****
Cuts that must’ve been deep at the time of infliction, faded to look more like kitten scratches on Lucien’s face as he vibrated with fury in front of me. It was never good to read emotion on a master—it meant they were close to the breaking point. They rarely lost control, but when they did, it was an epic demolition derby of norm necks. “I am angry,” he stated.
As if I couldn’t tell. Somehow hearing it vocalized made it worse.
Where’s Wick? As much as I remained conflicted about my feelings for the Alpha Werewolf, I would’ve appreciated his solid presence by my side right now.
I stood with Allan, Clint, and a few other members of Lucien’s inner circle in a line resembling those in an army movie where the new intakes got yelled at by an overzealous sergeant. Lucien emphasized each word like they comprised separate sentences. Every clipped note escalated the situation and created static electricity. The supe energy of the room amplified, causing me to flinch at the force behind each of Lucien’s words.
Too bad a Lou Ferrigno Hulk quote wouldn’t be well received right now.
Lucien’s head snapped in my direction. His eyes narrowed, and his breathing grew shallow, like a seething hiss. “You find humour at a time like this?”
Ah fuck. I forgot he could read my emotions through the blood bond. He wouldn’t know exactly what I was thinking—a good thing—but he’d be able to tell I had to bite back a giggle.
Not waiting for an answer, the Master Vampire stalked toward me, his pupils dilating to the point where his eyeballs looked completely black. “My horde was attacked. My security compromised.”
He reached out with Vampire speed and clutched my neck. Apparently, he didn’t require a verbal response. He wanted something more physical. Squeezing my throat, he lifted me until my feet dangled like a recently hung outlaw in a bad western movie.
My feras screamed in my head. The beast stirred in my core and rumbled.
Lucien’s eyes narrowed. Still your feras, he spoke in my head. Now.
Relax, I ordered my feras without thought. Fucking compulsion. My mountain lion hissed at me, but I repeated my demand and she settled down after pawing my brain. My wolf paced, but stayed quiet and my falcon fluttered her wings before snuggling into the side of the mountain lion. The beast, though silent, remained attentive, as if waiting for an opportunity.
Lucien shook me. “You make me look weak,” he spat. Seeing how he held me by the throat with one hand in the air, I would’ve argued the point if capable of speech. I flexed my neck muscles to fortify my windpipe and allow the much-needed air through. “Incompetent.”
With a look of disgust, he threw me to the ground and returned to pacing back and forth beside my sprawled body.
My falcon screeched in my head like a deranged chicken.
Gasping for breath, I waited for my vision to clear and the blood to spread from my face to the rest of my body. I hated blame. “How is any of this my fault?”
Whipping back to me, Lucien pointed a stiff finger at me. Instantly, I regretted the question. Lucien’s teeth descended as he walked closer. “I told you to find me the person responsible! You haven’t done your job.”
A string of excuses ran through my mind, and I rejected one after another. It was time for the truth. “I’ve exhausted all avenues, Lucien.”
“You failed me.” Each word came out short and angry.
I nodded. What could I say to that? I refused to beg.
“And you’ve tried everything?”
“Yes.” I climbed to my feet and faced him. If he was going to kill me, I wanted to put up a decent fight, and that wouldn’t happen if I was collapsed on the ground.
“You lie.” Allan’s voice cut in. I’d forgotten he was in the room.
My attention snapped to Allan’s in unison with Lucien’s. The master stopped pacing, and his attention on Allan caused the air to hum with power. Lucien’s strength was formidable when released.
“What?” I asked.
Allan shrugged. “You haven’t tried everything.”
Under the hard gaze of the Master Vampire, my heart thundered in my chest as neurons raced a marathon to find the memory Allan plucked from my head. And then it clicked.
Sid.
“No.” I shook my head and took a step back. Sidragasum the Seducer? No way.
“What haven’t you tried, little kitten?” Lucien’s face flattened into a placid mask.
Probably not the time to correct him on using Allan’s nickname for me. Nor the time to question why every single supernatural male butting into my life insisted on calling me, “little,” when at five foot ten, I stood taller than most women. “I summoned a Demon to ask about the attacks, but wouldn’t pay his price for the information. I still won’t.”
Lucien cocked his head. “What price did he name?”
“My blood.”
The Master Vampire recoiled. After a long pause where he seemed to collect himself, he fixed me with a hard stare. “You will not give him this. You are mine. Your blood will give him access to me. I forbid it.” His last sentence a command. It rolled through my psyche and took root.
I nodded.
“Would he accept an alternative?” Lucien’s voice calculating.
I cringed. “I won’t pay that either.”
Having read my thoughts the same time my brain processed them, Allan laughed. Not his normal chuckle, or his rich laugh when he was really amused, but something I’d never seen him do before. He bent over, supporting his weight with his elbows on his knees, and wheezed for breath between fits of gleeful laughter. His normally porcelain-pale skin flushed red. “That’s priceless,” he managed between the fits.
Lucien’s arms folded and the corner of his lip twitched. “I can sense your humiliation, Shifter. This must be good. Tell me what the Demon requested.” Tell me, he ordered.
Looking at the smooth granite tiles, I mumbled, “He wants me to dance naked for him so he can feed off my sexual energy.”
Something flashed across Lucien’s expression.
Oh no.
“You will do this,” he said.
“Absolutely not!” I refolded my arms and my hip jutted out with attitude. A tangle of emotions swirled around me. Red hot boiling blood, squeezing ribs and a lack of energy didn’t often go together, not with me, not since Dylan. My skin itched to shift and break away from Lucien’s hold.
Lucien’s eyes narrowed. He stepped in, close. His smooth skin remained unwrinkled and impassive, his minuscule pores didn’t need a mud mask. “You will do this. For me.”
Or else? I didn’t need to ask the question. It was implied by my defiant stare and answering silence.
“Or I will order Wick to shackle you to a chair and then I will gut your pretty Alpha boy over and over again between healings and make you watch.”
Wick.
Just when I started to like my new master, he pulled out a big game changer. The taste of bitter blood filled my mouth as my fangs elongated, and I bit down on the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from doing something truly stupid, like lash out as a mountain lion and get killed. My gut clenched. No way would I allow my actions to cause Wick harm. Not when I could avoid it.
All this time I worried Lucien’s orders would cause Wick to hurt me. I hadn’t thought he’d reverse it. My stomach continued to churn and a dull ache started at the base of my skull.
“Be grateful I’m not insisting Clint watch,” Lucien said.
Seeing the satisfied and calculating look in the Master Vampire’s eyes, I knew he was well aware of what my decision would be. He smiled, his model lips unfurling like a red flag.
Time to dance for the Demon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”
~Oscar Wilde
Once again I found myself sitting in a faux-leather chair across a desk from Agent Booth, wondering what the heck she was and why she wanted to see me. The woman seriously got
off on stirring the psychological pot. She peered down her crooked nose at me in a silent staring match—which she’d won several times over, since I refused to play, and last time I checked, blinking still counted as defeat. Finally, she shattered the silence with her cheese-grater voice. “Any progress on your assignment?”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “You could’ve asked me this on the phone. What gives, Booth? Why am I really here?”
The signs in the zoos saying “Don’t Poke the Dangerous Animal” never applied to me either.
Booth’s eyes narrowed and her lips thinned.”You’re right; your progress report is not why I requested your presence.” She leaned in, lacing her fingers together on top of her desk. “But you can answer the question while you’re here.”
“I’ve made visual contact with the target, but wasn’t able to contain him. The environment didn’t allow for retrieval. Too public and too many unknown variables.”
Booth tapped her pen on the desk. The air carried no scent of her emotions, and she gave nothing away with her expression. My skin itched.
“Do you have any leads?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“What are they?”
“Too soon to say. I’ll be able to give you an update in a week,” I lied through my teeth, banking on her not being able to tell.
Booth tilted her head, like an animal in the wild trying to figure out if something was edible. Great. “The reason I’ve asked you here is that some information has recently come to my attention.”
A long heavy pause followed her announcement. “Okay, I’ll bite. What information?”
“Lucien Delgatto and his horde were the most recent victims of an attack. Were you aware of this?” She studied my face as if looking for wrinkles. I didn’t have any, yet. After this tête-à-tête finished, that might change.
I pretended to inspect my nail beds. “I heard something along the grapevine.”
“Why don’t we cut the bullshit?”
“You’re the one scooping it.” I shrugged. She knew something, and I’d prefer her to spit it out.
Booth’s lips pursed. Taking a deep breath, and what seemed like a moment to collect herself, a predatory smile spread across her face. “You were seen at Lucien’s.”
I forced my shoulders down from my ears. “By whom?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So I went to Lucien’s. Big deal.” The synthetic material of my seat started to heat under my thighs.
“Do you understand what Conflict of Interest means?” Booth leaned back in her chair.
My scalp prickled. “Of course. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“On the contrary. I’m going to give you an example.”
A weird fuzzy sensation encapsulated my brain as my scalp prickled and a sense of foreboding flittered across my skin.
“If an SRD agent were to become, say, blood bonded…” She spoke like the words soiled her in some way. “To a Master Vampire, it would be considered a Conflict of Interest because the agent would be torn between two different directives, and if they conflicted with one another, she or he would have no choice but to follow the orders of the Vampire over the SRD.” She gave me a pointed look. “That is a Conflict of Interest. COI. And it is completely unacceptable.”
I examined my fingernails again and tried to ignore the hammering of my heart. I didn’t want to get fired. What would I do? I spent over thirty years living as a mountain lion in the forest. Feradea! The beast goddess might’ve blessed me with shifting abilities, but she neglected to give me stuff I could put on a résumé.
“What are you accusing me of?”
Booth let out a long breath with what resembled something between a laugh and a groan. “You have a Conflict of Interest.”
“Prove it.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that.” She shoved back from her desk to open a drawer and fish out a tape recorder. Really? A tape recorder? Who still had those? Holding it in front of me, she pressed play.
“…and if that little tart thinks she can run from my blood bond, Agent McNeilly will have a hard lesson to learn…” Lucien’s voice, though a bit scratchy and muffled.
Booth stopped the recording and glanced up at me. “And let’s not forget all the news footage of the train incident placing you on public transportation with Lucien’s human servant. Anything to say for yourself?”
“Ah fuck?”
“We have more evidence, of course. But I thought this clip neatly summarized it.”
“How long have you known?”
“Me? The day after the blood bond happened.”
A dull ache started to throb behind my eyes, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. The headache intensified. She’d known all along. “Why confront me now?”
“You have a task to complete for me.” She tucked the recorder away in her desk. “And that hasn’t changed.”
So Agent Booth had her own agenda. It wouldn’t serve her purpose to out me to the SRD while she had me running her personal errands. “What’s changed then?”
Booth tapped the pen on her desk and pursed her lips. “The information leaked to people higher up in the chain. Agent Tucker demands something be done. He sounds like he’s part parakeet, chirping COI every time he passes my office door. I’ve been ordered to deal with you.”
I didn’t want to ask how it leaked, because it didn’t really matter—pretty sure Booth would’ve dealt with it anyway. “And how do you plan to do that?”
“Not the way they expect.”
That sounded promising. “Are you going to kill me with anticipation?”
“I’m offering you the position of SRD Ambassador.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“You’ll act as a liaison for the SRD with Lucien’s court. I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I’m sure the Master Vampire will agree to our conditions.”
Of course, he would. He’d have another claw dug into the side of the government agency with me as his representative. “Ambassador McNeilly…” I mumbled, trying it on. The title sounded nice to the ear.
“It means aside from your current assignment, you will no longer be an SRD agent. There will be no more assassinations or retrieval orders for you to complete. You will only be privy to information and resources as they apply to the Vampire court, and will be kept on a need to know basis. You will be paid as a contractor and will no longer receive benefits as you will not be considered an SRD employee. Lucien will have to provide a top up salary and any extras you require.”
“So my choices are to accept the new position or face unemployment?”
“Yes.”
Not the most ideal situation, but pretty sweet given the alternatives, and much better than I could’ve hoped for. The tension in my shoulders eased. “Will Agent Tucker have to refer to me as Ambassador McNeilly?”
Booth’s lips twitched. “Yes.”
I stood up, mirrored by Booth and shook her hand. “Deal.”
“Agent O’Donnell wants to see you before you go.”
“Where is he?”
“Library.”
“Of course.” When I reached the door, I turned around to face her once more. “Hey, Booth?”
She looked over the rim of her glasses at me. “Yes?”
“The leak?” I didn’t need to explain my question further.
“Will be dealt with.”
“Good.” I nodded. “You’ll want to extract your agent from Lucien’s horde.”
“What makes you think I have only one?”
“Lucien will know there’s a mole. And when he finds him or her, the penalty will be swift and severe. If you care for the agent’s well-being at all, you’ll pull them out and reassign them far, far away.”
“If I had such an agent, Ambassador McNeilly, you can be assured I would do the right thing.”
Booth’s idea of the right thing probably varied widely from my own.
****
I
found the old man in the SRD library stooped over a gargantuan book many years his senior with Ma’ii curled around his feet. The coyote snored.
“Looks like you’re off the hook, O’Donnell, you don’t have to handle me anymore.”
“So you accepted the Ambassador position.” Donny smiled. “Good.”
I slid into the seat opposite him and waved the settling dust out of the air. “You knew?”
“I know many things.”
“Okay, Master Yoda. What else do you know?”
He turned another page and read in silence, ignoring me until, after a few minutes, I repeated my question. He sighed and looked up. “I know you haven’t read the book yet.”
Busted. “And why’s that?”
“You haven’t called me in hysterics demanding answers.”
“Not exactly incentive to start reading.”
Donny smirked and turned another large page, causing dust to float up and tickle my nose. I sneezed.
“Well, what could the Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures possibly tell me?”
“The Carus can take on additional feras.”
“Yes. We discussed this last time. What’s the limit? How many feras could I potentially absorb into the cracks of my rocky soul and the…” I indicated my body with a flourishing wave. “Temple that is my body?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why is that?”
Donny hesitated.
I gave him my best tell-me-or-I’ll-punch-you-in-the-face stare. A complete bluff. I’d never harm this man.
“Our history has been passed down generation to generation orally. From what I’ve been told, the previous Caruses have all gone nuts.”
“Come again?”
“Every Carus in the past were declared insane.” When he saw me flinch, he tilted his head. “Does it make it easier for you to hear the truth when I rephrase it like that?”
“Not really. No. What about the beast? The luminol? Lumentos? Mentos?”
Beast Coast (A Carus Novel Book 2) Page 16