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“Well, that’s true, I suppose.” She glanced at the den, her eyebrows furrowed. “Can I think about it?”
“Sure. Maybe run it by Kingston, too,” I suggested. “See what he thinks.”
“I will.” She smiled, flushing again. “Thanks, Felicity.”
“No problem.” I offered her the basket. “Take this to him. He needs it more than I do.”
Bashfully, Gena reclaimed it. “You know, I think he probably does.”
Chapter19
Xander
“You’ll need to follow a few rules before communing with Mama.” The short, dark-haired woman who had met us in the Bellagio’s lobby clicked her pen like a punctuation mark. “For everyone’s safety, of course.”
Denny and I had arrived a solid fifteen minutes early for our appointment with Mama Striga.
“Bird shifters,” he’d warned me, “are real jackasses about being on time.”
It was a good call. Our official envoy for the day had promptly collected a cash deposit from me—one thousand bucks in non-sequential bills, which had been a pain in the ass to wrangle on such short notice—then introduced herself as Yusra, one of Mama Striga’s faithful. That was the word she’d used. Not assistant or secretary or even liaison, butfaithful, as if the Bellagio was a church, Mama Striga a prophet, and she just a lowly parishioner.
Yusra was accompanied by two guys who made Denny and me look like a couple of pipsqueaks trying to sneak into an R-rated matinee.
“Rhino shifters,” Denny had muttered to me under his breath when we first spotted them from the entrance.
They must have been the muscle the Kerrys had been talking about, there to make sure none of Mama Striga’s potential clients were in danger from the alphas they had betrayed.
“We can follow rules,” I assured Yusra. “Hit us with them.”
Beside me, Denny shoved his hands in his pockets and glowered. He’d flashed Yusra his driver’s license when she asked for his ID, but otherwise seemed determined not to speak to her.
“Firstly, you must address Mama with obedience and respect,” Yusra began, clicking her pen again. She headed toward the elevators and motioned for us to follow her. The big guys stayed behind, scanning the crowds, and looking not-to-be-fucked-with. “She is a powerful and prestigious shifter who does not take kindly to unruliness, rudeness, or acts of dominance, which means you will need to keep your auras down. If you are not able to conduct yourself in an appropriate manner”—her gaze focused on Denny for a moment—“you will be shown out immediately, and your deposit will not be returned.”
“Best behavior. Got it,” I agreed. Denny grunted, which was sort of the same thing. “What else?”
“Secondly, you must be honest and forthwith, presenting yourself with an open heart and mind. If Mama asks you a question, you must answer it truthfully to the fullest extent of your knowledge and the best of your ability. Anything she tells you, you must be prepared to believe, no matter how terrible,” Yusra continued.
Denny snorted, and she cast a vicious glare in his direction.
“Will that be a problem?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I assured her.
Things were starting to come together for me now. The longer I spent here, the more I could understand why the Kerrys called this operation a cult.
“Very good,” Yusra said. “Lastly, no flash photography.”
I laughed, and she shot me a stern look.
Apparently, that hadn’t been a joke.
“Before you meet with Mama, you will leave your phones and any other recording devices with me at the door,” she said.
“So she can go through all our files while the owl keeps us distracted,” Denny grumbled quietly, but not quietly enough.
Yusra stopped abruptly, her shoulders stiff. She turned to face us both.
“For that alone, I have half a mind to send you both away right now,” she informed us, then looked to me. “Will Mr. Kerry be able to control himself?”
