“Vampire?” Lucky asked.
Edmund eased Bobbie away from the door and stepped out. Behind him came Gabriel, looking pink-skinned and healthy, and behind him, a gentle hand on his shoulder, came Shauna. So that was where Edmund had gone. To check on the people downstairs. Go, Ed. I nodded at him, a slight inclination of my head. He nodded back, his gaze serious and intense. Weirdly, Edmund walked to me and knelt at my feet, his swords back and behind him like wings. I looked down at the top of his head in confusion. What was this? I looked around in growing panic.
“Ed?” He didn’t answer. Just knelt there.
Whatever Ed was doing, no one else seemed to notice or care. The others—witches, humans, and vamps—ignored us and gathered at the pool table where they huddled together with their faction leaders in what was probably a group hug/blood-feeding/bloodletting. Eli, who was still moving stiffly and clearly needed to feed on a vamp sometime soon, looked over Edmund and me, chuckled softly, and turned his attention to the room, evaluating entrances and exits and possible close-quarters fighting. Not looking at the hugging. No longer looking at Ed.
From the doorway, Alex walked into the bar, saying, “Just gag me with a spoon and get it over with. All that huggy, kissy, mommy, daddy crap.” The brothers fist-bumped. Idiots. Every single one of them. And the worst was Edmund, still at my feet, his head bowed. I wasn’t sure what gave me the impression, but I had a feeling Ed was laughing at me.
I considered my vamp helper in light of the battle, the problem with humans, witches, a starving vampire, and a baby locked together in an underground lair, all afraid and angry, and decided it had turned out much better than it might have. “Get up,” I said, hearing a long-suffering note in my two words. Edmund stood with a flair that might have come from the Middle Ages or a Hollywood set. “Ed, I take it you taught the young vamp idiot how to feed without sex?” I said.
“Yes, my master,” he said, sounding quietly subservient and yet somehow managing to convey his hilarity.
“Having fun, are you?”
“More than you can possibly imagine, my master,” he said, with heavy emphasis on the last two words. He was determined to call me master. To get under my skin. Or to bind himself to me in some way I couldn’t comprehend.
“Teaching proper feeding habits doesn’t take long when one is experienced in such matters.” He added, “My master.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, thinking, No freaking way. I had enough responsibilities to deal with. “Once you get over the chuckles,” I said, “would you be so kind as to heal my partner? Eli’s hurt from when that thing knocked him across the room.”
“Yes, my master.”
“And since you can heal without sex, make sure you don’t annoy him with any come-hither pheromones or whatever you do to get sex. Because I’ll let him shoot you if you do.”
“Spoilsport,” he said, wandering over to Eli.
I watched as Edmund spoke quietly to the Youngers, and then presented a blade, hilt first, to Eli, and lifted his other wrist to be cut. Satisfied, I walked over to the huddle of BO citizens. “Okay. Get your crap together and meet me at the bed-and-breakfast because I need to know everything you know, and can guess, about the demon and about Margaud, and about her brothers, and everything about that dang wreath. Because no way is it all disconnected.”
In the corner of the room a flame flared up. With a pop of speed, Gabe raced for a fire extinguisher and put it out, kicking the smoking remains of drapery away.
“Fine,” I said. “First we make sure the fire is out. Then we talk.”
? ? ?
I got a good look at myself in my mirror as I changed out of my wet, smoke-damaged clothes, and the pelt I wore in my half form was pretty awe-inspiring. Knobby joints, retractile claws on my fingertips, narrow waist, no boobs to speak of, feet shaped like huge paws that had ripped my sneakers into ruined shreds, and a body of solid muscle, covered by a golden pelt. I shoved the cell into my jeans pocket and inspected myself closer. The brown/black nose looked a little odd, but the gold shining eyes totally made it work, especially with the gold nugget necklace. I had never thought this about myself before, but pelted? Even with the jeans and T on top, I looked hot. Weird. But hot.
Beast and Jane are not hot. Beast and Jane are best hunters. Beast and Jane are worthy of best mate. Beast and Jane are best at everything, Beast thought at me.
I chuckled under my breath, grabbed a robe, and went to shower off the smoke stink.