by Faith Hunter
Somehow we ended up at the lower entrance. And inside a limo. Hands and arms and bare feet and tongues and naked flesh. And then we were in the freebie house, wrapped in a blanket I didn’t remember seeing and inside my bedroom, the door locked behind us.
We fell on the rug beside the bed, a new rug I didn’t remember, the pile so deep it was a pillow.
Mate, Beast thought. She pulled Bruiser’s Onorio magic out of him and into us, a sex magic that smelled of jasmine and oranges and cloves. It quivered through me, through us, and lit up the world.
And Bruiser was inside me. And the world outside of us disappeared.
* * *
* * *
I woke around five a.m., in the bed, after a too short nap. Oddly, I was still human shaped, which made this the longest time I had been human in quite a while. Six hours? That was excellent. I was alone. Sated. Satisfied. Hungry. The crown was loose, thank goodness. I rubbed the bruises on my skull from sleeping in it. Rain was a soft patter on the windows, and it was still very dark out, the rain and heavy clouds holding off the dawn.
I slid from that splendid mattress, my head hitting the antique boxing gloves Bruiser had given me, gloves so stained with ancient sweat that they would forever smell of my love. My feet hit the rug we had rolled around on. And I remember the unimportant words he had spoken.
“The rugs are like the rugs at the inn, Tabriz tribal rugs, from my private collection, in perfect condition.”
“You own rugs and wine and Harleys.”
“And I am owned by you.”
“I like rugs. But the sheets feel better.”
“As my love wishes.”
After that, we had finished the night on the bed. I was tired and sore and felt fabulous. The sun was graying the night through the windows. On the air, I smelled bacon and other wonderful meat. I stood and stretched, muscles aching in ways they hadn’t in ages. I hoped housekeeping figured out they needed to change the sheets again. I smiled at the memories.
It was time to meet a new day. New problems. I opened the closet to see that all my clothing and gear had been unpacked. Hanging there were the work clothes I had left behind when I ran away. Black suits. The clothing Leo had paid for . . .
The joy of the night fell through my feet into the floor with a crash. I had a trip to a cemetery to make. To Leo’s grave. I had been to the mausoleum once before, not too long after he died, hoping to feel something—anything—from Leo inside his coffin. There had been nothing. He had died, and nothing in the timelines had shown me a different possibility.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to think that through clearly. I am going to Leo’s grave.
I put my crown on the closet shelf and stumbled to the shower to wash the dancing off my feet and sweat off my body. While we were in the mountains, someone had remodeled the bathroom. It was all sleek white marble and mirrors and lighting that made me look fabulous even without makeup. The shower water was strong and hot, and I leaned back against the cool tile, letting the water beat the soreness out of me and wash the dancing sweat from my hair.
I didn’t look to see it, but the water reminded me of time suspended in water droplets, showing me options and possibilities, a timestream of the future and the past. The potential results of every move, every decision. A liquid minefield of failure with few droplets showing success. And I remembered the timestream where Leo died.
I had hated him. I had feared him. I had respected his abilities to hold his violent people in a static form of peace and weave a future that might bring true peace between all the paras and the humans. Some small part of me had respected that ability to instigate and then keep all the machinations and loyalties and games straight.
And he had died. A million times in every water droplet. And in reality.
When I opened my eyes, the water was just water. No timeline. A memory.
I hadn’t tried to bubble time or slide around in it, changing the outcomes of actions. I didn’t know if I still had that ability. I hadn’t tried to see the future since I came out of the rift, healed from the cancer that timewalking had brought me. It was better this way.
When I left the shower, wrapped in a soft black robe someone had hung on the shower door, my hair twisted up in a towel, Bruiser was sitting on the foot of the bed. While I showered, someone had changed the sheets and made up the bed. The room smelled fresh and all Bruisery. I smiled at him, and he smiled back a little uncertainly.
From the closet, I pulled out a black suit, a black nylon tee, and a gold top that wrapped left and right and would be perfect to hide all the weapons I wanted to wear today. I kicked a pair of waterproof fancy leather boots with straps and buckles and ties up the sides into the floor space and held up the clothing. I said, “Whatcha think? Queenly enough? ’Cause I’m not ever gonna wear boring heels and a dress to my calves and a pill box hat.”
Softly, that odd expression still on his face, he said, “You will look beautiful and frightening, as you should.”
Thinking about his expression and his tone, I turned away and hung the clothing on the small hook on the doorjamb, one that hadn’t been there before. Inside me, Beast padded away. Hiding. I frowned, shoved my fists into the robe pockets, turned back to Bruiser, and leaned against the closet door. Something was wrong. “What?” I demanded.
“Last night was wonderful.” Carefully, he added, “Magical.”
“I was there.”
“I used Onorio magic. On you. Onorio sex magic. And I didn’t even realize it until,” he made a waffling motion with one hand, “after.”
“I was there,” I said again.
He smiled, a sad faint little twitch of his lips. “Onorio magic binds people to me.”
It hit me. He was feeling guilty. Shamed. There was something in his body language that said he was about to bolt. About to leave me for my own good. I recognized it because I did that too; I ran away when things hit the fan. “Have you ever tried to bind me?”
His head shot up. “No. But last night—”
“Last night Beast pulled your magic out of you.”
His eyes drifted away, unfocused, remembering. “Is that what happened? Is that why I don’t remember?”
“Yup. I think you should try to bind me. Right now.”
Bruiser’s head shot up. “No. Never.”
“Why not?”
“That is what Leo did. What Leo wanted me to do to you. I am not Leo. I will never try to own you.”
“Monique wants—wanted—to bind you. Wanted to bind me. What if an Onorio can succeed where a vamp couldn’t?”
“How do you know she wanted to bind us?”
“That little talk I had with her in her cottage?” I had fessed up during the night of dancing. Bruiser hadn’t been happy with me talking to Monique, but he hadn’t been unhappy either, so that was good. Of course, I had left some stuff out. “She tried then.”
Bruiser’s mouth tightened.
I gave a helpless shrug. “She was wearing null cuffs, which limited her power, and I broke her before she could get a mental grip on me. But what if she was at full power and got to me when I was the weakened one? We need to know.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“And if Beast tried to own you? The way Leo did? If Beast tried to take over and make you do what she wanted?”
“As she did last night?” His eyes fell to the floor where we had . . . His smile spread. “I suppose there are worse forms of slavery.”
“No. There aren’t. That would be the worst kind. So try to bind me.” I crossed the room and sat beside him on the bed, taking a hand in mine. He had amazing hands, well-groomed nails, and long fingers, like the English gentleman he had been brought up to be. “Try.”
“But—”
“Try. And I’ll try to bind you.”
“Why?”
“I discovered last night that I could participate in a gather. That should only be possible if I was a vamp and had shared blood with all the peop
le there. We don’t know what powers the Dark Queen really has, and so far as we know, there’s never been a Dark Queen with an Onorio Consort. We need to know. Like seriously. We need to know.” And I needed to know if Bruiser might be capable of binding Grandmother. So much I didn’t know, and there was no one to teach me now that Leo was gone. Except Bruiser. And for the skinwalker stuff, Aya and our loony, flesh-eating granny.
His eyes, which had not looked at me except for swift glances, rested on my face. “You’re sure?”
“You’re my Consort. So yeah. We need to know what our strengths and our weaknesses are. What if, together, we could hold off multiple mental attacks all at once?” What if, together, we could bind Grandmother?
Bruiser slid his arms around me and kissed me. His magic rose, this time smelling of catnip. A deliberate attempt at allure. My own magic—mine, not Beast’s—rose to meet it. The energies twined together, a warm brew of scent and taste and happiness. They met, equal in power.
Bruiser pushed against my skinwalker defenses. It began as a gentle pressure, then grew harder. His hands tightened, pulling me closer. His tongue plundered my mouth. He pulled back, his teeth nipping at my neck. But the magic didn’t pierce me. Instead our powers wrapped together. Merged. Became stronger. He pulled away, his eyes wide. He laughed, a rare, joyous sound. “I can’t bind you.”
“And I can’t bind you. Feel better?”
“So what happened last night?” He patted the mattress.
“I think Beast can draw out your magics and use them for what she wants. And last night she wanted me to have sex. Lots of wonderful sex.”
“But she didn’t attempt to bind me.”
“No,” I said ruefully. “She used you to get happy, but I think we were both well on the way to that anyway.”
“I am your servant in bed, Jane. Never your master.”
“Ditto. Now,” I threw the back of my hand to my forehead like an actress in an old movie, “if you don’t feed me, I may swoon.”
Bruiser gave a well-mannered soft snort. “Get dressed. Eli has made quite the spread.”
Bruiser left me sitting on the bed. “Beast?” I whispered, knowing I hadn’t told Bruiser everything. “How much of this nonbinding thing is you and how much of this is your angel?”
Beast didn’t deign to reply. And I had a feeling that might be a bad thing.
Leo had tried to bind me and partially succeeded, except that I had bound him as well. Eventually, I had figured out how to throw him out of my soul home and out of my life. Or Beast’s angel, Hayyel, had given me the ability.
I wondered if Aya and my grandmother could be bound. If not, then the Bubo bubo prophecy might be about all skinwalkers because we can’t be bound. Skinwalkers might be all that stands between the Onorio / u’tlun’ta / senza onore / Naturaleza plan, whatever it was, and the loss of our world. I wondered if outclan priestesses knew this about skinwalkers and if that ability, that defensive mechanism, was why Sabina tried to buy a skinwalker child from my grandmother.
I dropped the towel from my hair and finger-combed it, pulling it back from my face. I tried to think the way vamps did, with layers and motivations and intents that made no sense to normal humans. It was like trying to play 4D chess: up, down, back, forth, and also through time.
There had been another skinwalker in NOLA, pictured in a now-burned mural in Grégoire’s home. Ka N’vsita. Who had really brought her here? It was supposed to have been Adan Bouvier, the weather-witch-vampire who was enslaved and forced to try and catch arcenciels in a geode to work time. But . . .
Fear whipped through me like electricity. Could Sabina have found Ka N’vsita and brought the child to Adan? Had Grandmother sold a skinwalker child after all? If so, Ka? Because Ka was more pliable? Or had my father or mother refused? Had the vamps found a way to bind Ka because they had her from the time she was a malleable child? What had really happened to her?
I didn’t know enough. About anything.
Maybe just as important as how she got to NOLA, had Ka and Immanuel’s liver-eater met? Had they known what each other were? Had Sabina? Vamps worked and laid plans in layers, with twisted timelines, so it was possible that Soul and the arcenciel old ones did too. Somehow, someone had arranged for there to be three Onorios in New Orleans. And Bethany had made all three of them. Had she been planning for there to be three Onorios in the city? Had she planned that far ahead? Of course she had. Until Bethany died, there had also been two outclan priestesses. And Edmund and Grégoire, two of the best swordsmen in the world. And me. The gang’s all here, I thought. Too much power in one place for someone, or many someones, not to be pulling strings. Leo. It had to have been Leo.
I stood and went to the bath, where I combed my hair and left it loose. I did my toiletries and applied a little mascara and blush, saving the lipstick for after breakfast. Back in the bedroom, I dressed and wondered where my boots and my jacket were. And my weapons. Eli had taken them at the party so I knew they were safe.
As I dressed, a final strange thought hit me. Adan Bouvier had been kicked out of New Orleans and sent back to Europe in disgrace. Later he had been working for Le Batard because some of his people were being held prisoner. Cold shivers crawled over me. Adan had owned Ka at a time when slavery had been legal. Ka was supposed to be dead. Everyone had said so. But . . . But what if she wasn’t? What if she was in Monique’s hull-shaped soul home?
That was stupid hope talking. But. What if that stupid hope might be true? What if Ka wasn’t true dead? And . . . what if Adan Bouvier, who had been turned over to Leo for punishment for creating a magical storm that nearly swamped NOLA, was still here, doing someone’s bidding?
I signed in to my laptop. Typing quickly, I created a timeline for Immanuel, Ka, Sabina, and the Trail of Tears. I had a photo somewhere of the mural painted on Grégoire’s wall before the clan home burned. Ka N’vsita was the only skinwalker I ever heard of who lived as a blood-servant in NOLA. But if skinwalkers can’t be bound and the vamps think she died and maybe she didn’t . . . What happened to her? The local vamps said she was sent away and died. But that was gossip, not fact. Did Ka have any impact on what was happening today? Had I missed something when Adan Bouvier was trapped by a EuroVamp and forced to try and change time? Was Ka still alive and still a prisoner? Monique’s prisoner. Had I missed that?
On the laptop, I found the photo of the mural and studied the vamps, all in a state of undress, some now true dead. And Ka, her face sad and lonely and closed in, as if she existed in a cage of herself.
Everything that had happened in New Orleans since I came had started with Immanuel, Leo’s supposed son, who was really a skinwalker turned u’tlun’ta. But the layered history of Immanuel and skinwalkers and vampires had begun long before that. It had started with a Spaniard, an invader named de Allyon, who was turned and became a vampire and slaughtered the Cherokee skinwalkers by the hundreds, drinking their blood. He took over Atlanta and hid there for centuries, a secretive evil vamp.
When I killed the insane shape-shifter posing as Immanuel in my first few weeks in New Orleans, de Allyon had left the city of Atlanta to try and take over NOLA and had attacked Clan Pellissier. He’d had possession of small iron discs. I killed him. Then soon after, I went to Natchez and came into possession of pocket watches created with iron disks that had been made from the iron Spike of Golgotha. There had been skinwalker blood on the ingots. I still had some of the bloody discs. And skinwalker blood, my blood, went into creating the Glob.
The timeline was chilling. I just had no idea what it meant or what to do about what was essentially history with seemingly little bearing on today.
I texted Alex for the translation of La Historia de Los Mithrans en Los Americas. It told the tale of de Allyon, of his exploits, his evil, and had drawings of de Allyon and piles of skinwalkers dead and dying.
The long game.
Leo had been playing the long game against the Master of Atlanta. And because of me, Leo had
won. That time. But that win had set others free to work on their own long game. 4D chess for real, with living, breathing humans, holy people, castles, knights, kings . . . and queens.
All those players included Monique and the Firestarter. I’d had an illusion-to-face meeting with the Firestarter, Onorio Aurelia Flamma Scintilla. I was almost certain Aurelia was one of the women from Monique’s soul vision, but there had been others. Could one have been Cherokee? That frisson of fear expanded inside me.
Was it possible that Ka was still alive? I hadn’t seen the eyes of the people in the bottom of Monique’s bloody-hull soul home. Ka had eyes like mine, the yellow of a skinwalker. I hadn’t thought the bound creatures in Monique’s mind were important, but they might be the most important ones of all. And if Ka had been there, then skinwalkers, some skinwalkers, could be bound.
I was an idiot.
I had left NOLA when I was dying and walked away from the game set in place centuries ago. Now I was behind, and reconnecting to New Orleans’s life wasn’t easy. I had to play catchup and figure out what was going on and fast. I added a request for Alex to track down Adan Bouvier’s location. The nutso vamp and I needed to have a frank discussion. Once upon a time, he’d accused me of not yet tracking down his blood-servants and saving them from captivity. We had tried but never found them. So if Ka had been one of those captive blood-servants, and Monique had her, that made freeing the bound people in the hull-shaped soul home even more imperative.
Finally the smell of bacon drew me away from my research, and I went to the kitchen for breakfast. I had dithered so long everyone else had eaten, and so I was alone with my thoughts, sitting at the table, eating a feast meant to pack some pounds back on me. As I ate, Eli washed dishes, keeping an eye out the front window as an armed guard walked along the sidewalk close by the house. It was so strange to see armed security walking by, keeping us safe. Eli was also armed. Always armed.
I was guarded. That was my life now. I could accept the restrictions and the power and make something good come from them, or I could whine and run away again.