In his blood, I saw myself as Edmund first saw me.
On a night battlefield, bodies piled high behind the female warrior, flames leaping. Gunshots sounded in the distance. The reek of bowels that had opened as humans died, the particular odor of Mithran death, smoke, blood, and the stink of gunfire hung on the air. Koun was stepping from an ambulance, the broad-shouldered man wearing only a loincloth, a sword at his hip, and Celtic tattoos, dark blue and black. He was pale. He had lost blood. Or given it.
“I left my master’s fight to heal a human,” Koun snarled at the armed warrior. “You owe me a boon, woman.” The warrior was a woman. Black haired and golden skinned. Jane Yellowrock, the woman Pellissier had hired for some obscure reason. Koun pulled his sword.
The woman stepped back, going for a handgun at her side. But Koun was on her in an instant, moving Mithran-fast. His longblade sliced for her throat. Her eyes blazed golden. Edmund moved closer, to watch.
The blade cut into her throat just as she leaped. She dropped away, tucking into a shoulder roll. Officers shouted, “Put down the weapon! Police!” They fired and Koun stumbled before coming upright. He stood over the golden-eyed woman, his sword in both hands, the blade pointed at her belly. “A boon!” he demanded.
Edmund expected her to scream or cry or wail. She shouted, “What boon?”
“I am weakened, and the primo requires yet more blood. You will fight in my place.”
“Done,” the woman said.
Koun stepped back and the woman, Jane Yellowrock, rolled to her feet, the motion more fluid than a Mithran’s, as impossible as that seemed. “How many are there?” she demanded. “Who are they?” And then she fought. Edmund had followed, protecting her rear. Watching.
I swallowed again. Yanked Edmund’s hand away from me. From where he . . . kneeled at my feet. Which I freaking hated. I reached out and placed a fingertip beneath his chin and lifted his face to my half-lion face. “I swear loyalty to you,” I said.
“Yes, my master. And I to you.”
Mistress. Master. I had bound Ed long ago. I had sealed that binding now. I was a monster. I almost ran out of the room.
CHAPTER 10
My Fangs Were Bigger Than His
Leo said, “Eli Younger and Alex Younger.”
“I’m not sucking on their thumbs,” I said, just as the Kid said, “I’m not sucking on Jane’s thumb. It’s got hair on it.”
I snorted. Leo laughed aloud.
“Eli Younger. You have warred,” Leo stated. “You have fought and won and fought and lost. It is the way of the warrior. You have survived with honor, though the scars you carry are heavy, and you walked away from the battlefield. If needed, will you war beside Jane Yellowrock?” It was a formal question, with an equally formal response.
“If Jane asks me to war,” Eli said softly, his dark eyes moving from Leo to me, “I will war. If Jane is attacked, I will war. If Jane’s friends and those she has sworn loyalty to are attacked, I will war.”
“She calls you brother. Will you guard her and keep her clan safe? Will you make certain that she takes time to think and to plan, to strategize, to know all the weaknesses and strengths of her enemy?” Leo asked.
“I will.”
I frowned. Leo had just said I was foolish and stupid and needed a protector and teacher. I didn’t. I had done pretty good flying by the seat of my pants all this time. Then again, I was snarky to beings who were more powerful than I was, who had more magic, bigger teeth, and sharper claws. Maybe Leo was right.
I glared at Eli, who smiled back at me with the exact same expression I’d seen him use on a lost puppy in the street. He shook his head at whatever emotions had crossed my face. “Babe,” he said, in a long-suffering tone. In an entirely different tone, he said to Leo and me, “I will care for Jane Yellowrock. I will be her second when she is challenged or when she challenges another. I will keep her safe. I will be her friend and her brother. Being part of Jane’s family has made life worth living again, when battle had stolen all my joy and my belief in goodness.” Eli’s somber expression disappeared and he grinned widely. “Even when she has fangs and a cat nose and a pelt. Even when she insults the powerful and the mighty and steps all over their egos. And I will love her as sister of my heart.”
Sister of my heart was a formal vamp saying that meant adoption. My own heart melted into a puddle of goo and mush.
Alex said, “I’ll do the same. Except for the being-her-second part. I’d suck at that.”
I turned the sappy face on the Kid.
He shook his head. “Janie. Please. Don’t get all girly. It’ll ruin my image as a bon vivant, a lady-loving man-about-town.”
Eli snorted. I snorted. Alex looked as if he was fighting tears.
Leo said, “For ten years, until the clan can support itself, Clan Yellowrock will be paid an annual stipend to be negotiated with Alex Younger. Clan Yellowrock will be given a property for a clan home commensurate with Jane’s status as Enforcer to the Master of the City of New Orleans. Clan Yellowrock will be given property that is currently unused, or was never rebuilt after Katrina, to build upon and invest in. Clan Yellowrock is established.”
“I have a house,” I stated.
“You have a personal home,” Leo clarified, “which you may keep. But you need a clan home large enough for scions and the humans who will feed them.”
I thought about the house, the new rooms upstairs, the construction, and the crowded feeling, with people everywhere. How much worse if Leo stuck me with lots of fangheads and their dinners. It would be good to have fewer people in the house. “Ducky.”
“Ducky,” Leo repeated, as if sticking the word and its usage as an affirmative into some spot in his brain not currently occupied with important stuff. Maybe one labeled “Bizarre Modern Words.” “Choose a home from among the Mithran properties. One not currently occupied.” Leo gave me a wolfish grin. “And one not currently claimed or used by a clan.”
Leo had me figured out. I had been gonna take his clan home on the west side. I gave him back a grin, and currently my fangs were bigger than his. Take that, master suckhead. I said, “I’ll take the Rousseau house in the Garden District not far from Grégoire’s place.” If I was gonna get a house, then I wanted one with a pool.
“Oh yeah,” Alex breathed.
“Unlike Ming, who must rebuild her clan from the ashes of what once was, Yellowrock has options. You will choose your clan members from among my own and from among the clanless, those dispossessed by the war that saw the decimation of four clans. Are there those you would choose?”
“Koun,” I said, “if he’ll accept.” Koun didn’t like me, but he was a good fighter. And Leo had known I’d want certain people. He’d sent personal invitations to them. The sneak.
“Brute, the white werewolf. Kemnebi, the African black wereleopard.”
Leo’s left eyebrow lifted just a hair. “Will they accept?”
“Brute just got a new dog bed. He won’t care. Kemmie has no choice. He’s zeta to my beta. I claimed him so I’m stuck with him. Same with Rick LaFleur. Pain in the ass, but there you have it. I didn’t kill them when I should have and now I’m responsible for them. Twenty-twenty hindsight and all that.” Yeah. I’d had to claim my ex and his slave. That sucked.
Leo looked at me with the most peculiar expression, which I couldn’t interpret and so I ignored it and went on. “Evan Trueblood, Angelina Everhart Trueblood, Evan Trueblood Junior, Molly Everhart Trueblood, and the baby she carries.”
I thought Leo was gonna choke on his own fangs in surprise. Yeah. Suck on that one, MOC. I got a witch family willing to join my vampire clan. “Shiloh Everhart Stone and her friends and blood-servants if they are willing. I haven’t asked them. Tex.”
“Who?” Leo asked. I could tell he was off-kilter at the list of names. But it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been thinking about all this.
“Tex. The fanghead from Texas who has the guard dog. I don’t know his name.” I figured Tex could handle Brute if the wolf lost all humanity and became pure wolf.