“I’ll shoot your blood-servant if you move again,” I said, my voice pitched low and cold. Leo paused, that inhuman, vampy shift from combat to utter stillness that was so startling. “If you listen, I’ll let him live,” I bargained. The stillness went deeper. I felt the servant gather himself and I clawed my hand around his throat, fingernails digging into his windpipe. I shoved the muzzle hard under his ear. “If you resist, I’ll rip out your throat, then behead your master. Pick and choose.” A shocked silence filled the foyer. Slowly, he went limp. “Wise move.
“Leonard Pellissier.” I focused on the dark form, silhouetted by the streetlight flooding the open doorway. “I’m Katie’s out-of-town talent,” I said, using the Joe’s phrase. “The tracker and hired gun the council contracted to take out the rogue. I don’t want to kill either of you, but I will if I have to. The blood you smell was not spilled by me. I am not your enemy.” Well, not right now, but nobody was taking notes. “Back. Off.”
He backed. I tightened my grip on the bruiser. “You gonna play nice?” I felt him swallow under the pressure of my hand.
When he spoke it came out in a whistle from the pressure I had on his windpipe. “Yes.” I heard truth in his tone, smelled it on his body, along with Leo’s scent of ownership, the smell of vamp. I released my hold. He rolled to his feet and I followed him upright, keeping him between Leo and me. He reached around and shut the outer door. When he moved to face me, in front of and slightly to the side of Leo, I switched the safety on the gun. I was lucky it hadn’t gone off while we rolled around on the floor. It was stupid to wrestle while holding a gun, even while facing down a vamp. Not that I could have figured out a better way. I had been between a rock and a fanged place.
“You don’t smell human. What are you?” Leo said. Trying out his vamp voice on me, smooth and honeyed, and promising me a really good roll in the hay.
“Stop that,” I said. “It doesn’t work on me.”
“She growled, boss,” the bruiser said. “When she took me down.”
“I heard her. What are you?”
“None of your business,” I said.
“Whose blood do I smell?” Leo asked.
“Katie—” I stopped, not knowing what to say. Admitting that Katie had made a mistake by taking too much blood was on a par with saying an adult human had pooped his pants or eaten his own boogers. Really gross or stupid. Accidentally killing prey was a young vamp error, not something an ancient vamp did. Ever. And not the kind of thing a good employee said about her employer. The silence stretched, and Leo’s brow went up. Just one. Waiting.
“I was forced to reprimand a member of my staff.” Katie stood in the hallway, wearing a dressing gown that shimmered like silk. She was clearly naked beneath it, the thin fabric blood free and molding to her thighs. Not what she had been wearing. “May I ask that your blood-servant assist with the transfusion?” she asked. “It is not my intent to lose him.”
I understood immediately. It was okay to nearly kill someone as discipline, but not by accident. Feudal attitudes, something the vamps had left over from, well, from feudal times. I understood it, but I didn’t have to like it.
Leo glanced at his servant and the man looked reluctantly from me to him before he nodded. It was clear he didn’t like the idea of leaving me alone with his boss, but he was willing if Leo gave the go-ahead. Leo inclined his head. Regal, giving permission. Bruiser rolled his head on his shoulders, and I heard two cracks as his spine realigned itself. He gave me a hard look, promising to kill me slowly if I acted out again, and went down the hallway, his booted feet silent on the wood and carpets. Predator silent.
“Your new guardian used a cross on me,” Leo said, holding out his left hand. A livid burn, blistered and seeping, marked his hand, in the shape of the cross. Silver. I wanted to grin but that seemed impolitic. Katie moved to him and knelt at his feet.
“Humble apologies, my master,” she murmured, as her blond hair fell forward, hiding her features. “May I be allowed to offer healing, or do you wish to chastise her yourself?”
Crap. I tensed. Leo lifted one corner of his mouth at my faint motion and speared me with his eyes. I stared back, though I didn’t meet his gaze. Black eyes, coffee-and-milk skin, dark hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders. French lineage, maybe. Aristocratic and elegant. His photos lied. In them he looked ordinary. In person the vamp was drop-dead gorgeous. The drop-dead part would have been funny if I didn’t feel like an insect about to be stepped on.