----------- -----------At dinner . . .----------- -----------Shamira was a little alarmed at what she was seeing. She had been getting ready to enjoy a nice medium-rare NY strip steak when Shane's dinner had arrived. And by dinner, he meant the wife of a district appeals court judge. She was a woman who was still quite comely in her mid-forties, with the body of someone who had worked long and hard to keep from losing her youthful figure. It had worked.She seemed to know everyone at the table except Shamira, whom she greeted warmly. Then she had straddled Shane's lap and he had bitten into her neck. The rest of the table just grinned and went back to eating. Mrs. Tabitha Grunholdt, the lady in question, was grinding against Shane's lap as he drank from her neck."She's something, isn't she?" Renata asked. The werejaguar leaned in and whispered, "She and her husband have an open relationship. Not surprising since he's a closet homosexual AND a Republican. She was able to get her kic

----------- ----------------- That evening . . . ----------- ----------------- Shamira knocked gently on the door to Shane's office. The door buzzed and opened slightly, so she pulled it the rest of the way open. She peaked her head inside. Shane was sitting behind his desk, and the judge's wife she'd seen the previous night was in a chair across from him. She was wearing a different dress suit than she had the last time, so she'd probably gone home in the interim. "I'm sorry Sir," Shamira said, looking down at the ground. "I didn't know you had company. I'll come back --" "Come in, Shamira," he interrupted. "Mrs. Grunholdt, this is Shamira, my latest acquisition. Dressed appropriately, I see," he murmured appreciatively. Monique had put several more outfits into Shamira's closet, including the tight stretchy black pants with a zipper that ran from the front to the back between her legs, a black leather bustier that was laced up the middle, a brown leather belt, and black opera g

Shamira hadn't slept for crap. She'd managed to avoid all the doms and switches the night before, as she was in no mood to play any reindeer games. She had burned out a couple of magazines at the firing range, done whip practice for an hour, then went out and just walked the golf course a couple of times. 'What's the point? I thought this would be different, but no. I come up with an idea, someone else takes credit for it. Good enough to do grunt work, but nothing delicate. Oh no, the girl with the muscles can't to the diplomatic part.' Deep in her heart, she knew that she was overreacting a bit, but being mad was a powerful thing, kind of like an avalanche. Once it started, it just had to keep going until it ran out of things to eat or until it ran into a wall bigger than it could handle. 'Screw 'em,' she thought. Once the sun rose, it was Sunday, her safe day. She was going to go hide out in the lounge, say to hell with research and all the rest, and she was just going to watch foo

-------------- -------------- Sometime that day . . . -------------- -------------- Shamira felt a light tapping on her shoulder. There were many things she didn't want at the moment, and being awake was one of them. She and Clara were still tangled up in each other's arms, legs, and Shamira's nice cotton sheets. Slowly the muscular a****n opened one eye and looked up to see a grinning Renata standing over the bed. "Got an email you wanted to tag along to the airport?" "I di-nuh send nuh m-mail n-body," she muttered. "Choo?" Clara had stirred a bit and nodded. She was a bit more coherent, but not much. "You napped off. Logged on real fast. Knew you wouldn't have slept much, so I told her to come by." Clara grinned and kissed her. Shamira responded shyly at first, but each kiss seemed to energize her a bit. "Now get your cute butt in gear and get dressed. I'm goin' back . . . sleep." "Last night, you wanted me naked. Now it's 'get dressed.' Make up yer mind." Clara grinned aga

Shamira was pacing a trench in the area around the eighteenth green on Shane's golf course. It was bad enough that she had been a vampire for less than two weeks, a sexual submissive (in practice) or less than one week and that both things weighed heavily on her mind. She had just finished baring her soul about one of the most traumatic events of her existence, and now she'd met her first ghost who had an unbelievable message for her. "Bullshit!" she shouted again. "I assure you, that is the case as it stands." "Samantha is even more skeptical about this mystical shit that I am! I mean was. She's a born-again atheist, so why would she be seeing some kind of psychic --" "Medium," the ghost corrected her. "She is seeing a medium." "What are they saying now?" Banshee asked. Of the four beings who were not ghosts present, only Shamira and the necromancer Lillian could see the ghost. Shamira could only see him because he had come to see her. Shane and Banshee had to wait for interpre