Gunmetal Magic: A Novel in the World of Kate Daniels

computer on it and a tall filing cabinet next to it. He’d made himself an office! In my spare room! A picture of Raphael and I sat on the desk next to the keyboard. He had his arms around me. I was smiling.
    “Do you have a boyfriend?” Roman asked.
    “No,” I snarled.
    “A male roommate?”
    I shoved the door to my bedroom open. A second night table stood on the other side of my bed, the perfect match to the one I had. With the same lamp. And his spy novels in a stack on top. I yanked open the closet door. Raphael’s clothes hung on the left side, with his shoes in a row. I pulled open the dresser. His underwear. Condoms. His socks.
    He had moved into my apartment. He’d snuck in and made it look like he’d lived here for the last ten years. His scent was everywhere, floating through my territory.
    Words failed me. I just stood in the middle of my place, shaking with rage.
    Breaking and entering was an essential part of the shapeshifter courtship. The idea was to break into your prospective mate’s territory and get out undetected, proving that you were sleek enough to mate. Some clans left gifts. Boudas played practical jokes. But this? This was going too far.
    He’d punked me. Did he expect that after everything that had happened I would think this was charming? Did he think challenging me was funny? I would rip his head off.
    “I think you have a boyfriend.”
    I inhaled and exhaled slowly. “No, I just know somebody with a really sick sense of humor.”
    “Really? Because there is a picture of you and him back in the office.” Roman pointed his thumb back over his shoulder.
    “He’s an ex-boyfriend. He is having trouble understanding the word ‘over.’”
    “So what, he just moved his stuff in while you were gone?”
    “Yes,” I ground out.
    “Ballsy.”
    No, that wasn’t ballsy. That wasn’t even in the mile radius of ballsy. It was in its own little universe with the word “lunatic” stamped on it. He should be locked in a padded room and never let out.
    “Should I leave?” Roman asked.
    “No. I promised you a cup of tea; we will drink that tea, God damn it.”
    I made a pot of tea in the kitchen. We sat at my kitchen table with MINE scratched on it and drank one cup each, before Roman couldn’t stand it any longer and bailed.
    The second he was out the door, I grabbed my phone and dialed Raphael’s number.
    “Hey, babycakes,” he said into the phone.
    Babycakes? Babycakes! “You want to act psycho? You haven’t seen psycho yet.”
    “I’m not worried,” he said. “To go psycho, you’d have to pull that stick out of your ass and we both know that won’t be happening.”
    I unclenched my teeth. “You will regret this.”
    “Love you, babe.”
    The plastic receiver crunched in my hand and the phone went dead. I looked at it. Crushed electronic guts peeked out through the gaps in the broken plastic. I dropped the mangled wreck of the phone on my table and went into the bathroom.
    A razor and shaving cream rested on the sink next to my lotion. A second toothbrush greeted me, a twin to mine, except mine was green and this one was blue. He had invaded myterritory. He had put his stuff into it. He, he, he…Aaaaargh! He’d made my place smell like him!
    I grabbed the toothbrush. I wanted to break it into tiny pieces and then feed it into the garbage disposal.
    No. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wouldn’t gather all of his things into a large metal trash can, I wouldn’t pour gasoline on it, and I wouldn’t set it on fire. No, nothing so pedestrian.
    This, this deserved a special retaliation.
    I would have to think of something. Oh yes. He would regret this. He would wish he’d gotten run over by a PAD tank instead.

CHAPTER 11

    I woke up early and lay in bed for a few minutes, looking at the ceiling, before my brain finally registered that there was a new chandelier on it. I must not have noticed it last night, when I finally fell into bed, exhausted and enraged. A glossy silver disk of about eighteen inches in diameter was attached directly to the ceiling. Long wavy crystal leaves patterned with ribs of varying textures cascaded from it, suspended by chains hidden within crystal beads. Thin tendrils of crystal, like the curved shoots of a grape vine, hung between the leaves, translucent with light, and between them, on longer gleaming chains, textured crystal spheres, frosted with silver, clinked gently in the light breeze from the open windows. It was