“Infermieri heal the broken cattle and heal Mithrans in danger of true death. These two are old and their blood would be potent. When they came to kill the Flayer of Mithrans, I accepted their swords at my side to defeat him. But that danger’s long gone, My Queen. They drink from my cattle but don’t feed or heal them. They leave ’em half drained and blood drunk. And beyond the use of their swords in war, they ain’t bothered to swear to me.”
“Bad guests who outlasted their welcome?”
“Something like that, Queenie.”
“Okay. But this sounds like a long-term problem. What happened that made all-a y’all get so bent outta shape tonight?”
“I am notbent,” Thema said.
“Their blood is powerful as all get out, while my best healer scions are worn slap out. You created a problem, and I don’t have enough healthy healers to deal with it. They know how stretched my people are, yet they refused help to heal the new broken cattle from tonight’s battles.”
It was common knowledge that the two didn’t want a blood-family, but I hadn’t known they were abusing the humans they drank from by not sharing blood in return. “You two got a reason for this?” I asked. “Or are you both just buttholes?”
The two glanced at each other, probably saying dozens of things in that one glimpse. Kojo said, “Our blood is old. It can be dangerous to those unaccustomed to it. It is not wise to share it.”
I’d had blood from vamps two thousand years old. They weren’t telling the full story here. “So that’s why you hang around Shaddock’s place and my place. So you can move back and forth, hoping no one notices that you drink but don’t share your blood. That’s—” I almost saidmean, something left over from a childhood spent in a Christian children’s home. I changed it to “unacceptable.”
“Their belongings will be removed from my clan home,” Shaddock said, “and delivered to the Winter Court of the Dark Queen.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have my people look for an unaligned Infermieri, which I’ll be happy to share with you and your scions.”
“I once had such a Mithran. If she will come home that will help greatly.”
I tapped my mic. “Alex, you got that?”
“On it now.”
Shaddock inclined his head, telling me he had heard. He took two steps away and sheathed his swords, jumped into his vamp-mobile, and it pulled away fast.
“It is nearly dawn,” Koun said. “The Consort is on the way to pick us up. You two will curl up in the trunk.” Koun looked at me. “The Consort will drive. I will be your protection, with you in the back seat. There will be no argument, My Queen.”
“Okey dokey.”
Koun’s head tilted to one side. “You are never going to act like a monarch, are you?”
“Nope.” A black SUV pulled up, Bruiser driving. There wasn’t a trunk. Too bad. I really wanted to see the two malcontent love birds curled up in one. Instead they crawled to the floor behind the back seat and pulled a heavy-duty tarp over themselves, just in case of an accident that resulted in a stray sunbeam. Koun and I got in the back seats.
Moments later, we were still forty minutes from the inn, and the sun rose behind the morning’s clouds. Koun and the travelers were old enough to stay awake if they had to, but the two in back fell asleep, a sign of trust maybe. I pulled a reflective tarp over Koun, who grumbled that he was awake, and he was, sorta. I patted his arm soothingly. Satisfied that I wasn’t going to damage the expectations of my scions and guests, I removed my weapons and headgear, crawled into the front seat, and snuggled with my honeybunny. He slipped an arm around me and nuzzled my head near my furry ears, all the while not taking his eyes off the road. Nowthatwas a queen’s life. Not that it would last.
At the inn, we backed into the winery fermentation room—which had several huge steel fermentation tanks, two filled with table wines—a white and a red from this year’s very first grape harvest. There was a small windowless room just inside the door, nominally a lab to test when the grapes had high enough sugar content to pick. Bruiser also used it to taste and test the wines at various points in the fermentation process and to combine various types of grapes for different sugar content and tastes. Bruiser’s winey stuff. And to dump vamps when sunlight made it necessary.
He waved away the new manager, Josue Gagne, a French winemaker he had hired to run things while we were in New Orleans. He backed the SUV into the narrow room, easing in beside the long workbench. Together we dumped half-snoozing vamps onto the concrete floor, leaving Kojo and Thema in a tangle of arms and legs as they twisted themselves into more comfortable positions, and Koun slumped against a wall. We disarmed them, just in case they woke up testy and wanted to fight some more.
“Thank you,” Koun murmured as he curled to his side.
“We need an underground garage,” I said, not for the first time, “so we don’t have to keep dumping our friends here.”
“Yes, My Queen,” Bruiser said, again, not for the first time, sounding serene.
“Will you do me a big?” I asked as we got back in the SUV. “Don’t challenge Giovanni to a duel today, okay? Get some rest? Eat a meal or two? Drink some vamp blood?”
Bruiser pulled me into a one-armed hug and kissed my fuzzy ear, his fuzzy chin scraping me. “I have already been fed by Linc.” He kissed my other ear. “You can ask me anything, my love.”
I could think of a lot ofanythingsI might want, but not while I was furry. That would be just—ick. So I hugged him back, liking that even in this form, he was still just a little bit taller and a lot broader than me.
Bruiser maneuvered the SUV out, closed and locked the door to the windowless room, parked the SUV, and we walked toward the inn. Thirty feet out, the skies opened, and a cold fall rain shower inundated us. At least the rain washed the vamp blood from my armor, which had begun to stink.
CHAPTER 3
