Jason tried to get my attention once or twice, and his buddy Mel sent big smiles my way. Mel was taller and thinner than my brother, but they both had that bright, eager look of unthinking men who operate on their instincts. In his favor, Mel didn’t seem to agree with everything Jason said, not the way Hoyt always had. Mel seemed to be an okay guy, at least from our brief acquaintance; that he was one of the few werepanthers who didn’t live in Hotshot was also a fact in his favor, and it may even have been why he and Jason were such big buddies. They were like other werepanthers, but separate, too.

If I ever began speaking to Jason again, I had a question for him. On this major evening for all Weres and shifters, how come he hadn’t taken the chance to grab a little of the spotlight for himself? Jason was very full of his altered status as a werepanther. He’d been bitten, not born. That is, he’d contracted the virus (or whatever it was) by being bitten by another werepanther, rather than being born with the ability to change as Mel had been. Jason’s changed form was manlike, with hair all over and a pantherish face and claws: really scary, he’d told me. But he wasn’t a beautiful animal, and that griped my brother. Mel was a purebred, and he would be gorgeous and frightening when he transformed.

Maybe the werepanthers had been asked to lie low because panthers were simplytoo scary. If something as big and lethal as a panther had appeared in the bar, the reaction of the patrons almost certainly would have been a lot more hysterical. Though wereanimal brains are very difficult to read, I could sense the disappointment the two panthers were sharing. I was sure the decision had been Calvin Norris’s, as the panther leader.Good move, Calvin, I thought.

After I’d helped close down the bar, I gave Sam a hug when I stopped by his office to pick up my purse. He was looking tired but happy.