Trying to exert control over my life without killing, Ihad accidently bound Ed to me. I had bound Kemnebi to Rick LaFleur as his slave. Mistakes in judgment. The kind one makes with good intentions and not enough knowledge or wisdom, and then stupidly continues to make them.
That pretty much made me one of the monsters.
I hated that I had made mistakes, had killed humans who were bound and not acting under their own wills, had beheaded newly risen vamps when they might have been healed by Amy Lynn Brown’s miracle blood, or taken into a scion lair by a master vamp to wait through the decade-long curing process. So many of the people I had killed might have been saved. That knowledge made it hard to just lop the heads off my enemies, except when they attacked me or mine. Defensive battle was different. It meant death, but a death different from judgment and execution. This mental duel had been combat.
Yet I had not bound Monique. Whatever that snapping sound had been had happened in her brain. But it wasn’t my fault. She had attacked me. Right?
As a queen, I understood that Monique deserved to be executed for the crimes she was trying to carry out. I might be the only one who could stop this woman, and if so, then I had two choices: bind her the way Bruiser bound vamps and Monique bound everyone, or kill her.
But if I bound her, would that free her captives to continue to work their magic? Would the unknown European vamps just keep coming? Yes and yes. I needed to know the identities of the people she was conspiring with, where they were, and who they planned to betray. For now, Monique as my prisoner would have to be enough.
She was Onorio. She’d probably heal in a few weeks, but she wouldn’t be out in the world with her conspirators, fighting or binding anyone.
I stepped away from Monique. There was snot on her face where the wolf spit had been before. Her bowels had released. Her feet were still tied to the chair pieces, but her wrists were free, the tape bitten through where she had freed them. I stood guard between the schemes this woman and the Firestarter had in play. Because she couldn’t bind me, Monique would kill me if she could.
“I’m the Dark Queen,” I said, touching my crown, and poking at the tender places in my scalp where she had tried to pull it off. No blood, so that was good. No one could peel it off of me. And with her here, I could monitor her and stop her the moment I discovered the names and locations of the people in the vision, especially the French vamp whose voice had been so infused with power that it had caused Monique’s stolen energies to spike and cut, and the other one’s face, the one that was tied to Legolas/Melker. The memory of the man, someone I had seen in the past, someone I had met, was already fading like a dream after waking.
Until they all started to betray one another, the beings in her soul home were a real danger.
I added more duct tape to Monique’s bindings and rewrapped her wrists together, behind her back this time, so she couldn’t bite through the tape again and take off the cuffs. They seemed to work, but only if she couldn’t remove them. I also retaped her ankles and gathered up the chair pieces, tossing them into the other room. I texted Alex to have someone rinse the poo off Monique. I didn’t envy that person.
I had a lot to think about. I left the room, the silent, probably unconscious, maybe brain-damaged woman on the floor.
***
It was full daylight when I closed the cottage door behind me and leaned against it. Guilt wormed through me for the way I had treated Monique, but I quashed it. I was a monster, and monsters weren’t supposed to feel guilt. Besides. She was alive. She might heal. I took a breath and smelled smoke. Which was the only thing that reminded me. I pulled my cell and checked the time. I had company. I was late.
I still had the crown and Glob. I had Onorio blood on my hands and in my pocket. I was feeling uncertain and a little bit mean. I was also still in human form and might shift to another form at any moment. “Dang,” I muttered.
“Whoof.” It was a kind of doggie sound ofLook at me, orI have to go out and pee, orIt’s supper time. Brute was standing at the bottom of the cottage steps, staring up atme, his crystal blue eyes intent. He turned and looked at the cottage door and back to me.
“What? You think I shouldn’t have broken her brain?”
Brute, the three-hundred-plus-pound werewolf, showed me his fangs and snapped at the air, telling me I should have killed her and let him eat her.
“Not yet. She has friends in low places, and she isn’t working alone.”
Brute chuffed and wagged his tail.
“Do we have company in the sweathouse?”
Brute blew out a breath through his nose, a disdainful sniff that meant yes, and he didn’t like the people inside.
“I’m not fond of them either. And this means I’m gonna have to eat cold quiche.”
I walked through the lawn and into the woods down toward the creek. Eli had built my sweathouse early on, and I had used it several times lately to try to stop the unexpected shifting. It hadn’t worked, but then, I had been trying to force my magic on half-understood sweathouse ceremonies, and that wasn’t the wayTsalagiceremonies worked.
Eli had set up this meeting last week. I hadn’t fought it very hard. Admitting I needed help was awkward and embarrassing, but not as bad as continually waking up in a different form and shifting unexpectedly from human to half-form or Beast form in public or in the middle of a fight. And since there were only two other skinwalkers that I knew of, getting help meant asking family. They had ignored me for decades. I hadn’t been particularly nice to either of them once they showed up. Yet Eli had asked and here they were. In my sweathouse.
I stepped behind the new privacy wall, removed my clothing, crammed it into a paper grocery bag, mudders on the bottom, and showered off beneath the icy water. Fighting the shivers, I opened the big plastic bin of supplies, shook out a towel, dried off, pulled on a linen shift, and tucked the Glob in the pocket.Le breloquewas still stuck on my head when I opened the sweathouse door.
The fire in the firepit flamed bright and high and threw sparks. Heat and steam rushed out, the scent of rosemary strong on the air. Light flooded the darkness for a momentas I stepped inside and closed the door, thinking that rosemary was odd, not a traditional herb, but one brought over by the Europeans.Why rosemary?
The fire settled. My eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.
My Beast was interested, peering through my eyes.
Most ceremonies I’d taken part in started at sunrise or sunset. Not midmorning. Most involved fasting and drinking herbal stuff that tasted like rotten spinach. All involved fire, smoke, herbs, and lots of listening. I don’t really listen well. I’ve been told I’m confrontational.
