Beast leaped to the front of my mind.Not ours,she thought. She was right. The scent patterns said that some of our people were wounded but suggested that none of the dead were ours. I/we landed silently in the grass.
Bruiser was standing in front of a post, where a vamp was secured with silver-plated zipties, his right hand on thevamp’s head, his left on the fanghead’s neck, holding him stretched up high. My honeybunch was alive. Relief shot through me until I realized he was draining and force-changing the vampire, binding him, compelling him to give up all his secrets and loyalty.
I knelt on my toes and one knee in the shadows, watching, still downwind, breathing in the stench of vamps and blood, flowers and spice, death a sickly sweetness. Breathing like a cat, the air pulled over scent sacs in my mouth.
The vamp beneath Bruiser’s hands twitched, shook. His mouth opened, and his fangs clicked back into the roof of his mouth. His eyes bled back to human, changing from vicious killer to drug-happy in the space of seconds. “My master,” he said. “I am yours. May I taste your blood?”
I didn’t react. Not where anyone could see it or smell it. But I hated this. Bruiser was different—notlesshuman than ever before, yet notmorehuman. He was silent more than usual and most often did winery chores alone. He claimed to be only introspective and a smidge melancholy, as if that definition and explanation made it okay. Eli said Bruiser was depressed but had a right to deal with it in his own way, at least for now. The scent wafting from Bruiser on the night air was determined and yet full of self-loathing. He was doing this to keep me safe. To keep his people and my people safe. But he didn’t take joy in it. He hated what Leo had made him and hated even more what he was becoming. I feared that, eventually, he would begin to hate the person he was doing this for. Even though he disagreed with my opinion, I feared that protecting me might drive him away from me.
I looked away from my Consort and found Lincoln Shaddock leaning against the house. The tall man’s eyes were on me. A lot of thoughts raced through me, formed into understanding, and settled.
The Master of the City of Asheville had been feeding my Consort. Not often. Onorios weren’t vamps and didn’t have to drink often. But they had to have some vamp blood to survive. Shaddock would know exactly what Bruiser was feeling. Would know how conflicted Bruiser was about mentally draining and chaining vampires to his will, and even how he felt about drinking blood to make his physicalpowers stronger, blood he desperately needed because he had tried to live without it in thefame vexatummethod of blood-starvation practiced by Mithrans. Bruiser had hoped that he would grow more mentally powerful, but the starvation had left him physically famished.
While he was weakened, we had been attacked in Asheville on Shaddock’s titled hunting territory. Bruiser had tried and failed to drain our most recent enemy’s Onorio, Monique Giovanni. That powerful Onorio had been working with the Flayer of Mithrans and would have defeated Bruiser had their mental battle not ended when it did. Monique was still around and would eventually come after him to finish the interrupted battle. So Bruiser was training hard to learn to do something he hated: binding the minds of vampires with the power of his mind.
Bruiser’s emotions were twisted and distorted, a coiled mash of love and protective instincts for me, and miserable memories of Leo’s influence—Leo who had made blood-servants bound to his will and desires. Bruiser’s history and his new powers often left him shut down, emotionally distant, deep in thought, and trying to hide all that.
Eli said Bruiser would be fine, that he was watching my Consort, and that Bruiser had a handle on it all. I trusted the elder Younger to read Bruiser and keep him safe, but this period of emotional healing was hard.
To the side, Eli appeared, directing a large group of unwashed, smelly humans from a garage to gather beneath the porch roof. “You’re safe now,” he was saying softly, gently. “You can go home. Your torturers are dead.” He directed two of our humans to pull the dead enemies faceup. “See? Dead.”
Eli swiveled his gaze my way, frowned to see me here, but nodded, a single thrust of his head, as if acknowledging the inevitable. “We haven’t finished clearing the house.”
“Copy that,” I said.
I adored my adopted brothers. Eli was battle-worn, tired, stretched thin both mentally and physically, but gentle and kind enough to worry about others, like the people he had rescued. Working with me had made the Younger brothers way more than just “financially comfortable.” It had made them kinda rich and had given them a purposethey had been looking for. They were my co-heirs of Clan Yellowrock, and all the properties and monies that entailed. They would protect me with their lives. But in return, I could never keep them safe. Being the Dark Queen was a two-edged sword, and the people I protected always ended up cut and bleeding.
Feeling Eli’s eyes on my retreating form, I turned and leaped back over the fence. Sheathed and harnessed my weapons. Stalked back to the SUV.
Koun’s armored butt was against the SUV’s grill, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.He was in armor.Yeah, I should have paid closer attention to that. Koun fought naked, more or less. Or he used to. Everything was changing. I stopped near him, taking in the armor, which I had thought was camo but was matte black, swirled with midnight blue dye in the colors and patterns of his tattoos.Nifty.He was alone; Tex, Kojo, Thema, and the humans were elsewhere. Koun was studying the area on satellite maps, his expression back to its usual hauteur.
“My Queen,” he said by way of greeting. But he didn’t look up and he didn’t sound happy. In fact he sounded really ticked off. “MyQueen,” he said again, “hurdled an eight-foot fence alone, without backup or intel.”
“I’m armed and armored. Bruiser and Shaddock won. There were humans inside. They’re okay.”
“How many of our enemies are dead?” Koun asked.
I thought back to the bodies as I opened a bottle of water, put it to my mouth and crushed it, the contents shooting into the back of my throat, and swallowed it all down. “Three vamps. One is still alive.”
“And how many humans did they hold captive?”
“I dunno. Maybe forty?”
Koun tilted his head to me and pocketed the tablet. “AndMy Queendid not find the numbers disproportionate?”
My half-form nose caught a scent. I pulled in air over my tongue and into the scent sacs in the roof of my mouth with a loud sucking breath. Inside me, Beast growled and so did I, smelling vamps approaching in the night. Six? Eight? More? “Vamps.”
Koun’s weapons were instantly in his hands. He leaped to the hood of the SUV and searched the night.
“This was a trap,” I said. “They were waiting for me.”
Koun sniffed the air and scowled, his pupils widening slightly, beginning to bleed black. “You should not have come.”
“Gloat later.”
Koun touched his comms. “Alex. Bring Eli and the others onto this channel.”
“Done.”
