Broken Soul: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (8 page)

“Yeah. Stupid, I know, especially by Mithran law. When he needed me to be his Enforcer for real—” I stopped. This was way more confessional than I wanted to get with Derek. I didn’t want him this close. I didn’t want to share. I bent my head to my knees and wrapped my arms around them, hugging myself. Thinking. Rocking slightly back and forth on the front stairs.

If I was honest, I didn’t want to say the words aloud to anyone who didn’t already know. And I didn’t want to look at my reasons for not looking at the event again. Meaning I was a coward who needed talk therapy. “Crap,” I muttered.

I forced myself to go on, gripped my knees so tight it hurt, talking so fast it was a garbled strand of words. “When he needed me to be his Enforcer for real, Leo was within his Mithran legal rights to make it happen. Bruiser had been injured and his mind wasn’t working. His ability to do or think anything of his own will was gone. Mentally he was”—my free hand made flapping motions before re-gripping my knees—“basically a puddle of goo.” Bitterness laced through my words when I continued. “Leo used compulsion to force Bruiser to hold me down. Then the Master of the City forced a blood feeding and binding on me.”

My breath ached on the words, way deeper than I’d expected.

Derek cursed softly. I smelled his shock and his protective instincts as they kicked in. It was an odd scent from a man who didn’t trust supernats, and who surely didn’t trust me. I didn’t look at him, watching the helicopter as it moved away on the horizon. Seconds ticked by, neither of us talking, not looking at each other, staring out over the cars and trucks. High over the front drive, a hawk circled, riding the air currents. Gliding. Hunting.
Free
.

“It’s taken me some time to get over it,” I admitted long after the silence had become uncomfortable. “Okay, I’m still getting over it. I got some revenge, which helped, but not as much as I thought it would, to be honest. Mostly . . . I’ve just had to work through it. I’m a skinwalker. I understand the animalistic need to dominate another creature. In lots of animal life, especially mating rituals and pack dominance fights, one animal dominates another. Animals accept it or die fighting it. But I’m not an animal.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I smiled cynically at my own thoughts but Derek wasn’t looking at me. I went on. “Resistance is normal for me. I resisted. He partially bound me. I found a way free. Now he’s apologized to me for taking by force what was his by legal right—according to his point of view—and might have been his by a more, mmm”—I searched for the words—“more socially acceptable means, had he tried to go that route.” I glanced at Derek, gauging his reaction.

Derek frowned harder. He had a fresh marine haircut, which was a pretty dreadful lack of style but he made it work, especially with that frown. It pulled his face down hard and made crevices beside his nose and down along his mouth. His dark skin had a slight sheen in the day’s heat. “I don’t understand,” he said finally.

I frowned back at him. “To be the permanent Enforcer, you have to be bound at least a little, but humans have a choice,” I said. “Being a blood-meal doesn’t have to be painful or degrading or sexual. It can be simple. A few drops so he can read you, and know you’re not compromised by another vamp. So he can know and feel your loyalty to him.”

“Like drinking a few sips from my wrist. Nooo.” He flapped a hand. “No other stuff. No sex stuff.”

If Derek had been white, the blush would have been scarlet. As it was, his skin went darker and his flesh smelled of a
mixture of anger/shame/worry. “Yeah. Like that,” I said. “It depends on what you want. What you need. What you can handle.”
How much of your soul you are willing to give up for the price Leo is offering.
But I didn’t say that. Derek was already there.

He held his head in both hands, scratching it. Maybe using his upraised arms to hide his face from me. “I need my mama alive.”

“Ah.” I felt weird being in the position of comforting him, of being all Florence Nightingale or Mother Teresa or one of those loving, caring women that I had no idea how to be. But . . . maybe I didn’t have to be any of those.

I said, almost harshly, “Let me get this right. If Leo’s drinking your blood felt painful, then it’d be okay when he drank from you? But it feels good, and you’re all macho, and so the drinking gets mixed up with the feel-good part of your brain. Then your little brain starts to think sex and your big ol’ macho self goes all homo-terrified on you, right? And that petrifies you because . . . I don’t know. You’re a marine, and your head gets all wonky?”

Derek’s mouth opened as he started to deny it, so I went all guy on him. I slapped the back of his head. Hard. “What am I? Your shrink? Life sucks and then you get sucked on. And sometimes it feels good. I’m not saying to like your body’s reaction if you don’t swing that way. But get over it. Do the job. Get your mama well. Or quit and hope for modern medicine to heal her.”

Derek’s eyes filled with tears, quickly gone. If he’d been a big-cat, the look he gave me would have been a snarl, all teeth. His muscles bunched; his balance shifted, ready to attack me as my words penetrated his thick skull.

“You made a deal with the Devil,” I said, “and now it’s time to pay. As to
feelings
,” I snorted, “talk to a priest or a counselor about the gay part. Or talk to Leo. Lack of pain and having Leo’s mouth on your wrist isn’t the same thing as getting laid or turned into a sex toy. Drinking from you is the way Leo protects himself. And he knows you don’t like it.”

Derek looked at me in surprise, his anger melting away. “Say what?”

“You had to know that. He’s reading everything you feel as he drinks. Dude. He’s playing with you the way a cat plays with its dinner. It’s his nature. So you can accept that it feels good
and decide that it doesn’t have to lead to sex, or you can tell him it bothers you. Honesty might make him quit the predator games. Leo will accept it either way. And like I said, he can make it hurt if that makes you feel better.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Derek cursed, bending his head back down. More embarrassed.

Out front, a black SUV drove in front of the driveway, going the other direction from the last one. To Derek I said, “I think that’s the same SUV that went by earlier. How fast can you get someone out to the road for the next pass and get a look at the plate?”

“I don’t have any of my guys here. I— Wait.” Derek, for all that he was having a crisis of manhood, stood and shouted a name. “Mannie. You still got the feet?”

“My brother, I got the feet and the hands.
They
wasn’t hurt when I got sacked in my last game.” He tapped his head. “Only the old brain box.”

“There’s a black SUV cruising past out front. Get out there and get a look at the license plate next time it comes by. Make sure they don’t see you.”

“I’ll take a pic with my phone, bro.” Mannie dashed down the drive to the street.

“Mannie Dubose? From LSU? Injured in his second season with the Saints?” I didn’t live with a sports nut for nothing. Eli loved the Saints.

“The same. Nearly lost his eyesight when he had bleeding behind his eyes. Quit with his signing bonus, two years pay, and a well-crafted injury bonus. Now he and his dad own the construction company that his ole man used to work for. They mighta lost a football career, but they used the money right and parleyed it into a family business. He’s good people.

“Legs,” he added, without looking at me. “Thanks. I needed the head slap.”

“Not the tough talk?”

He pursed his lips to keep from grinning. “Eh. I mighta needed that too.”

“Talk to Leo. Or I’ll slap your head again.”

“You need me to hurt Leo for what he did to you?”

This time I smiled, feeling all mushy inside. Derek might not be family—yet—but in his own way, he was a friend and that was good enough for now. “Nah. He gave me a big honking boon when he asked for forgiveness.”

Derek’s eyebrows did that soldier-micro-twitch thing that Eli’s did when he was surprised. “He asked your forgiveness? For real?
Leo?
”

I shrugged with my eyebrows. Turnabout was fair play.

“A big honking one, huh? Not bad, Legs. Not bad.”

We sat in the sun for a while until Derek’s phone rang. “It’s parked down the street, bro,” Mannie said on speakerphone. “I zoomed in and got the plate. Sending it to you now. Also a shot of the driver, but it’s not too good through the glass.”

“I’ll send it to the Kid,” Derek said to me. “I gotta get back to work.”

“Later,” I said.

We bumped fists. I pulled out of the driveway, passing and waving to Mannie, and then passing the empty SUV. No driver. Or rather, a driver lying down in the seat. That. Because an SUV appeared behind me a mile or so later. I lost him by taking a back road, one that was sinking below the water table in this alluvial landscape. Two turns later, I was free to go where I wanted. People were so stupid sometimes.

Carrying a Vamp Head

Hours later, I looked at myself in the mirror on the closet door. I was wearing one of the first outfits I had bought when I got to New Orleans, clothes purchased because it was too hot for my mountain wear, and because they were colorful and beautiful. Now I knew enough about clothing to recognize that they were made of inexpensive fabric, with inferior workmanship. I knew that the seams were sewn cheaply, the drape wasn’t quite right, and the skirt would likely last only a few washings before it lost its shape entirely. Dumb, stupid stuff to know, of no value in a world where my most important bit of knowledge should be how sharp the blade, how well it was balanced, and how true the sights on the gun. But I’d bought the clothes with my own money and with my own taste. I’d worn the outfit on the first night I’d gone dancing in New Orleans, my first week here.

The silk, calf-length, asymmetrical skirt was patchwork, a dainty, flared, delicate confection of tiny, two-by-four-inch patches of teal and purple, a skirt for an impoverished princess. The hem flipped when I danced and the elastic waist rode low on my hips if I wanted it to, or higher, on my waist. I’d put on a few pounds of muscle since I bought it, but most of that was in my shoulders and thighs and the skirt still looked good on me. Rad, as the salesgirl had said.

I wore the skirt low on my hips, paired with a peasant top with a drawstring neckline. The blouse was made of a paler fabric, ocean-teal shading to lavender. The
amethyst-and-chatkalite necklace I’d bought with the outfit hung with my gold-nugget-and-puma-tooth necklace on its doubled gold chain, between my cleavage. And that was something else new. I had cleavage. Well, sorta. At least a valley, if not a crevasse, thanks to all those extra pounds, a very tiny percentage of which had landed as fat on my boobs. I slid my feet into a pair of purple sandals, with ankle straps for dancing.

I tugged the purple and teal skirt lower on my hip bones, pulling the peasant top lower on my breasts, the tie open with a skin-toned jog bra beneath. Sexy, but showing nothing. The skirt whispered around my calves with each step. I’d worn this on the first night I’d heard Rick LaFleur play the saxophone in the band at the Royal Mojo Blues Company. There had to be a reason I’d chosen to wear this outfit tonight. Was it because Rick was gone, but not totally gone, as in dead and buried? Was it because he had texted me several times since he disappeared with Paka, his new were-black-panther girlfriend, as if keeping in touch with me was important? Not that I had texted back. I wasn’t that stupid. Or was it something else?

I let my mind wander as I swished on a little bronzer to brighten my skin, drew on some lips in a vamp red, and mascaraed my lashes. I didn’t test the movement of my skirt in the mirror, not like I had that first night. That first night dancing, I’d worn a turban. But tonight, I French-braided my hair into three short sections, secured them together at the crown of my head, and let the rest of the hair fall in a straight sheen of midnight black to my hips. I was the same. And not the same. And Rick was gone. I’d stopped mourning, though sometimes it crept back in. Life sans boyfriend—any boyfriend—could be unexpectedly lonely. I smiled at myself in the mirror, scarlet lips and a dress that was sex on a stick. New beginnings often started with the broken bits and shattered pieces of the old. I was not the dumb girl I’d been a few months ago—that gal’s soul had been broken and put back together with bailing wire and duct tape. And life went on. How corny was that?

But just because I’d grown up a bit didn’t mean I’d grown stupid. I strapped on a thigh sheath with a vamp-killer and two stakes and stuck two more into my hair. I looked at myself in the mirror again and let the skirt fall slowly over the weapons. Yeah. I was still me. Maybe I was more me than ever.

The boys were talking when I opened my door, but the chatter stopped when I entered the main room and paused in
the doorway. Alex nearly swallowed his tongue and managed, “Shhhh-oot,” instead of what he’d started to say.

Feeling uncertain again, I bunched my skirt with my hands and said, “Thanks.”

Eli’s brows rose with a restrained reaction of some kind, and he said, “Babe. You planning to rock the house tonight? Or George’s dreams?”

“
She’s
got a date with
Bruiser
?” the Kid asked his brother.

I looked down at my dress. “Yeah. I’m pretty astounded too. I’m totally out of his league. You know? He’s British. He was raised by a Lady, as in a capital
L
Lady. He dates vamps, some of whom are royalty. I mean, I was raised in a children’s home.”

“And you can hold your own anywhere with anyone, Janie,” Alex said, staunchly.

“Yeah, but I bet she can’t dance,” Eli said.

“I can, too,” I said, stung.

“Prove it,” Eli said. “Music.” I heard a faint
click
, and something African-inspired with drums and a low-pitched wind instrument and bells started playing. “No.” The music changed to a Latin beat, horns and drums, hot, with a deep basso rhythm to it. Eli stood and held out his hand. “Yeah. That one, bro. Prove it, babe.”

“How’s that gonna make me feel better about a date with Bruiser?”

“Trust me.”

When I didn’t take his hand, Eli grabbed mine and whirled me into a rough dance I couldn’t even begin to name. It had a six-beat dance pattern that cued as tri-ple step, tri-ple step, step, step, like a boogie-woogie, but the moves were all Latin, hips and shoulders and butt all acting independently of one another but managing to work. Somehow. Eli whirled me under his arm, out, and back in, with a snapping motion that would have put a lesser woman into a body cast. And suddenly I grinned.

“What is this?” I asked.

“The locals called it ‘
ha’ dzuuy
,’ which I think was translated as ‘hard rain’ in Mayan or some other dead language.” He wasn’t even breathing hard as he twirled me through a complicated set of moves that involved a lot of hip rotation, then slammed me into his side like a side of beef against a rock wall. “My unit was stationed in Mexico for a bit during a war between drug lords. We partied with the locals in our downtime.

“Try this.” His feet continued the same pattern while his hips performed a sinuous, snaky move that could have come directly from my belly-dancing classes, all come-hither and keep-away at once. I followed the step and added a slight dip-and-bounce at the end, rolling my body back up to start the move all over again. Eli looked like I could have knocked him over with a feather—minimalist style—a twitch of lips that signified surprise.

The music ended midnote and I heard knocking on the front door. My date was here.

Oh crap. My
date
. But my nerves had dissipated somewhere in the dance, and I winked at the Kid as I swung out of Eli’s arms and to the foyer, my feet and hips still moving as I tossed a tiny bag over my shoulder and opened the door on the late-day, May air.

Bruiser’s scent swept in, smelling of citrus, gun oil, and male, riding along with the New Orleans’ air—spring sunshine, heated concrete, and the wet of the Mississippi. It all mixed with the inside scents of flowers and catnip. Though I couldn’t see the weapons, I knew he was wearing them. Bruiser always went armed. He was wearing casual clothes, dark brown slacks and a starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a jacket hanging by a finger over his shoulder. Bruiser had great arms, muscular and tanned.

“Jane,” he said. Just my name. And something lightened inside of me.

“Bruiser,” I said back, and I smiled at him as Beast raised up and padded closer to the front of my mind, peering out through my eyes.
Mine,
she purred. Without looking over my shoulder, I said, “My gobag’s in the foyer. See you at vamp HQ at nine sharp.”

Eli said, “Roger that. Twenty-one hundred.”

At the curb, a limo idled, the back door open in invitation. I knew this limo. I’d been in it before, more than once, the first time on my back on the floor with Bruiser on top of me. Not sex, but it had been close. I felt a faint flush, and to hide it, I turned and locked my front door behind me. Breathing deeply until the lock clicked and I had myself under control.

Bruiser touched my shoulder and guided me into the limo, then sat across from me, studying me. I felt awkward and foolish and I didn’t know why. Bruiser said, “I always liked that outfit. I see the blood came out.”

“Oh. Right.” The first night I’d worn the dress, I’d killed a young rogue vamp. Not the smartest clothes to wear while vamp hunting. I’d gotten the vamp’s blood all over me and a lot of my own as well. Leo and Bruiser had been in my house when I arrived, carrying a vamp head and cradling a badly mauled arm. Which Leo had healed while Bruiser looked on. My arm, not the vamp head. She was dead. I looked down at the dress. “Yeah. Somebody at Katie’s got the blood out. Eventually.”

Bruiser shook his head, amusement clear despite the darkness caused by the vamp-worthy tinted windows. “You do know how to make an impression, Jane Yellowrock. And that is one of my favorite dresses.”

“You’re wearing a tie,” I said, frowning. “Should I have worn something fancier? One of Madame Melisende’s things?” The ancient blood-servant made my work clothes for formal vamp occasions.

“No,” he said, his tone with an edge I didn’t understand. Before I could figure it out he added, “You look lovely, perfect for Arnaud’s.”

“You got last-minute reservations at
Arnaud’s
?” I couldn’t keep the astonishment out of my voice. Even I knew that Arnaud’s was always booked weeks in advance.

“I have a standing reservation,” he said, nonchalant, like an astronaut might say, “I’ve been to space,” or a world traveler, “I’ve been to Paris numerous times,” or—

He interrupted my thoughts with, “I may no longer be primo, but my prominence in all things Mithran hasn’t diminished.”

“But
Arnaud’s
.” I looked down at my dress, knowing for certain that I needed to have worn a little black dress. I actually had a little black dress now. I lifted the skirt and fingered the silk fabric. Cheap. I’d paid less than a hundred dollars for it.

“Jane. Stop. You look fine. Better than fine. You’ll turn heads everywhere you go.”

“Next time tell me where we’re going,” I said flatly. And then felt my face burn because that made the assumption that there would be a next time and— “Crap. Bruiser. I eat at diners and fast food joints and drink beer. My dates and I talk about guns and the newest horror or action flick. I wear jeans and boots and no makeup. I do not go to
Arnaud’s
on dates. I won’t know what to order and have no idea which fork or spoon to use.” I met his eyes. “This is not me.”

Bruiser laughed.

He had a really great laugh, not mocking or sarcastic or bored or pitying. He just laughed, as if I’d shared something funny with him. “We’ll do that next time. One week from today, I promise. However, this evening, we are eating at Arnaud’s. And I’ve already spoken with the chef to prepare us a combination plate of meats and fish, with sides, so you can try a bit of everything on that part of the menu.” He leaned in, and his scent roiled over me, soothing. “This isn’t to make you feel inferior, Jane. You are not inferior to anyone. This is to show you a bit of the New Orleans I know, a part you may not have visited before.”

“Right. It’s
Arnaud’s
.”

“And the food is delicious. And the table is ready.” The limo pulled to a stop. The back door opened and Bruiser stepped out into the sunset, holding his hand back for mine.

“Crap,” I muttered. But I took his hand and let him support me out of the limo. Like I needed it. I could kick his butt. With one hand tied behind me. And then I realized I’d said that aloud when Bruiser laughed again.

“Maybe on our second date, I’ll tie you up,” he said, “and see what you can do to me.”

And that shut me up.

Our table—heavy white linen tablecloth, heavy silverware, heavy crystal wineglasses—was in the back, in a secluded corner, beneath a small potted palm of some kind. The gumbo was delivered while the wine was being poured, something light and smooth that melted in my mouth and matched perfectly with the gumbo appetizer. Bruiser talked about the people he’d known in his life as we ate the soup, and I listened, following his choices as to silverware, which made it much easier. Especially when the salads arrived, all lettuce-y and stuff. It wasn’t bad, for green leaves. And as he talked, I finally began to feel less tongue-tied and started to relax.

And Bruiser had known some amazing people. Mae West, for crying out loud. He had dated Mae West. He had taken target practice with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans at their Double R Bar Ranch in the Mojave Desert. He’d squired (yeah, that was what he said—squired) a teenaged Elizabeth Taylor to several parties, keeping her virtue safe from the aging roués who wanted to sleep with her. I wasn’t sure what a roué was, but it sounded nasty. He name-dropped with abandon, and I
learned that Leo had a house in Malibu and shared one with the primo of California’s MOC in Holmby Hills in L.A. Bruiser hadn’t wasted the years he’d been granted as primo, with access to the blood that kept him young. He’d lived it, and I felt both like a kid at her grandpa’s knee listening to stories, and like a seductive woman that men—this man, anyway—couldn’t keep his eyes off of.

For the meal, we were served tiny portions of the speckled trout, prepared two ways: trout meunière and trout amandine, followed by sea bass from the Gulf, caught today, served two ways: filleted and sautéed, topped with fresh Louisiana crabmeat, and grilled fillet topped with fresh tomatoes, basil, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, and kalamata olives.
To die for.
I think I said that aloud, maybe for the first time in my whole life. We had three pompano dishes: the pompano Duarte, which was sautéed fillet topped with Gulf shrimp and tomatoes, seasoned with garlic, fresh herbs, and crushed chili peppers; the pompano David—grilled, skin-on fillet brushed with extra-virgin olive oil, lemon, garlic, and fresh herbs—and pompano en croute. And baby pompano fillets and scallop mousse baked in flaky puff pastry, served on a bed of green peppercorn cream sauce. On a separate plate were the veggies, which were wild mushrooms, asparagus, some kind of soufflé, and potatoes, all with their own sauces. I didn’t eat much in the way of plants, but these were enough to make me think about going vegetarian. The portions were tiny but I was stuffed even before the meats arrived.