by Faith Hunter
Red blood ran into the man’s white shirt, staining it scarlet. Rick growled, more vibration than actual sound. The blood smelled so . . . good. Kemnebi slanted a gaze at the cage, his eyes going wide. His irises were green gold. And they were afraid. Rick hissed. He hadn’t seen Kemnebi since the first night of the full-moon cycle, and the man had changed. Or Rick had. He just hoped he’d remember that when the drugs wore off. “Being stoned can be a bitch sometimes.” Only when the others all looked his way did he realize he had spoken aloud.
Jane pressed the blade into Kemnebi’s neck and snarled, the sound so unlike her that Rick jerked in surprise, his skin moving over his muscles as if he had a pelt. Her growl echoed off the walls, and she said, “Bruiser, I swear by all that is holy in the highest realms of heaven, if you don’t let me go, I’ll kill him while you hold him. And I’ll smear his blood onto your clothes so the other weres will think that you, and by extension Leo, are responsible for his death.”
“You won’t cause an international incident,” George said. But Rick could smell the uncertainty in his sweat. When Jane didn’t reply he said, more softly, “Kemnebi is here under the auspices of the International Association of Weres and of the Party of African Weres. He has diplomatic immunity.”
“Won’t stop him from dying.”
“No. I suppose it won’t.” George relaxed his arms and slowly set both Jane and Kemnebi on the floor. Jane sprawled over the dark-skinned man, her knee pressed hard into Kemnebi’s crotch, one hand holding back his head. Her silvered blade was at his throat, and his blood trickled down his neck into his collar and around to the back, where it gathered and plopped to the floor in soft splats of sound. Jane’s eyes were golden and glowing. “I am alpha. Say it.”
Kemnebi curled his lips back as if to show fangs. He growled low, the vibration a thrum passing through the stone beneath them and into the soles of Rick’s feet.
“Say it. Or die.”
“You are alpha. For now. But you will die beneath my claws and no one will ever know that—”
“Forever. I am your alpha forever.” She pressed the blade into the cut in his throat and her knee into his testicles. Kemnebi grunted with pain and shock. “What?” She chuckled, actually sounding happy. “You think I didn’t take precautions? Look over my shoulder. The other one. See that small round thing in the corner of the wall and ceiling? That’s a camera, Kemmy-boy. And I just got you declaring me alpha. So in this country, you are subject to me until you find sufficient reason to challenge me. I can do anything I want to you under were-law.”
Kemnebi’s eyes flashed green fire. His teeth were bared, gnashing; but his body language disagreed; he was pinned to the floor by his alpha. Rick smelled his capitulation.
“Yeah. I thought you’d say that,” Jane said. “Leo has very good lawyers. I paid them a small fortune last night to research all this crap, and we both know I’m right. So say it again. I like the way it sounds.”
“You are my alpha.” The words were spitting, hissing anger.
“Good. You will take Rick under your kind and loving tutelage and teach him how to be a good were. You will teach him to shift. You will care for him. For now, he is my kit and under my protection. You are his guard. He dies, and you die. For every wound he suffers, you will suffer two. Got it?” When Kem nodded, the motion jerky, she said, “Repeat it. For the camera. For posterity. For the leader of the International Association of Weres. Just so we’re all clear.”
As if fighting himself, Kem repeated the words, sputtering as his eyes spat sparks. Rick could smell his humiliation and his subjugation. Satisfied, Jane rose and stepped back until the beta cat Kem, George, and Rick were all visible in her field of vision, but she didn’t put the blade away. “We have plans to make. Bruiser, Rick’s hurting again. Trank him.”
Rick saw George lift an arm, heard the soft spat of sound as the shot was fired. Felt the pain in his upper thigh. Without looking, he reached down and gripped the metal dart, pulled it from his leg, and tossed it at the blood-servant. It clattered to the floor. That was the last sound Rick heard as he toppled and the stone came at him, slowly filling his vision until gray, wet rock was all that there was in the world.
The floor hit and he bounced slightly, but the drugs were racing through him and he didn’t feel the landing. He lay there, the earth itself wavering, swimming, the stone beneath him leaching out his body heat.
He had been a cop until the weres got him. He had been Jane’s boyfriend and lover until the weres got him. Now he was in a cage, trying to go furry and still keep his sanity, hoping to survive the pain, while the primo blood-servant of the Master of the City of New Orleans shot him full of drugs.
The drugs lifted and carried him like a small limb on the mighty waters of the Mississippi. Down and down and down. And now . . . he was nothing.
Rick woke to the sight of daylight through tall trees and the scent of mountains. Jane’s mountains. He was lying on a sleeping bag in a tent staked on a bed of leaves, its sides unzipped to allow air and light in through the mesh walls. He was out of pain, drug-free, and alive.
Rolling to his back, he stared out, seeing mountain on one side, rising high, and a path on the other, leading down. He smelled people, strangers, though not close by; Kemnebi, beer, and food were very close. Fainter, he smelled Jane, the scent telling him she had gone. She had gotten him out of New Orleans and away from vamps and witches and a barred cell. Once again she had saved his life. He owed her. Especially he owed her an explanation, but it might be a while before he got that chance.
The still shots of the past three days raced through his mind, images of people, of Leo, of George, of witches with coven names that hid their identities. He vaguely remembered Leo telling him that he had an extended leave of absence from NOPD—New Orleans Police Department—negotiated by a lawyer Leo kept as dinner.
And Rick was mostly sane, though he could still feel the moon. He had three weeks to learn whatever he needed to be able to shift. The wolves had done it. So could he. And then he was going after Jane. They had some talking to do.
Read on for a special preview of Raven Cursed,
the next Jane Yellowrock novel,
Coming January 3, 2012, from Roc.
Chapter One
Lots of Things That Go Boom and Kill Bad Guys
I rode into Asheville, North Carolina, for all the wrong reasons, from the wrong direction, on a borrowed bike, with no weapons, ready to work for the vamps again. It was stupid all around, but it was the gig I signed up for, and I was all about satisfying the client, keeping him safe, eliminating the danger, and finishing the job. Or staking the vamp, depending on the job description. Finish the Job had become my second mantra, right behind Have Stakes, Will Travel.
I was not at all happy that I’d taken this gig, once again working for the Blood-Master of the City of New Orleans, Leo Pellissier, though this time was different. Of course that’s what I always think—that there’s a new and better reason to keep up a business relationship with the chief fanghead. Money counts, and the MOC pays extremely well, but I’ve begun to think it’s also because I’m a masochist and curious—as in, curiosity killed the cat.
At the thought, my Beast chuffed with amusement. Not dead. Am good hunter. Smell cooked meat and running deer and mountains. Free-flowing water. We are home.
Yeah, we are. And that thought put a smile on my face despite my misgivings. I’m Jane Yellowrock. I’m licensed and experienced in the security business, but I made my street cred as a rogue-vamp hunter. I am, according to most, the best in the business. I am also a Cherokee skinwalker living with the soul of a mountain lion inside me, the one I call Beast. I may well be the last of my kind, since I killed the only other skinwalker I ever met when he went nutso and started killing and eating people. My occupation has a definite ick factor.
The job at hand was to set up and provide security for the vamp parley taking place in Asheville, and it wasn’t likely that the location was
accident or coincidence. Lincoln Shaddock, the most powerful fanghead in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, had been applying to Leo for sixty years for the right to become a Master of the City. Leo—who was a lot more powerful territory-wise than I ever guessed—had turned him down until now. Leo always turned down vamps who thought they deserved to be the master of a city, because he was power hungry and had a god complex—that was nothing new. Now the chief bloodsucker of the South was willing to discuss a change in status for a vamp who wanted my hometown? No way was that a total fluke.
One factor that could have influenced the MOC was that a young vamp in Shaddock’s scion-lair had found her sanity in just two years. That was a record. That was huge. Vamps had been trying to find a way to shorten or defeat the devoveo for two thousand years. But was it huge enough for Leo to reverse course? I had my doubts. No, there was something else. I just didn’t know what. Yet.
Leo never had just one motivation for anything, but layered motives, some focused on his political organization in the world of vamps—like the parley with the witches in New Orleans, which was not going so well, last I heard. Some focused on ancient history. And because the chief MOC of the South was intensely curious about me, maybe some focused on me. Vamps, politics, blood, and sex were all parts of a single whole, and since I was on retainer to Leo, I was now a part of that political maneuvering. Lucky me. My own curiosity was sending me right into the middle of it all, maybe because so many things from the last job seemed like untied ends blowing loose and frayed in hurricane winds. My life, once so uncomplicated, had become a storm that should have sent me running away. But I hadn’t run. I had to Finish the Job.
The new bike took the hills of I-40 with a little wobble. It was a chopped Harley masterpiece named Fang, with a gleaming royal blue paint job and hand-painted saber-toothed fangs on the gas tank between my legs. It was beautiful, comfortable, sexy as all get-out, and had saddlebags to hold my traveling gear, but it wasn’t the best bike for mountain riding. I’d not be buying Fang, no matter how much the owner hoped I would.
My bastard Harley, Bitsa, had sustained damage in service to Leo and was in Charlotte for repairs at the shop of the Harley Zen-master who had built her out of parts of old bikes. I liked to think of her being in a spa for some sustained TLC. I wished I was getting some TLC myself. Instead I was riding into my former hometown on a gig that all my instincts said was dangerous. But weren’t they all? I’d feel better when I had my weapons back. Most of my guns and knives and my wardrobe were being shipped in on the flight from New Orleans that would bring the vamp assigned to this parley.
Roaring uphill around a big rig, I gave Fang some gas. Strands of loose black hair whipped in the truck’s air wave, pulled free by road wind. Most of my hair was well secured, braided down my back beneath my summer-weight leather riding jacket, but the shorter strands flew wild or stuck to me under the helmet’s face plate. The September sun beat down on me, parboiling me in my own sweat.
I was here a day early, meeting the security team, setting up protocols and methodology, and getting the lay of the land. I had a lot to do in very little time.
Near dawn, some thirty-six hours later, the helicopter landed. The vamp—or Mithran, as they liked to be called—had flown in to the Asheville airport from New Orleans in Leo’s private jet and been transferred under heavy security to the helo, which had been sent ahead and kept under guard until needed. Now the artificial wind of the rotors whirled the hot early-autumn air, mixing the stench of helo engine, the effluvia of the city, a mélange of restaurants, and the wood-scent of surrounding mountains. The helo settled with a skirling wind and a horrible whine that hurt Beast’s ears. I touched my mouthpiece. “Report.” If someone wanted to make a statement and send a message to the vamp community, now would be a good time.
“All quiet,” Derek Lee said. He and two of his best were stationed in key spots on high ground, with low-light and infrared scanning devices and all the high-tech toys that make former Marines happy. They also had lots of things that go boom and kill bad guys. They were in heaven. A sniper was scanning from the roof of the tallest building with acceptable line of sight, targeting the antivamp protesters who had set up in front of the hotel. Four other men had secured the path from the hotel’s helicopter landing pad to the door. I’d brought Derek Lee on as my personal assistant, and he had already proven himself worth his weight in gold, not that I’d tell him. His expertise was costly enough, and he’d demanded at-risk pay for his crew, which meant they were all making a large piece of change on this gig.
Beast was close to the surface of my mind, adding her strength and speed to my body in case I needed it. My heart beat faster, breath drawing deep. I had done all I could to protect Katie, Leo’s heir, and keep her safe throughout the parley. She was a bloodsucking killer, but I liked Katie.
Except it wasn’t Katie who stepped to the ground. It was Grégoire, Leo’s number two scion, the vamp Leo had been dangling at me for several weeks. Until now it hadn’t been anything obvious or overt, just seeing the slight, blond, prettier-than-a-girl vamp at every meeting, at every lecture teaching me how to deal with a high-class vamp parley, at three vamp-style tasting events to educate me on the practice, and at the security meetings. And now the big surprise. Of course I could be reading it all wrong, but the signs pointed to the blood-master of the vamps wanting me bound to him one way or the other, and since I hadn’t fallen in a swoon at his feet or into bed with any of the other vamps who had offered, he was tossing his best bud my way. Great. Just freaking great. It wasn’t like I could totally dis the guy—sock him or something. I was up to my neck in Mithran protocol, according to the Vampira Carta, and had to follow the rules of vamp etiquette. But that didn’t stop me from glaring at him.
Grégoire, wearing a cloak that shimmered even in the predawn dark, tossed back the hood and found me in the shadows. He knew I wasn’t human—they all did—because I smelled wrong, but none of them knew what I was, and I wasn’t telling. His blond hair shifted and blew in the rotor breeze, the color of his scent a pale green, the honey-gold of spring flowers, and luscious. He smiled, that slow smile they do when they’re trying to charm, the one that starts in their eyes and melts to their mouths, transforming their faces into angelic beauty. Fallen angel beauty—deadly but dang pretty. He was slight, at five feet seven, delicate, with dark blue eyes the color of the evening sky, and he carried himself with an elegance that put even the other vamps to shame. He started toward me, moving as slowly as a human, graceful as a dancer.
Beast huffed with amusement and stared back at him through my eyes. I could feel them start that weird gold glow they do when she’s near the surface. Beast likes Grégoire, and she loves playing cat-games, but she wants to be in charge and not manipulated. Grégoire’s slow stalk faltered, a slight, uneven hesitation. He recuperated quickly, but I saw it and so did Beast. Inside my mind, she showed some fang.
“Mon amie,” Grégoire said. “You are lovely.”
“Thanks, Blondie. Backatcha,” I said, deliberately rude. I took his arm, pretending not to hear his chuckle. Apparently vamps think I’m funny. “Let’s get you undercover before that loveliness gets you shot full of silver.” It was a testament to his age and his courage that he didn’t shiver at the thought. Or maybe it was all the wars he’d fought in over the centuries. Grégoire looked fragile, but his file suggested he liked a good war, battle, or barroom brawl as much as the next guy.
The four-star Regal Imperial Hotel in Asheville had suites suitable for visiting dignitaries, congregating heads of state, and vacationing vamps. Grégoire—whose standards are set a bit higher than most vamps’, thanks to the century and the French royal court in which he lived prior to being turned—didn’t turn up his nose as I led him through the secure employee entrance and the upscale restaurant into the lobby. There was no fresh blood around to ogle him, which might have been a downer for some vamps, but he seemed okay with it. And when I opened
the door to his suite on the third floor, he stood inside and nodded, hands on his hips, his dark silk brocade cloak thrown back like a young Batman, if Batman had weighed a hundred pounds, had fangs, and looked about fifteen. But gorgeous. Utterly gorgeous.
I quickly explained about the security and the bolt-hole/escape hatch. The Mithran Suite was decorated all in gold—like the vamp—with gilded, armored steel shutters on the windows and an escape hatch in the floor at the foot of the bed, leading to a narrow passage down through the walls of the hotel and underground. The suite was secure up to RPGs—rocket propelled grenades. If an opponent was that determined, no one was safe.
“This is acceptable. I am not unpleased.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
He laughed. “You may join me here. Your presence in my bed would please me.”
And theeeere it was. The invitation I had been expecting. Fortunately, after all the vamp-manners studies, I had my line all prepped and ready to go. “Grégoire, you are pretty beyond anything I’ve ever seen.” He nodded as if I spoke only the truth. I resisted an eye roll. “But I have a job to do, and climbing into your bed would surely turn my head and blind me to all proper responsibility.” A strange look crossed his face, as if that one had never occurred to him. “So I’ll reluctantly decline and see to your daytime security placement.”
I left, and Grégoire didn’t try to stop me. I’d like to think he was flummoxed. Floored. Startled. But maybe he was tired—what did I know?
I worked like a fiend all day with my team and with Grégoire and Clan Arceneau’s primo blood-servant twins, Brandon and Brian Robere, finalizing safety measures and arrangements, and reading them into my plans and protocols. Grégoire’s finest were lean, narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered, and former military. Though they looked young, the B-twins were some of the oldest blood-servants I’d ever met. I liked them, and they had kept up with the changes in technology and security protocols better than most old servants.