“She sat in that chair right there.” I pointed at the other client chair. “I’m thinking of burning it.”

Kate put the bottle down. “Did you punch him?”

“Nope.” I took a long swig. The alcohol burned my tongue. “After he told me that his new sweetheart’s best quality is that she isn’t me, it didn’t seem like it would make any difference.”

“Is she a shapeshifter?”

I shook my head. “A human. Not a fighter. Not that bright either. I know what you’ll say—it’s my own fault.”

“Well, you did check out of his life,” Kate said. “You checked out of my life for a while.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I took a deep breath. There was no action to displace the pain now. No escape. The ache settled in my chest and scraped at me with sharp little claws.

“Are you going to fight for him?” Kate asked.

I looked at her. “What?”

“Are you going to fight for him, or are you going to roll over on your back and take it?”

“Look who’s talking. How long did it take you and Curran to have a conversation after that whole dinner mess? Was it three weeks or more like a month?”

Kate arched her left eyebrow. “That’s different. That was a misunderstanding.”

“Aha.”

“He brought his new main squeeze here after you called him with a peace offering. That’s a slap in the face.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I know.” I growled, deep in my throat.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Nothing is free,” Kate said. “If you want it, you have to fight for it.”

Coming from a woman who had fought off twenty-two shapeshifters to stay by Curran’s side, that was a statement based on experience.

“I’m thinking about it.” Thinking if I wanted to fight for Raphael. What he did to me was cruel. I hurt and I wanted revenge more than anything else. But at the same time, who was I to stand in the way of his new happiness? Whatever Rebecca was giving him, he clearly needed it, otherwise he wouldn’t have made plans for their engagement. “How did your day go?”

“I got some head. It was vamp, but still.”

I stared at her. Kate was the last person I would have expected to make that joke. Well, someone had loosened up since mating. “That good, huh.”

“Yup.”

“I have a glass monster corpse for you. It’s in the freezer.”

Kate grinned a deranged smile. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It’s a bribe for putting up with my psychotic break.”

A car engine roared outside.

“That’s my ride,” Kate said.