This Idiot Man Has Your Back
I woke alone again, in Jane form this time, and checked the clock. I had slept three hours.
I climbed out of bed, did all the girly things I had to do after I shifted shape, and pulled on comfy sweats. The bedroom hadn’t changed a whole lot except for the rugs. The floors were now covered with tribal rugs, primarily ultra-antique Tabriz and Hamadan rugs in all the shades of the color spectrum. Bruiser had a collection he had stored for decades with a family of rug collectors and brokers, and he had begun bringing his possessions out of storage to actually use, live with, and enjoy together with me and our extended family. I figured that was a good sign, that it meant he was getting over losing Leo, losing his job, losing his place in a changing society and culture. His whole world had been turned upside down when he left Leo and came to me. And then Leo, who had been his entire life for decades, ended up dead.
I liked the rugs. They made me want to walk around in my bare feet no matter the season, sliding my soles over the different nap depths and designs, some of which had a feelof magic to them, though why that might be so, I had no idea. The wool rugs were especially nice on rainy, chilly days like today.
Barefoot, I padded out of the bedroom wing, down the stairs to the kitchen, which smelled wonderful. Inside the ovens, I saw three big loaves of bread cooking in one and several quiches in another. In the quiche oven, I counted shrimp, mushroom and spinach, four cheese, and a meat lovers that had bacon crisscrossed on the top of the eggy mixture. The kitchen—the entire lower floor, actually—smelled heavenly.
I rinsed out one of Bruiser’s whistling kettles, poured in water to heat, and rinsed out a teapot to prepare tea, opening a tin of lavender black that was a little too floral for me but that some of the vamps particularly liked. As the water heated, I studied the kitchen, which was strangely empty of people for the time of day.
Bruiser had received more deliveries, and his stuff was piled on the island: an antique French coffee maker, two old carafes, a twelve-piece set of Spanish-looking fancy gold utensils, a new stack of china that matched the original blaze orange Le Creuset cookware, and some in a post–World War II color called Élysées Yellow that had come early on. Bruiser was nesting, building a home of his own for the first time in his life. With me.
The water was taking its time, so I wandered the inn, snacking on beef jerky and PowerBars, seeing more rugs, tables, shelves, couches, and chairs in the various seating areas offered by the sizeable inn that had become our mountain home and my official winter court. Bruiser had put original art on the walls and art objects on the shelves, some bronze statues of naked women and bucking bulls and little children squatting, looking at flowers. I stopped and wrapped my arms around me, my toes buried in colorful wool, and turned in a circle, studying the house from the central area. All this stuff... Stuff Bruiser loved. Modern stuff he had wanted and never bought until now, or stuff he had bought long ago and never used, because he had lived in Leo’s house. I didn’t give a lick about stuff, except a comfortable bed, squishy sofas, and a nice shower. Bruiser liked stuff. But he had been Leo’s and never his own.
Now he was his own man for the first time in his long life. He was making this placehome. This once-an-inn, tucked away in the mountains of Beast’s hunting territory, washishome, giving Bruiser space to put out all the stuff he had collected and never used. Tears gathered, hot in my eyes. His very first home. I breathed deeply and pushed the tears away. This was good stuff, not girly cry stuff.
Maybe someday Bruiser would bring his collection of motorcycles here, though I was pretty sure they would be harder to transport from New Orleans than the smaller items.
I stepped into Alex’s office, which was empty of people, programs running in the background but the screens black. I was curious, but I’d never touch his stuff. I valued my paws. And my fingers. In the corner was a large memory foam mattress where Brute and two of Tex’s dogs, Martha and Jangles, were sleeping, Brute snoring mightily. The flying lizard was nowhere to be seen. I’d once found it sleeping in a teapot, and after that, we had all been careful to check inside the pots before pouring in boiling water.
The kettle whistled, calling me and waking the dogs. Tex’s two raced past me and outside. Brute’s claws clicked across the floor, and he nudged my leg. Looked at me with those crystal blue eyes for long enough that he might have been trying to tell me something. Then he turned and went out the cat-dog door into the rain. He’d be soaked when he came back in. No way was I bathing and drying that big hairy werewolf.
Making sure it was still empty, I poured steaming water over the leaves in the strainer into the teapot. While the tea was steeping, I found mugs and set up a proper tea tray. I’d been watching Bruiser’s ritual, and though I couldn’t tell the difference in tea made by my usual methods and Bruiser’s fancy-schmancy one, he always seemed quietly pleased when I noticed what he liked and how he did things. And he swore he could tell the difference in taste. So few people ever did a kindness for the Consort, the former primo, without wanting something in return, without it being a way to get to Leo (and now to me), to receive a favor, or to obtain power. This small thing with tea made him happy.
***
I got a fire going in the big central area fireplace. I can make a fire from dry wood and matches if needed, but natural gas and a remote made it so much easier. Sitting on a big comfy sofa in front of the gas fire, I tucked my bare feet under a cushion, enjoying my solitude, sipping my tea from a big mug. The cup was bloodred on the bottom half and white on the top half. There was a drawing of a vamp on the top half, his head half off and his blood appearing to spurt into the bottom half of the mug, as if still filling it up. The vamp had a bubble over his head with the words “You vant to drink my blood.”
I had no idea who brought in the mug, but I had claimed it. Between sips, I replaited my hair into a sloppy braid. Tied it off with a string I pulled out of my sweatshirt hem.
Alex and Eli came in the back, stripped out of rain gear, and made matching cups of espresso. Eli tested the quiches and left them cooking. The rain softened to a slow patter.
Both men joined me on the big couch. Saying nothing. Not a word. It was comfortable and pleasant and calm, the way things used to be when we lived together in the freebie house in New Orleans. A shaft of longing stabbed through me. I wished things could always be like this.
But they stayed silent a little too long, sipping their extrastrong brews, and that was weird. It hit me that they might be ticked off at me. I glanced back and forth between them. Yeah. Matching expressions, somehow neutral and disappointed at the same time. I had done something bad.Go me.
I sipped the cooling lavender tea, thinking through my night and morning, figuring out why they were unhappy with me and then trying to decide how I wanted to address the issues. When my cup was empty I said, “You two planned a reconnaissance mission that turned into a rescue, an attack by our enemies, and a defense against incursion.”
Eli tilted his head the barest hint to show he was listening.
I said, “I showed up. The vamps hiding in the woods then attacked. That initial reconnaissance mission wentsouth. You think that it’s possible that if I hadn’t shown up, the vamps in the trees would have left and attacked another time. But I think that’s a fallacy. Linc says they planned to take whatever they could get, meaning that they would have killed or captured the MOC, my Consort, and my brother of choice, knowing that would be enough to draw me out. To make me go after them. Without you to back me up.”
Eli frowned ever so slightly and nodded again, that bare hint of movement.
“Our enemies think. They plan ahead. Multilayers of plans. Plans that take decades to come to a finale. They have a plan A, plan B, plan C, D, and E. They incorporate one plan into other plans. They refine and restructure. And I’m the wild card. Leo knew that. He put me in place to be the wild card that would keep them unbalanced and uncertain.”
“You can’t be a wild card if you’re dead, babe,” Eli said softly. “And here’s the thing. We know some layers you don’t. One in particular.”
“Holycrap.” A bunch of crazy stuff came together like magnets attracting and pulling in filaments. It was so clear I could almost hear clicking in my brain as they snapped into place. “Leotalked to you before he died.He told you stuff,” I accused.
“Pretty much,” Alex said, shooting me a side-eye grin. “He called us into his office at HQ once, while you were off—ah, um,canoodlingwith Bruiser.”
That could have been anytime in the last few years. Bruiser and I canoodled pretty often, and the boys were often at NOLA HQ together while the aforesaid canoodling took place. Easy peasy for Leo to get them together. “Could you narrow it down some?” I demanded.
Eli chortled, a soft burbling sound. It didn’t last long, but it made me feel good. He gave the side-eye too. “Early on, after you first achieved half-form, Leo told us we had one job: to keep you alive. He said the SOD hanging in sub-five basement had been bitten by a dangerous creature, and that bite gave Joses the ability to see bits and pieces of the future. This was before we knew much about the arcenciels.”
I went cold as stone. An arcenciel—a shape-shifting creature of pure energy from another realm—had bitten the eldest Son of Darkness (aka Joses Santana and a few more akas) and made him insane. Other arcenciels had visited him in subbasement five, where he had hung on a wall for decades, starved and sucked on. I had no idea why they had shown up there.
