Raven Cursed

“You’ll find them loaded with 50-caliber cartridges—sterling silver rounds seated in traditional brass,” she said. “Hand-packed vamp-killers.”



Or werewolf killers, I thought. “This sucker weighs nearly five pounds, fully loaded.”



“And yet you lift it with ease.”



I’d given away something I still wasn’t ready to admit and had no idea how to fix it. I shrugged. “Strong wrists.”



Mooney laughed and crossed her legs. Unlike most women she was wearing hose, and they shushed gently with the motion, drawing Brandon’s eyes to her legs, as she’d clearly intended. Her smile widened and she gave me a look that said, “Aren’t men cute?” Instead of giving that thought voice, she said, “We’ve never been properly introduced. I’m Adelaide Mooney, blood-servant and daughter in life to Dacy, Lincoln Shaddock’s heir.”



I didn’t want to like the woman—she was too . . . perfect. Elegant. Ladylike—but I was starting to. Dang it. “Why is it loaded with silvershot?”



She inclined her head, as if I had done something particularly bright, like a dog with a new trick. Or as if I’d passed a test, something set up to prove I deserved to be in charge of security. Her blue eyes tinted toward a delicate shade of lavender, maybe cornflower blue, and were uncomfortably direct. “Your record is exemplary and your eye for weapons is excellent. You come highly recommended by Leonard Pellissier and by my security researcher, who provided a dossier on you in record time.”



I couldn’t help but be pleased that Leo had said something nice about me. Especially as he’d tried to kill me several times in our short acquaintance. “Let me guess. Reach did my dossier?”



“You use Reach for background?” She sounded gently surprised, perhaps too well bred to sound insultingly startled at what that implied about my net worth.



“Mostly when Leo foots the bill,” I admitted. “Reach is a little pricey for my usual budget.”



“He is that,” she said. It wasn’t quite a disgusted mutter, but it came close. “So it’s likely that he had your information on file, collated, well studied, and ready, and yet he waited an hour to send it to me, hoping to make it look as though he was doing rapid new research.”



I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “Sounds like Reach.”



“Yes, it does. So. What are you?”



I went still for a long slow moment. Without taking my eyes from her bluish lavender ones, I slowly eased the Smith and Wesson mini-cannon back into the plastic casing. It kept me from shooting her with the big gun.



“As a blood-servant, I have an excellent sense of smell,” she went on. “Lincoln tells me you smell of sex and war and rushing water in a deep glen. He’s poetic, is our Linc. You don’t smell human. So what are you?”



“None of your business,” I said, sitting back, the words coming slowly.



“But it is. You are providing security services for a high-level parley that directly affects my current and future lifestyle, and my decision whether to attempt to become a Mithran or remain a blood-servant. Everything you do and everything you are is my business.”



“Take it up with Leo,” I said.



“I have. He was not forthcoming.”



“Because he doesn’t know what she is,” Brandon said. I had almost forgotten he was there, he’d been so silent and still.



“Impossible,” Mooney said.



“Fact. None of the Mithrans know what she is,” Brandon said, “though Leo’s Mercy Blade may know and simply isn’t saying. He calls her the ‘little goddess.’”



“I’m not a goddess,” I said, sounding disgruntled, knowing I needed to get the spotlight off of me. “But I am hungry.” I looked at Adelaide, thinking rude might work. “You said you were Dacy’s daughter in life, which, as I understand it, means she had you in the natural human way. Before or after she was turned? How old are you? You have to be old.”



Adelaide laughed, a tinkling amusement that made my own laughter sound like a mule braying. “Leo told me you were direct.”



I figured that was a ladylike way of saying I was vulgar, but since I was going that way, I couldn’t gripe. I slouched down in the butter-soft leather and waited, watching her.



“I’m in my early eighties. If I want to keep my youth, it would be wise to risk being turned in the next decade. Which is why I want to know what you are.” She was tenacious. A lawyer would have to be. I sighed but didn’t answer. Adelaide looked at Brandon. “Elf?” Meaning me.



“Leo says no. Grégoire says no. She isn’t elf, were, or anything they know. Though they do scent cats and birds and dogs on her, and she doesn’t own pets.”



I looked out the window. They were talking about me as if I was tied to a lab table, but I couldn’t complain. I’d started the rudeness. They had never smelled anything like me, because the only other skinwalker Leo had ever scented had gone to the dark side and killed, eaten, and stolen the body and life and scent of Leo’s own son. Long before Leo ever got a whiff of him again, he smelled like vamp and family. I had killed the imposter.



I leaned to the small fridge and opened the door, taking out and opening a Yuengling Lager, which gave me something to do with my hands besides shooting the two blood-servants with one of the lovely weapons. After an uncomfortable silence, during which I realized I hadn’t been offered the beer I’d taken, the blood-servants examined me while I scrutinized the city of Asheville in the afternoon light.



The city is in a valley surrounded by mountains, having expanded its borders in all directions. Downtown, however, is small and close; a silent five minutes later, despite the Sunday afternoon tourist traffic, we were pulling up in front of Shaddock’s BBQ. The sign out front showed a picture of two soldiers, Confederate and Union, eating together over a campfire and the remains of a roasted spitted pig. The sign was amusing, as the vamp owner had been turned by a Union soldier vamp on the battlefield of Monocacy, on July 9, 1864. I figured the two soldiers had spent their getting-to-know you dinner over the throat of a human, not a cooked pig, but I’d been wrong before. I climbed out of the car when it stopped and led the way inside, ignoring the sidelong glance shared by the servants. Inside, I took a seat at a party-sized table and watched as Brandon hung his jacket on a hook, revealing broad shoulders and an economy of movement. Clothes were wasted on him. Which was a totally inappropriate thought.



To combat the images of Brandon and his twin posed half-naked on the cover of a romance novel, I ordered three hogshead baskets (the largest order the place offered) of smothered fries, a large Coke, and a number four—pulled pork with all the fixin’s. I was nowhere near finished with the day’s activities and I needed protein, fats, and caffeine until I shifted or slept twelve hours. The two servants ordered and then chitchatted about the weather while we waited for fries and my security guys. I learned that a cold front was moving south fast, and was expected to barrel into the region behind the hurricane. We’d have an end-of-summer storm, heavy rain, followed by sweater weather. Beast purred thinking of a hunt in cool temps, and a snarky smile pulled at my lips.



Brandon lifted his brows at the sight. Adelaide repeated the gesture. It had to be a class thing. It was so polite and understated, and yet so superior. I shook my head and waved my snark away.



The fries and the guys all got to our table at the same time, Derek taking the seat beside me, his thigh shoving my chair down the long table. “Injun Princess,” he said to me. To the other two he said, “B-twin. Pretty lady.”



Wrassler pulled up a sturdier chair from another table. “Legs,” he said to me, and nodded to the others. Both men had scoped out the place and everyone in it upon entering. Wrassler instinctively angled his chair to watch the front entrance. Derek sat to cover the windows, the rest of the building, and the street, as I had. Instinctive, hardwired security measures. They placed their orders and then everyone turned to me. Like choreography.



I suppressed a chuckle and said, “Okay. Sit rep. We got two werewolves in the area. They probably chased us here.” Derek and his boys had slaughtered the Lupus pack, so my use of “us” was truth. “The grindylow swam and/or hitched a ride on a boat from New Orleans, chasing his master, the were-cat Kemnebi, who is vacationing on the Tennessee side of the mountains.”



Brandon went still. “The were-cat is here? And you didn’t see fit to inform us?”



Adelaide looked back and forth between us. “This were-creature is dangerous?”



“No. He’s a high-level ambassadorial type with the Party of African Weres and the IAW,” I said. I narrowed my eyes at Brandon. “He’s sixty miles away and working a monthlong drunk. If you have a problem with not knowing, take it up with Leo. He’s the boss. It was need-to-know. You didn’t need to know, before. Now you do. Get over it.”



I ate several fries while they all took that in, and I nearly moaned with the flavor. The fries were smothered with chili, cheese, jalapeños, red beans, sour cream, and ketchup, like nachos but with potatoes. To die for. Wrassler, the easiest-going guy I knew, had no problem with need-to-know intel, and was making inroads on his basket of fries. Derek was thinking and nibbling on the basket sitting in front of the blood-servants. Who hadn’t touched the greasy bit-a-heaven.



“Lastly, and maybe most important, I was attacked by a blood-servant that none of you claim to recognize.” Adelaide’s back went stiff at the implied insult. You’d a thought I whapped her nose with a newspaper. “And if he wasn’t one of yours, then we have an unknown vamp interested in the parley proceedings.” Which would complicate everything, though complications were nothing new when dealing with vamps.



When Brandon and Adelaide had had time to digest the semi-insult and info, I drank down the Coke and said, “The problems are”—I raised a balled fist, extending a finger—“the werewolves are trying to make the vamps look guilty for the attacks”—I raised another finger—“while simultaneously trying to create mates and rebuild their pack.” I raised a third. “The grindy is chasing them to punish them for attacking humans”—a fourth went up—“and the were-cat is drunk as two skunks in mourning for his dead mate.” My thumb went up, fingers splayed. “Leo and the IAW want me to hunt down and kill the wolves.” I raised the index finger of my other hand. “And that means working at night.” I dropped my hands. “All that, on top of a high-level parley Leo has resisted for decades, humans protesting, media attention, and interest by an unknown vamp. I need to know one thing—can y’all handle security without me for a bit?”

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