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“I can help you control your beast, but not as well as Angel and Ethan can, and Petra is another wereleopard,” I said.
Bobby looked at her more seriously then. “I can’t sense it.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Bobby,” Pierette said, and there was that touch of humbleness and just a hint of gentle flirting.
If I hadn’t been standing right next to her, I might not have noticed the slight turn of her head, the smile coupled with the shy glance quickly turned to the floor. It was part her own body language, but not all of it. It matched the fear she kept letting Olaf
glimpse. She was masterful at playing her part, a mix of truth and lie that was far more subtle than Edward and his Ted persona.
Bobby took the shy-flirting bait and wasted a nice smile on her. Sometimes it’s not the big showy rose that wins the day. Sometimes it’s the violet underfoot or the daffodil nodding in the breeze. The moment I thought of the analogy, I wondered what kind of flower I was and decided a thistle. A big prickly purple thistle, definitely not a flower to pick for a bouquet.
“Are you going to show me your energy?” Bobby asked.
Pierette did that shy eye flick and smiled a little bit more as she shook her head. “I’ll only step in if I feel your leopard rising. Angel and Ethan will do the energy work until then.”
Bobby looked at Ethan. “Is your energy as gentle as Angel’s?”
Angel answered, “Gentler.”
Bobby looked like he didn’t believe her. She shook her head and said, “I’ve learned to be gentle, but Ethan seemed to come that way. Didn’t you, dearie?”
She put her hand through his arm, which compromised his gun hand, but in the narrow confines of the hallway, if things went sideways it would be empty hands or blades, not guns. I knew Ethan had blades that he could reach with either hand, just like I did. We all practiced shooting with both hands, but most people carried for their dominant hand.
“Are you a gentle man, Flynn?” Olaf asked from near the door. He broke the one word into two—not gentleman, but a gentle man—and he made sure they sounded like an insult. I knew Ethan wouldn’t rise to the verbal bait.
“I try to be,” Ethan said with a smile.
Olaf made a sound that wasn’t complimentary. I felt strangely like I needed to come to Ethan’s defense. I actually opened my mouth to say something about how good Ethan was with weapons and hand-to-hand, but Angel put her hand through my arm and drew us together, almost close enough to be PDA again. Was it just the casual touch of most of the wereanimals, or was she trying to tell me something? Until I could ask her in private, I let it go. Besides, I didn’t need to defend my people to Olaf. They were good in a fight, or they wouldn’t have been working as bodyguards for us. Angel was an exception. She could fight if she had to, because she was gold tiger clan and they insisted that, male or female, you had to know the basics, but she had other skills that made her good with the Coalition. A background in social work and psychology just to name two.
“That’s it? That’s all you can do?” Leduc asked.
Angel looked up at him, smiling, and Ethan and I both pulled away to stand on our own. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I didn’t realize you couldn’t feel the energy.”
“It wasn’t much energy to feel,” Olaf said, and sounded almost sullen. Did he really resent me calling in other shapeshifters that much?
“You’re too new to understand how impressive it is,” Nicky said.
“My control is not that of a newcomer.”
“Your control isn’t what I’m questioning, Otto, old buddy. It’s your lack of experience I’m questioning.”
Olaf scowled at Nicky, and there was a flare of energy like the swat of a lion’s paw. It didn’t actually hurt, but it didn’t feel good either.
“Now I’m questioning your control,” Nicky said.
Olaf made a sound low in his throat that was almost a growl.
“Enough, Nicky,” I said.
“So, what was your last name again?” Leduc asked.
Nicky answered, “Murdock, Nicky Murdock.”
The sheriff turned to me. “So, Murdock, is your energy all gentle, too, like Mr. Flynn’s over there?”
“No,” he said.
Leduc looked at me. “Is Murdock another ‘fiancé’ like Jean-Claude or Callahan?” He gestured to make little quote marks when he said the word fiancé.
