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"Hm? Neither."

"What?"

Malachi suddenly wrapped his arms around Luna\'s waist and pulled her in so that their bodies were pressed against each other. "I\'m sorry that the first time I told you I loved you was in the middle of a dungeon that reeked of blood and goblin ash. I promise I\'m usually a lot more romantic than that." He said with a helpless smile. Luna\'s face quickly became as red as the mark on her forehead as all of her anger vanished almost as quickly as it came. "W-What\'re you doing?"

"A do-over." Malachi leaned in, and Luna closed her eyes when she believed that she was about to receive a kiss, only to nearly jump out of her skin when she felt Malachi\'s warm breath by her ear. "I. Love. You."

Malachi released Luna immediately afterwards, and acted as if he hadn\'t done anything out of the ordinary. Walking past her, he began heading towards the elevator. "I have a project to do now, but I hope I\'ll see you later. You should go in and see Sei too while you\'re here." Unfortunately, Luna\'s brain had all but short circuited and she was now frozen in place right where Mal had left her. "I-I... Y-You..."

Mal merely waived her goodbye with his usual warm smile and waived her goodbye. "See you later, Luna."

Once the elevator closed, she still remained frozen in place for a full three minutes while she tried to calm her raging heartbeat.

Eventually Sei woke up as well, and rubbed her eyes sleepily as she approached the stunned white haired woman who was standing in the doorway. "Luna? Why are you standing outside like that?"

"...That man is dangerous... "

"Nani?"

-

Annalise worked at a hole in the wall record shop on the north side of town about twenty minutes away from Mal\'s apartment. It was actually owned by her uncle, so more often than not she was able to slack off quite a bit. The interior was fairly nice, with almost every record imaginable in the form of either cds or vinyls, and there were even a few instruments on sale in the back. In the days of streaming, record shops like this weren\'t very busy. And yet today this store had already seen ten customers ever since they opened twenty minutes ago, all because of the young woman who worked behind the counter. Today, Annalise was wearing simple black jean shorts and a dark crop top that barely contained her large bust. After seeing her from the window outside, young men of various ages practically trampled over themselves trying to get inside. Some asked for help selecting a record they had no interest in listening to, while others were just openly ogling her. One particularly handsome man was a bit bolder than others and brought the most expensive guitar in the shop right up to the counter, while showing off what was nothing less than a movie star smile. "I\'ll take this and uh, don\'t worry about the price you can just swipe my card." He said, having no idea just how douche-like he sounded. Annalise maintained a blank expression as she proceeded to ring up his purchase, and the man became even more ensnared by her icy demeanor. "So... how many of these do I have to buy to get some special lessons from you?"

Annalise seemed like she was already used to this kind of thing and did not even bother looking up rom the register. "We\'re running a special. Buy sixty and I\'ll spit in your face." She handed the man his new guitar along with a receipt while looking at him with apparent disgust. While taking his guitar, the man also took the opportunity to grab Anna by the hand. "Come on, don\'t be like that gorgeous. I just wanted to get a little more familiar with you, that\'s all."

"Oh fucking well. Take your hands off of me before I put you on your ass." Finally, the man\'s permanent smile broke and he twisted his face up in anger. " You don\'t have to be such a bitch. Playing hard to get doesn\'t do any good when you\'re dressed like that."

Suddenly, a small black cat leapt on top of the counter and began hissing at the man like he was feral.

"What the hell do you want, cat?" The man growled.

"He said duck." Annalise warned. "What?"

CRACK.

Using her free hand, Annalise pulled a wooden bat from behind the counter, and proceeded to knock the man clean across the face. The sound of a nose being broken echoed throughout the music shop, and the entire store came to a dead standstill. Anna had succeeded in knocking out the rude customer with a single swing, and casually dropped his new guitar over his unconscious body. She wiped the blood off her bat like it was no big deal and turned her attention to the small crowd watching from the corner.

"Can one of you idiots take Mr. zero boundaries outside? He\'s bleeding all over the floor and I\'m gonna have to mop that." If the young men inside were aroused by Annalise before, they were now terrified of her after witnessing how cruel she could be without batting an eye. "W-We\'ll just come another day..!" "I would prefer it if you didn\'t." "R-Right!" Once the store had been emptied, Anna sighed before she reached behind the counter and pulled out a mop. "I could\'ve helped you, you know?" Annalise smiled and glanced at the small black cat that was still sitting by the register. "And what is a cute little kitty like you gonna do? Nuzzle him to death?" Mal let out a huff as he watched Annalise mop up the blood as if she\'d done this a thousand times before. "I\'m only like this cause you ain\'t really give me a choice."

"Damn right, and you better stay like that, furball. Serana told me how crazy things got when you were sighted at her restaurant and I absolutely do not want to deal with anything like that." She had enough trouble beating away all of her potential suitors. There was no way in hell she was going to deal with Mal\'s rabid fan base as well. She didn\'t even want him to be seen walking into this shop, so she had him change into a cat as soon as he arrived and she walked out to retrieve him herself. "Does that kinda thing happen often?" Mal asked. "Often enough that I keep a bat and a mop behind the counter." Anna answered plainly. "Why? You jealous?" Anna meant it as a joke, but her words really caused Mal to think. He had a special dislike for forceful men after everything that had happened to his sister, but that didn\'t explain this additional feeling of repulsion that he felt when that man grabbed Anna. The only time he\'d even come close to feeling like that was when Sei was being harassed by that doctor in the hospital, or when Rowan said something about Luna being too pretty for him. Mal took a moment to observe Anna fully. Revealing outfit aside, she was absolutely gorgeous and her well done tattoos only added to her dangerous charm. Suddenly, Mal remembered how Nyx kept referring to a fourth woman who was in love with him that he hadn\'t yet realized. "I don\'t know... maybe." Anna froze like a deer in headlights and her eyes nearly popped out of her skull. She calmed down her beating heartbeat by force, and went back to mopping long after all of the blood had been wiped up. "Don\'t joke with me... You don\'t know me well enough to say something like that. "

"That\'s true." Mal admitted. "But I like what I know so far." Annalise finally showed some degree of emotion as she turned towards the talking cat on the counter. Mal had never seen Anna with such an embarrassed look on her face, and he briefly wondered if he was having some kind of fever dream. "Don\'t joke with me. I don\'t have anything in common with the girls you go for. You\'re better off saying things like that to some supermodel." "I don\'t have any interest in supermodels though? I like to eat and I hear they starve themselves." Anna didn\'t know what she was more mad about, the fact that Mal was joking in this situation or the fact that it actually made her want to laugh. Malachi disobeyed his very strict orders and changed back into his regular appearance. Despite having the eyes of a wild animal, the way he was looking at Anna was incredibly gentle and patient. "Do you... like anything about me?"

As always, Mal accidentally activated his blessing from Bastet, leaving Anna with no choice but to tell the truth. Her eyes gradually lost focus and an answer fell out of her mouth before she could stop it. "Yes... everything."

Ring! Just as Anna finally told Mal her feelings, the door to the store opened and a very familiar man strode inside. "Well, isn\'t this lovely! I\'m suddenly in the mood to hear some Teddy Pendergrass!" Malachi\'s blood immediately ran cold, and his teeth and nails sharpened instinctively. Anna didn\'t recognize this strange and flamboyant man who\'d just walked into her store, and her cold and unfriendly demeanor returned like it never left. "Can I help you?" "Ah, not you sweetheart. But the man behind you can." Malachi surpressed a growl that was desperately trying to escape from his throat. "What do you want, Lamont?" New character art of Mal, Luna, Bianca, Sei and Annalise is now up!

Go check it out!

AnathaShesha