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yellow polo.
    They look the way I did when I saw Orion in the dream for the first time. Captured. If I didn’t know that weremates don’t share the power to influence others with their voice, I’d think I was using a werecall.
    I lean away from the keys, the song ending abruptly along with whatever weird musical spell I’d cast. The crowd doesn’t shake their heads or anything; they just stop looking at me and start making their way back to their seats.
    Lola’s the only one who stays. “Wow, I had no idea you could do that. You’ve got to go on American Idol or The Voice or something.” Despite her praise, she sounds more confused than anything else, then she gives me a bright smile that’s charming in spite of the gap in her teeth. “Could you do some Elvis?”
    I wince, trying to find a way to tell her that Elvis probably won’t go over well with the pink posse. “How about some Beatles?”
    Lola nods.
    I play a couple more songs after that, but I keep the mood light and easy. My performances aren’t great, but I’ll take mediocre over dangerously weird any day of the week.
    Finally, after I play a weird pseudo-cover of Jellyfish Riot’s hit “Transformation Electric,” I decide that it’s time to end the show.
    “Thanks, guys,” I announce.
    Nobody claps, except Lola. I think some of the pink posse has even left. I can smell a bad Yelp review coming on. Oh, well, at least I tried. Now it’s time for the real work of the night: bartending.
    I leave the keyboard on the stage and make my way to the bar. When I reach my destination, Peter, the other bartender, sends a rag sliding over the counter toward me with a jowly nod. Not even a thanks for relieving him of his shift. I grab it and hang it up behind me, not watching him go. Asshole.
    “You’re Artemis, right?” asks a high but definitely male voice.
    I turn. At the other end of the bar, the guy with the yellow shirt fidgets with the coaster underneath his empty glass.
    Where do I know him from? “Yes. Can I get you another drink?”
    His nose wrinkles, a prim gesture that fits his slightly feminine face. “He didn’t say you were a weremate.”
    “What?” I hiss. My eyes dart around the bar, checking to see if anyone heard. Thankfully, no one is paying much attention to me.
    “Lawrence. He mentioned he had a roommate who worked at Bar Lola, but that’s about all he said.” His eyes lower. “Then again, he is one cagey guy, the beautiful bastard.”
    I take a deep breath and give him my best customer-service smile. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Come on, girl.” He rolls his eyes impatiently. “You’re showing your matemark off like it’s a new tattoo. You can stop pretending.”
    I look down at the counter and my wrist. Sure enough, like an idiot, in my rush to get out of the house I forgot to bandage up my mark and my crescent of white fur is on display for everyone to see. I fumble with my sleeve and bring my arms behind my back.
    Shit. Shit. Shit.
    “I’m not a weremate,” I say. “I just have a condition.”
    He slams the glass down on the counter and gives a high-pitched “Ha!” that manages to echo through the room. “Fuck, and I thought I was living in denial. I should let my therapist have a crack at you. He’d implode with excitement.”
    The remaining sorority girls look up from their booth. The man glowers in their direction before swiveling toward them on his bar stool and rolling up the sleeve of his polo shirt.
    They settle down into a storm of whispers like this is middle-school gym class.
    When he turns back around, I see what he showed them. Over his biceps glimmers a slash of scales like a tattoo, iridescent and studded with spikes.
    Oh my God, I know why I thought I recognized his face before. It was because I had seen his picture. On Tracker.
    He’s Cooper Dunham. He’s the werepufferfish.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    “I will not make the argument that every weremate