<span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff9999">There was enough time between her transformation from woman to beast for him to see the blanched out emotion that stilled her face at his dark congratulations toward her news. A mixture of guilt, stark naked pain, and longing filled up the heart shaped face of the girl right before it shrank down and disappeared into the whiskered face of a prowling house cat. She knew she was running away from the confrontation, but with the upheaval of old emotions encroaching on her better sensibilities, it was better this way. To hide as the beast instead of feel weak as the woman. Besides, there was no need to bring up the child again, not with his reaction. That she was his was not something that Dante needed or even wanted to hear in the heat of the moment.<br/>
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Instead, the small feline padded silently next to his ankles until he opened the passenger side door and she could hop inside. The deep russet of her fur brushed his hand when she leapt, and still framed the lithe form of the cat as she settled down into the cushion of his car, curling in on herself. The green eyes that watched him with wide eyed feline curiosity were too intelligent as they peered at him when he finally slid himself into the driver’s side seat next to her. Once they had taken off down the road, however, she settled her head on top of her paws and closed her eyes until she felt them roll to a stop outside their next stop. Her ears twitched on top of her head when she heard his door open, the crunch of gravel under his feet as he hit the ground. Only then did she stir, pulling herself up to watch him take long strides toward the house, but with enough thought to shut her inside the car to either wait or follow him.<br/>
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He should have known. No sooner did he disappear inside the home where death had just recently found itself did she stretch and contort, the fur changing to smooth, pink skin and her features changing back into her own familiar visage. Shivering from the sudden shock of air that slid across her naked skin, she made a face at the doorway he had vanished into and pulled open the passenger side door, stepping out into the chilly night with nothing but the bright red mane of hair and the skin she was born in. Barefoot, she tread carefully to the trunk he had unpopped and rummaged inside, ignoring the blood stained towels also present in the back of his trunk. Though in the dark it was hard to tell if it was blood or oil. She did find a crumpled flannel shirt tossed in the back of the trunk, smelling of car fumes and male. Along with a pair of jeans. No doubt, what he stowed away for when he himself was forced to take the form of a beast. Guiltily, she flashed another look at the doorway to make sure that he wasn’t watching, then she pressed her face into the soft fabric to inhale both his human scent and the wolf as well. Then with a shuddering sigh, the pulled it up and over her head so that it whisked down over her thighs. The jeans she didn’t bother with, but the boots she did, even though they engulfed her as surely as the shirt did.<br/>
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Clomping along, she finally followed him into the house, but paused as soon as she pushed open the door as the smell of new blood and the stink of death slapped her in the face, permeating her face with its violence. Her stomach turned. She had never gotten used to the violence of what their chosen trade had been, preferring to do things cleanly, rather than resort to blunt force; they had been different like that. Though she couldn’t help the whisper of a grin when the phrase came to mind, cat burglar. Her attention did not linger long on the dead bodies that he had left behind in the living area, just as she didn’t have to trek far to find Dante in the other man’s office, rummaging through the desk.<br/>
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Her eyes lingered on the crown of dark hair that covered his head before flicking to the strange artifact that sat on the desk. Living stone was what it was made of, and it was one way to open portals between realms. Her breath hitched as she recognized the old Celtic etchings into its face, meaning nothing but pretty symbols to the ignorant eye. Without looking at him, she lurched forward until she could reach out and curl her fingers around what, to him, was most likely an insignificant rock. But to her. Well. To her -- it meant the fucking world in the here and now.<br/>
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Its power pulsed against her palm like another heartbeat, and surprisingly the stone was warm to the touch, as if it truly was alive and not an inanimate thing that had been living in someone else’s safe. Closing her eyes, she forced the tears that once welled in her eyes away with the blink of her lashes. “Thank you,” she did warble out, eyes blinking open to fix him with her stare. “I’ll leave you be now. To ...continue on with what you had planned for the night,” she ended, rigidly, awkwardly, but still hesitated in the door to see if he might stop her or simply dismiss her.<br/>
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