Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel Read Free Page A

from Korea.
     

     
    I was surfing the Internet when I got a text message from a supplier who wanted to meet up. He said that a deal had fallen into his lap and he thought I would be very interested. I told him to swing by the hotel.
     
    Just as I put down my phone, a couple walked into the hotel—a petite woman and a tall, stocky man. Their black umbrella left a long trail of rainwater between the front door and the front desk. Sunglasses covered the woman’s crow’s feet. A fur shawl covered her black satin dress, which hardly covered the nipples of her very fake breasts—or as I prefer to call them, her bolted-on tits. Her facelift did nothing to cover her wrinkled smoker lips.
     
    The man must have weighed three hundred pounds, but I couldn’t tell if that was three hundred pounds of fat, or three hundred pounds of muscle. His skin looked like leather—and not like soft porosus leather, but like cheap leather collected from a box of old shoes. It was like the Hulk finally ripened.
     
    Before greeting the couple, I noticed the black leather purse hanging from the woman’s shoulder—a black purse made from porosus crocodile leather. There is only one company that uses porosus leather—Hermes Paris, and even they use it sparingly because it’s rare and expensive. That purse was no Hermes Paris, but I couldn’t make out what it was. The woman stayed back, far enough that I couldn’t read the golden, monogram logo.
     
    “Pesconi,” the man grunted.
     
    “What?” I said, my eyes still glued to the purse.
     
    “Pesconi,” he repeated with half the speed and twice the volume. He had a strong New York accent. “Pes-co-ni,” he said even more slowly, a third time
     
    “Oh,” I said, snapping out of my daze. “Your name is Pesconi! You’re checking in, right?”
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    I opened his reservation on the computer. “Carmine Pesconi—we have you booked in the Presidential Suite.” When dealing with hotel customers, I put on a bubbly, high-pitched voice, complete with a big fake smile and wide, owl-like eyes.
     
    The woman reached into her mysterious purse and pulled out a box of cigarettes. She didn’t notice—or she didn’t care—that, two feet from her face, was a no-smoking sign. She revealed a golden lighter.
     
    “Um—I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s no smoking in here,” I said in my bubble voice. I bobbed my head to the side and shrugged—my way of saying, ‘what a silly rule, right?’
     
    The woman paused—completely frozen as if the bubbly night auditor at the Ilium Inn had just diagnosed her with cancer.
     
    “What?” Pesconi asked for her. His voice was low, growling.
     
    “Um—there’s no smoking in here,” I said—a surprisingly difficult sentence to get out with those unblinking eyes staring into my soul.
     
    “Don’t worry about it, honey,” Carmine Pesconi said to the lady.
     
    And she didn’t. She finished lighting her cigarette.
     
    He leaned over and scanned behind my desk. I wanted to ask him what he was doing, but I was afraid he would bite. “Pass me one of those water bottles,” he said, motioning towards the stash of water bottles under the desk, kept there for employees.
     
    “There are plenty of water bottles up in your room—” His brow lowered into a scowl, so I handed him a water bottle. “There you are.”
     
    He cracked the lid and downed half the bottle. “How long did we book for?” he asked, wiping his mouth at the same time.
     
    “Four nights,” I said. “We have a smoking suite available, but it wouldn’t be on the same floor.”
     
    “No, the Presidential Suite is fine.”
     
    “Okay.” I tried to fake a smile, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
     
    “Make it seven nights. Plans changed.”
     
    “Okay, sure,” I said, making the necessary changes in the computer.
     
    “Hurry it up. We’ve been driving all day.”
     
    I activated the key cards and walked around the desk. He stared at me