“Oh yes, how could I forget my favorite nickname? Since we’ve settled important matters, let’s order half a damned pig and proceed to harden our arteries while you answer my questions.”
A half hour and a pile of rib bones later, Monica unabashedly licked sweet-and-spicy sauce from her fingers. A smear marred one cheek. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Rearing her chair back on two legs, she rubbed her stomach. “Man, I’m full as a tick! Now that we’ve eaten enough for a small country, why did you want to meet with me, other than to smack you around and deflate your puffed-up ego?”
Seth grinned. “Because you don’t like me.”
The chair dropped back on four legs. Monica extended her palms in a warding-off gesture. “Don’t be talking no kink at the dinner table. I may be a big woman, but I don’t get into whips and chains and shit, no matter how many times I’m asked.”
Seth wasn’t sure she meant her comment as a joke and didn’t want to dwell on the mental image of Monica in dominatrix mode—not that it’d be much different than how he normally viewed her. “Junior and Dustin both have their own agendas when it comes to me, and let’s not even talk about my ex suddenly showing up. You’d like nothing better than for me to hop a plane out of here. Personally, I’d like to hop a plane out of here too. But you also cared about my aunt and have your own opinions about local politics.”
Monica surveyed him almost clinically, as if trying to dissect him into his component parts. But where disgust had been the only expression he’d read so far, something new crept into place. A softening of the eyes. And did the corner of her lip twitch upward for a split second? Could that have been the beginnings of a… smile? “Why should I help you?”
Seth knew with that one question he’d broken through. It might take weeks or even years, but one day, Seth knew, without a doubt, Monica and he would be friends. “Because you’re just about the most invested person in this damn town I’ve met. Spill!”
In an uncharacteristic display of doubt, Monica nibbled her lower lip, giving her sauce-encrusted nails a thorough examination. “How much of the ‘Chandler-Frost Virus and You’ lecture did Dustin give you?”
After a quick belch into his napkin, Seth faced Monica with resolution. He needed to be honest if he expected honesty in return. “Dustin tells me there’s a good chance I’ll go furry on the next full moon.” He’d hoped with this meeting to open a door with Monica, maybe a crack. She flung it wide and barged on through, telling him far more than he’d dared hope for.
“The day you arrived you smelled like passel, only not very strong. Since you were bitten, your scent’s grown stronger. Even if I wasn’t sitting across from you now, I’ve smelled you on Dustin. I’ve picked up your scent in the grocery store without even having to lay eyes on you.” She tapped a fingertip against her nose. “Hypersensitive sniffers come with the territory.”
Since she’d been forthcoming up until now, Seth started in on the list of questions he’d compiled while wondering whether or not she’d show up. “Have you ever wondered, ‘Why possums’? I mean, I understand a bear or wolf, to help you defend yourself, but what advantage is there in turning into a possum?”
Monica shrugged a pair of shoulders any high school linebacker would be proud of. “Depends on the threat. If it were another animal, a bear or wolf might work, but what if it were a man? Say you’re running through the woods from an enemy. In prehistoric times, he might have a club, or in more recent years, a gun. You turn into a wolf and he kills you. Same with a bear, because you’re a threat. But if you turned into a possum and scuttled off into the underbrush, you’re home free.” While she spoke, she shredded a slice of Texas toast with her fingers, dropping the torn chunks back into the basket. “And I can’t tell you how many of our young folks get snapped up by certain government agencies that go by three letters.”
“What?” Seth gasped in disbelief. “The government knows about us?”
“Yep. And has a vested interest in keeping quiet. You think secret papers about Area 51 might cause a scandal? Wait until the public gets wind of the military using shifters for espionage.”
Whoa! Seth hadn’t even considered how useful a shifted possum might be. “How about the locals? Is everyone here a possum shifter?” “Not everyone. But those who aren’t have family ties, their own folks to protect.”
Her words made a weird kind of sense, in a twisted, sci-fi, Bmovie kind of way. “What happensnow, to me?”
“Now we wait until the next full moon. If you shift, you’ll be expected to assume responsibility for the passel.”
He’d been afraid the “gift” came with strings attached. Unfortunately, the only thing, or rather person, he wanted to be attached to was Dustin. “Do you like football?”
Monica gave him an incredulous glare. “I haven’t missed a Possums game in five years.”
“Good. Now imagine you’re the quarterback, and you try to snap the ball to me.”
The brow slowly rose over Monica’s right eye.
“You hold it out, I ignore it. What do you do?”
“Give it to somebody else?”
“Bingo! I don’t want the ball! Give it to Dustin.”
Monica’s inelegant snort startled Seth. “He doesn’t want it either. We’re about to lose the game to the opposing team.”
Dustin didn’t want leadership? Then why send workers to the house, or otherwise try to butter Seth up? “Why not give it to Junior, if Dustin doesn’t want it and I don’t want it?”
Monica inclined her head toward a boisterous family of six dining a few tables away. “Do you want to walk over there and tell Mr. and Mrs. Sanders that they have to leave the town they both grew up in because they’re not ‘one of us’?” Her indigo gaze settled on a man with long, sandy-blond hair pulled back in a tail and a woman bearing a noticeable baby bump. “Andy there is Reynard of the local fox skulk. Most of his older shifters are refugees from a vicious power struggle and have nowhere else to go. Want to go tell him and his pregnant wife you’re pulling the rug on Irene’s promise of protection?”
Seth eyed the two families in question. “Why does Junior want to get rid of them?”
“It’s not just them. He’d give me the boot too, for not being ‘full blood’. That's the main reason I’d never want to be Jill, the other being that I couldn’t tolerate folks calling me at all hours to solve their problems for them. In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not known for suffering fools lightly.” An understatement if Seth ever heard one.
“You’re not a full blood either,” she continued, “but the name McDaniel carries a lot of weight around here.” Monica spat a toothpick onto her plate. “Dustin didn’t want the job, but he’ll take it to protect the innocent.”
