The kind of friendship he and Chang had? It wouldn’t allow for that, I didn’t think.
I envied it. But I didn’t understand it, either. Absently, I rubbed my finger over the scars on my wrists as I watched the vid play out. Once, Chang bent down to murmur in Damon’s ear and I had to wonder at what was said. There was no telling, if I went by Damon’s expression. He simply didn’t make one. That hard face was impassive as all get out. So far, nothing that had taken place at the meeting had caused much of a reaction.
Somebody called his name and he canted his head to the side, stayed sprawled in his seat for a minute.
It wasn’t until somebody said Alpha Damon Lee that he bothered to rise and he did it with all cagey, coiled grace.
The video image just didn’t do him justice, I thought, crossing my arms over my chest.
When he spoke, there was an odd sort of power in his voice that I hadn’t ever really noticed before. I knew he kept the brakes on around me, but he wasn’t bothering with these guys.
Of course, the Assembly was all about power. The more you had, the more they respected you.
“I present myself as new Alpha of the Cats in the Southern Region,” Damon said. Despite the power rolling from him, from his voice, his tone was…bored. Very bored. Like he’d rather be anywhere but there.
“So noted,” one of the Councilors said—I recognize that voice. One of the Green Road witches. Her name was Anice, I thought. Stern. Borderline mean, but fair. She didn’t like me, but she wasn’t cruel with it. All in all…fair.
“Why did you just now decide to take these actions?”
I studied the video screen, hands braced on the desk until I found the person speaking that time. A fairy’s voice. That witch, I knew. Max. The dead witch. Seer abilities. She had her legs crossed, hands folded neatly and resting on her knees as she studied Damon.
And the look on her face was the kind of look you’d expect to see on a cat’s face when it had a mouse corned.
Idiot.
You don’t play cat and mouse games with another cat.
He flicked a look at her and went to sit back down. “To my knowledge, I’m not required to answer to the independents,” he drawled.
“Perhaps not.”
My lip curled when I heard that voice. I didn’t even need to look for him. It was Jude. The son of a bitch who’d been behind the hunting games—the bastard who’d broken seven of my ribs not that long ago. I still hadn’t made him pay for that.
“But the house of vampires is curious about it. Alpha Annette had long been our ally. We’ve yet to determine if you will be. Why was she taken out, Alpha Lee?”
A slow smile curled Damon’s lips as he stretched his legs out in front of him. The indolent way he sat there, the look in his eyes, everything about him pretty much screamed fuck you. “I guess maybe I was tired of having a crazy bitch run my fellow cats into the ground when I could do better,” he said easily, with no sign of anger.
Maybe nobody else saw it.
But it was there.
Damon hated Jude about as much as I did.
“There have never been formal complaints against her,” Alisdair MacDonald said quietly. “Are you certain this was a legitimate action and nothing to do with…personal reasons?”
“Oh, it was entirely personal.” Damon shrugged. “And it was entirely legitimate. It was a fair kill. I challenged her in view of witnesses and she lost. She tried to bring in three others at my back and I could have killed them. I chose not to. It’s over and it’s done—the pack is mine now.”
MacDonald nodded. “I, for one, have no complaints.”
“I’m curious how much this has to do with the assassin.”
I didn’t know that voice.
It was low and insidious. Deadly cold, iced poison dripping against my skin. Even though I was just watching a fucking video, I felt my heart jump into my throat and lodge there, swell up and choke me as a man moved into view.
Old. He was old. I could feel the punch of his power even though it wasn’t him I was facing. It was just a digital recording.
He was pale, in that way the old vampires are—his skin hadn’t seen the sun in centuries, and his hair was black as coal, pulled back to reveal a face that was harsh and blunt and unyielding.
I’d seen his picture just hours ago. Minutes ago, really, as I had finished stringing my web and looking for connections that didn’t seem to exist.
This was the vampire Samuel and he had power that made my teeth hurt, even just watching him on a fucking video.
Damon kicked up his booted feet and rested them on the desk in front of him, arching his brows.
Lazy, arrogant cat.
Fear flooded me even as I wished I could be that cocky in the face of something as terrifying as the monster moving across the screen. I could maybe fake it—sometimes—but Damon didn’t fake it. He sat there, all but silently laughing at anybody and everybody who thought they could fuck with him.
“Tell me about the assassin, cat…what does this have to do with her?”
“Seeing as how she can’t serve as Alpha or speak for us, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with her,” Damon said, shrugging.
“So your attack on Annette had nothing to do with the fact that she wouldn’t give you leave to go chasing after your little whore? Is she really that good? I have to admit…I’m tempted to find out.”
Damon’s laziness disappeared in a blink.
He went from that lazy, feline sprawl to a springing attack, landing on the desk. The vampire, who’d stopped just in front of it, now had a shifted, clawed hand gripping his throat.
“What did you say, leech?”
“Ah, ah, ah…You can’t attack me here,” Samuel said, chuckling.
“Oh.” Damon’s eyes flashed. “I think I can. The charter gives me to leave to do whatever in the fuck I want on any ground except human territory if I feel a threat has been issued against one of mine.” He leaned in. “She’s mine, leech.”
“Enough!”
Voices rang out through the grand room and Samuel fell back, laughing.
“Alpha, that wasn’t a threat. When I make a threat against her, you’ll know.”
I swallowed the gorge rising up in my throat.
Well. There was one I could probably mark off Justin’s list. Damon wouldn’t have walked away from that.
The rest of the video was no help. Neither was the next session. Damon neither spoke to anybody nor responded to any questions. Anything directed at him was handled by Chang.
Nothing had been put before the Assembly on his behalf, either.
A shitload of deaths had been filed under his name, though.
All deemed righteous.
When a new Alpha settled in, they had a period of six months to determine loyalties. During that period, anybody could request leave of the new Alpha and it was to be granted.
A handful had requested and Damon had accepted all requests.
More than a dozen new cats had requested to come into the clan, though and that was…interesting.
The numbers were still lower than they had been before Annette’s death, though. He was taking the ‘cleaning up’ seriously. We hadn’t seen each other as much as either of us would have liked and a lot of the time was because he had his attention split between regular clan leader responsibilities and his new duties. Running the clan was like running a company with a thousand employees and he seemed to be taking it seriously.
Obviously. He’d killed more than seventy people in the past three months. I grimaced as I read through the death reports.
Seventy-five challenges.
Each report was concise and simple.
He explained why he’d called each member out.
Some had plainly said they’d been happy with Annette’s rule and didn’t plan to change how they lived.
Damon advised them that they would change or they’d leave. Or die.
In the end, a few left.
Many had died, thinking they could handle the cat who’d previously held only the rank of enforcer in the clan.
In the past month, the reports had finally slowed down. Were they figuring things out?
I hoped so.
Finally, I logged out of the Assembly’s website and stood up. I was in the middle of stretching out the kinks in my back when I felt the familiar warning prickle of heat dancing on my skin.
Shifter…
A moment later my senses whispered: Cat.
It wasn’t Damon.
I knew that much.
I rested my hand on the grip of my sword. She rested against my desk, and the feel of her sent a warm rush running through me. Her music sounded in the back of my mind. I am here—
Yeah. I knew that. But I left her where she was, out of sight and hidden behind my desk as the door swung open.
The sight of Doyle standing there didn’t do anything to improve my mood. His mood, his attitude would just have to wait. Until forever sounded good to me, I figured as I grabbed my blade. Sliding her into place, I leveled a flat look at Doyle. “Kid, I’ve got a huge job and I’ve got to do a deadline like a chopping block. Whatever it is…just go away.”
“Ah…I need a minute, Kit. Just a minute.”
If it hadn’t been the nervous, erratic tone of his voice, I would have just ignored him as I gathered up the files. Ironically enough, I noticed those files were all blank.
They hadn’t been thirty seconds ago.
Apparently just the presence of another was enough to activate whatever spell Justin had laid on them.
Frowning, I shoved them into my bag and then looked at Doyle’s face. He was staring at his feet. His shoulders were slumped and he had his hands loosely linked together in front of him.
I’d seen that position before…every time Damon dressed him down over something.
“Doyle,” I said tiredly. “I’m serious. If Damon’s trying to get you to babysit me or check up on me again, I’m going to kick his ass. I’ve got work.”
Doyle jerked his head nervously. “No. He…ah. He’s out of town for a few days again. Chang’s covering. They don’t know I’m here.”
“He’s gone? Again?” I scowled. The guy didn’t even bother to tell me? Then I wanted to kick myself. Wasn’t like he was required. But still…
“I asked Damon,” Doyle said, the words spilling out of him in a rush.
“Asked what?” I glanced at him, distracted. I took one of the longer blades from the wall and swung it. It would work. I grabbed a bag from the floor and slid the blade inside. When hunting for bear…
“About…” His breathing hitched and I felt the crush of his power as his fear spiked.
Slowly, I turned, bracing myself.
But he wasn’t staring at me with that panicked, focused gaze. He was still staring, docilely, at the floor. “I asked about the Glades,” he whispered. “He said…”
Shoving a hand through my hair, I snagged a few of my throwing knives and then headed back to my desk and got my vest. I slid it on and zipped it halfway, tucking the blades into the concealed sheaths at the sides. “Doyle. You’re fine. Go home.”
“I can’t,” he snapped, jerking up his head and glaring at me. “Damon was going to head one way to look. He told me. You are the reason he went east. You made him go that way. You are the entire reason he was down there to begin with. The Everglades was your idea, all along. And you…” He stopped and swallowed. “It was you all along. Damon caught on our scent, but only because you put him on the right road to begin with.”
I shrugged. “Look, if we hadn’t found you that night, we would have found you the next day.”
“But it would have been too late for me. Erin…” He licked his lips and looked away. “I was already so close to breaking with her and right before we heard you all coming, I was sitting there thinking: We aren’t going to get out of here. I can just go ahead….”
His eyes flashed gold as he looked back at me. That soft blue bled away until the eyes of a tiger were staring at me from his human face. Stripes ghosted under his skin and I knew he was holding on by the skin of his teeth. It wasn’t anger causing it. It was fear. He’d been through hell, the poor kid.
Sighing, I tried again. “Doyle… it’s okay. Just go home.”
But he didn’t seem to hear me. “You know what I was telling myself?”
Okay. So he had to do this. Crossing my arms of my chest, I leaned back and waited.
“I had myself convinced that it would better if I just killed her, because at least I could make it quick and I wouldn’t hurt her the way the hunters wanted to. And I was going to do it. That night. Once it was dark, I was going to kill her, and then the wolf girl. I was going to kill them both. I couldn’t handle it anymore.”
My gut twisted as I listened to him. I wasn’t equipped for this. I didn’t know how to handle this. Where in the hell was Damon? I dragged my hands over my face. “Have you talked to Damon, Doyle?”
“Yeah. He keeps telling me that I would have been fine, but I know better. I wasn’t fine. And I didn’t want to be…not anymore. I was going to turn into a monster, just like people think we are. You’re the only reason I’m not,” he said, his voice cracking. He sounded so terribly young.
It broke my heart that much more.
“If you were a monster, you could have broken at any time in the past four months, Doyle.” I shoved away from the wall and grabbed my bag. I didn’t have time for this hand-holding and I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I wished I could give it to him, but I didn’t know what he wanted. What he needed. “You wouldn’t have bothered trying to control yourself as long as you did. You haven’t broken. You held it together far longer than a lot of others could have.”
Those golden eyes continued to stare at me.
I waited for a minute before I said, “They had fun, watching you all act like animals. Seeing you scared. Why let them win…even now?”
Then I headed for the door. “I have to go. Pesky little thing called work and all that.”
He trailed along at my back and when I chanced a look at him, the golden tiger eyes had faded away, replaced by the tired, dull blue eyes of a kid who still looked more than a little lost.
I could relate.
I hadn’t been able to find my footing ever since that bastard Banner cop had shown up in my office that morning.
* * * * *
One thing I needed to do.
Talk to the so-called witnesses who claimed they’d seen Damon around when the Assembly members had been killed.
This was where things would get dicey.
Two were cats.
They’d talk.
One was even dicier Jude had been on the grounds of the vampire Samuel’s house and said he’d had an unpleasant confrontation with Alpha Damon Lee.
There was something messed up about that, because if Damon had come across Jude, I didn’t see him just letting it end with an unpleasant confrontation. A battle nearly to the death? Yes. Had it happened on one of the nights when he’d come to me battered and bruised and bleeding?
I didn’t know.
But one thing was clear; I had to talk to Jude.
It was entirely possible he’d get ugly when I talked to him.
It was entirely possible he’d get physical.
It was entirely possible he’d try to make another violent move in my direction, so the first thing I had to do was log the visit with the Assembly.
The good thing—I was doing this at Banner’s request which made it official as all…
Wait.
I grabbed my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. Justin didn’t answer. It rolled to voice mail and I was fine with that. I left him a variation of the message he’d left me: Call me. It’s important.
He didn’t want me cluing people in to the fact that I was investigating Damon, right?
Not too many ways to do that without people doing something terribly clever an
d using their brains. So he was going to help me with this. I’d backed Banner up a few times in the past few years. Wasn’t my favorite way to earn a living, but I’d been contracted by them before and that’s what this was.
He could figure out some way to make this look other than what it was. Shame punched through me as I acknowledged what I was doing.
Hiding it from Damon.
But I had to.
If he found out what I was doing, he’d get bumped up on the executioner’s block and I’d lie, cheat, steal or kill before I let that happen.
I’d go back to my grandmother’s before I’d let anything happen to him.
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to help him.
Chapter Eight
I wasn’t meeting Jude at his home.
I didn’t want to meet him in person if I could avoid it.
The best thing to do was set up a meeting at my office, which was doable. Damon was going to go ballistic if he found out, but there wasn’t any way around it. And the best time to do it was now.
I put the call in and got passed to his demented tormentor in training, Evangeline. She hated me. I hated her. It worked for both of us.
“Ms. Colbana,” Evangeline said, her voice dripping with ice. “I do not believe Jude has attempted to make use of your…services recently.”
The innuendo there was unmistakable. I suppose it was intended to affect me somehow. I’m not sure how. “Oh, I’m not calling about business…not his, anyway. It’s Banner business.” Even though I didn’t feel at all cheerful, I could fake it with the best of them and my voice came all cheerful and chipper, so cheerful that I wanted to gag myself. “I need to speak with him…like pronto, or we’ll send an escort for him.”
Banner business tended to be taken seriously. Even though I was bullshitting about the escort thing. Evangeline probably didn’t know that.
“Ms. Colbana, would you look out whatever window might be around you?”
I didn’t need to.
“Oh, I know what time it is.” I tapped a stylus against my thigh. “It’s mid-afternoon and I know he’s not required to attend to any…formal…business until after sunset. But if I don’t hear from him by sunset, I’ll put in a formal request for his presence at Banner HQ. Since I’m logging off thirty minutes after sunset? He’ll spend the night on premises.”
Night Blade Page 9
