For Holly Root—I’ve said it before, but I’ll say
it again. Thank you for showing me how great an
author-agent relationship can be.
Acknowledgments
I would love to give a big, happy thank-you to the Pocket team for taking my lump of coal and making it into a diamond of a book. Thank you to my fabulous editor, Micki Nuding, who knows just what my weaknesses are in the first version so that I can fix them in the next one and make the book terrific. And a thank-you for the production team—and my copyeditor!—who always impress me with the thorough, amazing job they do.
I would also love to thank my daily email peeps—you know who you are—who make me feel connected even though we are thousands of miles apart. You guys keep me sane and make me laugh my head off. I am richer for having you in my inbox.
And for my husband, a thank-you for being endlessly patient when I whine, understanding when I’m lazy and messy, and always, always ready to lend a helping hand when I need it. I know I don’t ask for help as often as I should, and this book wouldn’t be nearly as cool if you hadn’t given me the idea in the first place. Your genius is understated but never underappreciated. Love you.
Chapter One
Midnight Liaisons,” I said as I cradled the office phone to my ear. “This is Bathsheba. How can I help you?”
“Hi,” the man breathed nervously into the other end of the phone. “I’m looking for … company. Tonight. Maybe a redhead.”
I winced. There was no way to misunderstand what he was looking for, as he’d clearly stated “redhead” in a rather obvious (and breathy) fashion. We got at least one of these kinds of calls a day, and I’d become an old hand at deflecting the creepiness of misguided callers. “Midnight Liaisons is a dating service, sir. Not an escort service.” Now please, never call again.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Oh,” he said. “Well, that’s fine. How can I access your website to look at the dating profiles? It won’t give me a password.”
“The password is your Alliance ID number,” I said, my voice effortlessly pleasant from years of answering questionable phone calls. “Or I can check your credentials and get you set up with a temporary log-in. If you can tell me who your pack leader is, I’d be more than happy to send through the background check—”
“My what?”
Definitely a civilian on the line. A “natural,” as my boss liked to joke around the office. I decided to play dumb anyhow. “If you don’t have a pack leader … perhaps your master?” If this guy was familiar with undead society at all, he’d catch the hint.
“Huh?”
“Coven? Fey king?” I couldn’t resist. “High lord?”
“What are you talking about, lady?” The man on the other end of the line had lost his patience. Gone was the smarmy tone, replaced by your typical, run-of-the-mill angry customer. Except he definitely wasn’t one of our customers.
“I’m sorry,” I said in my most sugary voice. “But Midnight Liaisons has an exclusive clientele. Our dating service is open to referrals from current clients only. Have a nice day, sir—”
“Now just a minute,” the man began, but I hung up on him anyway. The chances of him ever becoming a client were slim to none, unless he had the luck to run into a vampire looking for a new friend.
From the back of the room, Sara snickered as she typed at her desk. “You always get the weird ones.”
“Of course I do,” I said, turning in my chair to glance at her. Sara’s gaze was glued to her screen, but she had a smile on her face. “We get weird calls because the company name sounds like an escort service. And I get them because you’re not answering the phone.”
“I’m busy,” she said, but her mouth quirked.
“Part of your job is to answer the phone,” I retorted, exasperated. “I’m the office manager! If anyone shouldn’t have to answer the phone, it’s me.”
“But you’re so good at it,” Sara soothed me, grinning. “I’m not half as patient with the freaks as you are.”
I snorted.
Sara just laughed. Seeing as how she’s my baby sister, she got away with just about everything. She flipped through the slender stack of profiles on her desk. “Midnight Liaisons is a stupid name, but what else would you call a dating service that caters exclusively to the paranormal?”
“Bangs for Fangs? Flea-Collared Submissives?” I quipped, turning back to my screen to get rid of the flashing pop-up reminding me to log the call into the database. “Fresh Meat for Deadbeats?”
Sara made a small noise of dismay. “You’re too hard on them. Not everyone who has a tail is a jerk.”
I winced. That was careless of me. “Sorry,” I said, keeping my voice light and playful. “You know I didn’t mean that. The hours are strange, the clients are even stranger, but I like it here.”
It was true—my job paid well, I ran the office like it was my own, and I got to watch over my baby sister twenty-four hours a day, ensuring her safety. Life was good, if a little strange.
My job was to set up new profiles and match up clients, in addition to running the office. Sara’s job was to check in with our clients to see that dates were still on, to follow up after the date to ensure everyone enjoyed themselves, and to update profiles with “exclusive” status if necessary. It was the easiest job in our small office. She usually finished it within hours and then flipped her computer over to gaming mode, spending the rest of the day playing Warcraft.
Across the room, Sara sucked in a breath. “Oh, shit.”
I turned to glance back at her again. “What’s wrong?”
“Profile #2674, that’s what’s wrong,” she said anxiously.
Oh, boy. I didn’t even have to access the profile to know who it was. “What’s Rosie done now?”
Rosie cancelled on dates regularly, was aggressive as hell, and had given more than one guy trouble—and not just the flea-and-tick variety. Some guys were into it; they expected a werewolf chick to be fiery and aggressive.
Everyone in our office hated her.
“What’s she done now?” I repeated, anticipating the complaint call certain to come in.
“She’s cancelled a date with a cat shifter through the website.” Sara raked through her short, swingy brown bob, scattering the fine strands across her cheeks. “Don’t worry, I can handle it.”
I stared at Sara’s stiff posture with alarm, watching her arms for any telltale sproutings of fur. When Sara panicked, she really panicked, and it was my job to calm her down and take care of the situation. Her life depended on it.
I made my voice soothing. “Why is that an ‘oh shit’ problem? Rosie always cancels on the cats.”
We had a string of complaints in her file a mile long. If someone cancelled on a date, they were charged an inconvenience fee. But our boss, Giselle, always waived her fees, and Rosie abused the privilege. I suspected that Rosie and Giselle had some hidden agreement beyond the standard contract, but I wasn’t about to ask.
The only reason Rosie was still allowed in the dating service was because the pool of female Alliance members was so small compared to the male membership. Especially ones as attractive and willing to date as Rosie. We couldn’t afford to lose her; she was brisk business. So we put a note on her profile that she preferred canine dates in the hope of deterring some clients. It didn’t deter many.
“But this isn’t just any cat shifter,” Sara said as I headed over to her desk. Her eyes flicked back and forth across the screen. “He’s a new account. One of the Russells. And his account is flagged.”
A flag meant that someone was powerful and dangerous, and not to piss them off or the boss would do terrible things to us. It also meant Giselle had circumvented the regular setup process and had set this account up herself. She had a vested interest in its success.
We’d learned long ago not to mess with the flagged accounts. Not if we valued our jobs.
“Oh boy,” I breathed. “Do I need to call Giselle about the cancellation?”
Giselle was the siren who had started Midnight Liaisons; she was a bit of a hard-ass. She wouldn’t be pleased when she found out Rosie had screwed with a flagged account.
“Hell, no,” Sara said, looking at me as if I’d grown another head. She hunched over the keyboard and began to type frantically. “I can handle this. Just give me a minute.”
“Sara,” I warned, concerned about her reaction. “We need to be careful when it comes to the flagged accounts. Let me call Giselle and see how she wants to handle it.”
“No way. I’m fixing this,” she said as she typed furiously, her gaze fixed on the screen. “Give me five minutes and I can fake a database failure and wipe out all the records for the past twenty-four hours—”