Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

Three limbed, Rick crawled over Kem’s body, as if mounting the dying cat, and placed his mouth at the man’s ear, saying, “My blood to your blood. My will over your will. Moon to moon.” His voice dropped to a growl. “You are mine.” Even deeper, the growl nearly as deep as Brute’s: “Shift.”

I felt the were-magics sparkle through me and over my skin like an electrified mist, scalding and frigid at once. Kemnebi’s flesh began to lose cohesiveness. A pale fog sifted from his skin, blurring. Dark lights sparkled through the haze, looking like black crystals. Kemnebi was the first were-creature the human world had ever seen, the first I had seen shift, all on TV when the paras came out of the closet.

The black lights surrounding him darkened, deepened. His bones popped and crunched as they shortened or lengthened, the joints changing shape. Black hair sprouted over the visible part of his body and his spine curved in and then arched out. The feline canines in his gums elongated and his jaw and skull took on catlike contours. His flesh rippled, stretched. Rick released my hand and bent to the side, still crouched, still holding his own shape in the midst of the were-energies. Three minutes passed, and at last a breathing, black-coated jungle cat lay on the floor in the pool of blood and ruined clothing he had lost as a man. In the shadows, the muted spots of the leopard weren’t visible at all.

Rick . . . held his human shape.

I stepped away. Checked the ceiling. The grindy was staring at Asad, as if he might taste good. He might have had vampire help, but I had a feeling that the alpha cat here, a bigwig in the International Association of Weres and the Party of African Weres, had engineered this visit to sub-five, though maybe the outcome had been a surprise. Had the werewolves been supposed to start a were-vamp war by killing the SOD or kidnapping Brute, further weakening Leo’s power base and keeping him distracted from Titus’s actions? Crap. Plans within treachery within peril.

Nantale joined Rick and the black leopard on the floor, Nantale pulling the large cat onto her lap and scratching his ears. Rick stood to his feet, looming over his former enemy, the man he had just saved, his hands fisted at his sides, his clothes bloody. My ex was a seriously pretty man, even caught up in whatever emotional whirlpool he was swimming in, even with the heavy silver streaks in his black hair and the deeper lines etched into his skin.

I took several slow steps back, closing the distance to Bruiser. I stopped when my shoulders nestled against the warmth of his chest. One arm closed around me again and he whispered, “I don’t think anyone could have done better, considering that Kem attacked and the cats had been plotting something involving the Son of Darkness. You poled the waters well.”

Poling the waters was an old Louisiana phrase that meant I had steered my way through the currents and the obstacles. I wasn’t used to praise of any kind and I ducked my head in pleasure. This was as close to bliss as I ever got, being with Bruiser, knowing I was loved, accepted, approved of. But I had work to do. I touched his hand in apology and stepped away.

Rick knelt again. Kem batted Rick’s hand with his large paw; head-butted Rick’s chest, knocking him to his backside on the clay floor; crawled into his alpha’s lap; and curled up, covering Rick’s legs and most of his torso. He plopped his head on Rick’s knee. Rick looked as surprised as I felt. “What am I supposed to do?” Rick asked, finding my eyes in the shadows.

“This is the tricky part,” I said.

Asad explained, his voice no longer bored, as he bent and stroked Kem’s side. “A blood beta is . . . domesticated. Tamed. He will do or be whatever you need him to be.”

“But alive,” I said. “Better than dead.”

“His possessions, his position in were society, and his mates are yours,” Asad said to Rick.

Rick jerked slightly, as if he’d stuck his fingers in a light socket. “Mates?”

Asad was clearly amused when he said, in a laconic tone, “Yes. Kemnebi has taken four mates.”

“Four?”

Oops. I hadn’t known about the mates. I had thought the woman who turned Rick was Kem’s only mate.

“If you give them a choice, they will choose to stay with you, as they are accustomed to comfortable lives and will not wish to return to the wild and to hunting, even to find freedom.”

Oh crap. My mind spun through all the possibilities. Crap, crap, crap. I’d screwed up big-time.

“Stay with me?” Rick repeated.

“In Gabon.” Carelessly, Nantale said, “Two are pregnant, in human form, but are expected to have litters of two to four.”

Rick looked as if he had been hit with a shovel and stared down at the oversized cat in his lap. He raised his hands from the furry body as if surrounded by police. “Four wives? Pregnant? I’m not moving to Gabon. No. No way.”

“You will have to decide if you wish the kits to live,” Asad continued, his expression suggesting that he was enjoying this tutelage, “or if you will kill the males at birth. If the males live to adulthood, they will challenge you for their father’s place, so it is common for the new male to kill them just after birth.”

Rick jerked at the violence and cruelty in the careless words. So did I, even though I’d read them in the Merged Laws. “Of course, any females born from Kemnebi’s litters will be yours to take as mate if you choose,” Asad said.

Rick looked addled. Stunned. Pretty much the way I was feeling. My ex turned horrified eyes to me, appalled, dismayed, disgusted. Betrayed. By me. I shook my head and said, “I didn’t know about the wives.”

The wolves had fled. Brute was sitting beneath the SOD, watching every move the heartless creature made. The SOD was hanging on the wall, shackled into place by silver. But things had changed. The SOD was gazing at the congealing pool of were blood near him and his desiccated tongue was lapping at the air as if tasting the scent. He was filthy, his exposed flesh covered in bite marks, some no more than scars, some seeping a watery bloody fluid, some bites Brute’s, some vamp. Joses Santana was being inadequately fed and he had been repeatedly drained. Brute had been biting the bag of bones for weeks, and the grindy had never stopped the abuse. I had no idea what was supposed to happen to a vamp infected with were-taint, but Brute was probably acting under the orders of a heavenly angel—one with wings and everything—so I saw no reason to stop him.

“Jane?” Rick asked, his cat eyes glowing slightly green in his human face. “What am I supposed to do under were law? This is . . .” He stopped and swallowed, as if the words tasted bad. “A tamed cat is a slave.”

Gently I said, “Kem has always wanted you dead. Me dead. I couldn’t save him when he was dying just now. You could, but that act left him your slave. That’s the way things are done in the werecat world according to the Merged Laws of the Cursed of Artemis. But there’s nothing in were law that prohibits slaves from being set free. No were law says you have to keep him or his possessions. No one says you have to kill Kem’s male kits or mate with female kits or be the same kind of evil they are.”

Asad’s head came up in what looked like affront.

Rick looked at Kem, the green in his eyes bleeding back to the Frenchy dark of his human self. He stroked the cat’s ears uncertainly. “I can set him free?”

“Yeah. According to the Merged Laws, he’ll always be your blood beta. That’s part of a higher-ranking cat saving another cat’s life. But I’m pretty sure you can determine the direction of the relationship. Pretty sure you could give him back his wives and determine how he treats his wives and his young.”

Asad said, sounding bored, “But if you set him free and send him home, he will be hunted and killed, and your new wives will be taken by the strongest male.” Asad glanced at me. “It would have been kinder to kill him.”

Bruiser murmured to Rick, “You could make him your msimamizi.”

Rick let out a breath and the tension he had been holding. He raked his clean hand through his hair and said, “Yeah. I could. Kemnebi, I make you my msimamizi.”