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JASON SCHUYLER, ONE ofsunlight of the kitchen His yellow hair gleaht, so that his boyishly handsome face was haloed with sunshine, but as I looked into the pure, soft blue of his eyes I knew that devil's horns were more his style than halos, and pure was only a way to describe his eyes, not hier and his day job was still assistant er and exotic dancer at Guilty Pleasures The body that showed around his tank top and jogging shorts proved that he stayed in shape for his job, but none of that hatfor hi that he couldn't quite resist pushingeverything If the situation was tense he had to resist noter with a stick until it rushed out of the hole and tried to eat us We'd both learned over the years to curb this urge, and werethat part of us, but Jason still had that edge of deviltry to the s-sky eyes

I pushed ht back against my cheek, but sometimes it's the effort that counts I sat at the kitchen table inthat setting us all out of bed at this outrageously early hour, or he was hiding behind the smile Most of us have our blank face, a version of the cop face, and Jason hid behind a grin usually, but since he also spent a lot of tireat ca

I tucked my robe a little closer across my chest, not because Jason hadn't seen me nude in the past, but because he'd asked for a conversation as his friend, not a friends-with-benefits booty call, so flashing breasts see with someone as actually your friend but never quite your boyfriend, a thin line to walk between true friendship and hey, baby

"We all work nights, Jason; as so iot us up this early?"

His grin widened, and he stepped forward enough that I could see his straight blond hair without the sunshine special effects He'd cut his hair again, almost businessman short He was one of the few m

en I kneho really did look better in shorter hair; it seemed to open up his face and ht, when he wasn't clowning around or being irritating, though honestly that last part had alone away I'd rown up I was only five or six years older than he was--depending on the tiain or lose a year on each other At twenty-five and thirty it wasn't a big age difference; at nineteen and twenty-five it had seemed like more

"Let's wait for everyone else," he said, and sipped his own coffee He didn't really drink a lot of coffee; he sipped at it, and would eventually put it down about half drunk and cold Since we ground our own beans and used a French press to ood, hot caffeine

I huddled around my third cup of it, determined to make up for Jason's lack of enthusiasm

Envy walked into the kitchen She was five-eleven, so she towered over Jason and me I was five-three and he was five-four She'd coth blond hair, but hadn't bothered withcheekbones of her face seeliht have looked like at fifteen instead of the very grown-up early twenty-so She'd thrown an oversizedto h, or even my knees; on her it barely covered her ass, so that she was all long golden legs as she padded barefoot into the room

She was everything I'd wanted to be when I was a little girl: tall, blond, and Nordic-looking like my father and stepmother, and stepsister, and half brother, andBut I'd iven e that my skin was paler than Envy's and she tanned better than I did, which just seeht as if she were startled None of us were er eyes were literal; she was part of the golden tiger clan, which was one of the few inherited types of lycanthropy, and one of the ways they proved their pure bloodlines was that they were born with perer eyes in their human faces Most of the other wereanimals I'd seen with animal eyes in human form had them because they'd spent too et stuck, and usually the eyes were the first thing to stick

"Coffee's hot," I said

"Tea," she muttered

I started to tell her to help herself, and then realized she didn't knohere the tea was, or anything It was the first tiht at the house in Jefferson County She lived at the Circus of the Damned with the bulk of our people, but she'd been dropped off here after her date with Richard Zeee biology professor He had a house out here in Jefferson County, too, so it hadher all the way back into the city to the Circus, but I wasn't sure I wanted them to make a habit out of it Richard was sort of ed We still had sex occasionally, so having his current lover dropped at my house for a sleepover was a little weird He'd offered to sleep over with Envy here, but I, and she, had vetoed it We were all polyamorous, which means to love , but that didn'tell, too much Richard's work schedule was alh ere lovers, it wasn't that frequent Sex with hie to each other over the years, andthe needs he'd met in my life were now ot along a hell of a lot better with the other , but in some ways he'd worked out his shit too late to truly be a part of our happy little poly group He sort of floated on the edges of my life, and I on his

Envy had slept in one of the guest roo legs underneath my kitchen table

Was I supposed to wait on her? Fetch her tea? I felt the first bubbling of anger, which was still one of s, when I didn't knohat else to do

"What kind of tea do you want?" Jason asked He put his coffee down and went to the cabinets He'd stayed over enough toto ask directions

"Mint," she said, and laid her head on her ar to take a nap on the table

"Peppermint, spearmint, or a medley?" he asked

"You pick," sheher head

"Rough night?" I asked, sippingblack coffee

She h the fall of yellow hair It rely of Dev, her cousin, as also a weretiger of the gold clan, and one of my lovers Dev was short for Devil, which was a nicknaotten one of the better family names

"You really need to have sex with him more often"

"Youwith Jean-Claude, head vampire of the United States and ht? It wasn't cheating, because everyone got everyone else's permission, but it was complicated, sometimes very complicated

"Yes," she said, still just looking at me with that one inhuman eye

"Did Richard ask you to talk to me?"

"No," she said, and just looked atWas I supposed to pry information out of her?

"What ht?" Jason asked He'd filled the rapid-heat electric kettle, and it was starting to war out of it, waiting There was actually loose-leaf tea in there sos

Envy turned her head enough to look at him, so that all I could see was the thick hair "I don't think you'll understand"

"Try rinned when he said it, which left a debate on whether he was really sy

"He really is a good listener," I said

She rolled her head back to look at ht be a stress reaction What the heck had happened last night?

"He says you and he just can't get your schedules to match up for sex lately, is that true?" she asked

"Yeah," I said, and drank h of it, I could do this conversation without losing my temper

"Do you enjoy the sex?"

I drank more coffee Maybe if I drowned myself in it? "Yes"