To be honest, we thought it was the guy’s alarm on the fritz again…he’d already been warned about it. But when we got there, the place was trashed and there was a wolf in the kitchen. Bast…Uhm,” she cleared her throat. “It attacked and we weren’t prepped or loaded for wolf. Managed to fight it off—”
“You fought off a shifted wolf?” Kelli whistled between her teeth. “Holy shit, girl, remind me not to piss you off, ‘kay?”
Amusement bubbled up and spilled over. “Yeah, right. It was just a fluke. For some reason the chef had some kind of silver knife. It had fallen onto the floor under one of the cabinets. As soon as I…well, you know…the thing screamed, went batshit changing forms, collapsed and died.” She grimaced. “Unfortunately on the way down, its fang got me in the leg. On the day I didn’t take my anti-fuuuurr… Shit. Look, do you guys get pissed off at being called furries?”
Kelli snorted, lifting her hand to admire her newly filed nails. “Only the old stick in the muds. Personally, it’s never bothered me. I like my fur just fine.” She grinned at Ce. “And I like you, so if anyone has a problem with you using that term, you just tell ‘em to come and talk to me. Okay?”
Ce breathed a sigh of relief. Kelli seemed to be a kindred spirit. In fact, if they’d met under other circumstances she could see herself and the other woman being close friends. She slid Kelli a sideways glance as the girl finished up on her nails. “So would this be a good time to admit I call your brother Captain Furry Asshole?”
“Ha!” Kelli’s bark of laughter made the nail technicians jump, but the tears rolling down her cheeks assured them (and Ce) that it wasn’t a bark of anger. “Captain Furry Asshole! Oh, that’s awesome. I gotta tell Max that…yes, thank you, hun. They’re fantastic,” she said to the girl in front of her and pointed toward the credit card she’d left on the top of her purse when they’d sat down.
“Uhm.” Shit. She didn’t have any money on her. Kelli looked up, seeming to read her mind and waved dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, I got this.”
“Thank you, I should have thought of that before we sat down.” Ce breathed a sigh of relief. “I really don’t want to impose but you don’t suppose you could take me to a bank, could you? I can ring through and get them to forward me some cash so I can get some other clothes.” She motioned down to what she had on. “Arrived with just these…although Captain FA did launder them nicely for me.”
“Uh-uh. Not happening.” Kelli shook her head, hair dancing around her shoulders as they left the nail salon. “You’re a guest of the pack. What you need, we provide. Besides, shopping? That at least I can do at the moment. Anything more strenuous is out, because of the bump.”
She rubbed her distended belly as she walked, well, waddled.
“Hmm, thank you. If you’re sure.” Ce wondered how far along she was. Would it be rude to ask? She didn’t know many pregnant women, or women with
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