Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

since grabbing some bread this morning from a street vendor. My stomach actually hurt.
    A waiter in plain black pants and a black T-shirt led us to a table in the middle of the floor. Curran and I took chairs opposite one another, where I could see the back door and he had a nice view of the front entrance. We ordered hot tea. Thirty seconds later it arrived with a plate of pot stickers.
    “Hungry?” Curran asked.
    “Starving.”
    “Combination platter for four,” Curran ordered.
    His hungry and my hungry were two completely different things.
    The waiter departed.
    Curran smiled. It was a happy, genuine smile and it catapulted him from attractive into irresistible territory. He didn’t smile very often in public. That intimate smile was usually reserved for private moments when we were alone.
    I pulled the band off my still-damp braid and slid my fingers through it, unraveling the hair. Curran’s gaze snagged on my hands. He focused on my fingers like a cat on a piece of foil pulled by a string. I shook my head and my hair fell over my shoulders in a long dark wave. There we go. Now we were both private in public.
    Tiny gold sparks danced in Curran’s gray irises. He was thinking dirty thoughts and the wicked edge in his smile made me want to slide over next to him and touch him.
    We had to wait. I was pretty sure that having hot sex on the floor of Arirang would get us banned for life. Then again, it might be worth it.
    I raised my tea in a salute. “To our date.”
    He raised his cup and we clinked them gently against each other.
    “So how was your day?” he asked.
    “First, I chased a giant jellyfish around through somesuburbs. Then I argued with Biohazard about coming and picking it up, because they claimed it was a Fish and Game issue. Then I called Fish and Game and conferenced them in on the Biohazard call, and then I got to listen to the two of them argue and call each other names. They got really creative.”
    “Then Jim called,” Curran said.
    I grimaced. “Yes. That, too.”
    “Is there a particular reason you’re avoiding our chief of security?” Curran asked.
    “Do you remember how my aunt killed the head of the Mercenary Guild?”
    “Not something one forgets,” he said.
    “The Guild is still squabbling over who should be in charge now.”
    Curran glanced at me. “That was what, five months ago?”
    “My point exactly. On one side there are the older mercs, who have combat experience. The other side is the support staff. Both groups have roughly an equal share of the Guild as a result of Solomon’s will and they hate each other. It’s getting into death threat territory, so they’re having some sort of final arbitration to decide who’s in charge.”
    “Except they are deadlocked,” Curran guessed.
    “Yes, they are. Apparently Jim thinks I should break that tie.”
    The Guild’s now-dead founder was a closet shapeshifter, and he had left twenty percent of the Guild to the Pack. So as long as the Mercenary Guild remained deadlocked, nobody was getting paid and the Pack alphas wanted that income stream to start flowing again. They put pressure on Jim, and Jim put pressure on me.
    I had done enough years in the Guild to be viewed as a veteran. Jim had as well, but unlike me, he had the luxury of having kept his identity semi-private. Most mercs didn’t know he was high up in the Pack.
    I had no privacy. I was the Beast Lord’s Consort. It was the price I paid for being with Curran, but I didn’t have to like it.
    His Majesty drank his tea. “Not looking forward to settling the dispute?”
    “I’d rather eat dirt. It’s between Mark, Solomon’s longtime assistant, and the veterans led by the Four Horsemen, and theydespise each other. They aren’t interested in reaching a consensus. They just want to throw mud at each other over a conference table.”
    An evil light sparked in his eyes. “You could always go for Plan B.”
    “Pound everyone to a bloody pulp until they shut up and cooperate?”
    “Exactly.”
    It would make me feel better. “I could always do it your way instead.”
    Curran raised his blond eyebrows.
    “Roar until everyone pees themselves.”
    A shadow of self-satisfaction flickered on his face and vanished, replaced by innocence. “That’s bullshit. I’m perfectly reasonable and I almost never roar. I don’t even remember what it feels like to knock some heads together.”
    The Beast Lord of Atlanta, a gentle and enlightened monarch. “How