Free Dead and Loving It by MaryJanice Alongi Page A

not even when it shattered spectacularly against the wall.
    Â 
    She was tapping her foot on the curb, waiting for the slothlike doorman to hail her a cab. She could hail her own damned cab, thanks very much, but when in Rome, do what the sheep do. Or something like that.
    She’d packed like a madwoman, and it showed—she could see the corner of her dress sticking out of the suitcase. Aarrggh! Fifty-nine ninety-nine at Sears, and she’d probably never get to wear it again. Like clothes shopping wasn’t an unending horror anyway—now she’d have to go again.
    And Dick. She felt really bad about up and leaving town. He’d think she stood him up. Like that would happen. He was ridiculously good-looking but, even more important, she could talk to him. Not be herself—not completely—but close.
    Shit, she couldn’t even be herself with the pack; they’d written her off as an old maid a decade ago. Pack members mated young, dropped kids young, and died young. And she didn’t want kids, which, among her people, made her El Freako Supremo.
    Getting knocked up—assuming your mate could get you pregnant without getting his bad self hurt—was one thing, but then you were a slumlord to a fetus for ten endless months. At least the humans only had to suffer for nine. Even worse, you puffed up like a blowfish and ate everything in sight, then squeezed out a kid during hours of blood and pain… blurgh.
    And afterward! Just the thought of having to tote around a nose-miner who cried and screamed and puked and shit—and that was just the first week!—was enough to curl her hair. She hadn’t liked kids even when she was one. The feeling had been mutually—and heartily—returned. She’d felt that way at eighteen, twenty-three, thirty, thirty-four. Sure, kids were necessary—for other people. Janet preferred to sleep late, wear clothes that hadn’t been puked on, and not watch her language.
    â€œWhere to, ma’am?” the doorman asked, breaking her anti-infant reverie. He was ineffectually flapping a hand at the occasional cab. She could have hailed four on her own by now. Shit, she could have jogged to the airport by now.
    â€œLogan,” she practically snapped. It wasn’t Door Boy’s fault she’d been ordered to leave town, but the big boss wasn’t here for her to take her anger out on him. “Quick as you can.”
    She thought about leaving a note for Dick and reluctantly decided against it. Better find out what Boss Man Michael wanted first. And if it wasn’t life and death, she’d let him have it. Who gave a rat’s ass if he was the pack leader? She had a life. Well, before yesterday she really hadn’t, but he didn’t know that. It was his privilege to snap his fingers and have any one of them come at a dead run, but it was hers not to like it.
    She observed the doorman shivering and realized the sun had nearly set, and the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees. Still, it wasn’t that cold. And why did the kid look like he was ready to drop a steaming load into his trousers? She was irritated, but not at him…surely he knew that.
    God, the reek the kid was giving off! Like mothballs dipped in gasoline. His fear—his terror—burned her nose. It put her wind up, and she cupped her elbows, shivering. From grumpy to edgy in less than five seconds…a new record!
    The ball dropped, and she understood a half second too late. She was spun around and had time to take in burning blue eyes before there was a walloping pain in her jaw and Dick turned off the lights. And everything else.

Chapter 4
    H e didn’t care. He really didn’t. She was fine, and if she wasn’t, who cared? He hadn’t hurt her. Not really.
    He checked on her for the eleventh time in sixty minutes and was relieved to see the bruise on the underside of her jaw had faded to a mere shadow. Guilt rolled