Blood Cross jy-2

by Faith Hunter

  As the armored vehicle and its tails slowed to a stop, the soldiers fanned out, hands empty, waiting. Moving with that snakelike vamp grace, Leo stepped from the passenger side of the high truck and to the ground. He was in a business suit, and the wind caught the jacket, blowing it open, revealing the silk lining, shining in the full moon. His eyes were human, and more sane than I’d seen recently. The breeze caught his black hair and tumbled it back from his face.

  Bruiser emerged from the driver’s side, finding me instantly in the night. His eyes were dark, intent, as they looked me up and down and came to rest on my face, on my right cheek, where the gem had touched me. I was pretty sure I would have a scar even after I shifted again. It was hurting with a cold pain, like frostbite but with a blood-pounding thump. Bruiser wore slacks and a dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms, a gun under one arm, and as the wind blew at his clothes, I spotted another holstered at his ankle. Two vamp-killers were sheathed on his thighs. He’d come to do battle. A little late.

  Leo stopped at Derek and his men and they gathered in a small circle, voices low. I didn’t bother to try to listen in. Bruiser came to me, stopping just inside my personal space, a bit too close so soon after a battle. His eyes still held mine. The silence between us had weight and texture, as if words were being said that I couldn’t hear. His fingers came up and touched my right cheek, gently brushing, tracing down to my jaw, circling a wound that was a lot bigger than I’d expected.

  To his side, I saw Jodi, Rick, and Sloan emerge from the unmarked van. I didn’t watch to see where they went, my attention on Bruiser. He smelled of dry herbs, cracked pepper, and papyrus, of Leo and vamp blood. Faintly, of aftershave, spicy and spiky. His fingers were warm on my cold skin. I had no idea what to say. Bruiser said it for me. “I wanted to be here.”

  I understood. Wanted to be here. Couldn’t. He was Leo’s. I managed a twisted smile, holding in the spurt of disappointment. “You had to do what Leo wanted. Follow orders.”

  “Yes.” His hand cupped my face, his palm warm and dry.

  I wanted to lay my injured cheek in his hand and weep. Wanted to rub my pelt over him, scent-marking him. But I wouldn’t do either. I closed my eyes on the need that thundered through me, sudden and violent and demanding. It was the full moon. Only the full moon. Nothing else. “You had to follow Leo,” I repeated, not able to prevent the loneliness echoing in my words.

  “For now, Jane Yellowrock. But not forever.”

  My heart leaped, and I raised my head. Beast, close to the surface, peered out through my eyes. “You’re his blood-servant. That’s forever.”

  “Not always. There are sometimes . . . options. With conditions. If you’re interested.”

  I found a real smile. I had no clue what he was talking about, but Beast was happy to have him near.

  “Jane?” Rick’s voice. At my shoulder. Close.

  I stepped back and found the cop in the dark. He was armed and wearing a dark blue Windbreaker, the word POLICE in bold white letters. I had to make an official report to both Leo and the cops. Might as well start now.

  “I’m okay.” I took a steadying breath and blew out. “But we have one human dead, from vamp and witch wounds. Hicklin. I don’t know his full name.” It was suddenly awful that I didn’t know the first name of the man who had died tonight. I swallowed back tears. “We broke up a ceremony intended to bring sanity to rogue vamps. To the long-chained. But it required the death of two witch children, which I wasn’t gonna let happen. It was also, somehow, part of a plot to kill Leo and take over the city.”

  Bruiser flinched slightly. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I’d have missed it. Protective instincts bred into him by sips of vamp blood. And maybe by love. Who knew?

  “Bettina, the blood-master of Clan Rousseau, is bound and starving back at the site, next to a staked anamchara, part of a cross-clan plan to challenge and defeat Leo and return to the Naturaleza. Leo might be able to do something with her memories. She still has her head. I’ll give you a full report later. For now we have seven vamps dead, all involved with the creation of the young rogues, all sanctioned under my contract with the council. Two witch children and one witch adult saved. If we can keep her alive.”

  “Where?” Bruiser asked. I pointed at the rental and Bruiser went quickly to Leo, drawing the vamp away, toward Evangelina and Bliss.

  That left me with Rick. The pretty boy. The Player. The Joe who had been undercover and now was back with the cops. I looked at him. He didn’t have the smooth, effortless movements of George Dumas, nor the charisma. But he smelled human, of cheap aftershave, of Leo’s expensive coffee and pastries, of gun oil and ammo and faintly of horses. I smiled. He gave me back a half smile. “You with him? With Dumas?”

  “I don’t think so. He belongs to Leo. I’m not one to share, especially with a vamp.”

  “I have horses, four dogs, a barn cat or three, parents who live nearby, and too many sisters to make my life pleasant. No wife, no girlfriend, no vamp master.”

  I felt a warmth start in my belly and move up and out. “You offering yourself?” I hooked my thumbs into my leather pockets and dropped my weight on one hip. “For what?”

  “For . . .” He stopped, his mouth quirking up, revealing the crooked tooth on his lower jaw. “For whatever you might want. We could start out with wild monkey sex and see what develops.”

  The heat shot through me, hard and fast, like gunning a bike motor and hitting the road with a growl of tire on asphalt. “I need a shower. And I have a houseful of houseguests.”

  Rick let his smile spread. “I have a shower. And a hot tub out back under the stars. Course I live in a single-wide trailer. It may not be up to your standards.”

  “Don’t let the fancy house fool you. It’s Katie’s. My usual digs consist of an efficiency rental under the eaves of Old Lady Pierson’s house. I have a shower but no hot tub, and if I did, Old Lady Pierson would want to join us.”

  “Hot to trot?”

  “Nosy.”

  “My place it is, then. I can take you to your bike. You can follow me home?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He didn’t touch me. Just turned and led the way, flipping a nonchalant wave to Jodi on the way by. I walked in his wake and sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked. He climbed in the driver side and started the engine. And pulled slowly past the other vehicles lining the road.

  Leo sat in the rental, the window down, blood on his lips. I was pretty sure it was Bliss’s blood. He took a breath that looked odd, not quite needed, not quite human when his chest moved, but he didn’t notice me. He was healing her the way vamps healed, with sips of blood and a slow laving of tongue.

  Bruiser stood on the sidewalk, staring at the car, catching my gaze. Holding it. No question in his eyes, no accusation. Just an uncomfortable patience and a quiet strength. But I’d made my choice. I didn’t want a blood-servant, no matter how powerful and sensual and . . . No. Not a blood-servant. I wanted a human. I wanted this human. And mostly, I didn’t want to share. I was pretty sure he read all that in my eyes. His gaze followed us as we moved out of sight, his mouth lifting at the corner, his expression plain in the side mirror.

  By the time the night was over, I was tired and happy and satisfied, taking up more than my share of Rick’s bed in exhausted contentment. I wasn’t going home just yet. I figured it was best to give the Trueblood family time to reconnect alone anyway. According to Bruiser, who called on my cell just after sunrise to fill me in, Leo’s reaction to what he learned at the battle site didn’t result in a vamp bloodbath, but it was close. And the council—the ones still healthy after Leo finished punishing his rivals—was in pretty big disarray, not that I cared. The Blood Master of the City was intent on forcing certain new policies down their throats and they were going to have to give in, including bringing the witch/vamp cold war out of the past and to the bargaining table. They didn’t have a choice. Killing children—even witch children—was worth
y of death sentence in the Vampira Carta. And Leo was fulfilling the law with a new purge. This time there would be no forgiveness.

  I listened to Bruiser’s spiel while hanging head and shoulders off the bed, my legs twined with Rick’s, his fingers tracing lazy circles on the back of my thigh.

  “You’re likely in danger for a while. The remaining renegades that Leo’s chasing down have sworn blood vengeance on you.” He sounded worried. “I want you to take care.”

  I laughed sourly. “I did the job the council hired me for, stopped a vamp war in the process, and brought the witches into the vamp’s archaic treaty process. All in one night. Far as I can see, it’s all good. You tell them I expect payment ASAP. In full.” Taking a page from the locals, I disconnected.

  “That your other boyfriend?” Rick asked.

  Shock zinged through me and I rolled back on the bed, on top of him, slinging my hair out of the way. “Other boyfriend?”

  “If you want to call me that.”

  “I’ll think about it. But if had a boyfriend, there’d be only the one.”

  “Hmmm,” Rick murmured. The vibration of his deliberation rumbled like a big purr. “Wonder if he knows that?”

  EPILOGUE

  When I left New Orleans for a stint in the mountains, a chance to clear my head and let Beast run and hunt, the vamp world was vastly different.

  In a matter of days, the vamp hierarchy had been realigned, with some vamp clan leaderships decimated and their members absorbed by others in a purge that had to set records. The vamp-war-that-might-have-been never made the papers, but I talked with Bruiser and Troll often enough to keep up with the gossip. And I stayed out of Leo’s hair. He was a bit too bloodthirsty for me to call on him right now.

  When the depths of the rebellion had come to light, Leo killed some of his own scions who had signed on to the wrong side, and then he took over the vamp council, appointing his loyal scions as new clan masters in rival clans. I’d heard that he had forced the blood sharing that cemented their—and his—positions. By all accounts, the bloodbath I’d been expecting had happened in the end but it hadn’t quite been war and was over now.

  I spent the days between the last battle and my trip north getting to know my new boyfriend, sitting in his hot tub, and riding his horses. Eating a lot of steak. Meeting his family, for pity’s sake. And having a lot of . . . well . . . Beast was happy. When I wasn’t with Rick, I was getting ready to say good-bye to Molly and Angelina. It was a bittersweet parting, because I knew it would be a while before my life would be back to normal, back living in the mountains. And because a rift had opened between Big Evan and me. He wasn’t a forgiving man, and the fact that my lifestyle had placed his children in life-threatening danger was a hard one to pardon. I was having a pretty hard time forgiving it myself, so I wasn’t holding it against him.

  I hadn’t had to report in person to the vamp council, which was a relief, but I did have to write a full report for the ones left alive after the city’s blood-master took his vengeance on the rebels. An amended report went to the police, as informational as my contract with the vamp council allowed, which meant a lot was left out. However, since I was sleeping with a cop, NOPD got a lot of info from an “unnamed source” and no one complained.

  The cure for vamp insanity had indeed been worth going to war over. If the Rousseaus had succeeded—and it looked as though they had been close—my world would never have been the same. Baldy, Tristan, Renee, Rafael, and Adrianna had been five fingers of a huge fist. Together, they would have pounded Leo. One of them would have taken over as master of the city. Every vamp in the world would have done homage to Leo’s successor. The other four would have had their choice of cities anywhere in the world. So, Rafael had wooed Adrianna away from her master and mind-joined with her, kidnapped Bettina, and made ready to challenge Leo.

  I shipped the fifteen paintings detailing the vamp/witch dark magic back to Asheville to Evangelina. I figured she’d burn them, which made a lot of sense to me, but then, Evangelina was big on history and stuff like that, so maybe she would just put them someplace safe.

  Settling with Derek was easy—I just deposited his checks. We didn’t have a lovey-dovey relationship.

  My own payment and a hefty bonus supplied by the new vamp council went a long way to giving me peace of mind. I made a donation to Hicklin’s family by dropping a wad of cash in a donation box near the closed casket. I learned his name at the funeral. Corporal Leon Alphonse Hicklin had been home on leave between stints in Afghanistan and was killed trying to stop a robbery, according to the police reports. He was buried with full honors.

  The witch children’s missing persons reports stored in the woo-woo room at NOPD were finally getting a conclusion. Jodi and Evangelina told the witch covens what had happened to so many of their young over the years. I wasn’t in on the meeting and didn’t want to be. It was outside my contract and way outside my comfort zone. Jodi and she were going to try to heal some wounds between NOPD and the witch covens. It was a long time coming.

  One afternoon, after a crazy long day of settling accounts and attending a funeral, I received a letter from Leo, hand-delivered by Bruiser. This one was also sealed with wax and Leo’s blood.

  Bruiser stood on my front porch, his heart in his eyes, and waited as I opened the seal. Avoiding his gaze, I read part of it aloud to Molly, who blocked the doorway behind me. “Leo officially ‘rescinds the death threat against the Rogue Hunter, Jane Yellowrock. She is hereby offered permanent employment with the Council of Mithrans of New Orleans.’ ” I squinted at Bruiser, outlined against the sunlight. “Sorta like a retainer?”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “Much like a retainer, for services yet to be rendered.”

  “Huh. How ’bout that?” I turned and pushed past Molly, shutting the door in Bruiser’s face. I could hear him chuck-ling through the door.

  I hadn’t decided what to do about the job offer yet, but it was good money. Real good money.

  A bit over a week after the Battle, on a Friday, Rick and I left New Orleans for a long weekend, our gear strapped to our bikes and no particular destination in mind, except mountain roads and one certain trip along the Tail of the Dragon, the winding, twisty road that draws bikers to its curves as girly mags draw men to their pages. It’s a lusty ride and Rick had never taken it.

  I wanted him to see my home, in the hopes that . . . Well, some hopes had to be kept undercover for now, but I hoped someday he might meet Beast. And want to stay around for both of us.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Faith Hunter was born in Louisiana and raised all over the South. She fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and best loved science fiction, fantasy, and gothic mystery. She decided to become a writer in high school, when a teacher told her she had talent. Now she writes full-time, works in a laboratory full-time (for the benefits), tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, kayaking, writing, and writers. She and her husband love to RV, and travel to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast. For more, including a list of her books, see www.faithhunter.net.

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