Dark Queen Read online

  “How so?”

  “Before you were born, our father told me your name. He told me to take care of you. Instead, if your tales are right, I attacked and injured a white soldier, and I was forced into the snow to live or die. I let my anger endanger you, after our father took my word that I would protect you.”

  “You were a child of five or six.”

  Ayatas’s finger was still touching the back of my hand, the sole point of contact between us. The touch was warm and unexpected. “I failed.”

  “I . . . You . . .” He stopped and began again. “You need forgiveness, but I don’t need to forgive. There is nothing to forgive.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know what I needed. What I wanted. But my tears and my inability to meet the eyes of my brother said I needed something.

  He said, “In the way of the yunega, I offer you pardon and absolution. You should not carry this burden any longer, my sister.”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t carried the burden of taking care of Ayatas. I hadn’t remembered it until the single word triggered the memory. Gvhe.

  I believed. And I didn’t. I halfway believed because Ayatas had the proof of words and partially remembered tales, and I had fragments of memory. I halfway believed because I wanted it to be true. I disbelieved because the timing of it was too convenient. Because magic might fool me, or he might have heard old stories that he had made his own. But mostly I disbelieved because Eli had been right. Ayatas hadn’t come for me. The man claiming to be my brother could have come months, even years earlier. He could have told the Elders to stuff it and come anyway. It’s what I would have done. He could have made the pilgrimage to meet me when it wasn’t killing two birds with one stone. When Bruiser hadn’t turned him down for arranging a meeting with Leo. When I was not an afterthought. Would a brother make finding his sister an afterthought?

  These deliberations allowed my breath to come easier. My tears to dry. I slid my hands to my lap and raised my eyes to his. I inclined my head in the way of The People, an acknowledgment without agreement. “I have work to do. I hope you will understand and excuse me.” Polite, as The People are unfailingly polite except when they kill their enemies. I stood in preparation to go to my room, the kitchen chair scraping across the floor.

  “Jane.”

  I stopped. Tilted my head so I could see him from the corner of my eye, my hair falling across my vision, hiding my face.

  Ayatas was sitting so that his long black hair tumbled forward in a shimmering veil. It coiled on his thigh and dropped below the chair seat. Hair just like mine. “Even if you will not believe that I am your brother, I know you accept that I am skinwalker.”

  I nodded. “I accept that.”

  “I know the timing is bad, but—” He broke off as if wanting to stop. But he couldn’t. “I’m asking you to teach me the half-form that you fight in.” The words came out rash and almost angry.

  Maybe I should have gotten mad at his presumption, like the lost child I had been, and told him to get out. Maybe I should have been nice, like the sister I might be, and said yes. Instead, I felt nothing, and so answered as the woman I was, with all the formality of the job I had. “Your request has been made known to the Enforcer of the Master of the City of New Orleans. It will be considered at a time of my choosing and you will be informed of my decision.”

  Ayatas rose from his chair. “Ayatas FireWind awaits the decision of his sister. Not the Enforcer of the Mithrans.” Quietly he left the house.

  CHAPTER 8

  You Can Try, Little Kitten

  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 s
loped 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.”