Koun said, “My Queen. We killed them all but one. From him, we received a challenge from Melker’s heir. It was a Sangre Duello request to challenge for Blood Master of Clan Yellowrock and Master of the City of New Orleans.”
Tex shoved his wrist to me. I took more blood. My old self goinggackat the thought. My new self knowing I needed it.
“This heir is a much worse creature than Melker,” Koun said.
I made a rolling gesture with two fingers to keep him talking.
“Melker’s heir’s name is Shaun MacLaughlinn,” Koun said. “I have accepted the challenge for you, in your name. The monster is mine to fight,” his voice grated. “You will accede to me in this. My Queen.”
I had a feeling the last two words were added as an afterthought to make it less of an order. Koun was blaming himself that I got shot.
Shaun MacLaughlinn. I knew that name. I poked into my memory as I drank. Bruiser pushed power into me.
As I drank and healed, I remembered who the man, the vamp, was. Shaun MacLaughlinn was theanamcharaof Dominique, who had been heir to Grégoire until she was sentenced to burn to death on a beach as the sun rose.Anamcharameant mind-bound, sometimes soul-bound, though I was pretty sure now that vamps didn’t have souls. Dominique had died on the beach at the Sangre Duello at dawn. Her death should have broken Shaun’s mind, leaving him a gibbering vegetable. Instead, like a few others I knew about, theanamcharaShaun had survived and joined the forces who fought against Dominique’s killers. Us.
And Shaun had been in one of Sabina’s visions. Unlike the others who had survived the breaking of a mind-bond, Shaun had looked sane. That meant Shaun was vastly stronger than anyone had ever thought.
And it came clear. Shaun might have been one of the faces I had glimpsed in Monique’s soul home.Well, crap.
***
I was curled on Leo’s bed, in Leo’s old bedroom in HQ, awake, mostly healed, and surrounded by my very iratesubjects. I was not looking at any of them, in fact, looking at everything but them. But I could smell the stink of their anger on the air, and the body language was pretty clear.
I was still naked, covered in dried blood that cracked through my pelt when I moved. Some of the blood was mine. At least the bloody sheets had been taken away, and fresh clean cotton ones had been brought in and tucked beneath me, around me. The electric blanket was wonderful. And no one was touching me. That felt wonderful right now too.
For a vamp bedroom, it was stark—just the bed, a small sofa, three cute chairs, small tables, a two-person eating area in the corner, and bookshelves. Rugs were everywhere, though a different style from Bruiser’s. Leo’s were oriental, with a sheen only silk could give. I could see an en suite and a closet through the two open doors, and the clothes in the closet were mine. I was guessing that I now had a room at HQ.
I also guessed that I needed to apologize. Was a queen supposed to apologize? If I acted like a queen now to keep from apologizing, did that mean I had to always act like a queen? Did I have to be a queen twenty-four-seven, or was it something I could do off and on?
To keep from having to deal with the stink of ticked off humans, vamps, and Onorio, I said, “I want current info on Shaun MacLaughlinn. Someone send for Alex.”
“We have done so, My Queen,” Koun said. His words didn’t say stupid and horrible queen, but his tone did. “He is in the building.”
“ETA thirty seconds,” Eli said, equally harsh.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Thank you.”
A moment later, Alex bopped into the room. He was no longer a kid but an adult, and fully grown, though still gangly. I hadn’t raised him, but I was inordinately proud of the man he had become. He stepped inside the door, stopped, and looked around. “You really fuuu... screwed up this time,” he said to me.
“She raced into the fight without armor, without proper protection. And. She. Died,” Eli bit the words off.
“Notdeaddead, or I wouldn’t be breathing,” I whispered, remembering the sight of Bruiser out in the thick of things. Pinned down.
“And you didn’t shift when you died,” Alex said, recent terror in his voice. Terror for me, nearly dying. He continued, his voice rough, “We’ve been telling you this could happen, and you still had to lead from the front.Idiot.” His hand touched my foot through the blankets as if to reassure himself I was really there. “We had Bruiser covered. Backup was coming from the side of the house. And you had to jump in.”
“Yeah,” I said, fully ashamed. “Um, sorry, everyone. It won’t happen again.” I hoped. Beast had her own ideas sometimes.
“Well, at least we know what happens now.” Alex shoved a vamp over and plopped his backside on the mattress with me. Exhaustion in every cell, I pulled the sheets and blankets up over me tighter as he opened three laptops and put three different screens up.
“Screen one,” he indicated the screen to his far left, “is the bloodline. Grégoire was, and still is, Blood Master to Clan Arceneau. When he took off to fight in Europe for the DQ, Dominique, Grégoire’s heir, took over running Arceneau things here in NOLA. Shaun MacLaughlinn was Dominique’sanamchara. Dominique did a big-bad no-no at the Sangre Duello and was punished by burning to death in the sun. Shaun should have died. Weaker vamps either die or go insane, like some you knew. Instead he survived and began challenging European vamps who had come here. He managed to cobble together a long list of powerful followers and fought his way up the ranks to a position as Legolas slash Melker’s heir.” Alex looked at me. “Shaun knew everyone in NOLA. Knew all about the changes in HQ and our protocols. He created a huge clan of powerful, disaffected, dissociated, unhappy vamps from the U.S. and Europe.”
And he was also mind-bound in Monique’s slave ship soul home. Probably Dominique had been too. Dang. I hadn’t seen that possibility. “What helped him to overcome the mind-break?” I asked.
“I think he came into control of an old amulet,” Alex said, pointing to the screen in the middle. “This one.”
On the center of the screen was an arm band in the shape of a snake, the kind that’s worn on the upper arm. Ihad seen that kind of amulet before. In fact, I had two similar to it, though mine now contained only a trace of power. This one... this one had several shimmery spots trailing up its back. Just like the shimmery spots on the flying lizard amulet I had gotten when Sabina pulled me underwater.
“Ah, man,” I murmured. Two amulets constructed with arcenciel blood in NOLA at the same time. Coincidence wasn’t possible.
