The third clan was Bouvier, its new co-masters Innara and Jena, who were mind-joined Anamchara, and who had been loyal to Leo during the recent unpleasantness, stood in the entry to the ballroom. They were little things, the tallest standing five-four in heels. Their master had been killed true-dead by the opposing camp and the girls had swept up his power base in their cute but deadly little hands. They were going for the gay twenties look tonight in contrasting teal and aqua silk sheaths embroidered with beads, crystals dangling and catching the light. The silk hems ended at their shins, but the crystals formed pointed Vs that hung lower, accenting the crystal shoes each wore. Which looked really uncomfortable. The outfits were perfect with their bobbed hair, one dark blond and one darker brown. Their clan heir, Roland, who was a big guy by vamp standards, stood behind them, arms crossed, showing muscle through the cloth of his long tunic, which was vaguely Arabian in style. Behind him, another master and all eight blood-servants filled the open doorway. They looked charming and implacable as they moved into the room, blood-servants spreading out and posturing for position. The air took on a vamp stink so strong that my nose itched and stung. I needed to sneeze out the reek, but the next breath would only be worse.
The on-air reporter, who was standing near me, gasped and backed away. I glanced at her and back at the vamps and almost shook my head. She was no twenty-something ditzy girl, but an older woman, a seasoned reporter, likely retired from a bigger network, let go because of age, but that experience was nothing in the face of vamp mesmerism. Her lips hung slightly open, her eyes glued to Roland.
I looked back at the vamps. Yeah. Vamps were gorgeous all right. Pitcher plants or Venus flytraps, ready for fresh blood and willing flesh—or a victim stupid enough or susceptible enough to fall for them.
The reporter moved toward Roland, her mike in front of her—a shield and a sword. Or an offering. He turned to her and smiled, his face looking almost beatific. And hungry, in spite of the edict to eat before showing up here. He held out an arm and slid it round her when she reached him. She fell back against the iron-band strength of it, her throat exposed. Prey, Beast whispered in my mind.
Roland kissed the side of the reporter’s neck. Teasing. But his fangs stayed snapped back in his mouth and he released her with a kiss and promise I heard across twenty feet of pink marble floor and Oriental rugs. “Later, my lovely. I’ll come to you before dawn.” She was toast, but she was a big girl. I had other worries. Like the cameras capturing too much. Not too much of the vamps—that was a job for the spin doctors—but too much about the layout of vamp HQ. It could be dangerous for the security of the place.
Unlike other vamp parties I’d attended, no one went immediately for food or alcohol, but took up positions around the room, as if keeping sharp for trouble. Crap. What did they think was gonna happen? I was suddenly conscious of the blades on my thighs and the weight of the H&K at the small of my back. Possible collateral damage was everywhere. My mouth went dry.
Everything was ready for Leo. But seconds passed. Minutes. The vamps were immovable as marble headstones, not bothering to breathe, since they didn’t have to talk. The blood-servants mimicked them. Except for the breathing/heart beating part. It was unnerving. But at least the vamped reporter had regained her equilibrium. She was standing in the corner having her makeup touched up, casting confused and nervous glances at Roland, who was ignoring her. Cat and mouse. Literally. A vamp playing with his dinner.
At twelve minutes to twelve, Leo was standing in the entrance, his authority a nimbus around him, crackling with electricity that lifted his shoulder-length black hair on a breeze of power. I hadn’t seen him move there. No one had.
CHAPTER 9
He Got a Whiff of Me
The blood-servants’ breathing changed. The younger vamps blinked, startled. Leo stood, still as pale marble, his skin glowing with recent feeding, drawing power from all the vamps in the room. His eyes were bright, as if lit from within, with an odd sheen to them, as if they swam with precious oil. The scent pattern in the room changed as Leo stood there, demonstrating his power, siphoning off theirs, his own peppery scent overpowering all the other vamp smells. Every eye in the ballroom was on him.
Leo had no heir, and as MOC, he was entitled to additional scions, so there was no surprise when four master vamps stepped behind him in a semicircle, all males. I wondered if—under different circumstances—my landlady, Katie, who had been Leo’s lover in the past, would have stood behind him, a lone woman in the midst of the men.
All of Leo’s henchmen were familiar. I’d learned their names after they tried to burn down my house. Alejandro and Estavan, both of Spanish origin, but different centuries; Hildebert, a German guy whose name meant bright battle; and Koun, who claimed to be pure British Celt by birth, though history said his people were destroyed long before the first vamps appeared in the British Isles. Hildebert and Koun were the warriors of Clan Pellissier, and I’d really rather not have to face either one in battle. The fact that Leo brought them with him instead of someone prettier and more delicate was significant. My heart rate sped. Leo moved his eyes across the room until he found me, searching me out as if he could hear my blood pound and place me by the sound of my heartbeat. Crap. Maybe he could.
Staring at me, he said, “The Council of the Mithrans is ... gathered.” The word reverberated through the room; shivers raced over my skin, raising to sharp pricks of pain. For the vamps, there was power in the word gather. When they gathered , they joined in some arcane way, cooperating to make decisions and conduct business. It was mystical in ways that I couldn’t understand. Leo inhaled and I exhaled, as if sharing with him my breath. Another breath followed. And another. It was intimate and intense, his eyes holding mine, and when Beast again placed a clawed paw on my psyche I caught myself, holding my breath a moment to break the exchange. I hadn’t given my blood to him. I hadn’t fallen in thrall to him. Which meant that Leo shouldn’t be able to draw power from me. Yet, I could feel the strands of his power sucking something from me, even now, even with Beast’s intervention. This was freaky, and maybe tied to the magics I’d been exposed to, like radiation poisoning, weakening me.