The neighborhood was only beginning to wake as he made his way through it. He forced a smile onto his face as he nodded to the ladies walking their dogs. He saw a busier street up ahead. Behind him, he heard sirens going by. Now all he needed was to find a place to flag down a cab. He shuddered. OK, maybe he should speak to someone about what he'd just witnessed too. He increased the speed of his walk. *********** Xiong hiked to the top of the mountain behind his village once a week to visit the shrine he built on the plateau. He kept it tidy, did a little sweeping, replaced the incense and candles, and when necessary did some repairs on the small structure. He would have loved to have built a full-size temple, but that would have been pushing his luck. The shrine was small enough to be ignored by the local government. His old bones ached from the arduous climb as he finally stepped onto the small flat area, but he knew the ache just meant he was still alive. This morning, the a

It took all day for his access request to finally come back with an affirmative and he had to speak with three senior executives to explain his findings. They found public record of Minister Imamura's business dealings with the New York investment house. That was above board. It was the combination of this relationship plus the undisclosed use of an unknown encryption technology between his daughter's project on the Japanese school server and the US company's network that made them take an interest.He fed his prepared data file into the decryption engine and headed home once more.The next day he rushed in hoping to see the report but saw a note requesting his presence in a conference room. Grinning, he quickly sent a few of the files he'd pulled from VRL's server to his supervisor then rushed upstairs and knocked on the door of the conference room before entering.His boss was inside as well as his boss' boss and two other people, a man and a woman who he didn

Michelle Beaumont was also seated on the couch next to Rand and looked uncomfortable in the tense environment. As one of the Arachnid race, her people were typically calm and reserved and avoided displays of aggression. She was the Council's historian, a quiet and private woman, and had already informed them that the anomalies reported matched nothing on record. Thane wasn't happy with her response as he'd insisted the man who saw sound, in his opinion, had clearly become one of the dTesh, an ancient enemy the Hidden Races had hunted to extinction millennia ago. Rand upped the ante by calling his cousin's response reactionary and emotional. That was her cue to weigh in. "The man in question is dead. Whether or not he'd become a dTesh is a moot point. We don't have access to his body, and even if we did, as Michelle indicated, we have no certified documentation on dTesh anatomy to identify it. Their extinction occurred before the council made such records. We won't get an answer to t

He wasn't sitting for long before the door opened and an older man in a suit stepped inside. Henry gauged him to be in his sixties. He was maybe 5' 6", but he was wide shouldered and looked very strong. His face held a scowl as he took the chair across from Henry. He ran a hand through his close-cropped grey hair then fixed his eyes on Henry's. "I'm Captain Lowes. Last week you were taken into custody by officer Carsten during a disturbance on the Path system. An orgy had broken out on one of the cars. The one you were inside. Officer Carsten failed to deliver you to the station house for questioning. The next morning Officer Jeffrey Carsten was found dead in the bedroom. Evidence found at the scene indicates she'd engaged in intercourse with an unknown male." The man stared at Henry expectantly. Henry's nerves were buzzing as he relived the shooting once more. "Charges?" he managed to croak through his tight throat. The captain's scowl deepened. "One of my best officers died under

"Creatures of insatiable lust! Rapist and defilers of Human females!" She gave him a crooked smile at his frown as she continued to brush her fingers over his kilt. "That was how the Humans of the time described your people. They had no love for the Satyr race. Well, the males didn't. The females liked them just fine. Maybe just a little too much perhaps. Back then, the Human race was slightly more primitive than it is today and females had no say at all. The Human men hunted down every last one-" she stopped with a smile. "Every last one but you. All because your kind were better lovers than the Human males could ever hope to be. It was their jealousy that drove their murderous desires." Stanley's body was getting mixed signals as it always did with Mab. She could be so damn sexy as she stroked him to full rigidity effortlessly, but her words threatened to drive his desires away. "I've had many Satyr lovers. They were the only ones who could truly satisfy my needs." She pouted as s