He’d watched the scuffle without a change of expression, and he wasn’t breathing, which meant he wasn’t scenting all the blood-scent markers on me. Still as a marble statue, he watched me. I glanced around once, fast. Leo’s personal business space—as opposed to his council business space, which might be anywhere in the building—was an office in name only. Every inch of wall space was hung with tapestries and heavy drapery and the tile floors were liberally covered with Oriental rugs in every shade. The room was chilly, with the AC blowing hard through overhead vents, working to compensate for the hickory wood fire. The older vamps liked fireplaces, the expensive ambience of their human youths, with no regard for global warming.
There was a lot of burled wood furniture, some painted with gilt designs, several wingback chairs around a small table set with the remains of high tea, a table desk so old it might have been hand carved for a Spanish royal in colonial times, with a laptop open on it, and a modern ergonomic desk chair. I just itched to open and explore the armoires that did double duty as cabinets. Nosy, that’s me, an occupational hazard even if I wasn’t naturally inquisitive.
There was also a chaise lounge in the back of the office, a fancy one with tufted gold velvet upholstery and a velvet throw covering a girl, her back to me, her pale hair tousled. She was obviously naked beneath the velvet. I flicked a look at Leo, holding a teacup, everything but his eyes still immobile, and looked back at the girl. She was breathing deeply and evenly, asleep. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” I said, making sure he heard the sarcasm.
Leo followed my eyes to the girl and smiled, unexpected gentleness on his face. “Not at all. She will sleep another hour or two.” He took a breath and looked back at me, his head tilted, puzzled at the scents he found on the air. “You have a report?”
“Yeah, I do. I nearly died tonight, thanks to you.” Leo set his cup on the green marble mantel and waited, breathing shallowly as he scent-searched me. “You sent me to negotiate with a persona non grata in your place. Remember that? And he brought a pack of werewolves. I nearly died.”
“Wolves?” His face underwent a change and my blood nearly stuttered to a stop. Leo Pellissier, Master of the City, was surprised. I smelled shock and anger boil through his blood and his pulse jumped once at his throat. He sniffed, hard, short breaths, and his nose curled. His fangs snapped down with a little click. “The Lupus Pack has returned,” he snarled. I nodded, careful to make no other sudden moves. “How many?”
“Fifteen left alive that I saw, and maybe seven dead at the scene.”
His brows rose but his fangs stayed down, two-inch bone-white weapons. And me without my stakes. “You are a capable fighter, Jane Yellowrock, but you are no match for a wolf pack. You were only supposed to meet and remove from my territory one Girrard DiMercy.”
“It might have been nice to know that. Next time give me a name and a species, how ’bout it? But it happens that Gee saved my butt from the wolves. Even killed his share. Saved. My. Butt.” I enunciated each word. “So you can deliver your own get-out-of-town message.” Leo’s eyes blazed at my insolence, but I pressed on, pushing the envelope, because it was what I did best, except kill things. “You want to tell me why he’s even still alive? Blood-servants don’t generally live for nearly a hundred years after their last sip of vamp blood.”
Leo’s face hardened. “No. I wish to tell you nothing.”
“That figures.” Usually it was dang near impossible to read vamps’ expressions, but Leo was giving things away willy-nilly. He didn’t like Gee; if the guy was on fire, Leo would let him burn to death rather than waste water peeing on him. If vamps peed. Now I was curious, but it wasn’t the time to ask. “You’re making this a lot harder than it has to be, Leo.”
“Girrard DiMercy is not welcome here.”
“He told me his story. The one about your daughter. He said you need him.”
“I need nothing from the Mercy Blade,” Leo snarled.
I almost said, “He claimed he kept you sane,” but I kept my mouth shut on that one too. “His blood. He says you need his blood. Like Magnolia Sweets needed your blood.”
Leo closed his eyes and turned away but not before I saw the raw pain on his face. He gripped the marble of the mantel with both hands and bent his forehead to it. His fangs snicked back into place. Something about his scent changed, growing less peppery, more almond. The rolled sleeves of his white shirt revealed muscular forearms and the flames he faced outlined his body in reddish light, toned and hard, though slender. I wondered if he had fenced with Gee when the man lived in New Orleans. Still facing the fire, he said, “Did he give word of my sweet Magnolia?”
“Yeah.” There wasn’t any way to sugarcoat it. I sighed and rubbed my sore elbow. “She died. I’m sorry, Leo.”
“Kill him,” he whispered to the flames. “I will pay you to kill him.”
Shock raced through me again, a strange, discordant emotion, as if shock layered on shock, two beasts racing along my nerve endings, separate and distinct. “You want to hire me to kill a man? No.”
“He is not a man. He is not human. He took her from me, and he has never been punished.”
“He claims he didn’t steal her from you. He said”—I thought back and dredged up his exact words—“‘He’—meaning you—‘loved her to distraction, but she could not stay with him.’ Could not, Leo, not would not, not wanted to leave you, but ‘could not stay’ with you. Maybe you should reconsider killing this guy until you know more.”
“He has bewitched you, as he did my Maggie.”
“He tried. He failed.”
Leo raised his head from the mantel and looked at me. His eyes were dry, which was a relief. I hadn’t been sure if he was crying or not, and a teary-eyed Leo wasn’t something I felt capable of handling. Still, the raw anguish was hard to take. “She could not stay with me? What in this entire world would have been important enough to keep us apart? What would have been worth dying over?”