Broken Soul Read online

  “Yeah. Vamps don’t care about light. They care about security. Why don’t you knock out that wall there”—I pointed to the back of the house—“and put in some French doors and tall windows if you need light in the daytime. Just be sure to get the engineer to work with you on the sizes and necessary measurements of the bullet-resistant glass and the support I beams for the stories above.”

  Her red-lipsticked mouth made a moue of surprise. “You’d let me do that?”

  I looked at Derek and the construction boss and the architect, who had wandered over to listen. They all nodded. “Sure. So we’re good on not moving the ovens?”

  “We’re fine.” She looked down at her notebook and wrote Copper Cladding in big letters.

  Derek walked away, shaking his head. I followed, not understanding his reaction. I didn’t usually bother with multisyllabic words like consternation, but that was how Derek looked—consternated. Derek and I had had some issues over the months when I’d been under contract to Leo, and while some matters had worked themselves out, some hadn’t. I wasn’t sure they ever would. As soon as we were out of earshot I said, “What’s with the head shaking?”

  “You solved everything. That woman was driving me nuts. She had been driving everyone nuts for over an hour.”

  Crap. I really was turning into a girl. When the heck had that happened? I kicked a chunk of two-by-ten out of the way. Maybe a little too hard, in my frustration with my life, as it hit a freshly hung piece of wallboard and bounced back at me. I jumped out of the way, but the wall now had a huge dent in it. Dang it.

  But I owed Derek an answer. I said, “You were trying to answer her questions without trying to solve her problems. I solved her problems. It’ll cost Leo another small fortune, but with what he’s spending on this house, what’s a few thou more?”

  He looked confused and mimicked me by kicking a cut piece of two-by-four out of his way. His didn’t cause any damage. “So . . . I need to solve problems, not answer questions?” He stopped at a cooler and passed me a can of Coke. He took a Mountain Dew for himself. We popped the tops and sipped as he considered my answer.

  Derek led the way out the front door and partway down the steps, which had been salvaged and re-mortared from the burned original house “because they are part of history,” according to the expensive architect. We sat on a step, looking out over the property and the massed vehicles. I listened to the myriad conversations on the work space, watched a helicopter on the horizon, and saw a black SUV drive slowly past the entrance to Leo’s place. Seeing it cleared my head. “Make sure security is here all night,” I said to Derek. “Someone’s been tailing me, and might have been tailing others.”

  Derek was instantly alert, and any anxiety over his lack of personnel problem-solving skills slid away. “I can put a shooter there.” He pointed across the property to the barn. “There’s a nice spotter location on top. Flat, protected from wind. We could put another guy inside the house. Talkies and we’re good to go.”

  “Yeah. Do that. Now, you want to tell me what else is up? Because you’re—” I stopped dead. Spilling pissed-off pheromones. Nope. Can’t say that. “Upset.” Yeah. That would do. “More upset than just dealing with a construction site and a decorator.”

  Derek frowned and studied the barn where he could put a shooter. He didn’t look at me at all when he said, “It’s this Enforcer stuff.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, drinking from my can, waiting for him to get to the point.

  “How’d you deal with the blood-drinking part? And the sex part?”

  I pulled in a breath that was part Coke and coughed. And coughed. Which wasn’t planned but was really handy for thinking of an answer to the sex part of the questions—which I totally had not expected. After about ten seconds’ worth of coughing, during which Derek’s face told me all sorts of things, I realized that he and Leo weren’t having sex, but that Leo had come on to him, with that whole vamp-blood-makes-it-feel good thing. This was delicate territory. And despite my win with the decorator, I wasn’t so good at delicate territory.

  I rolled my Coke between my palms, deciding that the bare truth was my best choice. “Long story short: When I got here, I wouldn’t let Leo drink from me. Not ever.” I sipped my Coke and it burned going down, making me cough more. When I spoke again my voice was hoarse and rough. “I was afraid that if he tasted my blood, it would have given away my skinwalker heritage. But I got mauled when I first got to New Orleans and I couldn’t figure out how to tell him no when he offered to heal me. He healed my arm, got a taste, and he didn’t know what I was. So I was safe. Then I stupidly used a nonexistent Enforcer status to get something done.”

  “I remember. You claimed to be his Enforcer without knowing what it meant.” Derek was darkly amused. “That was in Asheville, right?” I nodded. “Not the brightest thing, there, Legs.”

  “Yeah. Stupid, I know, especially by Mithran law. When he needed me to be his Enforcer for real—” I stopped. This was way more confessional than I wanted to get with Derek. I didn’t want him this close. I didn’t want to share. I bent my head to my knees and wrapped my arms around them, hugging myself. Thinking. Rocking slightly back and forth on the front stairs.

  If I was honest, I didn’t want to say the words aloud to anyone who didn’t already know. And I didn’t want to look at my reasons for not looking at the event again. Meaning I was a coward who needed talk therapy. “Crap,” I muttered.

  I forced myself to go on, gripped my knees so tight it hurt, talking so fast it was a garbled strand of words. “When he needed me to be his Enforcer for real, Leo was within his Mithran legal rights to make it happen. Bruiser had been injured and his mind wasn’t working. His ability to do or think anything of his own will was gone. Mentally he was”—my free hand made flapping motions before re-gripping my knees—“basically a puddle of goo.” Bitterness laced through my words when I continued. “Leo used compulsion to force Bruiser to hold me down. Then the Master of the City forced a blood feeding and binding on me.”

  My breath ached on the words, way deeper than I’d expected.

  Derek cursed softly. I smelled his shock and his protective instincts as they kicked in. It was an odd scent from a man who didn’t trust supernats, and who surely didn’t trust me. I didn’t look at him, watching the helicopter as it moved away on the horizon. Seconds ticked by, neither of us talking, not looking at each other, staring out over the cars and trucks. High over the front drive, a hawk circled, riding the air currents. Gliding. Hunting. Free.

  “It’s taken me some time to get over it,” I admitted long after the silence had become uncomfortable. “Okay, I’m still getting over it. I got some revenge, which helped, but not as much as I thought it would, to be honest. Mostly . . . I’ve just had to work through it. I’m a skinwalker. I understand the animalistic need to dominate another creature. In lots of animal life, especially mating rituals and pack dominance fights, one animal dominates another. Animals accept it or die fighting it. But I’m not an animal.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I smiled cynically at my own thoughts but Derek wasn’t looking at me. I went on. “Resistance is normal for me. I resisted. He partially bound me. I found a way free. Now he’s apologized to me for taking by force what was his by legal right—according to his point of view—and might have been his by a more, mmm”—I searched for the words—“more socially acceptable means, had he tried to go that route.” I glanced at Derek, gauging his reaction.

  Derek frowned harder. He had a fresh marine haircut, which was a pretty dreadful lack of style but he made it work, especially with that frown. It pulled his face down hard and made crevices beside his nose and down along his mouth. His dark skin had a slight sheen in the day’s heat. “I don’t understand,” he said finally.

  I frowned back at him. “To be the permanent Enforcer, you have to be bound at least a little, but humans have a choice,” I said. “Being a blood-
meal doesn’t have to be painful or degrading or sexual. It can be simple. A few drops so he can read you, and know you’re not compromised by another vamp. So he can know and feel your loyalty to him.”

  “Like drinking a few sips from my wrist. Nooo.” He flapped a hand. “No other stuff. No sex stuff.”

  If Derek had been white, the blush would have been scarlet. As it was, his skin went darker and his flesh smelled of a mixture of anger/shame/worry. “Yeah. Like that,” I said. “It depends on what you want. What you need. What you can handle.” How much of your soul you are willing to give up for the price Leo is offering. But I didn’t say that. Derek was already there.

  He held his head in both hands, scratching it. Maybe using his upraised arms to hide his face from me. “I need my mama alive.”

  “Ah.” I felt weird being in the position of comforting him, of being all Florence Nightingale or Mother Teresa or one of those loving, caring women that I had no idea how to be. But . . . maybe I didn’t have to be any of those.

  I said, almost harshly, “Let me get this right. If Leo’s drinking your blood felt painful, then it’d be okay when he drank from you? But it feels good, and you’re all macho, and so the drinking gets mixed up with the feel-good part of your brain. Then your little brain starts to think sex and your big ol’ macho self goes all homo-terrified on you, right? And that petrifies you because . . . I don’t know. You’re a marine, and your head gets all wonky?”

  Derek’s mouth opened as he started to deny it, so I went all guy on him. I slapped the back of his head. Hard. “What am I? Your shrink? Life sucks and then you get sucked on. And sometimes it feels good. I’m not saying to like your body’s reaction if you don’t swing that way. But get over it. Do the job. Get your mama well. Or quit and hope for modern medicine to heal her.”

  Derek’s eyes filled with tears, quickly gone. If he’d been a big-cat, the look he gave me would have been a snarl, all teeth. His muscles bunched; his balance shifted, ready to attack me as my words penetrated his thick skull.

  “You made a deal with the Devil,” I said, “and now it’s time to pay. As to feelings,” I snorted, “talk to a priest or a counselor about the gay part. Or talk to Leo. Lack of pain and having Leo’s mouth on your wrist isn’t the same thing as getting laid or turned into a sex toy. Drinking from you is the way Leo protects himself. And he knows you don’t like it.”

  Derek looked at me in surprise, his anger melting away. “Say what?”

  “You had to know that. He’s reading everything you feel as he drinks. Dude. He’s playing with you the way a cat plays with its dinner. It’s his nature. So you can accept that it feels good and decide that it doesn’t have to lead to sex, or you can tell him it bothers you. Honesty might make him quit the predator games. Leo will accept it either way. And like I said, he can make it hurt if that makes you feel better.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Derek cursed, bending his head back down. More embarrassed.

  Out front, a black SUV drove in front of the driveway, going the other direction from the last one. To Derek I said, “I think that’s the same SUV that went by earlier. How fast can you get someone out to the road for the next pass and get a look at the plate?”

  “I don’t have any of my guys here. I— Wait.” Derek, for all that he was having a crisis of manhood, stood and shouted a name. “Mannie. You still got the feet?”

  “My brother, I got the feet and the hands. They wasn’t hurt when I got sacked in my last game.” He tapped his head. “Only the old brain box.”

  “There’s a black SUV cruising past out front. Get out there and get a look at the license plate next time it comes by. Make sure they don’t see you.”

  “I’ll take a pic with my phone, bro.” Mannie dashed down the drive to the street.

  “Mannie Dubose? From LSU? Injured in his second season with the Saints?” I didn’t live with a sports nut for nothing. Eli loved the Saints.

  “The same. Nearly lost his eyesight when he had bleeding behind his eyes. Quit with his signing bonus, two years pay, and a well-crafted injury bonus. Now he and his dad own the construction company that his ole man used to work for. They mighta lost a football career, but they used the money right and parleyed it into a family business. He’s good people.

  “Legs,” he added, without looking at me. “Thanks. I needed the head slap.”

  “Not the tough talk?”

  He pursed his lips to keep from grinning. “Eh. I mighta needed that too.”

  “Talk to Leo. Or I’ll slap your head again.”

  “You need me to hurt Leo for what he did to you?”

  This time I smiled, feeling all mushy inside. Derek might not be family—yet—but in his own way, he was a friend and that was good enough for now. “Nah. He gave me a big honking boon when he asked for forgiveness.”

  Derek’s eyebrows did that soldier-micro-twitch thing that Eli’s did when he was surprised. “He asked your forgiveness? For real? Leo?”

  I shrugged with my eyebrows. Turnabout was fair play.

  “A big honking one, huh? Not bad, Legs. Not bad.”

  We sat in the sun for a while until Derek’s phone rang. “It’s parked down the street, bro,” Mannie said on speakerphone. “I zoomed in and got the plate. Sending it to you now. Also a shot of the driver, but it’s not too good through the glass.”

  “I’ll send it to the Kid,” Derek said to me. “I gotta get back to work.”

  “Later,” I said.

  We bumped fists. I pulled out of the driveway, passing and waving to Mannie, and then passing the empty SUV. No driver. Or rather, a driver lying down in the seat. That. Because an SUV appeared behind me a mile or so later. I lost him by taking a back road, one that was sinking below the water table in this alluvial landscape. Two turns later, I was free to go where I wanted. People were so stupid sometimes.

  CHAPTER 6

  Carrying a Vamp Head

  Hours later, I looked at myself in the mirror on the closet door. I was wearing one of the first outfits I had bought when I got to New Orleans, clothes purchased because it was too hot for my mountain wear, and because they were colorful and beautiful. Now I knew enough about clothing to recognize that they were made of inexpensive fabric, with inferior workmanship. I knew that the seams were sewn cheaply, the drape wasn’t quite right, and the skirt would likely last only a few washings before it lost its shape entirely. Dumb, stupid stuff to know, of no value in a world where my most important bit of knowledge should be how sharp the blade, how well it was balanced, and how true the sights on the gun. But I’d bought the clothes with my own money and with my own taste. I’d worn the outfit on the first night I’d gone dancing in New Orleans, my first week here.

  The silk, calf-length, asymmetrical skirt was patchwork, a dainty, flared, delicate confection of tiny, two-by-four-inch patches of teal and purple, a skirt for an impoverished princess. The hem flipped when I danced and the elastic waist rode low on my hips if I wanted it to, or higher, on my waist. I’d put on a few pounds of muscle since I bought it, but most of that was in my shoulders and thighs and the skirt still looked good on me. Rad, as the salesgirl had said.

  I wore the skirt low on my hips, paired with a peasant top with a drawstring neckline. The blouse was made of a paler fabric, ocean-teal shading to lavender. The amethyst-and-chatkalite necklace I’d bought with the outfit hung with my gold-nugget-and-puma-tooth necklace on its doubled gold chain, between my cleavage. And that was something else new. I had cleavage. Well, sorta. At least a valley, if not a crevasse, thanks to all those extra pounds, a very tiny percentage of which had landed as fat on my boobs. I slid my feet into a pair of purple sandals, with ankle straps for dancing.

  I tugged the purple and teal skirt lower on my hip bones, pulling the peasant top lower on my breasts, the tie open with a skin-toned jog bra beneath. Sexy, but showing nothing. The skirt wh
ispered around my calves with each step. I’d worn this on the first night I’d heard Rick LaFleur play the saxophone in the band at the Royal Mojo Blues Company. There had to be a reason I’d chosen to wear this outfit tonight. Was it because Rick was gone, but not totally gone, as in dead and buried? Was it because he had texted me several times since he disappeared with Paka, his new were-black-panther girlfriend, as if keeping in touch with me was important? Not that I had texted back. I wasn’t that stupid. Or was it something else?

  I let my mind wander as I swished on a little bronzer to brighten my skin, drew on some lips in a vamp red, and mascaraed my lashes. I didn’t test the movement of my skirt in the mirror, not like I had that first night. That first night dancing, I’d worn a turban. But tonight, I French-braided my hair into three short sections, secured them together at the crown of my head, and let the rest of the hair fall in a straight sheen of midnight black to my hips. I was the same. And not the same. And Rick was gone. I’d stopped mourning, though sometimes it crept back in. Life sans boyfriend—any boyfriend—could be unexpectedly lonely. I smiled at myself in the mirror, scarlet lips and a dress that was sex on a stick. New beginnings often started with the broken bits and shattered pieces of the old. I was not the dumb girl I’d been a few months ago—that gal’s soul had been broken and put back together with bailing wire and duct tape. And life went on. How corny was that?

  But just because I’d grown up a bit didn’t mean I’d grown stupid. I strapped on a thigh sheath with a vamp-killer and two stakes and stuck two more into my hair. I looked at myself in the mirror again and let the skirt fall slowly over the weapons. Yeah. I was still me. Maybe I was more me than ever.

  The boys were talking when I opened my door, but the chatter stopped when I entered the main room and paused in the doorway. Alex nearly swallowed his tongue and managed, “Shhhh-oot,” instead of what he’d started to say.

  Feeling uncertain again, I bunched my skirt with my hands and said, “Thanks.”