The Infected Holiday Special by Andrea Speed

Author:Andrea Speed [Speed, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paranormal, urban fantasy
ISBN: 978-1-63476-828-3
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2016-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

Yom Kippur

THIS WAS not how Roan thought he’d be spending his lunch hour on his anniversary.

He’d had a whole thing planned. He was going to surprise Dylan, who was painting at his studio today, with lunch. Some fancy cupcakes or something. It was going to be light and fun, and other things he wasn’t necessarily known for.

Roan vaulted onto the hood of a parked car and roared, trying to get the big cat’s attention. He was hoping to make it angry, but it seemed sensible, therefore it was scared. Damn it. Although he hated brawling with his own kind, the cats who came toward him made his job infinitely easier.

He heard the fine bones in his jaw popping and snapping, and the molten pain came with a taste of blood, as it always did. He’d done a couple of pain pills before this, but their effect was wiped away the moment he started his partial shift. Maybe one day he’d find a drug strong enough to stand up to the pain. So far, he hadn’t, but he still held out hope he might.

The cat, a large panther, had fled into the park after being confronted by a dog off its leash. This was why there were leash laws. The dog might still be alive if the owner had had one iota of common sense. Roan knew he should feel bad for it, but he really didn’t. The cat was defending itself, and the dog should have known it was too big to try and chase up a tree. But mainly he blamed the dog’s owner for being an asshole.

No matter. He jumped off the car and ran into the park, following the faint scent trail of the cat, which threatened to get lost in the million competing scents of the city and park combined. He tried to stay focused and ignore all the other smells, but that could be really difficult. For instance, the park’s lake was starting to get an algae bloom. Although it was in its early stages, it still smelled like rotten seaweed, dirt, and razor blades to him. Then there was the dog shit, which was always strong, despite the fact you were supposed to clean up after your animals. There was goose poop too, but it wasn’t as sharp as the dog stuff, and squirrel and assorted other bird’s poop was easy to ignore. Except seagulls for some reason, which always had an extra metallic sting to his nose.

There was also a light but relatively constant smell of cigarette and pot smoke, and then he entered an area of the park that he couldn’t believe still existed. It was a darker, shadowy part, and it smelled of sex. Why did men still do this in the age of Grindr, Craigslist, and the Internet? There was no reason for random outdoor hookups, unless you were an exhibitionist. And even then, there were better places for it. The only reason he could think of was some misguided nostalgia for the era when horny gay guys had to do this.

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