Sunshine: Tales of an Assassin

Chapter Eight

***Nathanial's POV***

    We continued walking down the hall, finally reaching a door where she scanned her hand before we both entered the room past that.  I found that we were in a training room with a variety of things from treadmills, to weights, punching bags and rings for sparing.  Katrina lead me past these, and some other rooms with weapons and guns, finally she stopped in front of what seemed to be locker room motioning toward the right doorway.

    "I'm going to get changed and get a workout in, there are spare clothes in the men's room if you'd like to change and get a workout as well, otherwise it will take me a few minutes, but we can discuss your plan then."  Katrina turned and headed into the women's locker room, leaving me to make my decision, and since I had a bit of time, a workout sounded like a good use of time, and a better way to start getting a better feel for what she could do.

    Entering the men's room, I found the clothing that she was talking about, all clean and smelling faintly of the laundry soap that had been used on them.  I found what appeared to be an unclaimed locker, and changed clothing quickly, stashing my normal clothing in the locker before heading back out to meet up with Katrina.  She had moved as fast, changing into a sports bra and jogging pants, her hair pulled back into a pony tail that swayed behind her like a cat's tail.

    "Tread mill first for warm up." She nodded slightly, leading me back to the machines, I found a setting that would be a good pace for a warm up for me, while she seemed to be programing something more complicated into hers.

    "Alright so what exactly is this plan of yours?"

    "In the edge of my territory there is a bar where shifter mingle with humans.  Usually it is the younger crowd there, ones looking for a bit of a thrill, but turns out the bar was a front for trafficking multiple things, and fight ring."

    "So, young ones find out where they can mingle with those they are told not to, and since these may be the trouble makers of the different groups, it could easily be brushed off that they may have 'run away' if they didn't show again."

    I nodded, noticing that not only was Katrina picking up the pace with her machine, it was tilting, making her jog at more of an incline, yet she was not breathing hard, or having any noticeable struggle with the changes.

    "That would be a fair assessment.  Lillian though, the young one from my clan, was not a troublemaker and would normally have avoided a place like that, we found out there was someone else in our area that she'd had a slight crush on, that had encouraged her to go, we think he is scouting out potential targets, and sending them there."

    "Ah, the cliché good girl crushing on the bad boy case, well over played in stories, but sadly too often true in real life, but without the happy ending."

    "Really, is that the type that you go for, Sunshine?"  I wasn't sure I really wanted the answer, or what she even classified as a bad boy, but her chuckle in response to the question wasn't what I had been expecting."

    "I'd have to be a good girl for that to apply to me, and I lost that title long ago.  I don't have a type, I don't date.  If I'm not working I'm home studying, and frankly, the thought of trying to find a human that can accept me without questioning what I do."  She shook her head laughing a little.  "Not likely to happen.  If I get an itch, I find someone attractive to scratch it for me, but that's it."

    "Why do you assume only a human would be what could accept you?  Have you ever thought maybe you might be a partner for shifter?"  I wondered if she was one that drew line between shifters and humans.

    "Have I thought of it, am I a red blooded woman?  Of course I have, but I'm also realistic, most others find humans beneath them, consider us weak and breakable.  Not many are willing to risk having a life time partner like that.  Still, I can say, there are some exceptionally nice eye candy to be found among others."  She had a far off look in her eyes, and I could smell a touch of arousal making me slightly angry at where her thoughts may have gone.  "Not sure why that's important to know, but I did forget to warn you, I have very few filters, so you may want to think about it before you ask me a question."

    "All for the plan," at least that's all I'm willing to admit to at this moment. "So it wouldn't be too hard for you to act interested in someone who wasn't a human, correct?"

  Her machine was starting to wind down, finally coming to a full stop, and she looked like she had taken a leisurely stroll down the block and back and nothing more.  Shaking her head she looked me dead in the eye for a moment before responding.

    "With the exception of a few, shot gun being one, most shifters, vampires, and others are some of the most gorgeous beings there are, and when you add in the animal magnetism, or mystery, or even just the power that naturally comes off most of you, it's not pretending attraction.  I'm just a realist and know most of you wouldn't give a lowly little human the time of day, we aren't usually up to your standards.  Time for stretches, then I'm for the weights."

    She moved away from the tread mills to an open area, settling in for stretches, while I followed and fell in beside her.

    "The goal is going to be to infiltrate to a degree, both levels, fight ring and trafficking.  Starting with one area, which would hopefully lead us to the other, if we could get into the fighting area as a couple, from there based on what we see or find, we'd have to make a plan on how to get into the second area."

    "I see, go in as the pet and the fighter, and based on how things go, we could have a nasty fight, or have to plan on the fly depending.  Fair enough there."  Katrina paused her stretching for a moment, thinking, before continuing to stretch.

    "That's about right, and what were you just thinking about?"  I wondered how her mind worked and wanted to know more, last night at first she hadn't seemed to have that much depth, or really much aside from her body and a sharp mouth, but today was showing me some other sides.

    "Just thinking its a shame I'll likely be the rather vapid pet, and someone else will get to fight.  Everyone else gets to have the fun.  Ah well, I'm sure I'll get to beat on something at some point later."

    "Unfortunately that would be the case, Gabriel tends to from what I can tell, prefer females weaker."

    "Touché, we had similar intel showing the same thing, but I may get lucky before the night is over.  The other concern is, you are supposed to be my partner for this, right?  But this is in your territory, and you are a known leader for the panther shifters there, how will that work out?"

    Watching her bending forward to stretch  and how it pulled her pants tight over her ass made me momentarily wish that she was talking about another kind of getting lucky, on we both could enjoy, but now wasn't the time for those thoughts, and I had to focus on my current two goals, which was taking out Gabriel and figuring out more of the mystery that was surrounding Katrina.

    "Panther shifters aren't usually as open to showing their leadership as the wolves are, though we aren't as quite as withdrawn as the dragons were, or are, I've heard rumors that some still exist, though I can't say for sure if I'd met one or not."  It would be an impossible coincident to have a dragon shifter suddenly show up at such a time, and yet that Kai had given off energy that I'd heard only dragons could, still these were strange times.  "While my name is known, my face is not for the most part, I'm actually still trying to establish how your boss Lydia knew exactly who I was.  My bigger concern at the moment is how we would communicate.  I don't trust them not to have something that could mess with electronics."

    Why would communication be an issue?  I stopped my stretching and looked at Katrina with a bit of shock.  She isn't a shifter, and even if she was, she shouldn't be able to speak directly into my mind unless she was part of my clan and my links were open.

    "How did you do that?"  I'd felt last night that she was a projective empath, which was rare on it's own, let alone in a human, but once again, something that never should happen didn't seem to follow the rules around her.  Empaths were not telepaths, and telepaths weren't empaths, that's what we were always taught anyways.

    Uhm, I focused on you and sent the thought straight to you, same as I would anyone else.  It's nothing too special and frankly I thought you shifters were used to talking mind to mind like this.   She didn't even pause as she finished her stretches, walking over to a weight machine next and adjusting the weight before starting her sets and reps.

    And you can hear it when I talk back to you this way as well.

    No, I'm just spouting random stuff off the top of my head and hoping it matches whatever you are thinking now.  I'm mentally deaf and can't hear a thing.  There was the strongest sensation of someone rolling their eyes and I held back a laugh, my panther contented in the back of my mind after listening to her, not at all bothered by her snarky responses.

    Well that clears up the issues of communication nicely.  The last thing we need to do is I need to actually see you fight, just to make sure of what you can handle if things go downhill.

    Now she just smirked, lowering the weights and heading towards one of the fighting rings.  Katrina got into her corner waiting, still smirking slightly.

    "Tap out?  No blood?" I didn't want to really hurt her, just see what her limits were, panthers shifters unlike most wolf shifters, tended to like our women more feisty and able to hold their own, solitary hunters, we focused more on survival chances of our young similar to real panthers.

    "What ever you say, we are just testing each others skills, right?  After all, it is a bad idea to go into a potential war zone and not know what your partner can do."

    "Yes, though I'd rather you not do to me what you did to that woman in the hall, since I am already aware of that particular skill."

    She just laughed and got into her fighting stance, watching me as I watched for her to move.  Since I needed to test how she would react to a fight, it was only fair I start it to see what she would do, and having decided this, I lunged at her without warning.

    Katrina dodged away at the last second, striking me as she did so, her movements swift and confident, and as the fight escalated between the two of us, she demonstrated different blocks and dodges from multiple forms of martial arts, or she would hit a point that would make my body either numb there, or laced with fiery pain at other points.  She was holding her own very well, getting in actually more strikes on me than I could on her.

    I understood why she was bothered that she would not be able to fight this time, the way she moved I'm certain that she would give higher ranked members of my clan a run for their money, and I was enjoying the challenge that came with sparing with her.