Skinwalker

He backed. I tightened my grip on the bruiser. “You gonna play nice?” I felt him swallow under the pressure of my hand.

When he spoke it came out in a whistle from the pressure I had on his windpipe. “Yes.” I heard truth in his tone, smelled it on his body, along with Leo’s scent of ownership, the smell of vamp. I released my hold. He rolled to his feet and I followed him upright, keeping him between Leo and me. He reached around and shut the outer door. When he moved to face me, in front of and slightly to the side of Leo, I switched the safety on the gun. I was lucky it hadn’t gone off while we rolled around on the floor. It was stupid to wrestle while holding a gun, even while facing down a vamp. Not that I could have figured out a better way. I had been between a rock and a fanged place.

“You don’t smell human. What are you?” Leo said. Trying out his vamp voice on me, smooth and honeyed, and promising me a really good roll in the hay.

“Stop that,” I said. “It doesn’t work on me.”

“She growled, boss,” the bruiser said. “When she took me down.”

“I heard her. What are you?”

“None of your business,” I said.

“Whose blood do I smell?” Leo asked.

“Katie—” I stopped, not knowing what to say. Admitting that Katie had made a mistake by taking too much blood was on a par with saying an adult human had pooped his pants or eaten his own boogers. Really gross or stupid. Accidentally killing prey was a young vamp error, not something an ancient vamp did. Ever. And not the kind of thing a good employee said about her employer. The silence stretched, and Leo’s brow went up. Just one. Waiting.

“I was forced to reprimand a member of my staff.” Katie stood in the hallway, wearing a dressing gown that shimmered like silk. She was clearly naked beneath it, the thin fabric blood free and molding to her thighs. Not what she had been wearing. “May I ask that your blood-servant assist with the transfusion?” she asked. “It is not my intent to lose him.”

I understood immediately. It was okay to nearly kill someone as discipline, but not by accident. Feudal attitudes, something the vamps had left over from, well, from feudal times. I understood it, but I didn’t have to like it.

Leo glanced at his servant and the man looked reluctantly from me to him before he nodded. It was clear he didn’t like the idea of leaving me alone with his boss, but he was willing if Leo gave the go-ahead. Leo inclined his head. Regal, giving permission. Bruiser rolled his head on his shoulders, and I heard two cracks as his spine realigned itself. He gave me a hard look, promising to kill me slowly if I acted out again, and went down the hallway, his booted feet silent on the wood and carpets. Predator silent.

“Your new guardian used a cross on me,” Leo said, holding out his left hand. A livid burn, blistered and seeping, marked his hand, in the shape of the cross. Silver. I wanted to grin but that seemed impolitic. Katie moved to him and knelt at his feet.

“Humble apologies, my master,” she murmured, as her blond hair fell forward, hiding her features. “May I be allowed to offer healing, or do you wish to chastise her yourself?”

Crap. I tensed. Leo lifted one corner of his mouth at my faint motion and speared me with his eyes. I stared back, though I didn’t meet his gaze. Black eyes, coffee-and-milk skin, dark hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders. French lineage, maybe. Aristocratic and elegant. His photos lied. In them he looked ordinary. In person the vamp was drop-dead gorgeous. The drop-dead part would have been funny if I didn’t feel like an insect about to be stepped on.

His smile widened, as if he read every thought in my head, from gorgeous to squashed. “If she dishonors me again,” he said, “I will kill her, rogue vampire to be contained or no.” He held his injured hand to Katie. She did something behind the curtain of her hair and I smelled vamp blood. A moment later, she stood and raised her bleeding wrist to Leo. He took it in one hand and pulled her to him, the motion exposing the side of her body as the robe fell open. The whites of his eyes bled red; the pupils expanded black as he vamped out. He put her wrist to his mouth, bit, and closed his lips around the wound. And he sucked. But his eyes were on me.

I felt the pull of his mouth as if he drank from my wrist. Heat blossomed in my belly. Beast rumbled a growl I just barely controlled. Leo chuckled deep in his throat, drinking. I couldn’t help myself. I slid my fingers around the hilt of the vamp-killer. Those red-as-blood, black-as-death eyes followed the motion. And then looked into my own eyes. I resisted everything I saw there. Everything he made me want. Son of a freaking sea lion. This guy was good. Powerful as the devil himself. I looked away, at the floor, knowing he saw it as weakness.

I felt the cross grow warm and tucked the silver icon in my back pocket, hoping the glow didn’t attract Leo’s attention. No one knew why vamps reacted to Christian symbols and the symbols to them, and I didn’t figure that now was the time to ask.

Moments later, Leo pushed Katie away. He raised his left hand, inspected the mostly healed skin, and wiped the blood smear from the corner of his mouth. And licked it. He was laughing at me. I could see it in his eyes. He was also testing to see if the sight of a vamp drinking would shock, repel, or excite me. Beast was interested, from a strictly predator standpoint, but that wasn’t the emotional reaction Leo was watching for.

Katie knotted the belt of her robe, her eyes glittering behind the veil of her hair. “You may go,” she said softly to me. “Report back before sunrise. You may speak to the girls then.”

I was dismissed. And Katie was ticked off. I nodded once and backed down the hallway. In the office, the bruiser was attaching an archaic-looking, Y-shaped tubing from a girl to Troll. The right blood type was the redheaded girl with emerald eyes, Rachael. From her place on the couch, recumbent, she stared at me, expressionless. The bruiser followed her gaze.

I put Troll’s weapons on the huge desk, noting that the center part was darkly tanned leather, worn and distressed. “Troll will need these,” I said. “Tell him thanks.”

“Troll?”

I tried to smile and found my mouth didn’t want to. “Tom.” I pointed to his patient. His expression altered with amusement and he pointed at himself. “You’re Bruiser,” I said.

“I have a name,” he said. “I’m George Dumas.”

I looked him over. Six-four, weight lifter, but not to bulging excess; rather, he was slender and toned, brown eyes and hair. Clean-looking with a sculpted nose, long and sort of bony. I had a thing about noses and his was primo. Not that I would tell him. “So what,” I said, not sure why I was being rude except that I didn’t want to express an interest in someone who might become an enemy. His eyes widened at the insult.

I left the room and took the narrow hallway to the back door, the one that led to the garden. As I pulled the door closed behind me, I heard the doorbell ringing. Probably the first of Katie’s Ladies’ party customers. Not something I wanted to see.

I went back over the wall and got ready to shift. Time to hunt.

CHAPTER 6

Paranoid sometimes pays off

I groomed cow blood from face and paws, studying night. In mountains, moon was bright, different light but same shape. Edges sharp. Hungry moon. Not hunting moon, not round and full. There, stars were so many even Jane couldn’t count them. Here, surrounded by man, moon was dull, stars few. Stars hid near man. Man and his false light.

Clean of cold beef blood, I breathed in stink of human blood and vampire spittle on cloth she left under plant bowl. Dead humans and it. The sick thing. Mad one. Short, fast sniffs drew scent deep inside. And . . . found something new. Not noticed before. Opened mouth, extended tongue, hard, lips back. Pulling scent across roof of mouth. Yessssss.Plant pot rocked. Predator hackles rose. Placing paw on pot, batted it. Pot rolled. Scattered plant, roots, soil. Alive? Motion like porcupine. Not good eating. Pain. Careful of spines, batted again. It rolled. Injured!

Crouched. Unsheathed claws. Swatted. Hard. Pot-animal rolled to bench, hit, broke. Kill! Bounded up. Landed crushing weight on pot. Gripped broken body in claws. Soil spilled out from split like blood. Injured prey again pot, now broken. Sniffed, smelling man-blood on base. Smell of mad one. And faint odor of . . . other. Scent not in memory, not exactly. But also familiar. I rumbled deep. Spat.

Hunt. Command from deep inside. She was impatient. Shoved her down. Silent.

I flexed shoulders and leaped to fence top. Paused. Landed on other side. Crept to side of neighbor-den, beneath bushes. Into night. Circled block to front of Katie’s. Mad one, rogue vamp, had been here. Heartbeats ago. Fresh/rotten scent overlay Leo’s and Bruiser’s. It tracked them. Waited in doorway, across street. I counted—two doors down. Watching, hiding in shadows. Rancid reek of excitement, mixed pheromones. Complex odors.

Vamp form of adrenaline, she thought. Knew about adrenaline. Tough meat if slow kill, or long chase. Better eating to lie in wait, drop on prey. Fast killing strike. But sometimes fun to chase, play with food. Difficult to choose. Tender meat or fun.

Scent called. Strange smell that almost was. Sick thing moved on. Keeping to shadows, its excitement potent. Hunting. Cars passed. Followed when shadows fell again, nose low. Smelled prey-scent beneath mad one’s footsteps. Human female, walking. Sex-smells, many partners. She was unmated, searching. Loneliness was forceful, buried in scent.

I remembered true mating, before she came. Before we became Beast. Her surprise stirred, deep inside. Memories of before times were buried deep, beneath after times with her. Shocked her. She struggled. I batted away thoughts like plant pot. Useless. Later. Hunt.

More-than-five blocks later, smelled fresh blood. Crouched in shadow of alley wall. Crept forward, paw, paw, paw into darkness, belly hairs dragging across dirty stone of man-road. Mad one crouched in man-light. Wrinkled. Dry. Rotted. Stink of rich new blood. Human. Eating sounds. Mad one ate without regard for thief-of-food. Gray light and blackness formed over it. It seemed to shift. To change. Wrinkles faded. Rot smell died.