Eli swept out with his leg. I leaped, kicked with the heel of my foot, straight for his solar plexus, holding back enough to keep it from a killing strike. Too fast for his human reactions, my kick landed. He fell back, grunting with the aftershock. Reached for my leg. But it wasn’t there anymore as I landed, cat-footed. I circled him. He swiveled with me and punched with his right. And the fight was on.
Eli was faster than any human I’d ever fought. Had more muscle mass. Knew some dirty moves I wanted to learn, even as they landed and bruised and the breath huffed and hissed out of me. But I was faster and way stronger than I looked. Eli started to sweat one minute into the fight. At two minutes he was breathing hard. I was grinning. And Beast was landing some moves of her own, one a cat-clawing strike that I had seen alley cats do, right claw going for the face, body shooting back, and back claw spinning up and going for the abdominals. Nasty move.
I was no longer hiding that I wasn’t human, or at least not fully human, not pulling my punches and kicks, and I was faster and stronger with Beast participating. At twelve minutes, by the clock on the dojo wall, I had broken a sweat, but Eli was dripping, stinky, breathing hard, and his cockiness had disappeared. He had a few scratches, maybe a bruised rib or three.
I leaped back and let my hands drop slightly—only slightly—I wasn’t stupid. “Yield.” The word was a growl, low and snarled, and I could feel that my eyes were glowing faintly gold. Grudgingly, Eli nodded once, a downward jut of his chin. “Ravioli?” I asked.
The combo of Italian food and an animal growl must have tickled Eli’s funny bone because his mouth twitched down slightly and then up. He laughed, a soft huff. “One serving of pasta or one small pizza. Per shower.”
There was too much wiggle room in the statement. I clarified, “One fourteen – or fifteen-ounce can of Italian, pasta-based, prepackaged food, or one twelve-inch or smaller pizza from the restaurant or frozen brand of Alex’s choice, or one fast-food meal of his choice, not supersized, to be given for every shower he takes with soap and shampoo, but limited to one food item per day. And for every day he skips a shower, he misses two days’ worth of food.”
Eli thought about that, weighing fast food against his brother’s body odor. “Done.”
“Pizza? This was about pizza?” We both glanced to Daniel, standing with his arms loose and ready and an incredulous look on his face.
In unison, we said, “Yeah.”
Daniel shook his head, but he had a speculative look on his face that boded poorly for our next private sparring session. Daniel wanted to take on the fighter he had seen on the mats today, not the girl he had been working with for several months. Sensei might not want to compete, but that didn’t make him want to fight or win any less.
*
We walked back to my house, Eli ruminating silently, me enjoying the feel of the late afternoon sun beating down on my shoulders. I felt, more than heard, when he had his questions all in order. “No. I’m not. And no. I won’t.”
He laughed again, that soft huffing breath that must have worked well in Ranger recon. “Say what?”
“No, I’m not human. No, I won’t tell you what I am. And while I’m at it, yes.” I let my half smile lift, feeling his eyes on me. “You were more fun than anyone I’ve sparred with in a long time. Even if I did have to hold back some.”
“Hold back?” His voice rose a hair in surprise.
I slanted my eyes at him. “You’re still alive.”
Eli cursed under his breath and put one hand to his solar plexus where my first kick had landed. “Hold back, my as—my backside.”
I just grinned.
Inside my house, the kitchen was clean, the dishes—including the ravioli bowl—were washed and left to dry on a towel by the sink, and Alex was hooking something up to the back of the television in the living room. Only it wasn’t my TV, but a large, flat screen that hadn’t been there before. It was perched on a drop-leaf table I vaguely remembered seeing upstairs, and electronics were scattered across its top: black, gray, and silver boxes, wires, an ergonomic keyboard, and squares of tightly folded paper instructions, which the Kid hadn’t needed to read.
“How much?” Eli demanded.
The Kid glanced up, just now seeing us. He had no security consciousness about him at all. We could have been two ninja attackers or even a couple of Angus steers, and I didn’t think he’d have noticed us enter. “Less than two grand.”
Eli took a breath to yell, I took one to laugh, and the Kid forestalled us both by adding, “I called George Dumas.” He went back to work, his attention on the spiderweb of cables he was constructing.
My stomach took a rolling tumble and I managed to inhale. George was well enough to be taking calls. “And?” I said, sounding almost normal.
“Mr. Dumas approved the preliminary estimate as a start-up to replacing the security system lost by the Master of the City in the fire that took out his house. He gave me all the necessary passwords and I’ll rebuild it from here, tie it in to the system at the Vampire Council Building, the system at the heir’s home out back, and eventually move the operating system to the Pellissier Clan Home when it’s reconstructed.” He glanced up. “Oh. I e-mailed him the prelim estimate on your company’s letterhead. You know, since we work for you now. Not trying to undercut you or anything.”
Eli and I had both stopped speaking, watching the brainiac work. I looked at Eli. Several things to say flashed through my head and I settled on “I don’t have a letterhead.” Which was stupid but better than some other options.
The Kid opened a new coil of cable, watching us from beneath his too-long bangs. “You do now. Your business name’s not real catchy, but the blurb line is. Yellowrock Security. Protecting and staking vamps—we do it all. Have Stakes, Will Travel.”