The SUV’s tires ground on the wet pavement, one of New Orleans’s too-common rains pattering down. The windshield wipers squished back and forth slowly. The air in the vehicle was close and muggy and the presence of Eli beside me was comforting.
The day had taken a lot out of me. Emotionally I was wrung out, tired, feeling a little faded, like a rag I might use when I worked on Bitsa, my Harley.
Ride Bitsa, Beast thought.
Not tonight.
Soon, she said. Need wind in my/our face. Need scents in air. Need growl of power beneath us.
I smiled, my face turned away from Eli as he drove so he couldn’t see my expression. Yes.
Tonight we will make kits.
What? No. No kits. We aren’t making kits at all. This is vamp clan stuff. We’re attending ceremonies at vamp HQ.
Making Jane clan. Jane clan will depend on us for teaching. For food. For care and training. For fighting and life and death. Kits.
Ah. Edmund was a better fighter than I’d ever be. Eli took care of me like the brother I had claimed. Alex had mad skills I’d never have. But still. Beast had a point. I supposed so, then.
We will have kits again, she thought.
I let my smile widen and said aloud, “Beast thinks tonight will make you my kits.”
Eli chuckled. “Tell Beast I love her.”
Beast sat up and forced me to look at Eli. I could feel her padding to the forefront of my brain and staring out through my eyes. Eli smiled, a real smile, not that soldier flick of humor that was left over from too long on a battlefield. Beast studied him and then shoved down on me, hard, forcing me out of control of my body. Beast! Stop! I had no idea what she would say, but it wouldn’t be me saying it. I struggled against her.
My voice in a lower register, she said, “Beast does not understand love. Beast understands killing enemies. Tracking prey through deep snow. Taking down fat deer. Eating. A full belly. Clean water that shouts as it falls through rocks. Mating. Kits. Not love. Love is for Jane, not Beast.”
Eli put on his blinker and took a right. Beast waited. Eli said, “That feeling, that need, and hope and dependence that kits feel toward their mother, that is love. That feeling that a mother puma feels toward her kits, the desire to protect, to feed, to share, to teach, that is love. You think we will become your kits tonight when we join Janie’s vampire clan. Therefore I love Beast. And Beast loves me.”
Beast scented the air. Tasted his sincerity. Tasted the truth in his words. “Beast did not understand love. But Beast loves Eli.” She turned my head to the backseat and the three who sat there. I could see her golden eyes reflecting in theirs. “Beast loves Edmund. Beast loves Alex. Beast loves Gee, though Gee is wily like a fox and might have to die someday at Beast’s claws and teeth.”
Gee’s eyes went wide and he laughed. “You can try, little kitten.”
Beast turned back to stare out the front windshield. “Beast accepts kits into Jane’s clan.” She released my mind, padding back into the deeps of my soul home. I felt her leap onto the ledge where she used to live, back when we first came to New Orleans. She curled into the small hollow of rocks. She blew out a breath and said to me, Beast is happy to have kits again.
In the backseat Alex said several of the words that were prohibited in our home. I didn’t make a fuss about it.
Eli turned into the front drive at vamp HQ and rolled down his window. Spoke into the mic and the security camera, and the heavy iron gate rolled ponderously open. He parked. I said nothing. Didn’t move. Not even when the others got out and went up the steps. Eli came around and opened my door, took my hand, and led me out of the SUV and up the stairs. Softly, just for my ears, he murmured, “Tonight? Is going to rock.”
Eli and I entered the Mithran Council Chambers—the actual room where the council met, as opposed to one of the proper names of the entire building. The room had seats in a semicircle, stacked like a small theater facing the dais. At the front of the room on the dais were carved black chairs behind a narrow, curved, half-round ebony table; a black rug was on the floor there. The wall behind the table of judgment had recently been painted black and was centered with a tall grandfather clock in ebony wood. The room had new black marble tile flooring, with a drain in the center of the slightly sloped floor. There was something foreboding about a drain in the room of judgment.
Little brass plaques lined the table’s front edge, engraved with clan names, only four of them now where once there had been eight. Leo of Clan Pellissier, Grégoire of Clan Arceneau, Innara of Clan Bouvier, and Bettina of Clan Laurent, with the name tag of Sabina Delgado y Aguilera, the outclan priestess, in the middle, presiding. Time had been rough on the vamps. Or I had. Almost half of the chairs would be empty for tonight’s ceremonies.
I went to the table and tapped on the mics hidden behind the plaques. They were all live. This meeting of the council would go live throughout the building.
Sitting in the audience chairs were a number of early arrivals, and some were a surprise, primarily Ming Zoya, formerly Blood Master of the now-defunct Clan Mearkanis. At her side was her sister, Ming Zhane of Clan Glass, out of Knoxville, with Zhane’s primo, an Asian man named Cai. Koun sat at the back, his arms out to the sides as if claiming the chairs on either side of him. Koun had declared he was a Celt and maybe he was old enough for that, I didn’t know. We didn’t really get along, but in a fight, I’d pick him at my back. He was fast and powerful. Alejandro, another vamp I didn’t know well, entered and sat with Koun, their heads coming together as they chatted.
I nodded cordially to the vamps just as Amy Lynn Brown entered and took a seat against the wall in back. Amy was a young vamp, seemingly too young to be important, but vamps had gone to war over her because her blood could bring a Mithran scion over from the devoveo—the madness vamps entered when first turned—in less than the average ten years. Feeding from her blood had even brought a few of the long-chained back to sanity. Amy was valuable for her fortuitous but inadvertent and involuntary blood kiss, however, not for anything that she was. She was untalented, too young to protect herself, and had a big red target painted on her forehead. Every master vamp in the world wanted her for themselves. Not one of them wanted her for who she was except her master, Lincoln Shaddock, back in Asheville. Isolation was turning her inward and making her solitary. That was the kind of lonely vamp who would one day, far too soon, walk into the sun.
Just after Amy, Shiloh entered. Shiloh Everhart Stone was my BFF’s witch-turned-vampire niece, her long straight hair pulled back in a thick tail. Big surprise to see her. At her side was Rachael Kilduff, her red-headed, tattooed, primo blood-servant. Rachael had been working out. She looked buff and toned and dangerous. Shiloh came over to us and Eli stiffened, an almost imperceptible reaction, one I couldn’t interpret. “Jane,” she said. “Why am I here?”
I frowned. “You don’t know?”
“No. I got this and I figured you sent it.” Shiloh held out an envelope that bore Leo’s clan watermark. The envelope was made of extra-heavy rag paper, paper made with linen or cotton, and the flap had been sealed with red wax, which was still attached to the envelope tip. Leo’s seal had stamped it closed. I looked around. Several people were holding identical envelopes.
I pulled out the note, and it made that soft rich sound of very expensive paper scrubbing against more fancy paper. In exquisite calligraphy, the note said, Your presence is requested in Mithran Council Chambers upon rising. It was signed, Leo, Master of the City.
Shiloh said, “I mean, it can’t be from Leo, so it has to be from you.”
I stuffed the note into the envelope and handed it back to her. “Leo handwrote that.” When Shiloh went still as a dead cat, I chuckled.
She whispered, “What could the master want with me?”
“Go. Sit. You’ll know soon enough. And I expect you to do whatever makes you happiest.”
Shiloh took a seat one down from Amy Lynn. The two vamps didn’t acknowledge one another, which was sad. There were always so many lonely people in here. I walked over to them. “Amy. This is my BFF’s niece, Shiloh. She’s a witch turned vamp and master vamps want her because, since she survived being turned and survived the devoveo, she’ll be powerful someday. If she lives long enough.”
Shiloh flinched slightly at my blunt words.
“Jane,” Eli breathed, faintly horrified.
Not very diplomatic of me. I guess I could have been more tactful, but . . . sometimes plain words were best? “Shiloh, this is Amy. She’s the vamp whose blood brought you back to sanity. Every master vamp in the world wants her for that. You two would make—” I stopped as an idea hit me and a devious expression melted over my face. Both girls went wary and worried. “You two would make a very powerful coalition.” They looked from me to each other and back again. That was why they were here, I was almost sure of it. Leo was working the short view this time, protecting his assets. The girls considered each other. I let Eli pull me to a seat in the middle of my clan members.
Other vamps and blood-servants wandered in, and in the midst of them were Katie—once Leo’s heir—and Grégoire, arm in arm. Behind Katie trailed Alesha Fonteneau, her sister, once known only to me as Madam Spy. The two women had spent a lot of time in the scion cages after Katie rebelled against Leo to protect her sister, but their freedom and the glittery jewelry they wore suggested that they had been forgiven if not restored. Real diamonds and sapphires and emeralds sparkled on their necks and fingers and ears. I hadn’t been aware that Grégoire was in town, but the Sangre Duello had meant a recall of outlying forces. Leo wanted his best around him. Dacy Mooney, the heir of Clan Shaddock, took a seat and moments later Leo’s primo blood-servant and Dacy’s daughter, Adelaide Mooney—Del—took a seat. Del was taller than me, a blond beauty with long lean legs, her fingernails painted green to match her dress. The whole gang was here.
The place filled up fast as the grandfather clock gonged seven p.m., the herbal stench of vamps and sex and blood mingling on the air. The doors behind the long table opened, and the VIP vamps filed in and took their seats. The three Onorios filed in after and took places against the walls, where they stood at military parade rest, hands clasped in front of them. Bruiser found me in the audience and his eyes stared hard in warning, though his somber expression didn’t change. Something was up. I gave him a scant nod that I understood there was a problem and opened my senses, smelling, tasting, watching, listening. I thought I caught a trace of lemon. My eyes shot around the room, trying to place the scent, but it faded and was gone. Someone had eaten lemons. Or washed their hands in lemons to get seafood stink off them. Or there was a danger here I didn’t yet see. Nothing else seemed out of place. Everyone here belonged here. The vamps at the dais sat except for Sabina and Leo.
The men up front were dressed in tuxedoes, the women in black floor-length gowns, except for the outclan priestess, who wore stark white, even to the gloves that hid her fire-blackened hand. The last time I saw Sabina, she had been blood-drained and weak; now she fairly glowed with power, her skin glistening palely in the soft lights. Sabina was old, with a beaked nose that suggested Mediterranean ethnicity. She looked powerful, imposing, and serene.
My eyes traced back over the crowd. Everyone seemed as expected. No one was visibly armed beyond teeth, fangs, and talons, weapons they carried with them all the time. I took a seat again with the Youngers and my people, on the second row.
“The executive council is called to order,” Sabina said as she took her seat. “The chair recognizes Leo Pellissier, acting in his capacity as Master of the City.”
I figured that meant he would not be acting as master of Clan Pellissier. Interesting but not enough to cause the look Bruiser had sent me.
Leo shot his cuffs and walked around the table to stand a step down, in front of his usual chair. He was a lithe and elegant man at all times, but in a tux, with his hair loose and hanging on his shoulders, he was gorgeous. He paused, his French black eyes taking in the room, waiting until every eye was on him. Something glinted through his hair and I realized he was wearing diamond studs in his ears. He also wore two gold rings, one on either hand. Two diamond studs were in his collar points and his cuff links were large onyx with tiny diamonds. I’d never seen Leo in this much jewelry, and it only accented how pretty he was. And then I realized how human he looked, instead of pale as bone and cold as death. All the council members had fed and fed well. Bruiser had warned me about something with that glance. Was this the reason? Prickles of unease feathered down my body. I tried to catch Bruiser’s eye, but he was watching Leo, his face impassive.
“My people,” Leo said. “Tonight we gather.” His power shot into the room, serrated and hot. It was like being dragged through a flaming cactus patch, naked and blindfolded.
I sucked in a breath. This was the reason for Bruiser’s warning glance. Eli nearly went for his weapon and I placed a hand on his arm, murmuring, “It’s okay. It’s not an attack. It’s vamp magic.”
Alex cursed softly. The spectators sat back, tense and wide-eyed. A gather was one of the most sacrosanct of vamp rituals, sharing and exchanging energy, working for a purpose. Except for the people behind the dais, who looked fine with the proceedings, Leo hadn’t warned anyone. The spectators were uniformly rattled.
The vamps all stood, lifting their hands to the dais. Their humans shrank back, breathing too deeply, eyes shocked. The reek of dead flowers intensified, the smell of papyrus and lavender and ink and black pepper growing strong enough that I had to breathe through my mouth to keep from sneezing. I kept a hand on Eli and put one on Alex’s arm too. Gee could look after himself. Edmund, however, was standing with the other vamps, his arms at his sides, and Leo was watching him.
“Edmund Hartley,” Leo said. “Though you are not of my bloodline and soon will no longer be of my clan, you have been named my heir. State your loyalties.”
Ed raised his hands to Leo. “I am primo blood-servant to Jane Yellowrock. I accept the honor and responsibility as primo heir to Clan Pellissier, and primo heir to Master of the City of New Orleans and associated territories, to care for its Mithrans and protect its cattle. My shoulders are strong and my sword is true. I swear fealty to my mistress the Dark Queen, to the city, and to its master.”
Leo didn’t react, but something suggested it wasn’t exactly the response he had been expecting, or maybe it was the order of importance he didn’t like. Me, then the city, and Leo last. After a pause that stretched too long, Leo said, “That is acceptable. Take your place beside me. Drink of me, and I will drink of you.”
Oh crap. This was gonna get icky.
Edmund bobbed a kneel in front of me, one of those half-bow things people do in a Roman Catholic church. “My mistress,” he murmured. “Your leave?”
I almost said sure, but caught myself at the last moment. “The Enforcer of the Master of the City gives you leave.” I carefully didn’t give him leave by the power of the Dark Queen. No way.
Ed gave me a cheeky grin before wrapping a solemn demeanor around himself. He turned and knelt before Leo, this time down on both knees, which seemed to please the MOC.
“Our city’s Mithrans have been weakened by internal strife and civil war, by kidnap and imprisonment, by perfidy and betrayal. Attacked from without, by other clans and other masters. Attacked from within by those we should have been able to trust. Yet we have survived. Now we have cemented new alliances with the witches, and with the werewolves of the Bighorn Pack, we’ve affiliated with the Mithrans of many cities, and our territory has grown to include Atlanta. With Sangre Duello imminent, we must choose wisely those with whom we ally ourselves and our clans.
“Edmund Hartley. You have proven yourself wise in leadership, wise in the webs of Mithran politics, and far more capable in La Destreza than anyone knew.” There may have been a hint of irony in Leo’s tone. Yeah. Ed was quite the fighter. “Should I fall in battle, will you accept the weight of responsibility for my clan, my city, my territories, my Mithrans, and my cattle?”
“I will.”
“Should I fall in battle, will you take up my sword and my war?”
“I will.”
“Should I fall in battle, will you seek to find peace with the conquerors?”
“If there is no way to win and all would die otherwise, I will.”
“Should I fall in battle, will you seek to protect the alliances and the Mithrans I have sworn to protect?”
“I will. Moreover, I will avenge your life and your true-death should you fall.”
Leo smiled at that one, and clearly he hadn’t been expecting it.
“I will govern wisely, I will listen to counsel, I will elevate the wise and teach the foolish. I will carry the long view as my master has foreseen it, has dreamed it, to fruition.”
“I have chosen wisely,” Leo said, surprised.
“I have served with honor, my master, and that will never falter nor fail.”
Leo slid a hand into his tux jacket and removed something small and green, a jade knob, about the size and shape of a golf ball. He cradled it in the palm of his hand, and between his fingers a small, wicked blade protruded. Ed held out his hand and Leo stabbed downward, puncturing Ed’s thumb. Bright blood welled. I wondered who Ed had been drinking from to have such good skin color and such bright blood. He had a female blood-servant, Maryanne. I seldom saw her, but Edmund had to drink from someone.
Leo lifted the thumb to his mouth and captured Ed’s eyes with his own. The level of magic in the room rose, spiky and blazing, my skin itching. Leo took the thumb into his mouth and closed his lips around it. And sucked. Ed bowed his back without breaking Leo’s gaze, as if the sensation of Leo’s mouth sucking on his thumb was unanticipated. There was nothing erotic in the action. The smell of vamps rose on the air, suffocating. The magic intensified with it until I wanted to scratch off my skin to get to the itch in my bones. Eli frowned hard. Alex shook his kinky curls and shivered.
Leo pulled his mouth from Edmund’s thumb and punctured his own thumb. He placed it at Edmund’s lips and Ed sucked in a ragged breath before taking Leo’s thumb into his mouth. He sucked, eyes closed. He shivered. The magic crept up another notch. The temperature in the room went up a few degrees and it was getting hard to breathe. I was pretty sure my skin was turning red. The air felt charged with electricity. My body ached. Beside me, Eli opened his mouth as though he was having the same trouble breathing as I was. His skin was glistening with sweat. Alex, on my other side, was breathing hard, as if he’d run several smiles at a dead sprint. I tensed, ready to grab up my partners and carry them from the room.
And then it hit me. Leo might expect something similar from me tonight.
Will drink Leo’s blood, Beast thought at me.
No.
Will drink Leo’s blood.
No.
Will—
No!
Beast fell silent and I knew she was playing with me like a cat with a new toy, batting me around, biting me a little, and batting me some more, watching me ricochet into the corners.
Beast chuffed with amusement as Leo pulled his thumb from between Ed’s lips.
Leo said, “Tonight I officially appoint Edmund Hartley as my clan heir and as heir to my position as Master of the City of New Orleans and her territories.”
The magic blasted out. Pain like forge-heated razors. I gasped, stood, and grabbed the boys, one beneath each arm.
The pain fell away. The room chilled so fast the sweat on my skin felt like ice water. Alex sucked in a breath and started coughing. Eli shoved me away, his chin dropping with irritation as he peeled my arm and hand off him. Former Army Ranger didn’t need saving, not now, not ever. Right. I dropped Alex too. We all sat. We were okay.
But . . . dang.
Leo pulled Ed close and guided him around the big desk, to the back, toward a chair on the end. Leo flipped a small brass nameplate up. It said HEIR OF NEW ORLEANS and, below that, Ed’s name. Edmund looked drunk. Great. A blood-drunk primo. Just what I needed. Not. Ed walked behind the dais and fell into his chair, sticking his thumb into the air. It was still bleeding, just a bit, a single drop that spiraled down his thumb, despite the fact that vamp saliva clotted blood quickly.
Leo, back around front, said, “Katherine and Alesha Fonteneau. The Master of the City requires your presence.” This was said without a rise in magic. And without a hint of a smile.
The sisters, looking more alike now that they were well fed and healed of their injuries, came to the dais. The two blond women dropped deep curtsies, long silk dresses shushing in the still-as-undeath air.
Leo pulled a sword that sounded as if the blade were taking a breath in the silence. “Katherine and Alesha Fonteneau. You have dishonored your vows,” he said. “You have worked with our enemies, those who came from Europe to harm us, to conquer our territory, first by stealth and witch magic, by the raising of revenants, and now by the Sangre Duello. Katie, you did not trust us to save you or your sister, Madam Spy. You aided our enemies instead. You have endangered us all. How do you plead?”
I looked at the drain in the floor. I tried to catch Bruiser’s eyes, but he was staring at the place where the edge of the blade rested on Katie’s shoulder, at her neck. Katie. Leo’s lover. Leo’s friend.
“I plead guilty, my master and my friend,” Katie said. “I did not trust that you would find a way to fulfill your vows to the city, defeat your enemies, and still save Alesha. I was a fool.”
“Yes,” Leo said, his face human in his hurt. “Are you disloyal, my Katherine?”
“Never, Leo, my love, my best friend, my master.”
“Do you trust me now, Katie?”
“I trust you with my undeath. With my heart.” She leaned into the blade and a sliver of blood appeared at her neck where her shoulder sloped. She was cutting herself on Leo’s sword. My entire body tensed and I prepared to leap to protect the bare necks of . . . of two who were technically Leo’s enemies. His friends and lovers. But enemies. Who had shared a bath with him only recently. Right. But. Indecision raked me with claws. Before I could decide to act, Katie continued, “With my blood. With my true-death should you demand it. I ask only that you protect my sister when you take my head, Leo, my love.”
And danged if Leo, the Master of the City of New Orleans and most of the Southeastern United States, the baddest of the big, bad fanged uglies, didn’t have a pale pink tear gliding down his face. “Will you come to me with your fears and with your heart?” Leo asked her.
“Always. I will never fail you again. I will trust you. I will fight with you. I follow your orders without fear.”
Leo lifted the sword and placed it on the ebony table, where it settled with a rattle of steel on wood. He held out his hand. “I will drink of you and you of me. We will know one another blood-to-blood, heart-to-heart, before these, our friends.” Katie placed her hand in his and stood; with the little knife, Leo stabbed down. Then he stabbed his own thumb and, as he took her thumb into his mouth, she took his. Katie groaned as if they were alone in bed. Her head went back and her knees went weak. Leo caught her and held her close. Katie’s back arched . . .
Just ewww. It was a little too much sex and blood for me. I looked away and kicked Alex to look away too. He ignored me. Katie moaned again. Ick.
When the public mutual licking and moaning was finally over with, Leo said, “Katherine Fonteneau, you are heart of my heart.”
“And soul of my soul,” Katie whispered to him.
“But I cannot allow you to remain with me.”
“No,” she whispered. “Leo, my love, no!”
Leo took a breath that sounded thick and painful. “You are banished from my clan home, you and your sister Alesha.” Katie, who had been mostly standing during the blood reading, fell to her knees, one arm outstretched as if pleading, her hand still in Leo’s. Her face blanched; her mouth hung open. She sobbed silently.
I could smell her horror and her fear. I had read about banishment. Being banished meant being taken to a wilderness and set free, far from the nearest human. Not that there was such a place in this day and age.
“You are now”—Leo smiled gently at her—“Blood Master of Clan Fonteneau and banished to Atlanta, where you will take up the mantle as Master of the City.”
“No!” Katie shouted, her fists bunching as if to sock him. She jerked back on the one in Leo’s hand, whipping against him. He held firm and she struggled, almost growling, “I refuse to be master of clan or city.”
Okay. That was a surprise. A vamp refusing power? Alesha, at her side, was still as stone, her eyes slowly vamping out.
Katie’s voice rose and she yanked against his hold. “I refuse the city. I am made for pleasure, not boardrooms. I am made for beds, not negotiations. Tu sais ça!”
I recognized the phrase. You know this. I had been among the French-speaking vamps too dang long. I was understanding French.
Leo actually laughed and, with the back of his free hand, wiped his face clean of the tear track. “Dearest Katherine. Katherine, mon amour, you have ruled this city and her humans for a hundred years, through the web of hedonism and decadence. Did you think I was so foolish that I did not know? Did you think me unaware that Katie’s Ladies was the center of your web? That you had spun silken snares about your clients and victims? That they smiled in pleasure and desire as you strangled them in a snarl of coercion and bled them dry of favors with extortion? You have been my hand to power for far too many years to count. You have served me, even as you led.”
Katie went still, standing, her body bladed to Leo, as if she might yet fight. Or as if she might pull away and run. Or as if she might pull a weapon and kill her master. “Je ne régnerai pas.” I will not . . . something.
“You will,” Leo insisted. “You will rule as Master of the City of Atlanta, as the Blood Master of Clan Fonteneau, with your heir Alesha at your side and your Enforcer Ro Moore as your sword and Tom as your primo.”
Katie’s eyes were wide and frenzied, shooting to every person and every corner of the room as if looking for allies or a way out. And then Katie heard what Leo had said. He had given her an Enforcer only a few days past. He had now given her an heir. He had . . . he had been planning this for a while. Leo was making a new clan, one loyal to him.
Then it hit me. The MOC was making more than one new clan tonight. He was rebuilding his power base.
Leo smiled into Katie’s dawning realization. “You have all you need to govern and control Atlanta. You will care for her Mithrans and convert her murderous Naturaleza to the way of the Mithran. You will ensnare and protect her helpless cattle, her politicians, and her moneyed and powerful.” He paused. “And you will swear to me as master and ruler of the Southeastern United States of America.”
Katie’s eyes flashed black fire. “You bastard,” she hissed.
“Au contraire.” Leo lifted her hand and kissed her fisted fingers. “I am the son of my father, planted in my mother’s belly, born in wedlock. My name is listed in the family Bible and recorded in official parish papers.” Leo was laughing at her.
Katie’s fangs dropped down slowly with a faint click of the hinges. Her eyes vamped out—the sclera bled scarlet and the pupils went wide, eclipsing the irises, black holes in a bloody sea. “For how many years have you planned this?”
“It was never planned, my love, but this move has been on the board forever.”
“I refuse! You need me here. You need me to fight at your side. You need me to ensnare our ancient enemy once again. I will not leave you.”
Leo pulled her into an embrace and said gently, sweetly, “Then I will have my Onorios take you and your sister to the mountains of Georgia, far from the nearest habitation of cattle, far from the nearest protection from daylight, far from food and safety. They will drain you both, in the Onorio way, and drop you from a helicopter.”
“La faute est à moi,” Alesha said. Katie whipped her head to her sister, still standing at her side. I had practically forgotten her, in the soap opera of Leo and Katie, playing out on a public stage. Madam Spy was biting her knuckles with her own fangs. Clear, human-looking tears ran down her face. She shook her head. “Je suis la coupable. Tout est de ma faute. Tout est de ma faute.”
“Katherine!” Leo demanded, his voice low.
Katie whipped her head around to Leo.
He said, “Nous vous offrons le salut. Acceptez notre miséricorde.”
I had learned a lot of French just being around HQ, but I must have looked confused because Edmund said from the dais, to me, “Alesha says it is all her fault. Leo offered her mercy.”
Leo said, “Ne me forcez pas à vous tuer toutes les deux.”
Edmund said, “Do not make me kill you both.”
“Nous acceptons votre offre et jurons fidélité,” Alesha said.
Edmund translated, “We accept your offer, and swear loyalty.”
“C’est pour cela que je suis née.”
Edmund murmured, “I will govern. It is what I was born for.”
In English Alesha said, “Your conniving lover made certain that I was trained in duplicity and governance. Ask him.”
“You!” Katie leaned away from Leo, who tightened his arm on her waist. She whipped her eyes wildly around the room as if she felt a noose closing over her neck. Her hair slid out of its coil in an ash-blond swoosh. Her shoulders hunched, fangs flashed in the pale lights. Then she blinked. Slowly, as if understanding was dawning. Katie turned her head in one of those inhuman motions the fangheads had. In a totally different tone, she said to Leo, “You!”
Leo shrugged lightheartedly and kissed the back of Katie’s fingers again. “I must needs come to visit my most loyal servants.” He uncoiled her fist and lifted her index finger; kissed the tip. “There must be comfortable beds and well-trained servants.” He lifted the middle finger. Kissed. “And deep baths.”
Katie laughed, half-hysterical. Her shoulders, which had hunched up for battle, dropped. “No, Leo. Please do not send me from you.”
“I must. You have betrayed me. Do you accept your chastisement, your sentence, and your elevation in status?”
“Tu es une créature maléfique.”
Edmund said, “You are an evil creature.”
Leo said, “I am.”
“However,” Katie said, “j’accepte ton jugement.” I got that one all by myself. I accept your judgment.
“Call for your blood-servants to pack your clothing, Katherine, and go to Fonteneau Clan Home and the Council Chambers of Atlanta. You and your traitor sister have much to heal there in the wake of the previous Master of the City, and his Naturaleza ways.”
Katie threw herself into Leo’s arms and sobbed. “You send me to a dreadful place. They do not even speak French there.”
Leo chuckled and unwrapped himself from her. “They are not so without culture. At least it isn’t Charlotte with its nouveau riche or Charleston avec ses touristes and Yankees, or Richmond with its . . . nothing these days.” Leo had just insulted three of the South’s largest and most powerful cities. I suffocated a grin. He looked at Brandon and Brian Robere, standing beside Bruiser. “Take them. See that they are in Atlanta by morning. My jet is fueled and awaits you. And if mes deux espions attempt to convince you to hide them here in the city or to stay with them in Atlanta, you will stake them in the bellies until such time as they are ensconced in their new clan home.” Katie shot Leo a murderous look and gathered up her skirts in a righteous fury. “Tomorrow night,” Leo continued to the twins, amused by her actions, “you will see that the Georgian Mithrans swear fealty to her, and that any remaining Naturaleza, who refuse to sign the Vampira Carta of the Americas and swear loyalty to their new mistress, are beheaded. I believe that Grégoire has provided you a list?”
Vampira Carta of the Americas? That implied Leo had created his own document.
They nodded again, though this time a bit reluctantly. They were swearing to kill vamps, creatures they loved and served. Onorios could kill easier than I could, and without a single weapon. Bruiser’s gaze had moved from Leo to me, watching my reactions. I tilted my head to show I understood. That I could deal with it. And really, how could I do anything else? I’d killed so many fangheads since I came to NOLA that some vamps referred to me as the Enforcer Executioner. I had so much blood on my hands that I had befouled a baptismal pool when I jumped in. I was something and someone to be feared and hated. I tightened my lips, fighting a self-disgusted quiver, and looked back at Leo, who was still talking to the Roberes.
“With the second dawn, when Clan Fonteneau is entirely in power, you will return here. Alesha will remain in Atlanta to rule. Katherine will return with you for a fortnight. Do you understand?”
The Robere twins nodded once, the actions mirror images.
Katie’s mouth popped open and fangs retracted as she laughed. She threw her arms around Leo. “You are allowing me to return for the Sangre Duello?” Leo speared Katie with a look that held centuries of passion and trust and emotions I had no name for. He nodded and she said, “Je t’aime.”
“And I you. For my Katherine I have one last task. To stand by my side as I fight and live, or fight and die.” Leo released Katie.
The two women curtsied, deeply and gracefully, and remained in that position of obeisance for ten Mississippis before the B-twins stepped forward and each took a hand of the Fonteneau women, lifting them to their feet. As a group, they stepped back and swept from the room.
“The long view,” I muttered. Leo had just punished Katie and Alesha by giving Katie the one thing she didn’t want—responsibility—provided a stable rule for Atlanta by making sure Alesha was there to do the political stuff, permitted Katie to return to NOLA so she could participate in combat, and reset a clock that he could twist in many ways. “Wily and devious and scheming.”
“That was freaking cool,” Alex whispered. He was right, it was. Leo was a snake in the grass. I feared it boded badly for me.