I stood up, waiting for my bad knee to protest squatting too long, but it didn’t. I realized my “bad knee” hadn’t been bad in a while. I was Jean-Claude’s human servant and metaphysically tied to several wereanimals. I healed faster than human-normal, but I hadn’t realized I’d lost the old aches and pains from past injuries. When had that happened?

Edward stood beside me, and he favored one leg a little. He had an injury on that one from a hunt that went bad. I thought, How old is Edward? Will he age and I won’t? Will my ties to the supernatural keep healing me? It was a weird thought to think that Edward might grow older faster than I did.

“You’ve thought of something, what?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried to think of something else to say out loud. “Why keep killing the tigers?” I said.

“You mean now that they know you and Jean-Claude have your own gold tigers in St. Louis?”

“Yes. They were supposed to kill the clanless tigers to keep us from getting the gold tigers to bond with metaphysically. It’s too late, Edward, we’ve already done that, so why keep killing the other tigers?”

“Maybe they’re looking for a specific weretiger.”

“Maybe, but why, or who, and again why? There’s nothing to be gained by it.”

“I can think of one thing they’ve gained,” he said.

“Okay, what?”

“They’ve separated you from Jean-Claude and all the other people you’re metaphysically tied to. In St. Louis you have enough bodyguards to make up a small army. Here, it’s just you and the police.”

“You think they’d risk attacking me with the cops around? I mean, the whole concept of these guys is that no one knows they exist. They’re really invested in being this big dark secret.”

“If Mommie Darkest told them to kill you, would they risk being outed to the human police?”