Skinwalker

“The Royal Mojo Blues Company used to have a reputation as a safe place in the city that made vamps famous and sexy,” I said. “Tonight, a young rogue had a fast, forced meal there. I followed him to his lair. I hadn’t intended to take him down, but I injured him in the women’s room with a stake. With a wood wound, I knew he’d need blood fast to heal.” I was explaining myself. Which I hated. I stopped.

 

Bruiser entered before the silence could stretch on too long, and set a plastic bowl on the floor and the head in the bowl. It was a perfect fit. I wanted to laugh, and I knew it was because of pain and blood loss. I had to shift soon or I’d be too bad off to meditate; I had to be calm for the ritual. I soooo didn’t want to shift without it.

 

“You are bleeding,” Leo said again.

 

“Yeah. So would you and Bruiser here take a hike? I need some Band-Aids and aspirin.”

 

“You are a pert and prickly child. George.”

 

I hadn’t realized it, but Bruiser had eased to his feet and beside me. At the sound of his name, his arms encircled me. Heart rocketing into my throat, I lunged the other way. His fingers clamped down on my wounded arm. I hit my knees. Gagging.

 

Pain surged through me, waters of agony tiding up my arm, into my belly, pooling and writhing like snakes in a swamp. Black closed in around my vision. For a long moment I couldn’t find a breath. Gorge rose in my throat, and I swallowed it back. I was not gonna hurl in front of the head of the vamp council. Beast clawed her way up, a hairs-breadth from a shift.

 

George let go of my arm. Pain did a little shake and slide before it settled down a few notches into what was only a throbbing agony. My ribs heaved, the belated breath its own kind of pain. Beast hesitated, uncertain, waiting. When my vision cleared, I was lying on Katie’s floral couch, my injured arm being bathed in icy water by George. Leo stood behind him, his suit coat and tie off, rolling up his sleeves.

 

“Oh, crap,” I said, my voice full of gravel and bigger rocks, grinding over one another. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m too old for a spanking and not quite up to defending myself from a butt whupping. Can we do this another time?”

 

Leo smiled, the grim expression pulling the flesh of his cheeks tight to his bones. He was an elegant man, his silk shirt catching the light and hinting at the olive-toned flesh beneath. His butt was cupped by the tailored pants like a second skin. He was beautiful. Really beautiful.

 

He knelt by my side with that fluid vamp grace. “Thank you,” he said, quietly amused. At which point I realized that I had spoken at least some part of my musings about his butt aloud. If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I might have squirmed at the thought. “You are some species of supernatural,” he said, his tone conveying that vamp look-into-my-eyes thing they do when they want to mesmerize prey. “But what kind?” His words slid along my flesh like feathers and silk and heated sex, and I trembled slightly. But I didn’t answer.

 

He took my arm from George and inspected it carefully. Pain pounded through me like Cherokee drums. I looked at the wound for the first time in direct light and felt an electric shock quiver through me. The muscles and tendons of my lower arm were shredded like so much raw, pulled meat. My heart sped up. My breath rate increased. Small pools of blood welled from the flesh with my reaction, glistening. Leo’s eyes were still crimson, pupils vamp black. But instead of attacking the blood meal, he looked from my arm to my face. Into my eyes.

 

My heart rate steadied. My breath hitched and stuttered. For a moment, staring into his eyes, I smelled sage and rosemary on the night wind. Saw shadows dancing against cliff walls. And then the images were gone, the living room of Katie’s house and Leo’s cologne and his slightly spicy, vampy scent in its place.

 

The vampire blinked and broke the gaze, and I wondered for an instant if he had seen the dancing images. He placed his face along my arm and breathed slowly in, his head tilting on his neck, tendons standing out. He had tied his lovely mane back, a black satin ribbon curling over his shoulder with a tendril of hair. I wanted to touch it, and to keep from reaching out, I curled the fingers of my good hand under until the nails pressed painfully into my palm. I tucked the hand beneath me, between my side and the couch cushion.

 

“Tell me about yourself,” he murmured, tone steely. The breath of his command touched my open wound. It was a balm on the awful pain. The thrumming subsided slightly, a piquant numbness in its place. “Tell me.” And the bad thing was that I wanted to. I really wanted to. This guy was good.

 

To keep from spilling all my secrets, I murmured, “A Christian.” I felt the shock strike through him, loosening the bonds he was trying to lace into me. I laughed, a bit of Beast in the tone. “I’ll tell you what I am if you tell me how the vamps came to be.”

 

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