Wanda

“All right, all right, quit yer yapping so we can get this meeting out of the way. I’ve got shit to do, you know.”

My boss Lois was, as always, the perfect example of patience and class. The wolf shifter ran her fingers through her short black and silver hair and glared around the table until we all settled down. Every Monday morning the team met with Lois to get the update on assignments and any company news from the other locations.

Sapphic Security was one of the most prominent security companies in the country, with offices in six cities. Rumor had it they’d be opening up another branch soon too. The company was owned by a small team of supernatural lesbians who wanted to create a place for themselves after leaving the military. Goddess knows that there were plenty of us who didn’t fully fit in the civilian world, whether human or supernatural.

Between our military connections and our growing reputation in the human world, Sapphic Security was becoming the go-to company for both protective and investigatory work. We didn’t discriminate against full humans or heteros, but the nature of our work environment meant most people who worked here were supes who were lesbians, trans women, or at least bisexual.

Like most of the vampires who joined the company, I worked at the Seattle branch. It’s not like we sizzled to death in the sun like you see in the movies, but none of us liked being in the sun more than we absolutely had to. Slathering on super high SPF sunscreen all the time was exhausting. Fortunately, Seattle was cloudy and rainy most of the year, the perfect climate for us vampires.

I glanced out the large windows, smiling to myself as I saw the slow misting of rain fall from the gray clouds. I loved this weather, I loved Seattle, and I loved my job. Most of the time.

“Diaz!”

I couldn’t help but jump when my boss called out my name. Lois was scary as fuck, and I was saying this as a person who’d faced down terrorists.

“Yes, Lois?”

Across the table from me, my friend and coworker Angie rolled her eyes at my polite tone. She always called me an ass kisser because unlike Angie and some of the others, I tended to obey orders the first time instead of giving Lois guff. I was a rule follower, there was nothing wrong with that.

“I’ve got a case for you. Protective detail. High profile celebrity has a stalker. Looks like it’s probably someone close to her.”

“Protective detail? Me?”

Lois didn’t usually send me out into the field too often, not for bodyguard work anyway. I was as good an agent as anyone else in the room, but my skills at computer programming and creative research – a.k.a. hacking – were more in demand at the office than in the field.

“Yeah, this is a special case and I need your expertise. Plus, no one else is available right now.”

Well, that was a ringing endorsement of my skills. Lois looked around the table expectantly before turning her attention back to me.

“Our client is Tasha Blue,” she said like that was supposed to mean something to me. Several people at the table suddenly got excited, so I guessed it was.

“Who’s Tasha Blue?” I asked.

“Christ on a cracker, you don’t know Tasha Blue?” Lois asked. “She’s a super famous rock star, one of the top female musicians in the world right now, filling up stadiums whenever she goes on tour. She’s a lesbian icon for the next generation. Beloved by millions of people.”

I shrugged. “Never heard of her.”

Lois looked at me like I was nuts. “She sings ‘Woman I Love’ and ‘Tell Me Now’, surely you’ve heard those songs? They’re on every radio station in town non-stop.”

“I don’t listen to pop rock music, and frankly Lois, I’m kind of shocked that you do. That kind of music is for tweens not fifty-year-old bodyguards.”

Next to me my coworker Martha gasped.

“Lois loves Tasha Blue,” she mumbled out of the side of her mouth. “And she’s only forty-eight.”

Oh crap.

“I’ll have you know that my mate and I are huge fans of Tasha Blue,” Lois boomed, her glare hot enough to singe the eyebrows off my face. “We had our first kiss while dancing to a Tasha Blue song. Personal feelings aside, getting this case is a big deal for Sapphic Security. I expect you to take extra good care of our Tasha. Hell, I’d take the job myself if I was in better shape.”

Lois was in better shape than about ninety-five percent of Americans, but she had softened up some since she left the military and married her mate. Monique was a wolf who was a silent partner in the company, but that’s where the similarities between her and Lois ended. Monique was a very girlie femme who always looked impeccably made up, as opposed to her mate Lois who went through every day in camo pants, white tank tops, and combat boots – one hundred percent masc.

“What’s the story with your rock star crush then?” I asked in a resigned tone.

Lois sent me another withering glare before answering.

“She’s been getting anonymous threats. Started as letters, then escalated to little gifts, usually of the dead and dismembered animal type. Her manager thinks it’s an inside job because the stalker seems to know where she is at all times.”

“What kind of threats?” I asked, jotting down notes on the pad of paper I’d brought to the meeting.

“Homophobic shit. Tells her she’s an abomination who’s going to hell if she doesn’t repent.”

I was tempted to suggest that the stalker was my father given the similarities to what he’d told me when I’d come out to him. I hadn’t talked to my sperm donor since the day I’d left for the military at eighteen, but his words still stung all those years later.

“Also told her that she needs a quote unquote real man to give her pussy the attention it needs and repeatedly threatens to rape her.”

I slammed my pen down in disgust. “Jesus. Are you sure it’s someone in the inner circle and not some crazed fan or something?”

“It’s definitely someone on the inside,” Lois confirmed. “Too much insider information.”

My boss slid a thin file folder across the table to me. I opened it briefly, thumbing through the papers. I’d read those later. On the bottom of the stack was a photo of a young woman playing an electric guitar. She looked vaguely familiar. I studied the photo, wondering why I felt like I knew her. For some reason my heart sped up just the tiniest bit as I looked at her face.

“You’ll be deep undercover. Only the manager will know why you’re there. And Tasha of course.”

“How do we know it’s not the manager?” I asked, closing the folder.

“She’s been friends with Tasha since they were kids. Tasha trusts her implicitly. Also, I didn’t smell any subterfuge from her when we met.”

“Even shifters can be fooled by skilled liars,” I reminded her. “Or people who believe what they’re saying.”

“I’m aware of how my shifter skills work, Diaz,” Lois snapped.

I held up my hands in supplication. “Of course. My apologies, Boss. What’s my cover? New personal assistant?”

“No, you’ll be her new girlfriend. Tasha is not on tour right now, so you’ll be hanging out with her in Seattle, doing media appearances, and depending how long it takes to catch this sicko, going with her on a song writing retreat up in the mountains.”

“Oh no. No way. I am not doing that.”

Around the table, my coworkers let out a collective gasp. Lois’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline, surprised at my adamant reaction. Not only was I usually a rule follower, I was also a good soldier who obeyed orders without question. We’d known each other for years, and I’d never once talked back or argued with her.

“What’s the problem, Diaz?”

Lois’s voice was dangerously soft, which was worse than when she was yelling at a person. Not that I’d personally experienced this before, given my history as a person who followed orders without question.

“I know exactly how this goes. We pretend to be girlfriends and then one of us is like, oh we should practice kissing so we look natural in front of other people, then we kiss and realize that we’re super attracted to each other and the next thing you know we’re giving each other longing looks and secretly banging and falling in love and shit. It happens every damned time.”

Every person at the table was staring at me now. It was literally the most I’d ever said in a meeting before, other than giving report outs.

“You been reading too many bodyguard romances, Wanda?” Martha teased.

“Angie, remind us how you got shackled with a mate,” I asked.

“I pretended to be her girlfriend when I was on her protective detail and we fell in love,” my friend admitted. “But I wouldn’t say shackled. I actually like being mated to Suzie, especially now that we don’t have Russians trying to kill us.”

Angie had been hired as a bodyguard for Suzie when her father, a U.S. Senator, had pissed off Putin enough for him to put out a call to take him and his family out. With the help of some Belarusian bear shifters who used to work for the CIA, Angie had fought off an attack on Suzie until things settled down. They seemed super happy together, but that didn’t negate my point about fake dating scenarios.

“See?” I said, pointing at Angie but looking at Lois. “Fake dating always ends in disaster.”

I know enough about fake dating to know it sometimes turned real and I didn’t do love. My mother had loved my father once and he’d taken her love and twisted it into something ugly, sending her to an early death. I’d promised myself long ago that I’d never take a mate, and there was no way I was going to risk falling in love with someone now. Not that I was prepared to go into all that in front of my coworkers.

“How else would you propose we explain you being around all the time and going to her cabin in the woods?” Lois said.

I opened the file folder and looked at the picture again. Tasha was tall and lean, almost boyish in appearance other than her long, straight dark hair. Her light brown skin and almond shaped eyes hinted at a mixed race heritage which I was guessing was African American and white, possibly with some Latina mixed in.

“We’ll tell them I’m her cousin,” I said. “I’ll be visiting from Cleveland because I need a long vacation.”

“Fine, fine, as long as Tasha is okay with it you can be her cousin, Diaz,” Lois agreed. “Just don’t fuck this up.” She jabbed a finger in my direction. “I’m counting on you.”