Dark Queen

He stepped back. Taking me with him, half holding me up. His arm around me. And then we were outside, sweeping past the driver and quickly inside the limo. The limo. The one he’d first kissed me in. I slid along the seat, my eyes on him. Only him. The door closed. The privacy shield was up. The driver, whoever it was, was closed away, unable to see, unable to hear. Bruiser slid his hands along my body, his palms hot and raking. Closing on my cell, taking it and tucking it into the small refrigerator. Adding his. Closing the small door.

“Brilliant,” I murmured.

“I had the limo swept.”

I took his shoulders and pulled him back on the long seat. Yanked off his jacket and then his shirt, over his head, sending collar and sleeve buttons popping.

“No listening devices,” he said. “And the driver’s intercom is disabled. No one can listen in.” He shoved up my tunic and his mouth fell onto my breast, hot and wet, through my silk tee. My nails pressed into his shoulders in shock. He sucked hard.

Magic shot between us, scorching and frigid. Everything inside me clenched. I gasped.

Mate, Beast thought. Want mate. Want more.

“Yes,” I said. “Oh God yes.”

Bruiser bit harder. Just beyond the instant when pleasure turned to pain. Scalded and frozen, pleasure and pain whipped through me. “Come,” he whispered.

I came. Throwing back my head. Growling his name, gasping. Shudders raced through me. Electric and fiery and throbbing.

Mate . . .

I screamed. It was the beginning of a long, very long, night.

* * *

• • •

Dawn was lighting the eastern sky when Bruiser half carried me into my house and into my room. I fell into my bed, where I rolled, facefirst on the pillow, unable to move. He tucked the covers over me. “I love you, Jane.”

“I uv ou oo,” I managed.

“I’ll pick you up at ten for the visit with the broadcasters.”

I grunted. And fell deeply asleep.

* * *

• • •

I was still boneless but full of energy and feeling pretty spiffy when Bruiser pulled up in front of the house at ten. The workers were banging and hammering and shouting in Spanish on the third floor. I was dressed in slim pants and a fresh silk T-shirt with a black cowl-neck tunic sweater over it, constructed for access to my tactical holster sports bra/T-shirt for easy access to the weapons harness and holsters near the outsides of my boobs. Jacket. Scarlet lipstick. I wore my hair straight, long, down to my butt. I never wore it like this, but at some point in the long night, Bruiser had told me I had the most beautiful hair he had ever seen. So . . . Down. Long. A straight fall of shimmering black hair.

It wouldn’t be practical if I was fighting. But a business meeting was a different kettle of fish.

Hunt fishes? Beast asked.

Not today. Today we hunt businessmen across a conference table.

Eat businessmen?

Only if they attack us.

Without looking at Bruiser, I slid into the passenger seat. I could feel the heat on my face as I closed the door. He didn’t pull away. I knew he was staring at me. Waiting for me to say something. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, hoping something intelligent would fall out. Instead I said, almost casually, “Last night was fun.”

I could hear the laughter in his voice when he said, “The best part was when you shoved me to the floor. And climbed on top.”

“Ummm.”

“Or maybe when you screamed yourself hoarse. That was good too.”

“Ummm. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Finally he took mercy on me and pulled the SUV into the traffic. “Although the part where you took me in your mouth . . . I was quite keen on that part as well.”

My breath hitched, remembering that part. “You are an evil, evil man.”

“I am. You seemed to like it.”

“Oh, I liked it.” I let a small smile play across my mouth. “Can we do all that again soon?”

“God in heaven, I hope so.”

I laughed.

CHAPTER 6

“The Shoes,” I Whispered

Thanks to the little contretemps in sub-five, the meeting with the broadcasters and the camera crew was being held in an office in the Warehouse District on Tchoupitoulas Street instead of at HQ. Because, to cement paranormal relationships, Leo had hired the Bighorn Pack for the job. While Leo often kept his enemies closer than his friends, this time he wanted his Enforcers to check out the company firsthand.

Leo owned the entire block of three-story red brick buildings with tall windows, sun-faded green shutters, and tiny gallery porches. When we pulled up, Wrassler and Derek were standing out front, the big guy in a short windbreaker-type jacket and Derek in a long trench coat, both open to reveal suits and ties in the Pellissier colors of charcoal and dove gray. We parked and exchanged nods, Bruiser and me following them inside. It was too warm and we all tossed coats and jackets, which revealed that Leo’s part-time Enforcer and his head of security were both heavily armed. Good. So was I. I looked around, finding the unisex bathroom, stairs that led up, and a hallway leading to the back exit.

The ground floor was tile throughout in a neutral tone and there was a large conference room to the left of the entrance with a simple rectangular table and wood-framed chairs with fake-leather upholstered seats. The room was set up for PowerPoint and not much else. Bare-bones, very un-Leo-like. Also un-Leo-like was our little group, what might—in a business situation—be called power players. Enforcer, part-time Enforcer, head of security, and former primo were all in one meeting with Del, Eli, the Tequila boys, and the Vodka boys keeping watch over HQ. It was Operation Shutdown, a plan I had devised to cover any situation where the top security brass were all silent or inactive (meaning dead) and the second-level ops people were in charge. They were practicing, while we were dealing with contagious tail-waggers who might have a traitor on board.

There was a coffee bar near the entry, and Derek started coffee. There were certain requirements in Louisiana business and society, and coffee was always near the top. As he worked, he filled us in. “The meeting is expected to last three hours, to include four wolves, discussions of up-front money, advertising, ease of public access, broadcast requirements, and parental controls. The Roberes will be here,” Derek said, “to sketch out the contracts and handle negotiations.”

Wrassler pulled out chairs in the conference room and we all sat as the coffee started to trickle through the grounds. He dropped down with a grunt and a sigh, as if his prosthetic leg was causing him more discomfort than usual. He said, “Leo approved of them, but Bighorn Pack has references from jobs in Mexico City and Guadalajara. They offered a bundled project with an offshore gambling organization.”

I leaned in, finger tracing the pack’s timeline across a tablet screen, through the last few weeks and months. “Mexico references might intersect with known enemies and hazards. Bighorn Pack split after the gigs there. Is it possible that one pack or the other has been working with a new MOC of Mexico?” The previous MOC had been Jack Shoffru, of the tail-biting lizard emblem. There had been a huge power vacuum when Jack died true-dead and the resultant internal war had been bloody. So far as I knew, no victor had been confirmed. “If the wolves had been there and if they worked with the Mexican fangheads, is that a red flag of some sort?”

Wrassler rubbed his palm over his pinkish bald scalp. “I don’t know. But gambling and Mithrans fighting to the death? Perfect for any MOC who might be looking to move into a vacancy created by the Sangre Duello. Or take out the winner. Maybe the wolves are part of a plan to infiltrate. That’s why the meet and greet here instead of HQ. We make a nice target to draw in, ID, and terminate potential enemies.”

“Oh,” I said. We were bait. Nothing new there. I looked around the area. “No security cameras. We got anything here? Something I’m not seeing?”

“No,” Wrassler said shortly. “Not a damn thing.” The fact that he used language in front of me suggested that he was significantly upset about the lack of security measures.

I took another look around. The furnishings were bare-bones—the kind of slick surfaces that were easy to do a forensic cleanup in case of blood spatter. “Sooo . . . What are we doing here?”