Dim Sum Asylum(15)

“It’s only a problem if you make it one,” I cautioned. I still hadn’t shaken off the dread Goma smeared on me the night before, so digging through my family’s closet wasn’t high on my list. “I don’t have anything to do with my father’s side of the family. I was raised by my mom. She and my father were a quick flash thing, something hot and dirty both of them needed to work through. I was a mistake—a weird mistake—but sometimes, crap happens. Only thing tying me to Takahashi is my dad, who walked away from that kind of shit years before I came along, so no, not a problem for me.”

I wasn’t going to bring up my grandfather’s uncontrollable need to shove at the edges of my life because, well, that was my own personal albatross to hang around my neck every morning after I brushed my teeth.

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Look, they’re moving.”

The trucks began to fire up, promising we’d move a few more feet before some other asshole in a truck parked across the narrow street. A trill of iridescent gulls swept over us, their screeching calls rattling the unmarked’s windows. I thought I saw Leonard flinch when their rainbow-spotted bodies filled the windshield, but the twitching wince was gone before I could really say it was there.

“So, question to you.” I pushed the car into Drive to coax it a bit more up the steep hill. “Why’d you want to work Arcane?”

“Why’d you want to?”

Flashing him a grin, I shook my head, not willing to let a rookie gain a foothold in our relationship. “Don’t answer a question with another question. That’s why I ended up shooting my first partner.”

I had my own answer for joining the Chinatown Arcane Crimes Division. Most of us in the Asylum did. It was a fascination with the arcane as a whole. For me it was the exploration of the unknown and the hunt for people who violated the law. My shoulder blades itched for the chase, phantom wings frilling at the adrenaline in my blood. Even something as simple as locating a shrine god got my blood up, and I could taste the possibilities in my mind.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a magician. Then I found out that kind of magic was all illusion and sleight of hand.” He shrugged, and his massive shoulders sucked up most of the space in the car until they settled back down. “So I went chasing after the real thing.”

I wasn’t going to bring up the whole military presence rolling off of his skin or the hard eye scan he gave everyone we passed by. Inspector Trent Leonard had secrets, dark ones, considering the clench of his jaw and the faint spiderweb scarring I could make out on his face and down the side of his neck. The damage had been patched up, nearly flawless, but I’d seen that kind of lightning strike bloom on someone before—a dead someone who’d tangled with the wrong qirin and was served up as that week’s stale yakitori by the time we found his body floating in the Bay.

Qirin were rare, and usually by the time one was spotted, the spotter was dead. But here was my new partner, with what appeared to be scars from a qirin. Looked like he’d found his magic and it’d bitten him back.

And as stupid as it was, I wanted to bite him too.

It was insane to want someone I didn’t know, much less someone who was going to sit next to me for however long he survived in the Asylum. But there I was, fighting off urges I hadn’t felt fire through me since… forever. Or at least it seemed like forever.

If I hadn’t already guessed Trent Leonard was bad news, the growling want in my belly would have been a good clue. And since I’d always hungered for the things—and people—who were the worst possible choice I could make, I could see a mess of trouble just waiting for me to take the bait.

“Anything I should know about being your partner?” Leonard’s voice cut into my lust, fueling all kinds of fantasies centered around his husky rasp. “Other than you won’t be biting my head off and eating it.”

“That’s an only after sex thing, and once again, not my clan, but for you, I’d make an exception.” My shoulder blades twitched again, keen on the hunt, and this time, not for the case. My body sensed a thread of something erotic coming off my new partner. Either that or it’d just been too long since I’d last visited Madame Woo’s Golden Dragon Club. I actually couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to Woo’s. Hell, I wasn’t even sure the bathhouse was still in business. “I also don’t usually sleep with my partners.”

“You sleep with any of your partners?” His question was a subtle jab of something, and it sizzled between us, drops of cold water on a too hot skillet. “Or just the ones you don’t plan on shooting.”

“I hadn’t planned on shooting Arnett.” I was beginning to resent his digs, mostly because I couldn’t shake the idea of Leonard lying on my bed, naked and ready for me. Not something I needed to deal with when weaving through Chinatown’s thickening traffic. “I also wouldn’t have touched Arnett with a ten-foot pole. Even before the crested lizards got to him. The guy was an asshole and in love with his gun. I was his last chance on the force.”

“Good to know. I’ll try to keep my asshole tendencies down. You know, to have a fighting chance.” He nodded, a serious expression on his face, and I got the feeling I was being mocked. Leonard eyed me, a slight smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Because I noticed you said usually.”