Irritation threaded through her tone when she said, “So, if I wanted to ask a personal favor, who do I ask?”
My smile widened. “As long as you don’t want me to kill someone for you, you can just ask me as the cousin of my godchildren.”
She sucked in a small sound of shock. She was a young vamp and often gave herself away.
Emergency sirens sounded in the distance. Ice peppered across the windshield, rare this far south, even in winter.
In a horrified voice she asked, “Do people do that? Ask you to kill people?”
“I made a good living killing people who had fangs long before I ever became queen.”
A shocked giggle came from her and I slid my eyes her way. The girl looked fifteen and sometimes still acted it. Most of her teen years had been spent in a scion lair, figuratively and literally chained to the wall, as she went through thedevoveo, the years of insanity suffered by fangheads when they were turned. Sometimes they never came out of it, even afterThe Change, the supernatural event that altered many of the paranormal people and creatures in the world.The Changewas when the vamps got back their souls and paranormal society altered in ways we were still trying to figure out.
In a stronger voice, she said, “Good. I want the gig.”
“What gig?” I asked.
“The gig tracking and killing the werewolf who bit a woman in the Appalachian Mountains. The gig worth fifty thousand dollars. I want it. But as your scion, I can’t go after it without your permission.”
Her tone was sour and I barked a single note of amusement.
I had been informed about the incident. A lone male werewolf had bitten a human woman.
The were-taint curse was supposed to have been lifted or modified when the angel Hayyel did his thing withThe Changefew weeks back, meaning the packs potentially, possibly, could rebuild, this time with females who didn’t go insane. Theoretically. No one had tested the theory. Any potential females had to agree to be turned and risk insanity in case the hypothesis was wrong.
The bitten human woman hadn’t volunteered to be a test subject. For her own safety, and the safety of her family and friends, the victim was in voluntary lockdown in HQ, in case she went furry on the next full moon. As part of my duties as Dark Queen, I had ordered a bounty on the werewolf who bit her, but for my people to go after it, they had to have my leave. Which was stupid but that was royalty for you.
“Go for it,” I said. “But stay alive. If you get yourself deader, your Aunt Molly will skin me and my Beast and hang my pretty pelt on her garage door.”
“Deader,” Shiloh repeated. “Haha.” She met my gaze straight on, a softness around her eyes, but not on her mouth. “I don’t know how to act around you. It’s confusing.”
I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting that. I said, “You ain’t telling me nothing I don’t know.”
She laughed aloud, a rare and joyful sound from the girl. We had reached full speed when I heard the seatbelt click and Shiloh opened the door. She swung out into the street and landed on a car hood beside us, nearly causing the driver to swerve and collide with our SUV, and pushed off. Vamp-fast, she leaped high, to vanish into the darkness like some kind of Olympian / Wonder Woman with fangs.
Horns blew, tires squealed. Wrassler, driving, swerved, cussed, and apologized. I unbelted and got the door shut before another vehicle took it off. That girl was going to be trouble. And entertaining. I hoped we both survived it.
We pulled over and almost came to a stop as Bruiser slid smoothly into the limo beside me. He was wearing a fancy suit, the kind that made me want to take it off him. He smiled without looking my way, as if he knew what I was thinking. He did that thing guys do when they pull on their shirt cuffs to straighten the sleeves beneath a well-tailored jacket, amused. Then he turned his body to face me, extended his arm, and brushed my cheek with the back of his fingers. “Hello, love. Let’s go to your home, pack for our wedding, and commit the sin of unwed passion one more time.”
“Only once?”
He laughed so fast it came out his beautiful Roman nose.
I liked the fact that I had the ability to make him abandon his carefully bred manners and snort like a yard hand.
???
Twenty-four hours or so later, after dealing with a couple dozen requests from my clan, four royal petitions, and other stuff I hated, I turned my attention to stuff I liked. The motorbikes were loaded into a box truck, strapped down for transport, with luggage and camping gear and luggage and wedding stuff and yet more luggage. A seven car motorcade pulled out of HQ, the five black SUVs, one truck, and one limo were in a single line. Twelve motorcycle outriders maneuvered through traffic ahead, behind, and to the blocks at either side, weapons hidden, not drawing attention, keeping watch, relaying traffic info to Wrassler and Jodi in the front seat.
Jodi was driving, Wrassler riding shotgun, literally. There had been threats ever since I informed the stupid political machinery of New Orleans that I’d be moving my Clan Home, my Dark Queen Court, my HQ, and my royal official residence, to the Appalachian Mountains, east of Asheville, N.C., because I was freaking tired of putting up with the local politicos using me and mine to gain followers and votes. People had died, my people and the politicians’ own constituents. To some of the political types, votes counted more than lives lost. I was done with New Orleans, or would be once I convinced one of my loyal scions to accept the screwed up locale as Master of the City New Orleans. I was pushing for Tex. So far, the former old-west criminal and gunfighter had refused. But he had started smoking cigars again, which I was taking as a sign he was considering the position. It was going to take an old-west style gunfighter to clean up the mess the town had become.
Beside me, on the limo seat, Bruiser opened a bottle of champagne and poured me a glass. I accepted and sipped. It was the good stuff. I didn’t much care for champagne, but I’d learned about it, and about other wines, from my Honey Bunch because it made him happy to teach me. He’d learned some dance moves from me, from my belly dance days. Together, wehad incorporated them into our dance routine for the reception.The wedding had a reception.
Holy crap.We were getting married. Butterflies exploded in my belly, and I was pretty sure my butterflies had butterflies. I’d rather track and fight a rabid female werewolf and her pack of nutso mates (which momentarily reminded me of Shiloh and her bounty hunting gig) than do all the stuff that Deon had planned. Little dude had turned into a drill sergeant and handed out duties, responsibilities, and lists of orders to every person in the wedding party, and he was riding herd to make sure there were no unwanted surprises, like the severed-head-shaped wedding cake.
Despite his flamboyant wardrobe and makeup, Deon had excellent taste. I didn’t. He had taken over completely and, after the eye-opening dress fitting, I had let him. He had ordered me a four-tier cake, each tier a different flavor. He had ordered catering. He’d promised me I’d love the food. I trusted him. Mostly. Though I knew he’d toss in something fancy, like pheasant under glass with white asparagus and truffles or some such extravagant nonsense, he would also order a ton of meat to satisfy my Beast.
I pressed a hand to my belly in trepidation.Jitters. Crap.
