“Predictability is a liability,” Derek said, agreeing.
I expected Leo to differ, as he usually did when I suggested a change of plans or methodology. Old vamps get set in their ways, the school of thought that went, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” For centuries, sometimes. Instead he asked, “What alternatives do you suggest, my Enforcers?”
Coulda knocked me over with a Mercy Blade feather. If they ever showed their feathers to the world instead of the layered glamours they wrapped themselves in so they’d appear human. “Uhhh,” I said, not prepared for him being agreeable. “A permanent crew here would be good.”
“I got some of Grégoire’s new people in the swamps, training,” Derek said. I looked up at that. I knew he intended to integrate the two security forces—Grégoire’s Atlanta team and Leo’s New Orleans team—at some point, but not that it had already started. “Most of ’em washed out and got sent back to Atlanta. We still got a few sticking with it.”
“You training them like SEALs?” I asked, meaning was he wearing them down to skin and bones and guts, the way Uncle Sam trained his best fighters.
He grinned at me and said, “I’m trying not to kill any.”
“We could bring Grégoire’s crew in as permanent security,” I said to Leo. “We could also make the rotating clan home security teams’ cycles longer,” I suggested.
“Six months at a stretch,” Derek agreed. “And stagger them so that the council house doesn’t get a complete batch of new recruits all at once.”
His voice silky, Leo said, “My Enforcers have been plotting.”
“Nope,” I said. “Just great minds thinking alike.” To Derek, I said, “I’ve suggested that to him about ten times now. He’s kinda stuck in a European rut, doing things the old-country way.”
Leo and Derek both frowned, but Leo said to Del, “Adelaide, compose a letter addressed to the masters of the other clans, detailing the changes and asking if their own security or comfort will be negatively affected by such a modification to protocol.”
Derek frowned at me and I shrugged, even less prepared for Leo to capitulate. Maybe Leo had needed to hear it from a guy? Or maybe he was worried and finally listening to his paid troops? I was betting on the guy thing.
“George,” Leo said. “You will send my card to each of the other clan homes announcing an official visit. You and Adelaide will then deliver the letter requesting the protocol changes, by hand, and introduce my new primo.”
Del looked down at her lap, avoiding Bruiser’s eyes. Bruiser looked at me and smiled as he answered, “Yes, dominantem civitati—Master of this City and Hunting Territories. It shall be as you say.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that, spoken in Latin and archaic-sounding English words, words that seemed to have a power of some kind over the others in the room, because their scents changed, smelling bitter, of shock, and maybe a little of horror.
Yes . . . Master of this City . . . It shall be as you say . . . ? And then it hit me. Bruiser didn’t call Leo my master. The phrase he used showed respect to the master of a city, but no more respect or loyalty than anyone might use, anyone unassociated with a master’s household. And the phrase had been all formal, in Latin. Crap. Bruiser had just announced publicly that he was no longer Leo’s . . . employee? Dinner? Sex partner, if he had ever been that? I hadn’t been comfortable enough to ask. Still wasn’t. But the phrase said that he was certainly no longer Leo’s blood-servant. Bruiser’s eyes were warm on me, a little smile on his lips.
My cheeks heated and I couldn’t control the speed of my heart rate. I sure as heck couldn’t control the scent of my pheromones, which were suddenly all over the place. The vamps in the room looked from Bruiser to Leo and then to me, picking up cues from each of us that we might rather have wished kept private. What did this public announcement mean to and for Bruiser? In the odd silence of the room, he let his smile drop and turned to Leo, who was still leaning over the desk, maybe frozen there in shock.
Leo held Bruiser’s gaze for a long moment before turning that predatory stare to me, his nostrils widening as he scented the air. I could feel the ice of Leo’s gaze as he spoke, but I kept my eyes on Bruiser. “Are you certain, primo quondam meus?”
“I am certain, dominantem civitati, magister quondam meus.”
“You give up much,” Leo said, his tone slightly hoarse. As if the words were pulled from him, as if they hurt as they left his mouth. I didn’t know what was going on, but it sounded important. Life-or-death important. And everyone in the room seemed to think so too. There were a lot of wide eyes and very little breathing, even from the humans.
Del, her face white with shock, mouthed a translation. Master of this City. My former master.
Holy crap. Bruiser was really . . . quitting?
Bruiser smiled and looked at me, his eyes heated. It was as though some closed, dark place inside me opened, revealing a painful, raw wound in an oddly empty space. “I gain much more, dominantem civitati,” he said. And the lesion in the dark, empty place within me seemed less painful somehow.
“It is done,” Leo said. “Factum est. Consummatum.”
Which sounded like a death sentence. Or the end of the world. Or something equally awful. But Bruiser’s smile widened, and it didn’t droop when Leo leaned forward and added carefully, “All of my regulations and proscriptions shall stand. And you will remove the last of your belongings from the council home tonight, before the sun seeks to rise.”
Bruiser hesitated only an instant, as if measuring what the words meant before saying, “Yes, Master of this City. I shall abide by all regulations and proscriptions that pertain to me.”
Leo looked like that was less capitulation than he wanted, but he went on. “I require that Jane Yellowrock remain in the position of Enforcer, along with Derek Lee, for the duration of the Europeans’ visit. Derek and I have reached a settlement on remuneration for his services. Do you agree, Jane?”
I looked back and forth between Derek and Leo and held out my hand to Del. “You got a pen? A piece of paper?”
Without speaking, Del leaned forward and took both from a small drawer in the front of Leo’s desk, passing them to me. I half folded the paper so no one could see what I was writing and penned a number on the paper. $1,000,000.00. I folded it and passed it to Leo. He opened the paper and burst out laughing, the laughter again making him seem so human and so dang gorgeous. Monsters are supposed to be ugly; Leo simply wasn’t. His eyes glistened with amusement. The black hair he usually tied in a little queue came forward and brushed his pale olive cheeks. Still laughing, he passed the note to Grégoire, whose blond eyebrows went up in surprise that quickly translated into amusement. “Vous avez été correct, mon seigneur,” Grégoire said, his tone formal.
I didn’t know what that meant, but did catch the correct part, and when Grégoire pulled a ring from his finger and passed it to Leo, I realized that they had bet on my reply, and Leo had won. I narrowed my eyes at them, as Leo slid the ring onto his pinkie. The ring was gold, the band smooth and worn, centered by a ruby cabochon. It looked old and valuable, and a lot like the ring the much younger Grégoire had worn in the painting downstairs. I sat back in my chair, irritated for reasons I didn’t understand.
“Half that,” Leo said. “No more. However, I will also pay expenses for you and salary for your crew. Take or leave it, mon petit chat.”
I thought about it, remembering the room full of books and papers in the basement, and decided to up the ante. “Leave it,” I said. Leo looked up from admiring his winnings, surprise on his face. Yeah, he hadn’t expected me to refuse. I adored surprising a vamp. It happened so seldom with the old ones and their expressions were priceless. “This is a negotiation, so you don’t get to demand. Half, plus expenses, Younger’s salary, and also access to everything in every vamp database, library, and storage available to you, no matter the language, about the history of witches and Mithrans, and the existence of other magical beings. I want access to anything and everything that you and any of your people have.”