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Stan Davis and the oppressive sense of being watched, made him say, “Let’s get back home.”

    They spent the drive not talking, but also not really feeling the need to talk; he pulled over at a rest stop along the way and got out the first-aid kit to clean up her cuts so they wouldn’t get infected. Her wrist wasn’t broken, just sprained, and he wrapped it tight. She let him do it, a concession of vulnerability that wasn’t like Kenya Jones at all.
As long as we don’t say anything,
he thought.
As long as we don’t face it, maybe it can seem like a real thing.
Because he knew it couldn’t be. His family would never accept her. Hers would never accept him. And then there was the working-together problem. There were rules and all.
    But he knew what he felt, and she knew, and when he put the last bandage on, he met her eyes and sat back on his heels. Held the stare.
    She leaned forward and without a single word kissed him.
    It was sweet and warm and made his heart stop with longing, and he knew he didn’t respond the way he wanted but he was too shocked, and it was over too fast, and then Kenya was buckling herself back into her seat and staring straight ahead out the car window. All he could do was stand up, clear his throat, and put away the first-aid kit before climbing back behind the wheel of the cruiser.
    The silence continued, but after a while, after another mile or two of asphalt burning away under the tires, he found he was holding her bandaged hand in his, and the pressure of her fingers, light and strong and constant, soothed some ache inside him he didn’t know he had.
    They made it into Bon Temps just as dawn was warming the horizon a light pink.
    â€œYou never did get to take a shower,” Kenya said. “You still smell like swamp water.”
    â€œYou rolled around in crack house trash,” he said. “I’m not judging.”
    â€œGuess we need to check in at the station and report back to Bud about what happened.”
    â€œDo we?” He looked over at her, and her eyebrows rose. “What the hell are we going to say? That I shot a fugitive outside our jurisdiction?”
    She didn’t have an answer for that. She just put her head back against the headrest and sighed. “You know what the worst thing is?”
    â€œI couldn’t even guess.”
    â€œWe still don’t know who threw that damn suitcase in the swamp. I’m not going to sleep until I figure that out.”
    He laughed, and he couldn’t stop laughing, and he had to pull the car over because it hurt so bad and so good, and for the first time in a long time he heard Kenya laughing without restraint, and she never let go of his hand. Never once.
    What are we going to say?
    Not a damn thing,
he thought.
Not a damn thing. Because it’s nobody’s damn business.

TYGER, TYGER
    CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

    Christopher Golden’s story “Tyger, Tyger” begins a few months after the final Sookie novel. Quinn, my favorite weretiger, is having a very bad day, which promises to get much, much worse.
    â€”
    Quinn watched the speedometer, kept the needle pinned at the limit, and tried to stop his hands from gripping the steering wheel too tightly. He had punched in a classical station on his satellite radio that played mostly baroque music, a secret pleasure. He liked all sorts of music but prided himself on maintaining an even temperament, and when stress or anger threatened to get the better of him, the beautiful strings of some of those baroque arrangements soothed him.
    Soothed the savage,
he thought, with an expression that was half snarl and half grin. If someone else had said that to him, he would’ve been offended, but he had to be honest with himself. He was a full-blooded weretiger, after all. In the right circumstances, he had savagery to spare.
    His cell phone rang. He’d stuck it into the console between the seats but had forgotten that