Dark Queen

“La faute est à moi,” Alesha said. Katie whipped her head to her sister, still standing at her side. I had practically forgotten her, in the soap opera of Leo and Katie, playing out on a public stage. Madam Spy was biting her knuckles with her own fangs. Clear, human-looking tears ran down her face. She shook her head. “Je suis la coupable. Tout est de ma faute. Tout est de ma faute.”

“Katherine!” Leo demanded, his voice low.

Katie whipped her head around to Leo.

He said, “Nous vous offrons le salut. Acceptez notre miséricorde.”

I had learned a lot of French just being around HQ, but I must have looked confused because Edmund said from the dais, to me, “Alesha says it is all her fault. Leo offered her mercy.”

Leo said, “Ne me forcez pas à vous tuer toutes les deux.”

Edmund said, “Do not make me kill you both.”

“Nous acceptons votre offre et jurons fidélité,” Alesha said.

Edmund translated, “We accept your offer, and swear loyalty.”

“C’est pour cela que je suis née.”

Edmund murmured, “I will govern. It is what I was born for.”

In English Alesha said, “Your conniving lover made certain that I was trained in duplicity and governance. Ask him.”

“You!” Katie leaned away from Leo, who tightened his arm on her waist. She whipped her eyes wildly around the room as if she felt a noose closing over her neck. Her hair slid out of its coil in an ash-blond swoosh. Her shoulders hunched, fangs flashed in the pale lights. Then she blinked. Slowly, as if understanding was dawning. Katie turned her head in one of those inhuman motions the fangheads had. In a totally different tone, she said to Leo, “You!”

Leo shrugged lightheartedly and kissed the back of Katie’s fingers again. “I must needs come to visit my most loyal servants.” He uncoiled her fist and lifted her index finger; kissed the tip. “There must be comfortable beds and well-trained servants.” He lifted the middle finger. Kissed. “And deep baths.”

Katie laughed, half-hysterical. Her shoulders, which had hunched up for battle, dropped. “No, Leo. Please do not send me from you.”

“I must. You have betrayed me. Do you accept your chastisement, your sentence, and your elevation in status?”

“Tu es une créature maléfique.”

Edmund said, “You are an evil creature.”

Leo said, “I am.”

“However,” Katie said, “j’accepte ton jugement.” I got that one all by myself. I accept your judgment.

“Call for your blood-servants to pack your clothing, Katherine, and go to Fonteneau Clan Home and the Council Chambers of Atlanta. You and your traitor sister have much to heal there in the wake of the previous Master of the City, and his Naturaleza ways.”

Katie threw herself into Leo’s arms and sobbed. “You send me to a dreadful place. They do not even speak French there.”

Leo chuckled and unwrapped himself from her. “They are not so without culture. At least it isn’t Charlotte with its nouveau riche or Charleston avec ses touristes and Yankees, or Richmond with its . . . nothing these days.” Leo had just insulted three of the South’s largest and most powerful cities. I suffocated a grin. He looked at Brandon and Brian Robere, standing beside Bruiser. “Take them. See that they are in Atlanta by morning. My jet is fueled and awaits you. And if mes deux espions attempt to convince you to hide them here in the city or to stay with them in Atlanta, you will stake them in the bellies until such time as they are ensconced in their new clan home.” Katie shot Leo a murderous look and gathered up her skirts in a righteous fury. “Tomorrow night,” Leo continued to the twins, amused by her actions, “you will see that the Georgian Mithrans swear fealty to her, and that any remaining Naturaleza, who refuse to sign the Vampira Carta of the Americas and swear loyalty to their new mistress, are beheaded. I believe that Grégoire has provided you a list?”

Vampira Carta of the Americas? That implied Leo had created his own document.

They nodded again, though this time a bit reluctantly. They were swearing to kill vamps, creatures they loved and served. Onorios could kill easier than I could, and without a single weapon. Bruiser’s gaze had moved from Leo to me, watching my reactions. I tilted my head to show I understood. That I could deal with it. And really, how could I do anything else? I’d killed so many fangheads since I came to NOLA that some vamps referred to me as the Enforcer Executioner. I had so much blood on my hands that I had befouled a baptismal pool when I jumped in. I was something and someone to be feared and hated. I tightened my lips, fighting a self-disgusted quiver, and looked back at Leo, who was still talking to the Roberes.

“With the second dawn, when Clan Fonteneau is entirely in power, you will return here. Alesha will remain in Atlanta to rule. Katherine will return with you for a fortnight. Do you understand?”

The Robere twins nodded once, the actions mirror images.

Katie’s mouth popped open and fangs retracted as she laughed. She threw her arms around Leo. “You are allowing me to return for the Sangre Duello?” Leo speared Katie with a look that held centuries of passion and trust and emotions I had no name for. He nodded and she said, “Je t’aime.”

“And I you. For my Katherine I have one last task. To stand by my side as I fight and live, or fight and die.” Leo released Katie.

The two women curtsied, deeply and gracefully, and remained in that position of obeisance for ten Mississippis before the B-twins stepped forward and each took a hand of the Fonteneau women, lifting them to their feet. As a group, they stepped back and swept from the room.

“The long view,” I muttered. Leo had just punished Katie and Alesha by giving Katie the one thing she didn’t want—responsibility—provided a stable rule for Atlanta by making sure Alesha was there to do the political stuff, permitted Katie to return to NOLA so she could participate in combat, and reset a clock that he could twist in many ways. “Wily and devious and scheming.”

“That was freaking cool,” Alex whispered. He was right, it was. Leo was a snake in the grass. I feared it boded badly for me.

CHAPTER 9

Huggy Huggy Kiss Kiss

“Ming Zoya, former Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis, and Ming Zhane of Clan Glass, rise and kneel before me,” Leo said, clasping his hands together behind his back.

This was unexpected. I looked again at the drain in the floor, but Leo had no reason to want the Mings dead. So far as I knew.

The Asian sisters stood and walked down the aisle to the front, where they knelt at Leo’s feet. Ming Zoya was wearing unrelieved black—pants, shoes, and a jacket that was woven to show a large dragon shimmering across the back when the light caught it just right. Her face was made up with rice powder, scarlet lipstick, and strong black eyeliner, her hair piled high on her head in an intricately braided bun. She was a very different woman from the starved, skeletal, raving insane vamp pulled from a watery pit.

Ming Zhane of Glass was wearing scarlet. Their colors clashed and blended, like lava and stone. The Mings were graceful, delicate, and they carried themselves with deadly balance and purpose, even kneeling.

“Ming Zhane of Clan Glass,” Leo said, “I give you leave to petition the Master of the City of New Orleans for position of Master of the City of Knoxville.”

Ming Zhane fell still, the marble statue stillness of the undead. She took a breath needed for speech and bowed her head to the floor. “My master is gracious, wise, and kind to this most unworthy Mithran. I will file all necessary petitions posthaste.” The sisters started to rise, but Leo spoke again.

“Ming Zoya, former Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis,” Leo said, “will you swear to me to protect and guard my city, to guard me, to fight by my side, to avenge my death, should I fall and die true-dead?”

Ming sucked in a shocked breath, as did all the gathered. “Master?”

“I asked you questions, Ming Zoya.”

“I do. I will. Always and forever.”

“You lost your home. Your people. Your scions and your cattle. Your clan. Yet you showed no fear, you refused to relent, you refused to give in to your captors. I would have you back at my side, as Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis. What say you?”