However, you are welcome to prove me wrong, and save yourself a beating. Simply admit defeat now and step down.”

Belizar had fought at her side in the Territory Wars, with great capability. They had a history. But he represented the pure traditionalist of the Old World vampires, and he'd not hesitated to want her dead when he found out about her Fae form. His narrow-mindedness and overbearing personality had overwhelmed many of the lesser Council members, keeping the Council on its current path. In watching Rhoswen deal with the consequences of restrictions that had more to do with fear and control than true leadership, Lyssa had become even more convinced such an approach would fail.

As Belizar considered her, perhaps thinking of their shared history as well , she drew herself up, hardly five feet tal without her shoes. Cocking a hip, she tilted her head. “Come, Belizar. Not afraid of being beaten by a girl, are you?”

He gave her a show of fang, a flash of the dark red eyes. Reaching under his shirt, he yanked out two wooden stakes. A warrior like the men behind her, she wasn't surprised he was armed. Mason rose with a scrape of his chair, and Jacob started forward, but Lyssa's sharp voice was a queen's command that reverberated through the room.

“This fight is between the two of us. If he overpowers me, he deserves the kil . That's the whole point, isn't it?” She cocked her head, eyes gleaming. “As it was from the beginning. You'l regret pul ing those toys, my lord. You may find yourself on the wrong end of them.”

Belizar leaped. With third-mark senses, Jacob could keep up with most of their maneuvers, but some were even too fast for him to fol ow. At least his lady's speed, while not the fastest he'd ever seen it, was enough to keep up with Belizar. The Council scattered further as they hit the crescent-shaped table, so hard it shattered down the middle, a startling symbolism. Mason joined Daegan in corraling their ranks as Jessica moved back into the knot of servants, the safest place for her now.

Jacob bit back an oath as he saw it was Lyssa who'd broken the table, when Belizar hurled her into the stone. She rol ed back, made it to her feet. When he charged upon her, she cut under his guard and hit him hard in the solar plexus, seizing his arm to bend it back. It would have broken with a defining snap if he hadn't twisted free with remarkable agility, turning around to plunge his fist squarely in her face.

He realized he was struggling, Gideon holding him back. Anwyn's hand was on his shoulder as well , gripping hard, even as she held Kane on her hip. His son's uncertain cry jerked his attention back. “Gotta be her fight,” his brother hissed. “Can't watch all corners by myself. Get your shit together, bro.” Jacob shook himself free, tried to do just that as Anwyn pressed Kane's head to her neck to hide his eyes, trying to calm him. He was having none of it.

His cries were stuttering to a higher level. In a moment it would be ful fledged, ear splitting wails.

Lyssa and Belizar's fight took them across the room, Belizar driving her back toward the knot of servants. As the Russian turned, he flung her toward that stil group, as if he intended to knock them down with her body like bowling pins.

Too late, Jacob registered Vincent's tense, waiting posture. Saw the gleam of the polished stake in his fist. As Lyssa stumbled, pivoting away from Belizar, Vincent lunged forward. As one, Jacob and Gideon discharged arrows for the impossible shot.

Lyssa fel back into Vincent, and he dropped behind her, providing a cushion as she rol ed away unharmed. One of the arrows had pierced Vincent's shoulder. However, that wasn't what had him flailing now. A steel shaft punched through his chest from the back. Jessica had not hit the heart, but she'd hit the spine, immobilizing him. She'd fal en with him so she was on the ground, holding the shaft in place and him against her in a way that looked almost compassionate. Jacob even heard her murmur, “Uh-uh. Nice try. Just sit there for a bit.” Jacob snapped his gaze back to the combatants.

They were circling in the center of the room again.

His lady's mouth was bleeding, as was her temple, and it looked like Belizar had broken a couple of her ribs. She was limping. Belizar was almost unmarked, but he was holding one arm gingerly, because she'd succeeded in snapping it. His eyes shone with the light of victory. “You may beg my mercy now, Lady Lyssa,” he said. “I will be more than will ing to grant it. You know you will ever be useful to this Council.”

She came to a ful stop. Her fangs had lengthened, as they did before she fed. “I have one question for you, Lord Belizar, if you'l indulge me.”

“Of course.” He nodded magnanimously, though the effort cost him, his face tight.

“Are you done dicking around, or are you ready to fight?”

Jacob didn't know if the street language or the message itself was what threw Belizar. Or if it even mattered. Because faster than Belizar or any vampire he'd ever seen could move, she'd closed the distance between them. He saw the brief flash as she stepped inside his armspan, a frightening moment as Belizar swiped one of the wooden stakes at her chest, narrowly missing her. She turned, her back pressing into his chest, and then she'd caught him by the skul and neck. It was like a lover reaching back to caress his jaw, but she brought him over her shoulder, a graceful choreography that arced him high in the air and then slammed him with brutal force down on the tile floor.

A web of cracks shot out from the impact point.

Bones and tile broke together. The male's neck was at an angle that only happened when the neck was snapped. Jacob knew the tile landing would also break ribs, hips and further points on the spine, immobilizing him for however long it would take the bones to heal.

Belizar let out a strangled, agonized grunt, but Jacob saw there was no fear in his eyes. Only shock, anger and frustration, the realization he'd been soundly, clearly defeated. He was at the mercy of his opponent.

The wooden stakes had fal en free from his limp hands. Retrieving them, she laid them on his chest.

Squatting at his side, Lyssa lifted his arm and brought his wrist to her mouth. She drank, the ritual spoils of a victor, and though she sank in with a deep, painful clamp, she didn't take long. She withdrew, delicately licking her lips, then took up the two stakes, angling one against his chest. She swept her gaze over the silent, assembled vampires, meeting Uthe's gaze before she lowered her attention back to Belizar.

“I am now head of the Council. I will have final authority on all its decisions, and who serves upon it.

You will continue to do so, Lord Belizar. You're an old war horse, like me.” A faint smile touched her bloody lips. “And you stil fight passably well. But one of my conditions for all who serve on this Council is that I will take the right of a sire's marking. I will have the ability to be in your mind, know your heart and soul. If I sense you resisting any intrusion of my mind into yours, at any time, concealing things from me, then I will remove you from this Council.”

“I'm guessing she's not offering a great severance package if that happens,” Gideon muttered to Jacob.

He wanted to smile, but there was stil too much going on in the room, too much blood and heat.

She'd taken Belizar out in one stroke, as if she'd been capable of it all along, but he knew what her state had been only a couple days before, newly transitioned. Right now her mind was closed as a trap, and she might have used the last reserve of her strength to make that move. He wasn't going to make the same mistake twice in his concern for her, though, thank the gods for Jessica. He kept his attention firmly on the servants, trusting Daegan and Mason to handle the vampire end of things.

She straightened then, glanced toward her son, who had tears on his face and was wailing like a banshee. When he saw her looking at him, she pursed her lips, made a soft shushing noise and gave him a half smile, entirely at odds with the violence lingering in the room like the smel of a bomb blast. It startled him enough that he bit off midcry, hiccupping uncertainly. “That's my good boy,” she said softly. “Easy there.”

Then her attention landed on Vincent, stil in Jessica's lap. “You may remove the stake, Jessica.

He will need his Master's blood, and his Master needs a great deal as well.” Her gaze shifted to Torrence, Helga's servant. The male was built like a mountain, shown to good effect in white shirt and dress kilt. Even as a mere human, he probably could have swung a claymore like a feather. “Go advise the staff that three donors are needed to restore his strength. You others, help carry him and Vincent to a suitable room to use as an infirmary and make sure they are comfortable.”

She glanced at the Council members. “If you will not serve under my conditions, then you will not serve. You will be stripped of any territory or overlord titles you carry, and relegated to a territory of my choosing, where I know the overlord or Region Master is loyal to me. I will know the truth of it when I am in your minds, so you might as well speak now.”

“She has proven her worth on the field of combat.” Belizar's voice was a weak rasp of sound. His expression showed his agony, on several levels.

While a vampire would survive and heal multiple bone breaks, Jacob knew it was not going to be an easy or pleasant few hours for him. “She is worthy to take the leadership. You are all vampire again, my lady.”

“I was always all vampire. It is what my soul is, no matter my blood.” She gave him a hard look. “I am also Fae. You're going to have to accept that, what it means. I brought a correspondence from the Fae queen, indicating her desire for a liaison between our two worlds. While I was intended to be that liaison, in light of my taking the head position, I will ask that another Fae be assigned that role. I will be recommending the Fae Lord Keldwyn, who already serves as liaison between the Seelie and Unseelie court. He considers this world his home much of the time anyway.”

She let her gaze rove over all of them. “We will always be vampires, with predatory drives and dominant attitudes, but there is room for other things.

With only five thousand of us in the world, survival is everything. We cannot stagnate. We can be strong, true to our nature, and yet stil consider changes that augment that strength and nature. This is one of them.”