I made it back to the freebie house by four, and hit REDIAL while standing on the porch, calling Leo’s number again as I unlocked the door. I heard a soft tone from inside just as the smell of vamp hit me. And Bruiser. Beast came alert. Leo Pellissier, head of the NOVC, and his muscle, were in my living room. In the dark. Crap. Crap, crap, crap.

The tone came again. I swung open the door. Located their positions by scent. Leo was immobile to my right, Bruiser to my left. I said, “How you doin’, Leo, Bruiser? You planning on jumping me when I walk in, or is this a social call?”

I heard a click and the phone didn’t ring again. There was a sigh in the dark, from Leo, breathing for effect. “Come in, Jane Yellowrock.”

It wasn’t exactly a command, but Beast and I weren’t in the mood to let a vamp take a dominant position in any kinda way. “You asking or telling?”

After a moment, Leo said, “Please.”

I figured that was the best I was gonna get, so I took a breath, pushed the pain down somewhere deep inside, and gripped the head in the towel. It would make a squishy but effective weapon if needed. I stepped inside and turned on the light. Leo was sitting in a yellow floral chair in the living room to the right, elegant legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, fingers steepled over his chest. No weapon. A suit and tie. Silk shirt. Bruiser was standing in my bedroom doorway, equally weaponless, unless I counted his body as a weapon, which I did.

“You been going through my undies?” I asked. Bruiser’s mouth twitched. “ ’Cause all I got with me are the travel undies. The leather, silk, and lace stuff is all in the mountains.”

“You got leather undies?” Bruiser asked, intrigued. The guy wasn’t here to kill me just yet. He was too relaxed. He crossed his arms over his chest. Nice arms, well-defined pecs and biceps, and the forearms of a man on a very lean diet. Slender, muscular.

I smiled, showing teeth. “Nope.” I held up the bloody towel and indicated it with a minuscule movement of my injured hand. Which hurt like a mother. Bruiser’s arms came free fast. “No weapon,” I assured him. To Leo I said, “I think this is what you want.”

I knew he could smell what I carried. Leo nodded, the gesture imperious; Bruiser relaxed. I lobbed the wrapped head at Leo. The towel fell free in midair. Leo caught the head, watery blood showering over him. The towel landed in a bloody heap on the hardwood. Leo was holding the vamp’s head upside down. Showing great restraint, he raised an eyebrow. I grinned.

“You took the head with you. Why?” he asked, conversational, civilized, a bit . . . droll. Yeah. Droll. The guy was having fun. You coulda blown me away with a feather.

Seeing as how he was sitting in my house, and surely could smell my blood from where he sat, the decision to make off with the head and wash it up to remove traces of my blood on it turned out to be wasted. And not one I wanted to defend. Part of the reason I applied for the New Orleans’ job was a vague hope that an old vamp might know what I was, but being sucked on wasn’t part of my plan. I shrugged, the defense of a recalcitrant teen.

Leo held the head to the side. It was dripping. “George. Would you be so kind.”

George paused. Maybe it was the first time his boss asked him to take a severed head. “There’s dishes in the kitchen, Bruiser,” I said. “I’m sure Katie wouldn’t mind, long as you bring it back all squeaky clean.” Bruiser and his boss shared a look that probably had all sorts of meanings, and the henchman went to do his master’s bidding. Maybe I should call Bruiser “Igor”. I didn’t say it, but I couldn’t help the grin. My sense of humor is going to be my death.

“You are bleeding,” Leo said. His pupils went vamp black. My grin disappeared. Leo Pellissier was probably as good at sniffing out stuff as Beast. He pulled the air into his lungs through his predator nose, little sniffs, like he was at a wine tasting. Which he was, to a vamp. I had an image of glasses of fresh blood and a bunch of vamps sitting around sampling. Or maybe just passing around humans, comparing vintages. Warped. I’m warped. The whites of his eyes bled crimson. And I am so in trouble.

“You went after a young vampire all alone,” he said, his voice silky. “You cost me the use of a good man as he heals and the temporary use of another as he goes after the maker of the male, bent upon revenge. I am not pleased.”

“You let a young, uncontrolled vamp into your place of business,” I said. Leo’s brows went up a half notch, as if surprised I knew he owned the place. I hadn’t till now. But it had been his scent there, and I figured if he had been there enough times to leave his vampy fragrance on the furniture, then he probably owned the joint. Some of the red in his eyes bled away, but I wasn’t about to relax. Bruiser was taking a bit too long in the kitchen and he wasn’t making enough noise to still be searching for a container.

“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.”

“Impertinent,” he murmured. “Brazen.” There was a warmth in his gaze that hadn’t been there a moment past. “Cheeky, even.” A secretive smile touched his lips, a smile that was almost, but not quite, human. His head followed the length of my arm up to the elbow as he breathed in my scent. And higher, close to my neck. So close.

His breath exhaled against my face, smelling peppery and slightly of almonds, an odd combination that should have been unpleasant or jarring, but wasn’t. Heat pooled in my belly, conflicting with the pain. “Bold,” he said, his voice dropping low, “rude.” I laughed, the sound more Beast than me. His pupils widened a fraction more. “But you smell so good,” he finished.