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Anita was so concerned about being professional that it felt wrong to share this stuff, even with someone who would likely never meet her.

“You’re right,” I mumbled. “I was thinking with my dick.”

“Mhmm,” Svyn said in an infuriatingly know-it-all way. “Turn over, boss.”

Clutching my towel, I carefully rolled onto my back. Svyn nodded at my hand.

“Those’ll have to go.”

“What?” I looked down.

“The claws.”

“My claws? Why?”

“If you want to be intimate with your human…” He raised his brows at me meaningfully.

I stared down at my claws digging into the towel. My gorgeous, perfectly shaped claws with their beautiful blue tinge and elegant curve. I almost shuddered at the thought of Kyli, my regular manicurist here at Redmud Spa, hacking away at them with clippers.

But anyway, it wouldn’t be an issue. It wasn’t like I was ever going to touch Anita again. So I had absolutely no reason to cruelly chop off my beautiful claws, despite what Svyn thought.

“So you’re saying you want me to file down just these two.”

My manicurist, Kyli, stared at me blankly from across the table, gripping the middle and index fingers of my right hand and keeping them thrust into the air. It almost looked obscene.

I coughed. “Yes.”

“Why?” she asked flatly. Kyli wasn’t the friendliest person, but she was damn good at what she did.

I glanced self-consciously at the human woman beside me getting her nails done. “Just… feel like it.”

The woman glanced back with a knowing look. Her mouth curving into a tiny sheepish smile, she lifted her own right hand to show me her nails—freshly painted pale pink, all of them long and elegantly shaped except for her middle and forefinger, which had been neatly filed down.

I choked out a laugh, lifting my left hand to give her a fist bump. “You get it.” I turned back to Kyli. “She gets it.”

“Well I don’t get it.” She grabbed her clippers and poised them almost threateningly over the claw on my right middle finger. “Claws take a long time to grow back, so don’t come in here whining at your next appointment if I do this.”

I gulped, staring down at the clippers in apprehension. “I won’t.”

“Last chance…”

I almost closed my eyes as I took a deep breath. “Do it.”

I flinched when the clippers snapped shut on my claw, but Kyli had my hand in an iron grip—almost unnecessarily tight, to be honest. She seemed to be taking this personally.

“No going back now,” she sing-songed. Now that she’d done it, she looked almost perversely gleeful to witness the uneasy look on my face.

“Great,” I said faintly. “It looks… great. Just what I wanted.”

It did not look great. It was already making my gut squirmy, seeing the unevenness on my own hand. How was I going to pierce the protective foil tops on my tubs of protein powder? Or scratch my ass properly? Or… I don’t know, find the end on a roll of tape?

My beautiful claws. I said a private lament as Kyli clipped off the other and I stared at the pair of them resting sadly on the table. Daddy loves you. Your sacrifice shall not be in vain.

Except it would be, because I didn’t even know why I was doing this. It wasn’t like my hands would ever be anywhere near the… inside of Anita. God, that was a terrifyingly creepy, serial killer-esque thought.

“They’ll thank you for it,” the woman beside me murmured. “Assuming they’re human. Trust me.”

I smiled weakly back. I could not admit that I’d rashly decided to do this after my appointment with Svyn when it would likely never even be necessary. It wasn’t like I was going to see Anita in a meeting and she’d say, ‘Quick, finger-bang me.’