Sometime later, when they were all alone, Charlotte was going to make John pay for putting her on the spot this way. For the moment, she'd take a down payment on that with her version of the events. She tightened her arm a little, pulling John closer. "The story starts when I met a man who managed to annoy me at every turn. Even when discussing the weather we seemed to tick each other off." She smiled up at John to see how he'd take that very small exaggeration. "One day, to throw him off completely, I was nice to him. That was enough to get him into my lair. I offered him remarkably fine whiskey in paper cups and then introduced him to the kittens."

She paused there, struck by the fact that she'd woken up the next morning in Taxon, after the only slightly less surprising events of the rest of that evening.