Shamira was sitting at a coffee shop near the intersection of I-575 and Highway 92. She had a laptop, the shop had wi-fi and . . . well, coffee. It was a match made in heaven. She probably should have stayed at the house, but she couldn’t. She’d had an off night just twelve or so hours earlier. She’d embarrassed herself by ko’ing one her boss’s new employees just because he had the ability to turn into a spider. She was terrified of spiders.
Oh, and she’d killed a person. Okay, it was a really nice lady who would be rising again in a few days and become a vampire, but there had been something unnerving about thanking someone, staring into their smiling face and then squeezing off three 9 mm rounds into her chest. Shamira did what she always did when she knew she’d fucked up.
After staring at Tabitha’s body for a few moments, shadow jumped back home, grabbed her computer, emailed Shane that things had gone well, and then she vanished. She needed time to think. With all the new people in the house, no one would probably even notice that she wasn’t in her room.
And apparently no one did. She’d really didn’t need much sleep, so she’d simply wandered around for hours and hours until the sun was up in the sky and the first pot of highly-overpriced hot beverage was being poured. She staked out a corner table, pulled up Mysti-pedia on her laptop and started studying mystical zoology. Nothing was sinking in, but she was studying, damn it.
Her vampire physiology was just beginning to fail her when the call came in. Her head shot back with a jolt as she recovered from dozing off while grabbing for her phone.
“Hello?”
“Shamira? Where the hell are you?” came Clara’s voice.
‘Clara,’ Shamira thought. The woman who Shamira’s first female sex, first female domme, first friend she’d made after dying . . . the woman who made things make sense for Shamira. Clara apparently acted as a submissive once for all other dominants in the house to make sure they knew their stuff. Shamira couldn’t imagine the lean, gorgeous Native American woman bowing to anyone. Clara had the wickedness of the eighteen-year-old girl she had died as, but the experience of an eighty-year-old woman. It was a dangerous combination.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
“Sorry. Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”
There was a pause at the other end of the line, and Shamira could guess that she was about to get yelled at. “What’s up?! After last night, you just up and vanish –”
“I emailed Shane,” Shamira said quickly.
“You emailed HIM and told him that you’d killed killed Tabitha, then nothing? I had to track him down after I finished up with Sebastian to find out why you aren’t in your room? Then we both find out that you aren’t even in the house, and no one knows where you are and –”
Shamira’s brain kicked in. “Wait, when you were finished with Sebastian?”
“Yeah, I went ahead and subbed for him so I could get it out of the way. Babe, if you can ever get over this fear of yours, he’s really quite good. I mean, I never really get comfortable as a bottom, but –”
Shamira hung up the phone. She didn’t even know why she did it, but the thought of him . . . and her . . . doing that. ‘I shouldn’t have hung up on her.’ But she couldn’t bring herself to call back. She couldn’t even stop herself from turning the phone off. She just stared. Not at anything, but at that little area of space that only existed when neither eye was focused correctly. She picked up her laptop and started walking. She didn’t go far, finding an abandoned gas station surrounded by some heavy woods. She sat down around back, leaned her head against the worn brick, and simply fell asleep.
————– —————-
Some time later . . .
————– —————-
Shamira was getting nudged in the shoulder. Her back hurt, her ass was sore from the concrete, and she didn’t feel particularly rested. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ she thought. ‘And who the hell –‘
“Shamira?”
‘Crap,’ she thought, ‘Clara again. How did she find me? If I just keep my eyes closed –‘
“She’s awake,” came Renata’s voice. The werejaguar sounded tired.
“Shamira, open your eyes,” came a third voice. It was Henry.
Shamira slowly peeled her eyes open. Three faces looked down at her. Clara looked concerned, Henry looked annoyed, and Renata . . . Renata looked exhausted. “Hey,” she said meekly. “What are you guys . . . ack!”
Shamira had been cut off by Clara picking her up and shoving her roughly against the wall.
“What the hell is with you?!” Those gray/green eyes were blazing as they met Shamira’s gaze. Clara was pissed. “What are you –” Clara actually pounded Shamira against the wall so hard that brick dust came loose. “You just vanish from the house and then you hang up on me and then vanish again and we have to get Pierre to trace down where you were using your computer and have Renata, who hasn’t slept much in days by the way, has to come with us to track you down just so we can find you asleep by this fucking station, and you’ve got the nerve to act surprised?!” Clara dropped Shamira and stormed around the side of the building, muttering some unflattering curses in a language Shamira did not even recognize.
“I just . . . was walking and sat down and fell asleep,” Shamira muttered, a little frightened now.
“Bullshit,” Renata said, yanking Shamira back to her feet.
“Listen, this whole thing where you freak out is getting a little old,” Henry added with a scowl. “Taking offense with anything anyone says, freaking out . . . you knocked out a werespider just for touching you.” Henry actually looked a little impressed when he said that last part. “Every time you say you’ve got it together, you do something stupid.” He turned and followed Clara.
Renata sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Shane’s put me in charge for tonight,” she said. “Said you didn’t seem to be in a good frame of mind to deal with politics. I tried to talk him out of it, but since you weren’t around to make your case –” She stopped and shrugged.
Shamira’s head was swimming. “I didn’t mean . . . thanks for sticking up for me.”
Renata’s eyes turned flinty. “It wasn’t for you. I’m not really interested in being the lab rat for this little experiment with the faeries. You got us into this, but I guess I’ll have to be the one to get us out.”
Something inside Shamira snapped. “Screw you,” she hissed. “Screw Shane too.”
“Excuse me?” Renata said, getting up in Shamira’s face. “You did not just say that.”
“Damn right I did. I made a deal with the faeries, so I’ll be making good. I’m not going to let you or Shane or anyone else make a liar out of me.” She shoved the laptop case into Renata’s chest. “I’m going to show up at the faeries’ land tonight to do what I said I’d do. I’ll get Shane his damn information.”
“You don’t get to make that call,” Renata shot back, growling. The cat in her wanted to get out and fight.
“I just did.”
“No member of Shane’s house defies him. You’d better learn that if –”
“You’re right,” Shamira interrupted. “No member of his house should defy him. Since he’s got plenty of other people now who are obviously better at all this than I am, I’ll move out in the morning. I’ll find the damn morning star dealers on my own.”
Renata wasn’t sure how to handle this. She didn’t want Shamira to leave. She was pretty sure no one wanted her to leave, and she was 100% sure that Clara wouldn’t want Shamira to leave. “Don’t go saying things you might regret,” she said, trying to pull the conversation back from the brink. “Talk to me. Please. I hate to use the phrase ‘this time,’ but what’s got you upset this time?”
“I don’t know,” Shamira said, sliding back down the wall and having a seat. “I mean, we went to plot Tabitha’s death and we get attacked by those Dark Pools –”
“Woah!” Renata’s eyes went open. “Dark Pools? Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?” Renata listened patiently as Shamira dumped everything that had happened over the last several days into her lap, all the way up to that phone call she’d had with Clara earlier that day. Renata made a mental note to kick some peoples’ asses for making Shamira be Tabitha’s executioner so early. She’d freaked out when she’d had to kill a bad guy, but to kill a friend, however temporarily, was bound to fuck with her mind.
Renata sat down. “Listen, I may not say this right since I can barely remember my own name at the moment and am running on pure black coffee, but I do sometimes think you look for reasons to panic. I’m not saying that you don’t get some big drama, but freaking out doesn’t seem to be the best way of dealing with it. Just say that you’re overwhelmed and ask for help.”
“I can’t! I’ve already chickened out too many times and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.”
“You’ve had a busy three weeks haven’t you?”
Shamira closed her eyes. “Now even Clara’s mad at me, and she has every right to be.”
Renata smirked. She’d anticipated this little issue. “Clara’s not mad because of any mistake you made. You scared the crap out of her, and she doesn’t like being scared. She told you she subs for the new doms, right? She told you why she chose Sebastian for last night?”
“I kinda hung up on her before we got to the ‘why’ of it.”
“She knew that he’s the one you’re going to have the most problems getting comfortable with. She wanted to start in right away to make sure that he’ll be safe for you.”
“Why her? I mean, why not let me do it or another sub? You LIKE being s submissive sometimes, but she –“