Anita Blake 18 - Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

have done it.
    He stopped obediently, but his power slapped out at mine, and my nostrils flared with the scent of him. He’d had to call more of his beast to chase back my colder power. I smelled the thick, heavy, heat-washed scent of lion. The lion inside me raised her head and looked up at me, if something that lived inside your body could look up at you. It was the way my mind visualized it so I could “see” the beasts and not lose what was left of my sanity.
    “Good kitty,” I said, and I wasn’t talking to the pale gold image in my head. That image sniffed the air and gave a low purr. She liked what she smelled, which meant he was as powerful as I feared. The lions, especially the lions, demand a partner that’s strong. It probably had something to do with the fact that real lion males will kill all the cubs when they take over a new pride; when your babies are at stake, you want a male that can defend them.
    The man’s thin lips gave an even thinner smile, but he nodded, as if somehow knowing he was a cat had won me a point. He sniffed the air and gave me a more serious look. He smelled my lioness, and it seemed to surprise him. He hadn’t known that I held lion inside me: good. It meant he didn’t know everything about me: even better.
    His eyes actually slid to the side, and I fought not to look where he was looking. I gave only the edge of my vision in that direction. He was too close to me for me to risk taking my gaze off of him completely. He probably wasn’t going to jump me here, but I wasn’t sure, so I only saw Ahsan working his way toward me out of the corner of my eye. The shapeshifter turned and watched him completely, not looking at me at all. Was it an insult, or a show of trust?
    Ahsan paused before he got to the table, shivering a little. He felt some of the psychic energy wafting around us. He got a point for that. Psychic nulls don’t survive well around me. I didn’t want to date him, but I didn’t want to get him killed, either. He glanced at the man still standing near my table, but not “at” my table. It was suddenly not just a dangerous situation, but socially awkward. Perfect.
    Ahsan looked from one to the other of us, his smile faltering. “Is this another . . . friend?” He hesitated way too long before settling on that last word.
    “He’s not a friend,” I said.
    “Coworker,” the shapeshifter said, voice absolutely ordinary, even pleasant. “I just saw Anita getting ready to leave and thought I might get her table. There isn’t another empty one.”
    Ahsan relaxed. I didn’t, because the stranger had managed to calm the waiter and subtly threaten everyone in the restaurant. I fought to let my breath out slow and even, and kept the gun aimed on the main body mass of the stranger. Though with his height, and the table height, he’d better hope I didn’t have to pull the trigger, because the main mass I would hit was low, as in below the waist. To hit higher I’d have to be willing to show the gun to the restaurant, and I was hoping not to have to do that. He was right; the restaurant was packed full of innocent bystanders. Packed full of human bodies that the silver-plated bullets would kill just as surely as the shapeshifter; fuck. Not to mention that the amount of power he’d displayed meant he could probably put out just claws on his human hands without having to shift completely, which would have given me time to shoot him. But claws are like switchblades—fast. He could slice up the humans faster than I could kill him. The situation was just chock-full of bad choices.
    The lioness inside me began to pace slowly upward, as if she really could. I knew it was a comforting illusion my mind created, but she walked up a path, and that meant she was coming closer to the surface of me. I did not need to try to shift in the restaurant. It would make me unable to concentrate on the bad guy. I worked at calming my pulse, slowing my breathing. I could control