Page 79 of Murder Mittens

“This way,” Lori whispered. All-in-all, outside of her being a few inches taller than me, we were interchangeable, right down to a slight overabundance of mammary material, slender builds, brown hair, and scarred faces. Stefan headed up the stairs.

I waited until he was gone to lift my head and sniff the air. The whole place reeked of fear and pregnant women, and I thought I caught a faint hint of old blood. “You don’t want to be here,” I stated in a low tone, soft enough only she could hear me.

She sucked in a breath, her eyes widened, and she glanced up the stairs. “Run while you can.”

I smiled. “Oh, don’t you worry your pretty head about me. I’m your guardian angel today, sent courtesy of the FBI and the CDC. If you want out of here, just play along.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious. Did he kidnap you?”

“Just like he kidnapped you. But you should be drugged. With pixie dust. He grabbed me first, then he took Lori. He usually keeps us drugged, but we’re now late enough in our pregnancies he doesn’t want to risk it.”

“Is he the father?”

“No. His brother. That’s why he’s calling him.”

“Will you verify this with an angel?”

“Without hesitation.”

“Are there any children?”

Lori grabbed a kettle off the counter, filled it with water, and set it on the gas stove before lighting it. “There are, but they aren’t here. They’re with Stefan’s woman. She’s caring for them right now. If they don’t get along well with their father, he dumps them somewhere.”

What a fucking asshole. “Alive?”

“We think so. We don’t know what happened to their mothers. They weren’t right for Stefan’s brother or something. Or they outlived their usefulness, I guess. They disappeared.”

“How long does it take for his brother to get here after he calls?”

“No more than an hour, but you’re the first time he’s brought a woman over. It’s usually some business associates of some sort, or Stefan’s woman. She doesn’t like us all that much.”

I bet, and I could guess why. “Does the woman have family that comes to visit?”

That would cover the minimum I needed for the implicating her politician relative—or not.

“No, I don’t think so. She’s standoffish. I think she’s estranged from her family.”

“And Yvonne?”

“She cries all the time because she wants to go home.”

Well, she’d be going home if I had anything to say about it. “Where are the knives?”

Lori pointed at a magnetic rack on the wall, which had a collection of nice knives.

“Do you sew? Or, more importantly, got a good pair of sewing shears?”

“We do. I mean, we aren’t all that good at it, but we have shears meant for sewing. I don’t know if they’re any good.”

I’d settle with one of the knives or my claws. Or both. I set my purse and my laptop bag on the counter, pulled my shirt over my head but left my bra on, which wouldn’t be destroyed when I went from human to infuriated lynx hybrid on a mission to murder. I kicked off my shoes, opted to sacrifice the pantyhose, and decided the rest of my attire would either survive or it wouldn’t. She stared at me with wide eyes, and I embraced the wild side of my virus, who wanted Sebastian and wanted him right now. Fur sprouted from my skin, my muscles expanded and contorted, and my bones creaked and popped as they took on mass and altered shape. I flexed my hands, which had turned into a blend of human and lynx paw armed with long, lethal claws, which I retracted and extended.

I allowed myself a purr and gave myself a shake, pleased the skirt Sebastian had picked for me had survived. I held a claw to my lips to indicate Lori should be quiet. She nodded.

I grabbed the largest knife of the lot, which would do an excellent job of killing a defenseless human man who expected a docile little lady of a secretary rather than a hybrid lycanthrope.

Well, almost a hybrid lycanthrope. I resembled a furry human with paws and oddly shaped legs, but I worked with what I had.