lined them up on the counter. The clerk glared at her while he rang them up. Eve pulled some bills out of her pocket and peeled off twice the amount of the total. “Keep the change. I appreciate your not calling the cops.”
“Thanks, lady.” He stared at the young woman. “Don’t ever come back here again, got it?”
She nodded. Eve took the bag from the clerk and turned to the girl. “You got anywhere to go?”
“No.”
“Ah. So you can talk. Come with me. I’m not staying all that far from here.” She held the door open and the young woman stepped out ahead of her. For whatever reason, Eve felt relaxed for the first time in weeks. She wasn’t sure how or why, but the little thief with the silky black hair seemed to hold answers.
Answers to questions Eve hadn’t even thought to ask. Smiling, clutching the bag of groceries against her chest, she headed back to the motel with her young charge in tow.
The microwave dinged. Eve pulled out the little round table from the corner of the room and set out napkins as place mats, put a warmed breakfast croissant filled with ham, cheese, and eggs on each one, then set the orange juice in front of the girl and the steaming coffee by her own. “Go ahead,” Eve said, when the young woman hesitated.
That was all it took. She practically inhaled her food, shoving big bites into her mouth and swallowing huge gulps. Eve ate at a much slower pace and studied her guest. Something about the young woman intrigued her. She wasn’t sure of her age—the girl could be anywhere from twelve to thirty—but for some strange reason, Eve felt as if she knew her. Could she be Chanku? That growl certainly hadn’t sounded human.
“What’s your name? I’m Eve Reynolds.”
The girl swallowed. “I know. I remember you.”
“What?” Eve sat back in her chair, shocked. “How?”
“The Bostick place. You lived there when I was real little.” She took another big bite and washed it down with a swallow of juice. “You kept the big kids from picking on me. By the time you left, I was big enough to take care of myself.”
Eve blinked, remembering. “Mei? You’re little Mei?”
The girl nodded, smiling. “Mei Chen. Yes. That’s me. I was about four, you must have been eight or nine. Sheesh, that’s over twenty years ago! I missed you so much when you left.” She took another bite of her meal, chewed and swallowed. “Why did you go?”
Eve shook her head, remembering things she’d tried so hard to forget. “I don’t know. It always seemed as soon as I got comfortable in a home, I’d get moved to a new one, have to prove myself all over again.” She rolled her shoulders, put the memories back where they belonged. “Mei. Wow…I can’t believe this. It’s good to see you. How have you been?”
Mei looked down at her napkin. “I wish I could say I was great, but…not good. Homeless for the past few months. I got my GED for high school, but no college. I really wanted to go to college, but…” She shook her head. “No training for anything. It’s tough, ya know?” She raised her chin defiantly and stared at Eve for a moment. “I worked in a couple of fast food places.” She smiled crookedly. “Jobs were okay, managers had too many ideas and too many hands.”
Eve could understand that. Mei practically pulsed with sensuality. Her clothing might be torn and ragged, but her hair was shiny and clean, her skin clear, her tall, lean body absolutely gorgeous. She moved with a sinuous grace, an innate passion that spilled over onto Eve. Aroused her even beyond the frustrated desire she felt night after night.
Eve squeezed her legs together and felt an answering shiver race along her spine before it arrowed directly to her clit. She took a deep breath. For the first time, Eve noticed Mei’s eyes. Dark lashes surrounded perfect, almond-shaped, green eyes. Eyes the color of summer grass with specks of amber scattered throughout. Eyes almost like the other Chanku shapeshifters Eve knew.
Almost, but not exactly. She took another bite of her sandwich and concentrated on Mei. Concentrated on her thoughts and tried to find an answer to her sense of the almost familiar.
The frisson of awareness intensified. It was there, just beyond reach. Alien, unfamiliar, suffused with sensual needs almost completely overwhelmed by fear and loneliness. Still, she felt the connection to another mind, to another’s desire. Mei raised her head. Looked long and hard into Eve’s eyes. Brushed her hand across her forehead and blinked.
“What are you doing?” Mei’s whisper radiated confusion and desire. “I feel you.” She tapped her temple lightly with her forefinger. “Here. I feel you here. And here, as well.” She swept her hand along her torso, paused at her small breasts, then roughly grabbed herself between the legs. “Here, most of all. What the fuck are you doing in my head?”
Chapter 2
“I wondered if you could feel my thoughts. My arousal.” Eve slowly gathered up the papers and crumbs from her meal to give herself time to think.
“You a lesbian?”
Eve smiled at the challenge in Mei’s voice. “When the company suits me.” She stood up and walked across the room, dumped her garbage in the small trash can and grabbed the bottle of brown capsules Anton had given her. She sat down again and smiled at Mei, pushing gently with her mind. Sharing her growing arousal. “What about you?”
“Sometimes I like women. Mostly I dig guys, ‘cept when there’s not one around.” She was watching Eve now with more than a little interest shining in her green eyes. Watching the pill bottle Eve had set on the table in front of her.
Somehow, Eve had to get Mei to take Anton’s pills. The big, ugly capsules were filled with a mix of dried grasses specific to the Tibetan steppe, the Chanku ancestral home. The nutrients in the pills activated a small gland lying dormant near the hypothalamus of a latent Chanku. It was the only way, she knew, to find out if Mei shared the same genes.
If Mei was merely human, the pills would have absolutely no effect on her. If she was Chanku, she would have the ability to shift from woman to wolf within a week.
Eve took a capsule out of the bottle, popped it in her mouth and downed it with a swallow of coffee. “They’re vitamins,” she said, holding the bottle out to Mei. “Nutrients and stuff to keep me healthy. I get them from a good friend. Do you want one?”
Mei eyed the ugly pills suspiciously. “I don’t do drugs.” She took one out of the bottle and sniffed it. She raised her head and frowned. “Smells like weed. Really expensive stuff.”
Eve laughed. “I don’t do drugs either, and these are most definitely not marijuana. Never mind. I don’t have all that many of them anyway. I just figured your diet’s probably not been all that healthy. These are a good supplement.”
Mei gave her a crooked grin. Instead of replacing the capsule back in the bottle, she popped it into her mouth and swallowed it down with a gulp of orange juice. “Last night’s dinner came out of a dumpster near that hamburger joint on the corner. I’ll take your pills.”
Eve grinned broadly as she took another sip of her rapidly cooling coffee. “You need to find better quality dumpsters. That place has lousy hamburgers and really greasy fries.”
Mei laughed out loud this
