Sentinel's Hunger by Gracie C. Mckeever

imagination?
    “Well, I didn’t get a very good look at her,” she admitted.
    Truthfully, she’d barely gotten a look at all. She’d been too anxious to try. But there was definitely something askew about the woman, not to mention that chain around her ankle.
    Michael must have thought she was dangerous to keep her Sentinel’s Hunger
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    chained like that, but why was he keeping her at all and not turning her in to the authorities?
    “If you didn’t get a good look, isn’t it possible you’re mistaken?”
    “Of course it’s possible, it’s just that—”
    “What, Florence?”
    “She had a chain locked around her ankle, Albert. A chain!”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Don’t you think that’s a little strange? Not to mention I would think that sort of thing wouldn’t appeal to someone like Michael.”
    “An EMT?”
    “No! An African-American, silly!”
    “That sort of thing? You mean kinky bondage games?”
    She closed her eyes, the image of a black ankle in chains sending shivers through her. She got the same sort of shivers whenever she caught sight of the serial number branded on her husband’s arm, a souvenir from the Holocaust. “It just seems so…wrong.”
    “It’s a game , Florence. Role playing.”
    “I know . But why do you sound like such an expert on the subject?”
    “I watch cable just like you do.”
    “Hmm, more specifically the Playboy Channel,” she grumbled.
    “Do I complain when you watch Sex in the City ?”
    “At least that show has a plot!”
    “We’re getting off the subject, Florence.”
    She flopped down on the sofa beside her husband and Albert took her hand and squeezed it as she turned to him. “Do you think I should report what I saw to the police?”
    He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place. It was an invasion of his privacy.”
    “I only wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
    “Florence, Michael’s a healthy, red-blooded young man who’s never brought a woman—or a man for that matter—back to his apartment since we’ve known him. I say it’s high time he got a little 72
    Gracie C. McKeever
    frisky and had some fun. Don’t you?”
    “I guess you’re right,” she murmured.
    He moved closer, wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Know what else I say?”
    “No, what else?”
    “I say we should take a cue from our young tenant and get a little frisky ourselves.” Albert nibbled on her earlobe for emphasis.
    Florence giggled and slapped his hand. “You old lecher.”
    Albert chuckled and wrapped her in a bear hug as she melted against him.
    Maybe he was right. She wouldn’t call the police, but she decided she would keep her eyes on the situation. If she noticed anything more untoward, she would call the authorities whether Albert thought it was the right thing to do or not.

    * * * *

    Xevera woke with a start, feeling something slightly out of kilter about her surroundings.
    She had heard a door slam, but when she got up to investigate, she could not find anything amiss in the apartment. Perhaps she had been dreaming.
    The feeling of being watched remained, however, even after she had checked all the rooms, the closets and behind the shower curtain in the bathroom.
    Perhaps the intruder was not from the human world at all and Quna Nahemah had pinpointed her location.
    Xevera had been shielding since initially waking in Michael’s apartment a little more than twelve hours ago, but between shielding against Michael’s constant incursions and trying to suppress her spirit signal against the Inanna tracking practice, Xevera was having a difficult time functioning at normal capacity.
    It was well past time for her to get out of bed, anyway, and Sentinel’s Hunger
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    explore. Not to mention eat something, since her stomach was clamoring to be filled. At least her body was hungry for food and not desperate for kundalini . Not yet anyway. Thanks to Michael, she was well sated.
    Xevera