Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6)(5)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"Quinn," Sam said quietly. His hands became still, though he’d been in the middle of mixing a Tom Collins. "What is he doing here?"

"I didn’t know you knew him," I said, feeling my face flush as I realized I’d been thinking about the bald man only the day before. He’d been the one who’d cleaned the blood from my leg with his tongue – an interesting experience.

"Everyone in my world knows Quinn," Sam said, his face neutral. "But I’m surprised you’ve met him, since you’re not a shifter." Unlike Quinn, Sam’s not a big man; but he’s very strong, as shifters tend to be, and his curly red-gold hair haloes his head in an angelic way.

"I met Quinn at the contest for packmaster," I said. "He was the, ah, emcee." Naturally, Sam and I had talked about the change of leadership in the Shreveport pack. Shreveport isn’t too far from Bon Temps, and what the Weres do is pretty important if you’re any kind of a shifter.

A true shape-shifter, like Sam, can change into anything, though each shape-shifter has a favorite animal. And to confuse the issue, all those who can change from human form to animal form call themselves shape-shifters, though very few possess Sam’s versatility. Shifters who can change to only one animal are were-animals: weretigers (like Quinn), werebears, werewolves. The wolves are the only ones who call themselves simply Weres, and they consider themselves superior in toughness and culture to any of the other shape-shifters.

Weres are also the most numerous subset of shifters, though compared to the total vampire population, there are mighty few of them. There are several reasons for this. The Were birthrate is low, infant mortality is higher than in the general population of humans, and only the first child born of a pure Were couple becomes a full Were. That happens during puberty – as if puberty weren’t bad enough already.

Shape-shifters are very secretive. It’s a hard habit to break, even around a sympathetic and strange human like me. The shifters have not come into the public view yet, and I’m learning about their world in little increments.

Even Sam has many secrets that I don’t know, and I count him as a friend. Sam turns into a collie, and he often visits me in that form. (Sometimes he sleeps on the rug by my bed.)

I’d only seen Quinn in his human form.

I hadn’t mentioned Quinn when I told Sam about the fight between Jackson Herveaux and Patrick Furnan for the Shreveport pack leadership. Sam was frowning at me now, displeased that I’d kept it from him, but I hadn’t done it purposely. I glanced back at Quinn. He’d lifted his nose a little. He was sampling the air, following a scent. Who was he trailing?

When Quinn went unerringly to a table in my section, despite the many empty ones in the closer section that Arlene was working, I knew he was trailing me.

Okay, mixed feelings on that.

I glanced sideways at Sam to get his reaction. I had trusted him for five years now, and he had never failed me.

Now Sam nodded at me. He didn’t look happy, though. "Go see what he wants," he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl.

I got more and more nervous the closer I came to the new customer. I could feel my cheeks redden. Why was I getting so flustered?

"Hello, Mr. Quinn," I said. It would be stupid to pretend I didn’t recognize him. "What can I get you? I’m afraid we’re about to close, but I have time to serve you a beer or a drink."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if he were inhaling me. "I’d recognize you in a pitch-black room," he said, and he smiled at me. It was a broad and beautiful smile.

I looked off in another direction, pinching back the involuntary grin that rose to my lips. I was acting sort of… shy.

I never acted shy. Or maybe coy would be a better term, and one I disliked. "I guess I should say thank you," I ventured cautiously. "That’s a compliment?"

"Intended as one. Who’s the dog behind the bar who’s giving me the stay-away look?"

He meant dog as a statement of fact, not as a derogatory term.

"That’s my boss, Sam Merlotte."

"He has an interest in you."

"I should hope so. I’ve worked for him for round about five years."

"Hmmm. How about a beer?"

"Sure. What kind?"

"Bud."

"Coming right up," I said, and turned to go. I knew he watched me all the way to the bar because I could feel his gaze. And I knew from his mind, though his was a closely guarded shifter mind, that he was watching me with admiration.

"What does he want?" Sam looked almost… bristly. If he’d been in dog form, the hair on his back would have been standing up.

"A Bud," I said.

Sam scowled at me. "That’s not what I meant, and you know it."

I shrugged. I had no idea what Quinn wanted.

Sam slammed the full glass down on the bar right by my fingers, making me jump. I gave him a steady look to make sure he noted that I’d been displeased, and then I took the beer to Quinn.

Quinn gave me the cost of the beer and a good tip – not a ridiculously high one, which would have made me feel bought – which I slipped into my pocket. I began making the rounds of my other tables. "You visiting someone in this area?" I asked Quinn as I passed him on my way back from clearing another table. Most of the patrons were paying up and drifting out of Merlotte’s. There was an afterhours place that Sam pretended he didn’t know about, way out in the country, but most of the Merlotte’s regulars would be going home to bed. If a bar could be family-oriented, Merlotte’s was.

"Yes," he said. "You."

That left me with nowhere to go, conversationally.

I kept on going and unloaded the glasses from my tray so absently that I almost dropped one. I couldn’t think of when I’d been so flustered.

"Business or personal?" I asked, the next time I was close.

"Both," he said.

A little of the pleasure drained away when I heard about the business part, but I was left with a sharpened attention… and that was a good thing. You needed all your wits honed when you dealt with the supes. Supernatural beings had goals and desires that regular people didn’t fathom. I knew that, since for my entire life I have been the unwilling repository for human, "normal," goals and desires.

When Quinn was one of the few people left in the bar – besides the other barmaids and Sam – he stood and looked at me expectantly. I went over, smiling brightly, as I do when I’m tense. I was interested to find that Quinn was almost equally tense. I could feel the tightness in his brain pattern.

"I’ll see you at your house, if that’s agreeable to you." He looked down at me seriously. "If that makes you nervous, we can meet somewhere else. But I want to talk to you tonight, unless you’re exhausted."