by Faith Hunter
The Warehouse District was just what it sounded like—the centuries-old storage facilities of the New Orleans docks, where indigo, rice, cotton, food crops, cloth, tobacco, and other items had been shipped downriver and to Europe, in return for silk, porcelain china, tea, and slaves. Later centuries had shipped cars, mechanical tools, raw and formed iron, steel, coal, technology, imported illegal drugs, and exported sexual slavery, cash, liquor, cigarettes. Everything, legal and illegal, moral and immoral, had been stored, for a time, in the warehouses. Now the old refurbished buildings housed artists’ lofts, cafés, exclusive restaurants, galleries, apartments, spas, fitness centers, and all manner of upscale social businesses.
The address I turned in to was a recently rehabbed warehouse, updated and secluded. There were bars on the windows, the wrought-iron fleur-de-lis made so popular by French immigrants, pretty as well as effective at keeping out burglars. The building also had electronic security up the wazoo: dynamic cameras with low-light and infrared capability, keypunch locks; two armed guards with earpieces, bulges suggestive of guns, and the look of trained soldiers patrolled the place. It was all stuff I had recommended to Leo for the Mithran council’s headquarters and his now-burned clan home. I’d have to remember to send him a bill, now that he’d finally followed my advice.
Blinding-bright security lights brought tears to my eyes and threw the place into sharp-angled shadows. I wheeled into the parking area and Bitsa’s roar went silent. I pulled my riding gloves off. I didn’t really need to, and didn’t often ride with gloves, but the finger-by-finger let me scope out the place.
Sitting on the seat, I smelled seafood, hot grease, and coffee—natch—and wine and beer—also natch—and the scents of mold, hot tar, exhaust, stagnant and moving water, and flowers—jasmine, I thought—that marked the city. I saw the last traces of the sun on the horizon, bleeding reddish in the cerulean sky. I smelled humans I recognized. Two of Derek Lee’s Vodka Boys were among the security I saw patrolling. I smelled Bruiser and Wrassler. I smelled Leo’s Mercy Blade, Gee DiMercy somewhere close by, and I smelled several vamps too, which was a surprise. Sabina, the oldest outclan priestess, had been in the parking lot before total dark set in. Day-walking, or dusk-walking, was something only the really old ones can do and live. I could think of no reason for any of them to be here unless they were here for Leo to drink from. Injured vamps needed a lot of blood to heal really bad injuries, even vamps as powerful as the Master of the City. Something tightened deep inside, though I refused to name it fear or worry for the MOC. I unhelmeted, strapped it to the back of the bike, and stuck the hair sticks into my bun, wishing I had brought more than six. I adjusted the vamp-killers so they were easy to hand.
Bruiser glided through the falling dark toward me as I tucked my gloves into a pocket. I studied him as he wove between cars. His dark hair fell over his forehead in a silken wave; his brown eyes were liquid and intent. He was the same, but better somehow, richer, more mesmeric. He moved differently too, smoother, catlike. Sleek. The breeze, hot and wet, shifted, bringing his scent to me. Vamp and human and . . . vamp. He smelled of mixed vamp odor, almost like a blood-slave, the herbal pong something they acquired as they were passed around. As he got closer, his eyes holding me still, I could see even more differences. Bruiser was so full of vamp blood that his eyes were half-vamped out, pupils huge in his brown irises, and not just because of the night. His eyes gleamed, cold and dark and empty, yet hot and speaking to me of sex even before he opened his mouth.
“My Jane. You have arrived.”
I grunted and swung my leg over Bitsa. His Jane. Yeah. Right.
Bruiser reached me and slid an arm around my waist. His arm felt different, harder, stronger, like a steel band, as if he could lift me up and toss me into the air, a dance move to end all dance moves. He pulled me close and ducked his head, nuzzling my neck, his lips hot and softer than velvet and finding that place under my ear that sent shivers through my body, raising chill bumps on my skin—hard to do in the heat. I wasn’t used to being smaller, shorter than anyone, and the sensation of feeling petite and weak against the taller man was oddly arousing. I let him lift me to my toes, breathed in the scent of his sweat on the warm night air. Almost with a will of their own, my fingers laced through his hair.
“I missed you,” he whispered as his other arm went around me, pulling me close, close enough that I knew just how he had missed me. Bruiser was four inches taller than me, and was now clearly stronger too. I knew that, predator to predator. But the knowledge faded beneath the onslaught of his scent, the heat of his skin, and his arousal pressed against me. “I missed you,” he repeated, the three words morphing into a growl.
Beast breathed in his scent with me, claws out but not yet pressing in. Vampire. Much vampire blood, she thought. But still your Bruiser.
He pulled me up, closer, my body crushed against his. I’d never been the little woman before. Ever. But I was now. Weirdly, I liked it. His mouth found mine, his lips hot and soft one moment, hard and demanding the next. My breath caught.
He broke the kiss before I was ready. “When this conflict is done”—his lips moved against my ear—“I’m taking you to my place, and we will not leave until long, long after dawn.”
Heat shot out from the touch of his lips and settled deep in my belly. Spreading out in tendrils of desire and need and pure want. I had to lick my lips before I could answer, half gasping, “Okay. Fine. Sure.”
Bruiser laughed into my hair and swung me to his side, effortlessly. I fell into step beside him. The warehouse had two heavy steel doors and, situated between them, one oversized delivery door. We made our way to it, Bruiser holding me so close my right arm was trapped under his shoulder. He pressed a button, and the delivery door began to slide up, revealing the darkness inside. Our shadows were long and thin across the charcoal-painted cement floor. The room inside was empty, all in gray, with a bar at the back. And doors leading off into the dark. “So, where is the lair?” I asked.
Then it all went to hell.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
But He Didn’t Let Me Go
I smelled/heard/tasted the attack before it came, a single breath, pulled in over my tongue, the taste of betrayal. Scent-laden with pheromones: the clan’s Mercy Blade, vamps; Sabina, the older priestess who lived in the vamp graveyard; Katie and Leo. Distinct pops of displaced air, vamp-speed. Blurs of motion.
My expectations ruined me. I expected Bruiser to release me and move two steps to my side. I expected him to draw a weapon. I did not expect him to freeze, my arm clamped to his side, stealing my single moment of reaction time. I did not expect his whispered “Leo. I—No!” I jerked my arm and twisted my body.
Bruiser held on to me. And my trust was shattered.
Katie caught my free arm, which was reaching for my ankle holster, in a vise. The Mercy Blade stepped on my foot, which was lifting to my hand, and forced it back to the cement floor. Sabina circled behind me and caught my head, twisting my chin up, stretching my neck, holding me still. I was immobilized. The electric door whirred down behind us, enclosing us in the dark. Leo walked out of the echoing shadows, footsteps measured and slow. He was vamped out, his fangs snapped down, eyes all black pupil in bloody, scarlet sclera. Sabina unlatched the clasp on my silver and titanium necklace.
Bruiser swallowed, the sound of his throat moving loud in the sudden silence. “I brought her to you. But . . . This is not what . . .” His voice sounded thick, confused, and trailed off into nothing, but my eyes were on Leo. I understood what was about to happen. My heart thumped hard once and raced to a limping beat. I wrenched my body, fighting for freedom. It was like wrestling shaped steel.
Beast is not prey! she raged inside me.
“George. Bruiser. Don’t let him do this,” I said, my words strangled from the angle of my neck.
“I . . . can’t. I’m sorry,” he said again, real regret clotting his voice, and maybe real pain.
Leo stepped up to me, like a
dance step, measured, smooth, like the opening movement to a tango. He was slight but strong, shoulder-length black hair pulled back in a queue with a black ribbon, the end hanging over one shoulder. His eyes, Frenchy black; his face, usually so pale, was now suffused with blood. He looked well fleshed, as if he had been working out and had put on muscle. His usual scent, like pepper and papyrus, was different, with a hint of berries and oak and fermentation, like fine wine. I realized that Leo had fed long and deeply.
His fangs clicked down, three inches of glistening white, his jaw having to do something odd to allow the movement. My breath heaved and my heart raced, and Leo’s eyes bled slowly black and scarlet, vamping out as he smelled my fear. “You, my new Enforcer, have equally served me well and caused me much grief,” he said, the words sibilant and echoing in the empty space. “You found my enemy, which is a service to be well rewarded. But this trouble you have brought to me must end. I have taken council of my advisers and have discovered a way to reward you for both.” He smiled, and my heart sped even faster. Leo chuckled softly and leaned in, breathing deeply of my panic. “Yessss,” he whispered, his lips close to my ear. “And then you will be my new Enforcer indeed. You will be bound to me as the Carta rightly requires. You, rather than my George, will act as my second in the Blood Challenge I will issue to this enemy you have identified.” He smiled and it was snakelike. “That is, if you survive your own duty and fate.”
“Boss—Leo, don’t—” Bruiser stopped as if his throat was choked shut and buried his face in my hair, speaking now to me. “I’m sorry,” Bruiser whispered, the word echoing exactly as Leo’s had. “I can’t stop him. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I could smell his misery, his self-disgust. His compulsion. He was sorry. But he didn’t let me go. He couldn’t. He was blood-trapped, blood-drunk. Compelled. Leo’s slave. This was why vamps were evil. This stealing of will.
“I’m sorry for causing you trouble,” I said, fear like lightning, my words gasping. “And I don’t need any reward for discovering Lucas de Allyon. I haven’t even proved he’s your enemy. I said it’s possible.”
“Your analysis was exemplary and your conclusion valid,” Gee said. “We concur with your hypothesis and analysis. My master’s true-dead uncle had previous . . . rivalry with this Mithran regarding some small territorial disputes following the Civil War. Hence this necessity.”
Leo lifted a hand to my face, calloused along the thumb side of his index finger, and warm from all the blood he had ingested. The Mercy Blade pressed against my knees and they buckled, the vamps riding me down until my knees hit the cool floor, a supplicant, as if begging. I might have thought that Gee DiMercy would save me as he did once before, would have compassion, but he wasn’t human either. And he too was Leo’s.
Bruiser fell to his knees beside me, still holding my arm. I started to threaten Leo, but Sabina yanked down on my bun so hard my hair tore and my scalp bled. I could smell it. I fought to inhale with my head at this angle, my breath sounding tortured. Leo bent over me, his black hair falling forward, to caress my cheeks. From the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of steel and smelled Leo’s blood where he cut himself. One of Sabina’s inhumanly strong hands held my head back; the other hand pinched my nose closed.
“Blood to blood,” Leo murmured, “mind to mind. My power calling to your power.” He bit into my throat. Electric pain cut through me. Magic slammed into me, hot and wet, raw and scarlet, heavy with semisolid things that flooded into my spirit cave and molded to my soul like clots.
Leo’s wrist covered my mouth as I gasped. I breathed down the drops of blood and the magic, choking, feeling it hit my lungs and slam into my bloodstream, my jaws suddenly aching with heavy pressure, my fingertips burning, as Beast struggled to break free. There was nothing of compulsion in Leo, nothing of the painkilling laving of tongue that could have blunted the pain. Nothing of the mesmerizing ability that made the taking of blood pleasurable for the victim. This was control. This was dominance, not the reward he’d promised. If I fought, he’d rip out my throat.
As soon as I thought that, a wave of pleasure rippled through me, starting at my neck and following every nerve ending across my torso to settle low in my belly. Heat and desire coiled there, mating together. No, I thought. No . . .
Tears blurred my eyes, and my stomach roiled. My mouth filled with Leo’s blood, almost human-warm, gelatinous, with a sharp, peppery, fermented flavor. I had no choice but to swallow. My gulps tore my throat where Leo’s teeth pierced me, and more pain/pleasure flared out. My heart beat fast against my ribs as he drank, fangs buried deep, lips sealed tight. Sucking hard. And I swallowed as he swallowed, a dance of pleasure and agony. Two, three, six gulps. Need cascaded through me with each sip of his blood. If my hands had been free, I’d have clutched him to me, and I hated him for that control, for that want. This was what made blood-slaves willing to do anything to get their next high. Anything at all.
Leo’s arm moved from my mouth and I finally got a breath, inhaling, the sound a hissing panic and a gasping desire, and Leo drank in my fear and craving. He slid his arms around me and pushed me flat to the floor, until I stared up at the shadows. Sabina released me, stepping away; the Mercy Blade followed her, leaving me on the floor with Leo and Bruiser. They held me between them, the two of them, as Leo’s magic welled up, twining around me, sliding inside me, like electric vines. In the dark I could feel it, a prickling breeze over my exposed skin. Could see it, wisps and strands of pale gray light. Could smell it, like old parchment and pepper, Leo’s personal scent. His magic flowed beneath my skin, pumped through my veins, mingled with my blood, and I sobbed once, only once, my flesh throbbing against his fangs. My heartbeat was a soft thump-thump, thump-thump, growing louder as the blood I’d breathed in and swallowed was carried with his magic through my body, through my heart, and arteries and veins. Changing me. Empowering me. Half a dozen gulps of my blood. Stolen.
Thief of blood, Beast hissed.
Leo’s fangs withdrew, the motion slow and cutting like twin razors. I grunted with the pain. Bruiser was still whispering, his lips barely moving air, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Katie took Leo’s place, standing over me, staring down, alpha to my zeta. I curled back my lips and growled at her. She chuckled at the sound, her own power flowing over me like cold water, brown and teal and dark green. She held up her arm and I smelled her blood. Three claw marks scored her wrist, blood running down to her fingers and up to her elbow. Beast had drawn blood. I snarled at her. I felt Beast’s fangs in my mouth, long and pointed and built for killing, for shredding meat, not for draining the blood of prey.
“You are not human,” she said. She licked her own blood, staring down at me as her wrist healed. “We have always known this. Your blood will taste sweet.” She knelt and bent over my elbow, rolling my sleeve up, lifting my arm to her mouth, bending it at a painful angle. She bit me.
The pain this time nearly broke me, an electric shock that froze my breath and darkened the edges of my vision. I lay still, my body against the cool cement. She was lying across me, her legs to the side, her weight far heavier than I expected.
Leo’s heir took only three deep gulps before withdrawing her fangs. They clicked back into her mouth on the little bone hinges and she slid her tongue along my arm, closing the wounds before she wiped her lips with a finger, licking off a drop of my blood. Bruiser was curled along my side, still whispering his sorrow.
“Now you are mine,” Leo said.
“Now I can bind you easily should Leo fall,” Katie said. “Our defenses will not be subsumed, nor will they fail should the worst happen. The Vampira Carta is now our defense.”
As if they had rehearsed it, they stood and stepped away, leaving Bruiser and me on the floor. Our hips touched, my arm stretched around underneath him. I was gasping, trying to catch my breath, trying to slow my heart. Not succeeding. I pulled my arm from him. The simple movement sent jagged pain through my nerves from my neck to my fingertips
. I wiped my tears away. I felt pelt on my cheeks and a misshapen jaw. My hand came away bloody with vamp-blood that had missed my mouth. I sat up, moving with pain. My hair had come down, and it slithered loose around me.
Leo, dressed all in black, was across the room, perched on a stool, one forearm on the bar. A candle burned near his elbow, and a dusty bottle of red wine with a curling, crinkled label sat near. He lifted the bottle and poured the wine into crystal goblets. Katie walked to him. She was wearing champagne-colored silk pants and a flowing vest; the cloth caught the light, glistening. Sabina, the priestess, dressed in her ubiquitous starched white robes, stepped close to them. Leo held out his hand. “George.”
Bruiser pulled a leg under him and stood, leaving me there, going to his master, his eyes averted. Cold steel touched my throat from behind, the Mercy Blade’s sword, his scent distinctive, and so I stayed on my butt, in submission. The three vamps drank the wine, like a toast or a pledge, as Bruiser stood there, looking away. I tried to slow my heart and find my breath, weight balanced on my hands, the floor cold beneath me.
This is a great gift I have given you, the sharing of my blood and favor, Leo said.
I started to reply when I realized that he hadn’t spoken aloud. He was talking into my mind. Well, crap.
He smiled, just a bare curl of lips, his fangs hidden away. Beware when you claim a position of power in my territory, little Enforcer. With power comes both responsibility and cost. And sometimes sacrifice. By your own works and your own choices, you are mine.
Have you used the bones? another voice murmured into my head. I recognized the dulcet, accented tones of Sabina, speaking of the sabertooth lion bones hidden in my garden. I tried to shake my head, tried to lie, but the pain in my throat stopped me. Your enemy will know you by your scent, she thought. I had no idea what she meant.
