Cold Reign

by Faith Hunter

  “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

  “You will ride me.”

  “Say what?”

  “My little bird is fierce but too small for your mass. You will ride me, as recognition for saving our sister.” She stretched out in the water, her hands disappearing, wings out, one under the boat, holding it steady. “This is not a boon offered to another since ancient times.”

  Gee seemed amused. “Ummm. Okay?” I gathered my gear, shoving the blades and other weapons in place, hearing the small snaps as they settled. I worked my left hand, happy that my fingers again had feeling. It had taken all day to get the sensation back. I accepted a second bottle of water from Gee. Drank it down, wished I had taken the time to pee. And stepped onto the back of a dragon made flesh.

  • • •

  I spent that night wrapped in Bruiser’s arms. And a blanket. A heating pad at my feet. Riding an arcenciel was freezing business. They fly high, in a nearly airless part of the Earth’s atmosphere. I had nearly suffocated until Soul realized I was having problems staying alive and dove lower. I’d been so cold when she dropped me off on the boulders in my backyard, I could barely move. So exhausted I could hardly speak.

  Bruiser had carried me into the shower, cut off my ruined black leathers, and held me there until I started to thaw. It had been nearly impossible to get him to leave me long enough to shift to fully human, and when it took too long, I’d had to resort to bribery to get him to go away—promises of a future date to last an entire day and through the night. On the gulf. On a boat. With umbrella drinks and music.

  Shifting had been . . . hard. So hard I didn’t want to think about it just yet. I hadn’t made it directly from half-form into human, and finally resorted to shifting into Beast, and from Puma concolor into my human form. The pain had been incredible. The snake that resides in all things, the twisted strands of my DNA, were tangled and tripled and torn. Finding my form in the mess of genetics had been nearly impossible. I wasn’t sure what it meant. And when the shift was completed, I had been too exhausted to eat. I had never been too exhausted to eat. Not ever.

  Now it was night again and hunger rode me, a fierce, desperate need. I sliced into a full slab of very rare beef, a ribeye that had started out postlife as a sixteen pounder, before Eli rubbed it down and threw it on a grill to sear. He had cooked two, thank goodness, so the others had meat to eat. There were potatoes and beer and salad too, but I drank water and ate beef and listened as my partners and my clan filled me in, asking monosyllablic questions to get the info I wanted. The questions did not come out in an order I’d have expected. “Brute?” I asked first.

  Eli straddled a chair and cut off a bite of cow. “Brute’s at a local veterinary hospital, being attended to by a vampire and a witch and a vet who’s scared shhh— witless of getting were-taint. She only agreed to help when Dacy Mooney of Asheville agreed to feed her father to help him heal from cancer.”

  “Werewolf? Dacy?”

  “Yeah,” he said, understanding what I wanted to know. “There’s no record of a vamp ever sharing blood with a werewolf. But Brute seems to be special. And he saved Leo’s life.”

  “On the levee?”

  “Exactly. He pulled the Master of the City away from his captors. When the vamps were losing Leo, they decided no one could have him. Brute took the silver bullets meant for the MOC.”

  “Howee c’aaa,” I said. Holy crap, through a mouthful of food.

  Alex talked around a mouthful of potatoes. “He’s like the king of all weres right now, owed a boon by Leo and every other vamp in the city.”

  Edmund said, “Leo declared Brute Friend of the Mithrans, which entitles him to anything he wants.” Edmund was chuckling, but there were new scars on his throat where a powerful vamp had tried to drink him down. “Dacy, who showed up at the scene just after you were swept away by the flood—” Ed stopped. Took a drink of his red wine, as if he was thirsty, but there were pink tears in his eyes. The clink of cutlery was the only sound until he was able to continue.

  “Dacy kept your Onorio from throwing himself into the waters to find you. Then she fed him to bring him to sanity.”

  “I was not without sanity,” Bruiser said distinctly, his dinner untouched, sipping an aromatic tea. “I was grieving. There is a difference.”

  “Perhaps in theory, not in practice,” Edmund said. “Dacy then fed the Master of the City and the wolf, at the same time.”

  “And Ed had to feed Dacy when she overextended,” Alex said. “It was a regular blood-fest.”

  “You weren’t there,” Eli said.

  “Coms were on. It’s all recorded. I’ve listened to it about a dozen times now. Pretty much got it all down.”

  “Katie?” I asked.

  “In Leo’s lair, caged with her sister until Leo can pass judgment. He loves her, so she may not die as a traitor. But she could have come to Leo at any time with word of her sister and Leo would have forgiven them both. Now it isn’t so certain that he will give pardon.”

  “There were sleepers in Leo’s house. Still are, I expect. Katie knew that,” I said. “She couldn’t take the risk.”

  Edmund didn’t reply to that. Rather, he poured himself more wine, poured Bruiser more tea, and brought me another slab of ribeye. The whole sixteen pounds wouldn’t fit on my plate at once. Go figure. “Before dawn,” he said as he transferred meat to my plate, “the heads of the European Mithrans you had collected, and all others in accordance with Leo’s orders, were placed into three coolers and delivered to the ghost ship in Lake Borgne.”

  I started eating and Ed retook his seat. “They were accompanied by an envoy carrying a letter from Leonard Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans.”

  At the formal titles, I stopped shoving food into my mouth. Chewed. Waited.

  “The envelope was addressed to Titus Flavius Vespasianus,” he said, managing to sound ever so slightly bored. I kicked him under the table and he went on, a faint smile on his face. “Not to Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus. Just to Titus. A calculated insult. It was a challenge to blood duel. Leo has said there will be no further moves in this match. He will clear the board and challenge the dark king to blood duel. With a dark queen at his side, he will end the cold reign of the European Mithrans.”

  I had a bad feeling that the dark queen was me. I scowled at Ed. He smiled back, genial and unperturbed.

  “The coolers?” Alex asked. “Derek said it was a stink worse than death by the time the Europeans agreed to drop the obfuscation spell and accept them.”

  Alex chortled, all amused disdain. It was a very grown up, cynical sound.

  Eli finished his meal and cleaned away the dirty dishes, saying, “According to the Coast Guard, who were keeping watch, when the obfuscation working around the ship fell, Leo’s enemies took the coolers aboard, along with their remaining people—all in silver chains and well drained, though still undead.”

  “Wait,” I said. “You weren’t there?”

  “No,” Eli said, his voice bland. “We were grieving.”

  “Oh.” For me. Right. I thought about that for a while, started eating again.

  As I finished the last bite of beef, Ed picked up the narrative. “The envoy’s delivery of challenge to Sangre Duello was accepted, with assurances that it would be delivered to Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and the ship motored out, deep into international waters in the gulf.”

  Eli added, “The Coast Guard’s keeping an eye on their progress, though if they reapply the obfuscation working we’ll lose them.”

  “Bethany?” I asked, smelling dishwashing detergent and hearing water filling the sink.

  “Her head went with the others,” Bruiser said shortly.

  I grunted.

  “Outclan priestesses are banned from intervening in international Mithran politics,” Edmund said, his eyes on my honeybunch, “so there
will be no repercussions for George Dumas taking her head.”

  Bethany had been a special project of Bruiser’s from the time he was a boy. I shot him a glance, taking in his face, his eyes. Ravaged and grieving and still terrified. I swallowed down a chunk of half-chewed beef and touched his hand. “I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you.”

  His eyes softened and he gripped my hand. “I made the choice for happiness a long time ago. For you.”

  And my heart melted. I pulled my hand away and went back to eating. There was still a couple pounds of meat left. Between chatter, the guys were watching me eat, and during those moments, it was cutlery against stoneware and the sound of chewing. Not much else.

  “There’s a shindig at Royal Mojo Blues tonight,” Alex said. “Eli and Ed and I are going. You two interested? Or are you gonna be too busy bumping uglies?” There was a thump under the table. “Ow! What? You know that’s what they do, right? They’re not asexual. Dang, bro. Just because you and Syl broke up you don’t hafta kick me.”

  I stopped, fork halfway to my mouth. “You and Syl?”

  Eli shrugged. “Long-distance stuff. That stupid cruise. It had stopped working three months ago. I just hadn’t ended it.”

  “Sorry,” I said, knowing it wasn’t enough, but not knowing what to say. My social skills were excellent at the fist-bumping stage and were getting better at the vamp-protocol stage, but the stuff in between, where most humans live, was nonexistent.

  “Happens.” Eli shrugged. A real shrug, and not one of his tiny things. And I realized he was moving like a normal person, not like the controlled version gifted back to him by Uncle Sam when the government was finished using him. I remembered the Choctaw water ceremony. The emotional break in the limo. The tears. Maybe he was beginning to heal. I stuffed more meat in and chewed. Swallowed. “I could do some dancing.” I looked down at my rounded belly. It looked like a volleyball had been strapped to me. Or a sixteen-pound ribeye. “If I can get into clothes.”

  “Whoop!” Alex said. “Bro, I promise I will get up early and wash all the dishes and clean the kitchen if you let me skip it for tonight.” Eli lifted his eyebrows and said nothing. “Okay. I’ll clean the grill too.”

  “Deal,” Eli said. “Let’s get pretty, bro.”

  That left Edmund and Bruiser and me at the table. I put down my fork and knife and sighed. “I feel better. So. What else do I need to know?”

  Edmund stood and took the rest of the dishes to the sink, where he swished them in sudsy water. “While you healed last night and today, Eli went into the attic space and discovered that it’s open and livable. Nothing but rough wood studs, but they are beautiful wood, and the flooring is cypress. He thinks he can board up the windows and make it safe for me. And for Brute. If you are willing for us to move.”

  He meant move into the house proper and not behind the wall of shelving that protected my family and guests from them both.

  I rubbed my overfull belly and thought. “Stairs?”

  “He’ll hire a contractor to open up the space and put a stairway in the wide part of the second-floor hallway. He suggested a circular one. We’ll get bids on both and you would make the final decision, of course.”

  “Gee’s my Enforcer now. Where would he sleep?”

  “I assume a bed could be found. There’s quite a bit of square footage up there.”

  “Okay. Good by me. It’s cheaper than buying a bigger house.”

  Edmund gave me a small smile and finished his wine. “I took it upon myself to purchase Brute a new mattress, memory foam, with a lining and white cotton sheets so they could be bleached easily. Wolves are often dirty. He should be back by morning. One assumes he will be cranky, and the bed may ease that.”

  A cranky werewolf would be dangerous. “Thank you,” I said.

  Edmund nodded and stood. “I’ll dress. My mistress shall require proper attendants at the soiree.” He glanced at Bruiser. “Someone who will focus on threats and not simply dancing.”

  Bruiser’s brown eyes warmed. “What we do is not simply dancing.”

  Edmund’s eyes rolled.

  “Seriously?” I asked. “You did an eye roll?”

  Edmund said, “You would prefer me to suggest that you get a room?”

  Bruiser chuckled, the low burr of sound that slid along my nerves like heated velvet, and pulled me to my feet and into his arms. “Let’s get dressed and go ‘simply dancing.’”

  I managed a nod, feeling again that odd warmth and fullness in my chest, as if my heart was expanding, too big for my rib cage. Bruiser wrapped my hand in his and led me from the kitchen.

  In my room, on my bed, was a box all wrapped up in shiny silver paper, with a bow big enough to hide a small car. I opened the card. It was plain white, with Bruiser’s distinctive scrawl on the inside. Jane, love, it read. This was a gift for a future evening, but nothing will be more important than celebrating your return to me. Madame Melisende claims to have created the perfect dancing dress for you. I hope she is correct and that you adore it. I’ll call for you at the designated time. Love, Bruiser.

  I touched the last line, a small smile on my face. Sat on the bed and opened the box. Inside was a dress, a black dancing creation with spaghetti straps, a tight bodice, and a flared, split skirt to my calves. It came with a loose shawl in a dark shade of gold that matched my eyes, swirled through with blue, the color of a midnight sky. In its own velvet box was a gold necklace with a matching blue faceted stone. I kissed my Onorio and he kissed me back. Things happened. Hot, hard, and fast. We ended up having to take our own vehicle to the dance club.

  • • •

  In some cities, a major flood might mean closing up shop and waiting out the cleanup. In New Orleans, in parts of the French Quarter, especially, flood cleanup was down to an art, and nowhere so advanced than at Royal Mojo Blues Company, Leo Pellissier’s bar and grill and dance hall. If wallboard had been reapplied to the walls after Katrina, the cleanup would have been longer, stinkier, moldier, and messier, but the walls had been left with the raw brick exposed. The recent flood had meant pulling out the pressure washer and blasting the walls and concrete floors, cleaning out the bathrooms and the appliances, and letting it all dry before bringing in a ton or two of food and liquor. And New Orleans, after a day and night of miserable hard work, wanted to party, so every open bar and dance joint in the city was bursting to capacity.

  Half an hour after arriving, I was sweaty and tired and utterly satisfied, ready to take a table reserved by Bruiser for our crowd, one just off the dance floor. We had been boogieing to Roddy Rockwell, the band having driven in from Mobile to entertain the city, and the mix of music from the last seventy years was perfect for dancing. They had ended the set with a Bro-country version of their eighties hit “Blindsided,” and we had whooped it up with a country line dance created on the spot by Eli. My partner could dance, especially with a stunning witch encouraging him. Bliss, who would forever after be called Ailis, was swinging her booty and stepping high. Eli was entranced with the black-haired, pale-skinned witch. Unlike Sylvia, Ailis didn’t use guns, but then, as a witch, she didn’t need them. I hoped neither one would get hurt from the rebound attraction.

  After the set, we all gathered around two tables, my clan and Leo’s vamps, drinking and laughing and telling stories from the last few days, filling each other in, and bragging about head count. Vamp head count. So far, I seemed to be in the lead. Go me. Or not.

  We shared baskets of wings, bruschetta with a half dozen kinds of toppings, hummus with flatbread, spinach dip and chips, small burger sliders, house-made Parmesan cheese with hot peppers, and little pizzas. I wasn’t too full to enjoy, my metabolism still high and my appetite higher.

  And when the band returned to the stage, I took the opportunity to go to the ladies’ room—not something I’d take for granted again. I heard the song start, the music p
iped into the restroom, the lead singer’s raspy voice singing, “I used to be the spark. I could always start a fire in your heart.”

  I smoothed my hair back into the French braid. Tucked the blue stone into my cleavage—what there was of it—with the gold nugget. I looked good and for once I knew it. I stretched my lips and reapplied scarlet lipstick.

  Over the speakers, the singer crooned, “Our love was so hot, so hot . . .” In the background, over the speakers, a saxophone started playing. The notes low, plaintive. Familiar.

  My hand, holding the lipstick, froze. Dropped away from my face. The tube fell and clattered to the countertop. I pushed through the door and out into the poorly lit hallway. And around to the dance floor.

  “Didn’t think you would ever stop, carrying my flame, but baby, something’s changed.”

  The saxophone player was wearing black, a long-sleeved, nearly see-through T-shirt and black jeans. Black hair hung over his face. Too long. Unkempt. Frenchy-black eyes closed.

  “Where’s the fire that was in your eyes whenever you were close to me,” the lead singer sang. “Where’s the fire? don’t you realize, just how much you mean to me?”

  Rick’s eyes opened above the sax and found me, instantly, standing in the shadows, his eyes gleaming the green of his cat. “Where’s the fire, baby? Why are you so cold? Where’s the fire, baby . . .”

  The song. Had been written for me? For us? The look in his eyes said yes. “Don’t try to tell me everything’s all right. Just tell me. Where’s the fire tonight?”

  Eli appeared at my side. “He knows what he did, Babe. I think this is an apology. As public as he could make it.”

  Bruiser stepped out from behind my partner. He held out his hand. “May I have this dance, love?” I put my hand into his heated one. His palm and strength centered me. I let him lead me to the dance floor. He enfolded me, holding me close, my face pressed into his shoulder, arms around me, keeping me safe. All the while, the lyrics of love lost sang into the bar.