«Yeah.» Andrea loaded so much scorn into one word, I actually paused.
This was one of those thin-ice areas of friendship, which had a great potential for dumping me
into freezing water. «You really don't like him?»
A shadow crossed Andrea's face. «I don't want to be his TWT-IHFB.»
«What does that mean?»
«That Weird Thing I Haven't Fucked Before.»
I choked on a bite of gyro.
Raphael chose that moment to emerge from the door. Pissed or not pissed, Andrea watched him
as he walked toward us and so did I. I practically dislocated my shoulder twisting in my seat so I
could catch a glimpse. He moved with an easy shapeshifter grace, a kind of inborn elegance usually
reserved for highly trained dancers and martial artists. His black hair, worn down to his shoulders,
moved as he walked, absorbing the sunlight. His skin was tan, and his face . . . There was
something so interesting about him. Taken by themselves, his features were unremarkable, but put
together they somehow combined into an intensely attractive face. He wasn't handsome, but he
drew your gaze like a magnet, and his eyes, deep, piercing blue, were positively smoldering.
You looked at Raphael and thought sex. He wasn't even my type and I couldn't help it.
Raphael stopped a few feet from our table, not sure what to do next. «Hello. Andrea. Kate.
Didn't expect to see you here.»
I turned back to the table and heard my back pop. That would teach me.
«Sit down,» Andrea hissed.
Raphael gently lowered his backpack with one hand, took the only remaining free chair, and sat,
looking a bit on edge. Andrea stared at the street. Together they looked like complete opposites:
Andrea was five-two tops, with short blond hair and lightly tanned skin, while Raphael was about
six feet tall, with skin the color of coffee with lots of cream, black hair, and intense eyes.
«So what's in the backpack?» I asked. Small talker. That's me.
«Portable m-scanner,» Raphael said. «Picked it up from the shop. Been in there ever since the
flare-they couldn't test to see if it worked until a magic wave hit.»
When it came to m-scanners, «portable» was a relative word. The smallest weighed about eighty
pounds. It was good to be a werehyena.
Andrea got up. «I'm going to get some dessert. Kate, you want anything?»
«No,» I said.
«You?»
«No, thank you,» Raphael said.
She marched away.
Raphael looked at me. «What am I doing wrong?»
I paused with a piece of pita bread in my hand. «You're asking me?»
«I don't have anybody else to ask. You know her. You're friends.»
«Raphael, I've never had a steady boyfriend in my entire life. It's been over a year since I've had
sex. And you know how well my last attempt at a love life turned out. I think you were there,
weren't you?»
«Yeah. I was the one with the shotgun.»
I nodded. «I think we can agree that I'm the worst person you could ask about how to fix a
romantic relationship. I don't know what to tell you.»
«You know Andrea.»
«Not that well.»
Raphael looked crestfallen. «It's never taken me this long,» he said quietly.
I sympathized. He had pined after Andrea for two months now. For a werehyena, or bouda as
they were called, a courtship that long was unheard of. Boudas were adventurous. They enjoyed
sex, a lot of it and with a variety of partners. Women dominated the bouda pack, and from what I
understood, Raphael was rather popular, both because of his patience and his status as the son of
Aunt B, the boudas' alpha. And his looks guaranteed that he wouldn't have to chase
nonshapeshifter women for too long before they took him for a test-drive.
Unfortunately, Andrea was not a nonshapeshifter woman, nor was she a bouda. Lyc-V, the virus
responsible for the shapeshifter phenomenon, affected animals as well as humans. In very rare
cases, the resulting creature was an animal-were, a being who started its life as an animal and
gained the ability to turn into a human. Most animal-weres turned out to be sterile, mentally
retarded, and violent, but occasionally one could function in a human society well enough not to be
killed outright. And even more occasionally they could procreate.
Andrea was a beastkin, a child of a hyenawere and a bouda. She hid it from everyone: from the
shapeshifters, because some would kill her owing to an ancient deep-seated prejudice, and from the
Order, because the moment they realized she was a shapeshifter, they would jettison her from the
ranks. Technically, as a shapeshifter, Andrea was subject to Curran's power, and the Order
demanded absolute loyalty. So far Curran hadn't pressed the issue, but he could change his mind