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to see why people trusted her
immediately. It was all genuine too, and he could find it in himself to envy
Bryan mightily if a certain sweet-faced artist hadn't stolen into his kitchen
that night.
    Bellaron sighed. “ Fine. Arrange your meeting, but don't expect me to be impressed by the man.”
    “ That's just fine, I'm not asking you to be best
friends, I'm just asking you to talk,” Bryan said, smiling with relief. “Thank
you. If there's anything I can do for you...”
    “ The artist,” Bellaron said bluntly. “I couldn't get close to her, there were
so many people who wanted to talk to her. Who is she?”
    “ Her name's Apple Muldoon, and she's the artist in residence at the Hillman Center for the next month,”
Bryan said proudly. “I caught a small display that she had at an art fair a few
months ago, and I knew that she had to bring her work here.”
    “ She dropped out of the art college here a few years
ago,” supplied Vicky. “ Independent, did a bunch of odd
jobs until her art took off. It's still not paying the bills, I don't think,
but tonight changed everything for her. They can't take the pieces yet, but
nearly every piece sold.”
    Bellaron nodded thoughtfully. “ Everything except the big wolf.”
    “ Yes,” said Vicky with surprise. “How did you know?”
    Bellaron grinned, and if there was something sharp to his
smile, neither Vicky or Bryan let it bother them.
    “ I recognized it,” he said. “That's a hunter. That's
something that stalks the forests and kills without a sound. It makes every
human who looks at it realize that they're prey.”
    Vicky lifted a cool eyebrow. “ Oh? And what does it make you think, Bellaron ?”
    “ I see a brother,” he retorted.
    He stood up abruptly, and both Vicky and Bryan,
human to their core despite the alien company they kept, shivered. They could
see the hunter in him, and a deep part of them responded to it.
    “” Bryan, I want that piece. I don't care how much it
costs.”
    Bryan nodded, but when he looked at the tense lines
of Bellaron's body, he knew that it wasn't all that
the tall man wanted.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Apple had fallen asleep in her makeup and her
clothes the night before, and when she awoke around noon, her thoughts were
still full of green eyes, clever fingers and a mouth that was made to pleasure
her. The thoughts stayed with her as she showered and dressed, pulling on her
favorite pair of paint-splattered jeans and a soft purple peasant top, and she
blushed all over again to think about how bold she had been. She was no
shrinking violet, but usually she waited a bit before she unleashed her inner
vixen. Something about the chef she met at the gallery showing had changed all
that, and when she remembered his hands on her flesh, she felt herself heat up
all over again.
    She wondered what would happen if she showed up at
the doors of The Hunt, if she walked through the fancy dining room and
confronted him in the kitchen. Would he look at her the same way? Would he
touch her again? Then she looked down at her clothes, at the vivid green paint
splatter on her jeans and her worn sandals, and realized that that was pretty
unlikely.
    Apple had every intention of hunting him down, but
at the moment, she needed time to gather herself. Her reaction to him last
night was simply so strong that she needed time to collect her thoughts, and to
do so, she made her way down to the midtown market.
    The midtown market was Colossal City's summer flea
market. From April until October, the market took up an enormous four-block
lot, and vendors of all kinds hawked their wares from stands, from
wheelbarrows, from blankets and from carts. There were farmers selling rich
colorful produce, booksellers, junk sellers, antique dealers and clothes
vendors of every sort, and Apple thought it was her favorite place in the whole
city.
    Sometimes she bought things, but more often, she
walked around, staring at the oddities that lurked in every bin and bag.