Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

Eli snorted. I snorted. Alex looked as if he was fighting tears.

Leo said, “For ten years, until the clan can support itself, Clan Yellowrock will be paid an annual stipend to be negotiated with Alex Younger. Clan Yellowrock will be given a property for a clan home commensurate with Jane’s status as Enforcer to the Master of the City of New Orleans. Clan Yellowrock will be given property that is currently unused, or was never rebuilt after Katrina, to build upon and invest in. Clan Yellowrock is established.”

“I have a house,” I stated.

“You have a personal home,” Leo clarified, “which you may keep. But you need a clan home large enough for scions and the humans who will feed them.”

I thought about the house, the new rooms upstairs, the construction, and the crowded feeling, with people everywhere. How much worse if Leo stuck me with lots of fangheads and their dinners. It would be good to have fewer people in the house. “Ducky.”

“Ducky,” Leo repeated, as if sticking the word and its usage as an affirmative into some spot in his brain not currently occupied with important stuff. Maybe one labeled “Bizarre Modern Words.” “Choose a home from among the Mithran properties. One not currently occupied.” Leo gave me a wolfish grin. “And one not currently claimed or used by a clan.”

Leo had me figured out. I had been gonna take his clan home on the west side. I gave him back a grin, and currently my fangs were bigger than his. Take that, master suckhead. I said, “I’ll take the Rousseau house in the Garden District not far from Grégoire’s place.” If I was gonna get a house, then I wanted one with a pool.

“Oh yeah,” Alex breathed.

“Unlike Ming, who must rebuild her clan from the ashes of what once was, Yellowrock has options. You will choose your clan members from among my own and from among the clanless, those dispossessed by the war that saw the decimation of four clans. Are there those you would choose?”

“Koun,” I said, “if he’ll accept.” Koun didn’t like me, but he was a good fighter. And Leo had known I’d want certain people. He’d sent personal invitations to them. The sneak.

“Brute, the white werewolf. Kemnebi, the African black wereleopard.”

Leo’s left eyebrow lifted just a hair. “Will they accept?”

“Brute just got a new dog bed. He won’t care. Kemmie has no choice. He’s zeta to my beta. I claimed him so I’m stuck with him. Same with Rick LaFleur. Pain in the ass, but there you have it. I didn’t kill them when I should have and now I’m responsible for them. Twenty-twenty hindsight and all that.” Yeah. I’d had to claim my ex and his slave. That sucked.

Leo looked at me with the most peculiar expression, which I couldn’t interpret and so I ignored it and went on. “Evan Trueblood, Angelina Everhart Trueblood, Evan Trueblood Junior, Molly Everhart Trueblood, and the baby she carries.”

I thought Leo was gonna choke on his own fangs in surprise. Yeah. Suck on that one, MOC. I got a witch family willing to join my vampire clan. “Shiloh Everhart Stone and her friends and blood-servants if they are willing. I haven’t asked them. Tex.”

“Who?” Leo asked. I could tell he was off-kilter at the list of names. But it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been thinking about all this.

“Tex. The fanghead from Texas who has the guard dog. I don’t know his name.” I figured Tex could handle Brute if the wolf lost all humanity and became pure wolf.

“Ah,” Leo said. “You will need that bigger clan home.” He was teasing me.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll take any of Katie’s girls who want to stay in New Orleans as long as they understand that they have to go to school, sign on with a vamp as personal blood-servant, or get a job. A real job, not a pay-for-sex job. And I’ll accept résumés from people wanting in.”

“Will you, now?” Leo asked. “Résumés.”

“Yeah. Pieces of paper with job histories—”

“I know what a résumé is.” Dry, wry, amused.

“Right. Sloan Rosen and his family.” At Leo’s confusion, I said, “He’s NOPD. He has a price on his head by gangbangers.”

“I see.” But it was clear that Leo didn’t see.

“Deon, Katie’s chef, if he wants to stay in New Orleans rather than travel to Atlanta. Up to Katie and Deon, but I’m interested. And Wrassler. He’s honest, capable, and my friend.” And he’d been injured because I hadn’t done enough to keep HQ safe. But I didn’t say that. “And lastly, I want Bruiser. George Dumas. I know he can’t swear to me any more than the Roberes can swear to Clan Arceneau and Grégoire. But he’s mine. Not yours.”

Leo’s eyes flashed; his scent flashed too, taking on the acrid stink of scorched parchment. I thought for a moment he was going to vamp out and that I’d have to stake him too. But Leo managed a breath and said softly, “George Dumas. How do you swear?”

Bruiser moved around the table and up to us, his footsteps silent, his scent heated and calming. “I have signed a legal contract with the Master of the City of New Orleans. If the Master of the City will release me from said contract, I will swear to the Dark Queen and to Clan Yellowrock. To the Master of the City of New Orleans through the Dark Queen. And to New Orleans through her.”

Leo was good at hiding his emotions, but even I could see the pain in his expression. “Your loyalties have changed, one who was once my primo.”

Very precisely, speaking slowly, as if he too had seen Leo’s reactions, Bruiser said, “I am Onorio, Dominantem Civitati—Leonard Pellissier, Master of the City and Hunting Territories of New Orleans and the Greater Southeast. I am Onorio. I am loyal.” But he didn’t say to whom he was most loyal and that seemed to tick Leo off.

“If there is war?” Leo asked, his voice silky and far too soft.

“So long as my position as Onorio does not prohibit me, I will fight beside Jane Yellowrock and Leo Pellissier, for the city of New Orleans and her Mithrans and her cattle.”

“And if my territory alters?”

“Then we will decide what to do, my dearest, best friend.”

Leo tilted his head. “Friend?”

“I will always, for as long as the sun rises and sets, so long as I live, be your friend.” Bruiser held out his hands to Leo, his arms open. Expressions flooded across Leo’s face, emotions that ranged from surprise to fury to grief to hope to some things I couldn’t name. Leo looked at Bruiser’s open hands and arms and looked up into Bruiser’s face. Carefully, slowly, Leo stepped toward his former primo. Bruiser’s arms closed around Leo, Bruiser a good nine inches taller, broader, more muscular than the slight frame of his former master. They stood that way, the positions awkward, stiff, as if they had never hugged before as equals.

And then Leo exhaled and dropped his head against Bruiser’s chest and relaxed. “I have always been your . . . friend, my George.” The odd pause before Leo said the word indicated its human peculiarity. Vamps had associates and sex buddies and servants and slaves and scions and drinking pals, but did they ever have friends?

“I know,” Bruiser said. “Relationships change, Leo. Ours did. But that relationship is still bloody strong and faithful.”

“I am uncertain how to have a . . . friend. My last friend was my brother, El Mago. He turned against me and I killed him. Twice. I do not grieve for my brother, George, but I would grieve for you.”

“Then I must make certain that you never need to kill me, my friend.” There was laughter in Bruiser’s voice, the kind of laughter that was also full of tears. “Will you release me from my contract?”

“I will have papers drawn up and sent out today, releasing you from service one day after the end of the Sangre Duello.”

“Thank you,” Bruiser said softly. “You honor me with your trust and your love.”