Eli looked up from my feet and murmured, “Let it out. Let it go. Don’t think, just move.”
I laughed, the sound deep and cool and . . . ready. I lowered the stakes to him, and he took them with a soft click of metal on metal.
I felt the padded mat beneath my feet as I walked toward Leo. I matched my body to the beat, measured by the percussionist, famously shaking a plastic bottle partially filled with rocks. The music and the lyrics were primal and intense. And Leo watched me, standing with his shoulders rolled forward, his hands open and empty. Blood dried across his skin. Bruiser’s blood. Dangerous, this being. Deadly.
Yet as Leo took a breath, the movement of his ribs looked oddly angelic—fallen angel–style. His hair was loose, curling around his face like strands of black silk. His sclera was white, centered with human-black but wide, dilated pupils. But he didn’t exhale.
There would be no tells with this one. No hitches of breath for a being who didn’t need to breathe. No change in tension for a being who didn’t depend on a heartbeat to move.
From deep, deep inside, Beast padded. Settling into my blood and flesh and bones. And I realized that she was tugging with the silver leash that tied her to Leo. I felt him shift his weight, only a hair, onto his back foot. Beast was sharing her binding with me.
Letting me use it.
And Leo watched me move in sync with the slightly offbeat blues guitar. Again, I started laughing, a purr of delight. Bonamassa was singing the line “lifting me up.” My hips moved in a little figure eight. Enticing.
Leo struck, kicking vamp-fast.
But I wasn’t there anymore. I was three feet to the side. And Leo had a claw mark on his chest, centered over the spiderweb of scars. Bright blood welled to the surface, long, thin, deep gores. Beast claw streaks. I clenched my fist and felt her claws press into my palms.
Crap. My hands had shifted.
“First blood,” Leo said, “to my Enforcer.”
I raised my left and made a tiny come hither gesture as Joe sang the words “tearing me down.” I didn’t look at my hand, but I saw the golden pelt that covered my arms halfway to my elbow, and the human-shaped hands with bigger knuckles, longer fingers, and the extruded Beast claws.
My toes spread and gripped the padded mat, better footing than a human foot. But I didn’t look down. I took a short step to the right and flitted my fingers again. This time it was a come-and-get-it gesture. And I grinned, showing my blunt human teeth.
Leo took a breath. Time slowed, viscous as Bruiser’s drying blood. The silver chain deep inside quivered in warning. Leo’s muscles rippled, his fists striking, feet shoving, body twisting, torquing power into the move.
I didn’t block. I shifted back a step, his fists passing so close I felt the air cut my skin at the jaw and brush across my chest. The music ground deep, the offbeat percussion giving my hips a swivel as I stepped into Leo’s move and let his momentum carry him back across my leg, his balance failing. I caught his arm and rolled him over my thigh, swung him around, back to his feet. I danced to the side, landing strikes as I moved, at kidney, spleen, and circling around to his front, pounded the soft tissue between his ribs, and lower down at the soft spot just slightly above the navel. Kill targets had he been human, and had this duel been with blades. The significance of the placement wasn’t lost on Leo, who grunted with surprise, and what might have been delight.
Instead of dying, Leo laughed and his eyes bled scarlet. But his fangs stayed up, locked away. Vamps can’t laugh and vamp out at the same time. It wasn’t possible. But Leo . . . was doing it.
We danced around each other, feet out of sync with the music, but somehow in sync with each other, as I led him by the silver chain of the binding. “Come on, Leo,” I murmured. “Dance with me.”
“Dance of blood and death,” he murmured back. And he kicked, so fast I didn’t see him move. The blow landed, hard, knocking out my breath. I dropped and rolled and sucked in air that ached. As I was coming up, Leo kicked again. I ducked and bent my body inside the kick, against his thigh, shoulder to his groin. And I hit his knee with a well-placed elbow. It snapped. A crippling strike had he been human. He toppled. Over me. I rolled out, landing two more blows on his torso. Found my feet.
Leo was standing. And he was laughing. “Come, my Enforcer. Is that all le petit chaton avec les griffes has for me today?”