Beast breathed in his scent with me, claws out but not yet pressing in. Vampire. Much vampire blood, she thought. But still your Bruiser.
He pulled me up, closer, my body crushed against his. I’d never been the little woman before. Ever. But I was now. Weirdly, I liked it. His mouth found mine, his lips hot and soft one moment, hard and demanding the next. My breath caught.
He broke the kiss before I was ready. “When this conflict is done”—his lips moved against my ear—“I’m taking you to my place, and we will not leave until long, long after dawn.”
Heat shot out from the touch of his lips and settled deep in my belly. Spreading out in tendrils of desire and need and pure want. I had to lick my lips before I could answer, half gasping, “Okay. Fine. Sure.”
Bruiser laughed into my hair and swung me to his side, effortlessly. I fell into step beside him. The warehouse had two heavy steel doors and, situated between them, one oversized delivery door. We made our way to it, Bruiser holding me so close my right arm was trapped under his shoulder. He pressed a button, and the delivery door began to slide up, revealing the darkness inside. Our shadows were long and thin across the charcoal-painted cement floor. The room inside was empty, all in gray, with a bar at the back. And doors leading off into the dark. “So, where is the lair?” I asked.
Then it all went to hell.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
But He Didn’t Let Me Go
I smelled/heard/tasted the attack before it came, a single breath, pulled in over my tongue, the taste of betrayal. Scent-laden with pheromones: the clan’s Mercy Blade, vamps; Sabina, the older priestess who lived in the vamp graveyard; Katie and Leo. Distinct pops of displaced air, vamp-speed. Blurs of motion.
My expectations ruined me. I expected Bruiser to release me and move two steps to my side. I expected him to draw a weapon. I did not expect him to freeze, my arm clamped to his side, stealing my single moment of reaction time. I did not expect his whispered “Leo. I—No!” I jerked my arm and twisted my body.
Bruiser held on to me. And my trust was shattered.
Katie caught my free arm, which was reaching for my ankle holster, in a vise. The Mercy Blade stepped on my foot, which was lifting to my hand, and forced it back to the cement floor. Sabina circled behind me and caught my head, twisting my chin up, stretching my neck, holding me still. I was immobilized. The electric door whirred down behind us, enclosing us in the dark. Leo walked out of the echoing shadows, footsteps measured and slow. He was vamped out, his fangs snapped down, eyes all black pupil in bloody, scarlet sclera. Sabina unlatched the clasp on my silver and titanium necklace.
Bruiser swallowed, the sound of his throat moving loud in the sudden silence. “I brought her to you. But . . . This is not what . . .” His voice sounded thick, confused, and trailed off into nothing, but my eyes were on Leo. I understood what was about to happen. My heart thumped hard once and raced to a limping beat. I wrenched my body, fighting for freedom. It was like wrestling shaped steel.
Beast is not prey! she raged inside me.
“George. Bruiser. Don’t let him do this,” I said, my words strangled from the angle of my neck.
“I . . . can’t. I’m sorry,” he said again, real regret clotting his voice, and maybe real pain.
Leo stepped up to me, like a dance step, measured, smooth, like the opening movement to a tango. He was slight but strong, shoulder-length black hair pulled back in a queue with a black ribbon, the end hanging over one shoulder. His eyes, Frenchy black; his face, usually so pale, was now suffused with blood. He looked well fleshed, as if he had been working out and had put on muscle. His usual scent, like pepper and papyrus, was different, with a hint of berries and oak and fermentation, like fine wine. I realized that Leo had fed long and deeply.
His fangs clicked down, three inches of glistening white, his jaw having to do something odd to allow the movement. My breath heaved and my heart raced, and Leo’s eyes bled slowly black and scarlet, vamping out as he smelled my fear. “You, my new Enforcer, have equally served me well and caused me much grief,” he said, the words sibilant and echoing in the empty space. “You found my enemy, which is a service to be well rewarded. But this trouble you have brought to me must end. I have taken council of my advisers and have discovered a way to reward you for both.” He smiled, and my heart sped even faster. Leo chuckled softly and leaned in, breathing deeply of my panic. “Yessss,” he whispered, his lips close to my ear. “And then you will be my new Enforcer indeed. You will be bound to me as the Carta rightly requires. You, rather than my George, will act as my second in the Blood Challenge I will issue to this enemy you have identified.” He smiled and it was snakelike. “That is, if you survive your own duty and fate.”
“Boss—Leo, don’t—” Bruiser stopped as if his throat was choked shut and buried his face in my hair, speaking now to me. “I’m sorry,” Bruiser whispered, the word echoing exactly as Leo’s had. “I can’t stop him. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I could smell his misery, his self-disgust. His compulsion. He was sorry. But he didn’t let me go. He couldn’t. He was blood-trapped, blood-drunk. Compelled. Leo’s slave. This was why vamps were evil. This stealing of will.
“I’m sorry for causing you trouble,” I said, fear like lightning, my words gasping. “And I don’t need any reward for discovering Lucas de Allyon. I haven’t even proved he’s your enemy. I said it’s possible.”
“Your analysis was exemplary and your conclusion valid,” Gee said. “We concur with your hypothesis and analysis. My master’s true-dead uncle had previous . . . rivalry with this Mithran regarding some small territorial disputes following the Civil War. Hence this necessity.”
Leo lifted a hand to my face, calloused along the thumb side of his index finger, and warm from all the blood he had ingested. The Mercy Blade pressed against my knees and they buckled, the vamps riding me down until my knees hit the cool floor, a supplicant, as if begging. I might have thought that Gee DiMercy would save me as he did once before, would have compassion, but he wasn’t human either. And he too was Leo’s.
Bruiser fell to his knees beside me, still holding my arm. I started to threaten Leo, but Sabina yanked down on my bun so hard my hair tore and my scalp bled. I could smell it. I fought to inhale with my head at this angle, my breath sounding tortured. Leo bent over me, his black hair falling forward, to caress my cheeks. From the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of steel and smelled Leo’s blood where he cut himself. One of Sabina’s inhumanly strong hands held my head back; the other hand pinched my nose closed.
“Blood to blood,” Leo murmured, “mind to mind. My power calling to your power.” He bit into my throat. Electric pain cut through me. Magic slammed into me, hot and wet, raw and scarlet, heavy with semisolid things that flooded into my spirit cave and molded to my soul like clots.
Leo’s wrist covered my mouth as I gasped. I breathed down the drops of blood and the magic, choking, feeling it hit my lungs and slam into my bloodstream, my jaws suddenly aching with heavy pressure, my fingertips burning, as Beast struggled to break free. There was nothing of compulsion in Leo, nothing of the painkilling laving of tongue that could have blunted the pain. Nothing of the mesmerizing ability that made the taking of blood pleasurable for the victim. This was control. This was dominance, not the reward he’d promised. If I fought, he’d rip out my throat.