Home > True Dead (Jane Yellowrock #14)(4)

True Dead (Jane Yellowrock #14)(4)
Author: Faith Hunter

   I grinned, showing my extralong canines. “You gonna make me, you blue-skinned Smurf-boy?”

   Koun burst into laughter for two full seconds before clamping off the amusement, his rock-hard abs shaking just a bit. I was making progress. His wide eyes said that he didn’t hear his own laughter often, and never twice in one day. He swallowed and forced his face into its usual emotionless, unreadable expression. “Yes, My Queen. I will tie you to the back of the SUV and leave you behind, to keep you safe, while the human warriors and your Mithrans secure the house and grounds.”

   “You can try it, but I’ll beat your butt, Elmo.”

   Koun’s breath shook with silent laughter. His tone heaped with sarcasm, he said, “My Queen. I am happy to be either Smurf or Muppet, should it please Your Majesty, but Grover is the blue furry creature. Not Elmo. And if we have an accident whilst your feet are on the dash, the safety balloon will break both legs, likely your pelvis, and possibly your spine. You can shift to heal, I know this, but we have insufficient steaks for that.”

   “Airbag, not safety balloon.”

   “My deepest apologies for my error, My Queen.” Yeah. Definite snark in the “my queen” part.

   I called that progress. “Direct route,” I said. “And speed it up, slowpoke. You may consider that an order, Smurfy.” He maintained his leisurely pace, but I elected not to swat him with my claws. Instead I went back to the sat maps.

   Our target was a small house on East Avon Parkway, up near Beaver Lake. I went through sat pics and street-to-street Google cams, getting a feel for the topography. A block out, I closed the tablet and checked my weapons. Put the special cat-ear comms set on. “Testing. Yellowrock.”

   Into my ear, Alex, back at the inn, said, “Got it, Janie.”

   Koun stopped a half block out, and I opened the door. We were downwind. I caught the scent of battle. “Blood. A lot of blood,” I said.

   “And silence. We are perhaps too late.”

   I snarled. Bruiser might be injured. Or dead. Adrenaline shot through me.

   If he was dead because Koun didn’t drive fast enough, I’d behead my self-appointed chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock. I pulled on Beast speed, her night vision, her stealth, and raced into the darkness. Not that Koun would lose me, not with nighttime vamp vision and vamp speed. I pulled the Benelli and vamp-killer blade. Leaped over the back fence. In midair I spotted people lying in the dark under the stars, everything looking green-gray-silver in Beast eyes. Dead vamps. Dead humans.

   Beast leaped to the front of my mind. Not ours, she thought. She was right. The scent patterns said that some of our people were wounded but suggested that none of the dead were ours. I/we landed silently in the grass.

   Bruiser was standing in front of a post, where a vamp was secured with silver-plated zipties, his right hand on the vamp’s head, his left on the fanghead’s neck, holding him stretched up high. My honeybunch was alive. Relief shot through me until I realized he was draining and force-changing the vampire, binding him, compelling him to give up all his secrets and loyalty.

   I knelt on my toes and one knee in the shadows, watching, still downwind, breathing in the stench of vamps and blood, flowers and spice, death a sickly sweetness. Breathing like a cat, the air pulled over scent sacs in my mouth.

   The vamp beneath Bruiser’s hands twitched, shook. His mouth opened, and his fangs clicked back into the roof of his mouth. His eyes bled back to human, changing from vicious killer to drug-happy in the space of seconds. “My master,” he said. “I am yours. May I taste your blood?”

   I didn’t react. Not where anyone could see it or smell it. But I hated this. Bruiser was different—not less human than ever before, yet not more human. He was silent more than usual and most often did winery chores alone. He claimed to be only introspective and a smidge melancholy, as if that definition and explanation made it okay. Eli said Bruiser was depressed but had a right to deal with it in his own way, at least for now. The scent wafting from Bruiser on the night air was determined and yet full of self-loathing. He was doing this to keep me safe. To keep his people and my people safe. But he didn’t take joy in it. He hated what Leo had made him and hated even more what he was becoming. I feared that, eventually, he would begin to hate the person he was doing this for. Even though he disagreed with my opinion, I feared that protecting me might drive him away from me.

   I looked away from my Consort and found Lincoln Shaddock leaning against the house. The tall man’s eyes were on me. A lot of thoughts raced through me, formed into understanding, and settled.

   The Master of the City of Asheville had been feeding my Consort. Not often. Onorios weren’t vamps and didn’t have to drink often. But they had to have some vamp blood to survive. Shaddock would know exactly what Bruiser was feeling. Would know how conflicted Bruiser was about mentally draining and chaining vampires to his will, and even how he felt about drinking blood to make his physical powers stronger, blood he desperately needed because he had tried to live without it in the fame vexatum method of blood-starvation practiced by Mithrans. Bruiser had hoped that he would grow more mentally powerful, but the starvation had left him physically famished.

   While he was weakened, we had been attacked in Asheville on Shaddock’s titled hunting territory. Bruiser had tried and failed to drain our most recent enemy’s Onorio, Monique Giovanni. That powerful Onorio had been working with the Flayer of Mithrans and would have defeated Bruiser had their mental battle not ended when it did. Monique was still around and would eventually come after him to finish the interrupted battle. So Bruiser was training hard to learn to do something he hated: binding the minds of vampires with the power of his mind.

   Bruiser’s emotions were twisted and distorted, a coiled mash of love and protective instincts for me, and miserable memories of Leo’s influence—Leo who had made blood-servants bound to his will and desires. Bruiser’s history and his new powers often left him shut down, emotionally distant, deep in thought, and trying to hide all that.

   Eli said Bruiser would be fine, that he was watching my Consort, and that Bruiser had a handle on it all. I trusted the elder Younger to read Bruiser and keep him safe, but this period of emotional healing was hard.

   To the side, Eli appeared, directing a large group of unwashed, smelly humans from a garage to gather beneath the porch roof. “You’re safe now,” he was saying softly, gently. “You can go home. Your torturers are dead.” He directed two of our humans to pull the dead enemies faceup. “See? Dead.”

   Eli swiveled his gaze my way, frowned to see me here, but nodded, a single thrust of his head, as if acknowledging the inevitable. “We haven’t finished clearing the house.”

   “Copy that,” I said.

   I adored my adopted brothers. Eli was battle-worn, tired, stretched thin both mentally and physically, but gentle and kind enough to worry about others, like the people he had rescued. Working with me had made the Younger brothers way more than just “financially comfortable.” It had made them kinda rich and had given them a purpose they had been looking for. They were my co-heirs of Clan Yellowrock, and all the properties and monies that entailed. They would protect me with their lives. But in return, I could never keep them safe. Being the Dark Queen was a two-edged sword, and the people I protected always ended up cut and bleeding.

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