I nearly choked. Primo?
Adelaide said, “The 1990 has a saturated dark ruby-purple color, an amazing nose with copious quantities of sweet black fruits, warm new oak, flowers, and smoky bacon fat. To the mouth it has a superb concentration of flavors, a sweet, expansive texture, like butter on the tongue, and a . . . mind-boggling”—she paused, and licked her lips as if tasting it already—“long”—she smiled, her lips lifting slowly—“finish. I tasted it when it was young. I am honored that you open a bottle now.”
“What about Bruiser?” I asked, feeling the floor shift beneath me. I had known things were changing, but, this was . . . official. Too much, too soon.
“George is no longer suitable as the primo of the master of a city,” Leo said languidly, watching Adelaide. “He has made other choices and, as Onorio, has other duties.”
Adelaide was watching Leo back, her attention totally ensnared. And willing. And then I heard her description of the wine, as if it echoed from the tapestried walls. Crap. She was talking about a whole lot more than wine. So she would refuse his sexual attention while she was just sworn to him, one of the hoi polloi, but if she got the perks, she would add sex into the deal? Or maybe as long as it was her choice and not part of a contract, she was willing? Human women had always been confusing to me, even back in the children’s home. Del just took that confusion to new heights.
“You have other questions, my Enforcer?” Leo asked, not looking at me.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice too loud. “You knew about the witches disappearing in New Orleans, didn’t you?” I had Leo’s attention again and it wasn’t the hot and sultry look Del had been receiving. For me, his eyes were bleeding black, and his sclera were taking on a faint tinge of pink. Not that I cared. Fury for Bruiser and anger at all the freaking vamp games burned hot through my veins. I stood and leaned in to his stare. “And I bet you knew about the witches in Natchez and the way the vamps were rising as revenants—a different kind of revenant.”
I could see the truth on Leo’s face. He had known everything. He had known it all. And he had never done a single blessed thing to stop it or warn me or fix it or . . . I stepped from my chair. “And instead of warning me, you let me go to Natchez, unprepared, to deal with it.” A possible conclusion settled around my brain like a tourniquet. A headache started over my eyes and Beast hissed deep inside. Now I had the whole picture. “You were trying to find a way to keep from taking the problem to the European Council. You and your uncle before you were trying to keep the Council out of this situation and out of your territory for two hundred years. And to accomplish that, you signed and kept a contract with the Damours, let witches die by the dozens for centuries, and let Naturaleza in Atlanta and later in Natchez put witches into a circle and drain them slowly dry. You let them run a slave breeding ground in Chattanooga. You knew all about it. Everything.
“And”—I closed my eyes, letting the final picture come into focus—“you brought Adrianna back to life after I staked her because you thought she might know things you wanted to know. You kept her alive even though she was a ticking time bomb because she did know things.” I opened my eyes and met Leo’s. “And you let all that happen because you knew there were magical artifacts on these shores and you wanted them.”
Leo sat back in his chair. His power rose in the room, a slow, coiling draft of energy, familiar and spicy, like black pepper on my tongue, this time mixed with blackberries and anise, a strange combination that signaled anger to the hind reaches of my brain. I backed two steps and my knees touched the chair, but I stayed standing.
“The witches are my affair. You are not my adviser, nor my priestess; you are my Enforcer. It is a position of power and honor, which you claimed, and which I allowed even though, like George, you are not one to be bound. Within the confines of that position, you will not work against my policies, my strategy, or my needs. And I will have respect from you, Jane.”
I flinched and sank into the chair. He didn’t know that Beast was bound. From Leo’s viewpoint, everything I’d done, everything that had been done to me, had been a decision on my part or had led from a decision or choice I made. A court of vamp law might suggest that even the involuntary feeding and binding had resulted directly from the moment I had claimed to be Leo’s Enforcer. By claiming the position, I had tacitly agreed to be fed upon and bound. The Mithran version of a forced Vulcan mind meld had been the result. It had been an intimate violation. Not my fault. Not my fault, some small logical part of me stated.