Before the Shift and the return of magic, a person’s power could be readily judged by the kind of car they drove, by the clothes they wore, and the company they kept. In post-Shift Atlanta, visual clues still proved true in some cases, but not nearly often enough. A bum in tattered jeans and ragged cloak could walk out into a crowded street, raise his arms, and the sky would tear open and weep a rain of lightning and hail the size of coconuts, leveling everything in a three-mile radius.

That’s why post-Shift Atlanta’s movers and shakers preferred both a show of power and dressing to impress. Still, if you did dress like a badass, you had better be able to back it up.

When I woke up in the morning, a pair of gray jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a gray leather jacket waited for me, folded on top of a gray cloak edged with fur. Just as I requested. Gray was the Pack color. I was going to put on a show for the Guild and this was my costume for it. I put the clothes on, added my boots, my saber in the back leather sheath, my throwing knives, and my wrist guards filled with silver needles. I braided my hair away from my face and examined myself in the mirror. I was broadcasting dangerous loud and clear.

Normally I stayed away from clothes like that. The less attention I drew when I worked, the better. Most mercs knew I was good at my job, but I wasn’t very impressive. I didn’t put on a show. Some of them had problems with me, most didn’t. Today was different. Today I needed to be less Kate Daniels and more Pack Consort. I needed to knock them off balance, so they wouldn’t question why I showed up there and told them what to do.

I marched into the bathroom, where Curran was brushing his teeth. His blond eyebrows crept up. “That’s your Council meeting outfit from now on.”

I laughed. “Cloak or no cloak?”

“Definitely cloak,” he said.

I tried the cloak on in front of the mirror.

Curran came up behind me and nuzzled my neck.

“Is that your gun or are you just happy to see me?”

“Mhm, a challenge.” He nipped the skin on the back of my neck, sending electric aftershocks down through me. Some men got excited by white lace and a translucent negligee. My love muffin got excited by a woman dressed to murder. There was probably something deeply twisted about that. Lucky for me, negligees were never my thing.

He kissed me again. “You’re finally getting the hang of this whole badass thing.”

“I was always badass.”

“No, you thought you were badass and talked a lot of crap.” He wrapped his arms around me.

Aha. “Let me go.”