“Then it burst up my hand and arm and into me.” I looked between my business partner and Bruiser and set the champagne glass down. “It felt like a magical bomb going off.” The remembered sensation rushed through me again. “I remember thinking it was something like... like burning cactus, the thorns on fire, the blooms like some kind of weapon blossoming open through me. For what was probably only a few seconds I felt scorching thorns ripping through me like heat-seeking missiles. Which had been way too poetic for me.”
“The actual wording of a spell, perhaps?” Bruiser murmured. “Or something tied to the brooch itself?” Studying the jeweled pin in his hand, holding it by the edges as if to preserve fingerprints, Bruiser rotated it, tilting it one way and another. Then hefted it up and down slightly, as if weighing it. He said, “There is a distinct pulling sensation to the west as well. When I move it, I can feel a directional tug on my fingers. If it isn’t a trap, it could be a homing beacon. Or a tracking beacon.”
Eli shrugged. So did I.
“So we’re back them dropping it on purpose,” Bruiser said. “To lure you somewhere?”
“It didn’t smell or feel like that,” I said. My palms itched and I scratched first one, then the other.
“Body language suggested the younger woman was violently angry just before they disappeared,” Eli said.
“You have to report to Leo, so... we can let him examine it while we’re there,” Bruiser said. His eyes were stillserious, his body held tightly, as if ready for a fight. Worried about how I would react to what he said. I scanned outside and placed the limo. We were turning onto the street at the front entrance of vamp HQ, the Mithran Council Chambers. At least I was dressed for it.
“Leo wants to collect every magical thingy he can get his taloned hands on,” Eli said. “I vote no.”
“It isn’t ours,” I said. “We know witches dropped it, and under current operating protocols set in place for the upcoming conclave, that means the Witch Council has legal claim to it. And while I’m not happy about whatever it was doing in my house, I won’t let Leo confiscate just it on general principle. There needs to be a good reason for me to let him steal something.” Which was as tangled a set of mores as I’d ever heard come out of my mouth.
“If you keep the brooch, and if you, in your official capacity, request me to do so, I can track the spell. You don’t need an order from Leo,” Bruiser said.
That statement was full of “ifs,” which meant it was full of political implications for the vamps and for me. I sucked at politics, though I was trying to learn. But the statement also showed just how much Bruiser had changed and grown. There was a time when he had been so attached to the MOC that nothing came before his master. Now I came before Leo. That gave me a case of the warm fuzzies all over. “I’d appreciate that,” I said. “We can always read Leo in later if needed.”
“Make it so, number one,” Eli muttered. I kicked him in the shin and he laughed.
Bruiser gave me an elegant nod and said, “I’ll let you off and have the limo take me home to pack a few things. Provided I can find a means to photograph it, I’ll send a picture of the brooch to Alex and to Leo. And I’ll be in touch. You go be Enforcer.”
The job that used to be his. Bruiser folded the foil around the brooch and put it in his pocket. That was when I realized he had wrapped it in lead foil to enclose the energies. When did Bruiser start keeping lead foil handy, the kind one used to cart around magical devices?
***
We pulled up to the solid iron gate at vamp HQ, more properly known as the Mithran Council Chambers, and the driver spoke, then pulled in a bit more. Eli’s window rolled down in front of the security camera. I leaned in so they could see my face too, and Eli said, “Eli Younger of Yellowrock Securities and the Enforcer reporting as requested.”
I sat back in my seat and considered all the new things I learned on a daily basis from my partners. For instance, Eli had called me the Enforcer. Not Jane Yellowrock. He surely had a reason for that choice. The iron gate began to roll back and Eli said to me, “Spin is everything,” as if he could read my mind. “Propaganda can do wonders both before and after a battle.”
“This is not going to be a battle.”
Eli snorted with derision. It sounded remarkably like one of mine.
Bruiser said, “With any Master of the City, undead life itself is a battle.” It had to be even more so when the Master of the City was also the overall Master of the greater Southeast U.S.A. With the exception of Florida, Leo Pellissier had the Southeast under his control and dominion, had the loyalty and gratitude of Sedona, Seattle, and a few other city masters, and was arguably the most powerful vamp in the United States.
There were two other vehicles in the circular turnaround in front of HQ, both armored vamp-mobiles. Katie and Grégoire—Leo’s heir and second-in-line heir, both of whom were his dinners and his lovers (vamp feeding and sexual habits almost always combined the two), were here and were parked in front, which was strange. Eli said, again without my asking, “The back entrance is closed for security upgrades. We’re still installing the new traffic spike system under the porte cochere.”
“Still?”
“Problem with the timer. It’ll be finished by tomorrow, EOB.” EOB was end of business. Meaning by five or six o’clock p.m. Eli got out of the limo without the driver’s help and shut the door. He stood with his back to us,ostentatiously studying the grounds, giving me a moment alone with Bruiser. Who gripped my upper arm and pulled me across the seat, my bottom sliding across the leather with ease.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered into my ear as the privacy partition rose silently between us and the driver. Bruiser’s arms went around me and my head went back. The heat of an Onorio’s body warmed my skin. The scent that had always meant Bruiser, combined with the new notes that saidBruiser the Onorio, filled my senses. His mouth opened and his teeth grazed the tendons and muscles that connected shoulder to head.
Inside me, Beast quivered with interest. Big-cats’ mating rituals included the female being bitten just there, or behind the ear, and held still while the mating took place. It was a pseudosubmission that Beast would never allow unless she wanted the biter as mate.
Along with her interest was my own reaction that was never very far from me, the memory of being held down while Leo forced a blood meal off me. Bruiser was trying to help me through it, past it, and he was doing a great job, as the minuscule gush of fear had already morphed into something hotter and more demanding. I slid a leg up over his and he lifted me onto his lap, straddling him.
His cheek and nose skimmed my neck and up to my ear. “Do you remember the first time we went to a party in this limousine?” he asked.
Ohhh. Yeeeah...Us on the floor, one of his hands down my top and the other up my skirt. If I hadn’t been wearing a weapon strapped to my thigh, we might have gotten more than just frisky that night. The weapon had sorta stopped that. I hadn’t been supposed to carry a weapon into the party of vamps and their humans. “Mmmm,” I hummed in response.
“Are you wearing a weapon tonight?”
“Um-hum.” My mouth found his and I sucked his tongue into my mouth, pulling him close, until his need was pressed hard into the center of me. I shoved my feet around his backside and locked my ankles, nearly knocking us to thefloor. Again. Bruiser braced his legs on the seat across from us, grabbed the back of my head with one arm around me.
