Page 63 of Death Warden
My cat-sith buddy was back on form now, able to shift from male to cat form and loving it. He’d taken to exploring the city in his cat form most nights, and so far, he hadn’t needed to feed. We’d had a long chat about this change. I’d been worried it might be too overwhelming for him, but in typical Fin manner, he was taking it in stride.
Wait a second, was Riley blushing? Wait…no. “Riley, do you have a thing for Fin?”
“No!” She glared at Toni. “I just happened to mention that he was cute. Once.”
“Yes, and you’ve been ogling his ass ever since,” Toni pointed out with a little too much relish.
Oh, shit. “Do you want me to ask him to wear clothes around the club again?”
“No!” Riley ducked her head with a shy grin. “I mean…it’s fine. It doesn’t bother me.”
“I bet it doesn’t.” Toni smirked.
Finley didn’t like clothes. He wore them when he had to, but most of the time, he was naked. No one had complained because the hellhounds often hung about in partial stages of undress. Fin fit right in.
I hoped Riley wasn’t crushing on him for real, because although he could look like a person, he wasn’t one. He was a cat-sith, a unique creature that we knew very little about. I wasn’t sure that Fin was able to reciprocate the kinds of feelings that Riley might develop, and I cared too much about her for her to get hurt.
And now she was playing with the end of her dark ponytail, a sure sign she was agitated and uncomfortable by our topic of conversation.
I threaded my arm through hers. “Thanks for this, babe. I needed a girly day.”
It was a lie, because I usually abhorred shopping and girl dates, but that was probably because I hadn’t had any girlfriends to go out shopping with before. Okay, maybe this wasn’t such a lie after all.
We crossed the busy street toward Caffeine Mama, a favorite hangout for the club. The day-shift hellhounds frequented the place so often that the servers knew their orders by heart.
The bell above the door tinkled as we entered.
I spotted Jessie at a table up against the wall. She sat facing the door, while Chrissy had her back to us.
“Uh-oh,” Toni said. “Jessie has her get-me-out-of-hereface on.”
She chose that moment to look up and spot us, and that was definitely a smile of relief on her face. “Guys!”
Chrissy turned to us and gave us a close-lipped smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
I took the seat next to Jessie and Toni sat beside Chrissy. Riley grabbed a chair from a nearby table and added it to ours.
“I hear you’re going out tonight,” Chrissy said.
Toni shot Jessie a glare.
“Yeah,” Riley said. “Club girls’ night.”
Chrissy let out a forced laugh. “Logan’s been saying how I need to mingle with the club females more. I mean, considering that I’ll be his mate soon.”
I could see where this was going but none of the females took the bait. A server arrived and placed our orders on the table. Latte for Riley with a slice of chocolate fudge cake, mochas for Jessie and Toni, one with a slice of carrot cake, the other with a chocolate brownie, and a hot chocolate and chocolate muffin for me.
I grinned up at Laura, the server. “You remembered.”
She grinned back. “Course. We take care of our Grave Spirits.”
“Oh, she’s not a Grave Spirit,” Chrissy said with a fake laugh. “I’m more a Grave Spirit than she is. I’m betrothed to one. Logan Wynter, you probably know him.”
Laura gave her a flat look. “Blood ties count. Adi is the prez’s daughter; that makes her a Grave Spirit in my book.” She smiled at me. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.” She focused on Chrissy and pulled out her pad. “And what can I get you?”
The whole encounter highlighted how much of an outsider Chrissy was, and I caught the look of despondency in her eye before she masked it with an overly bright smile.
“A pot of tea and a lemon slice, please.”
