him, smirked at them all right along with me, though I imagined he was mentally slapping his forehead. Did I have to poke quite so much? Yeah, I did.
It kept my gaze from falling to the stack of bodies in the middle of the stage.
The impeccable anachronistic guy with the goatee made an obvious sniff, nostrils flaring, and wrinkled his nose. “The bitch is in heat.”
Ben stepped forward, putting himself in front of me, and bared his teeth in challenge. I put a calming hand on his arm and moved back into view. “Well, that’s a little personal. Ned, if we’re going to be sharing like this do you want to at least introduce everyone to me? I thought you guys were into all that formality and crap.”
Ned started to speak, but the goateed vampire sneered and said, “Too much barking. It’s obscene.” He turned away from us as if disgusted.
“You hear that, honey? I’m obscene,” I said to Ben. “I think that means we win.”
“High five,” he said, holding up his hand. I slapped it and held it.
“High paw.”
Yeah, they were definitely looking at us like we were the ones on stage, now. The figures on the fringes, the bodyguards and such, had pressed forward to watch, even. I didn’t know how much longer we could keep up the banter and hold their attention.
“I don’t think you understand your position here, young lady,” said another of them, a man with dark skin and an Arabic-looking robe of white linen tied with an embroidered sash. “You are here at our pleasure. Our sufferance.”
“See, what does that even mean?” I said, my arms out. “You think I’m going to go along with that, just because you expect it?”
“Has no one taught you manners?” he said in a disappointed tone, as if he was lamenting the fallen state of the world, where a lowly werewolf could talk smack to a vampire.
“Yeah, you should ask the vampires back home about that. I’m real popular.”
“She is,” Ben said. “That eye rolling thing you’re doing? She gets that all the time.”
I looked at him. “Really?”
“Just trying to help.”
Man, the two of us should go on the road. Some of the retainers standing in the wings had begun to fidget. I hoped I was making them nervous.
Ned stepped forward. “If I could make those introductions now—”
The goateed vampire slapped the table, causing knives to rattle and candle flames to flicker. “Edward, you are a terrible host for allowing one of the wolves to speak so out of turn.”
Ned smiled. “She’s not mine to command, Jan. You know that.”
“It’s the principle—”
Ned countered, “If you’re offended—”
“Oh, I’m not offended,” one of the other women said. She had black hair and wore a rhinestone-studded ball gown that glittered like shattered glass. “I thought this was the evening’s entertainment.” That got a few more laughs. Several of them started talking and laughing over each other, leaving Ned cut off in the middle of his intervention.
Enough of this. I looked at Mercedes and raised my voice.
“How many of you are carrying the coins of Dux Bellorum?” I said, loud and sure to carry.
The room fell still, quiet, and every vampiric gaze, thick with power, turned on me. Mercedes actually took a step back. Well, hallelujah.
“What did you say?” The flip guy in the poet’s shirt asked this softly.
“You heard me,” I said.
Again, the long silence and studious gazes dominated. I kept still, chin up, eyes steady. I did not slouch. Neither did Ben. We weren’t the strongest ones here; it was us against all of them, the whole room. But we had startled them. We had an advantage.
“Well,” Ned said wonderingly to the assemblage. “You wanted to know if she had any real power. Now you do.”
Every one of those gazes had become appraising. Calculating. Then—they turned those gazes on each other. Because they didn’t know who among them belonged to Dux Bellorum, and who didn’t. Oh, this had gotten very interesting.
Mercedes pointed at me and smiled. “She has no power. She hides her weakness with words. I want to see her fight. Wolves are nothing without their teeth and claws.”
“Yes, a fight,” said her goateed colleague—Jan. “That will settle this. Clear out the middle here.” He pointed at several of the retainers, both vampire and lycanthrope, nodding with distaste at the discarded blood donors. The retainers began picking up the unconscious bodies and hauling them away. Some of the victims twitched muscles as if coming to wakefulness, their heads lolling and expressions wincing. No one paid them any mind as they were carried off, through the doors to another room. I hoped one with beds and food and lots of juice and water.
“I’m not going to fight,” I said.
“I’ll get in there before you,” Ben said.
“Neither of us is going to fight.”
Jan called, “Which one should she fight? One of them, the female—” He pointed at the pair of werewolves wearing the steel collars and chains.
“No,” their Master said. He had short cropped hair and wore a tuxedo with white leather gloves. He had some kind of accent, Scandinavian maybe. “She’s submissive, it wouldn’t be proper.” He actually stroked the woman’s hair, leaning over her, protective. In turn, the woman pressed into his touch, turning her face to his thigh as if to hide. She was scared. The other prisoner, the man, put his arms around her, a heartbreaking move to shelter her. He stole glances at me, but his gaze was more often on the floor—he was submissive, too, and terrified of me. Of
The vampire put his hands on both of them and looked at me, beseeching. As if I could better protect them from this horror show. I almost could think they were beloved pets and not prisoners. If not for the horrid chains.
“I’m not going to fight anybody,” I said, and the vampire slumped, relieved.
“I think you will,” Mercedes said, thinning her smile and waving fingers at the very burly man behind her—a werewolf, one of the bodyguard types in a suit, who started loosening his tie.
They really expected us to strip down, Change, and go at it right here. Ben had tensed, his fingers curling into a shadow of claws. My own jaw was stiff—I’d been baring my teeth unconsciously.
Ned waited, as always, watching to see what I would do. Maybe if it really did turn into a fight, he’d step in to stop it. Emma was looking scared. I wasn’t going to leave it to either of them to decide.
“You people really need to get over yourselves,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m not fighting anyone. I’m not your monkey, I’m not putting on a show for you, I don’t
Turning around, I marched out, past Emma, up that long aisle, past all those empty seats. Ben was right with me—in fact, he reached out to open the door and gestured me through, making the move seem suave and planned. It must have looked great from the outside. I walked through the doorway without breaking stride; he followed, and gave the door a nice little slam behind him.
I went another twenty feet into the lobby before I collected myself enough to stop, covering my face with my hands and groaning. “God almighty you’ve got to be kidding me. It’s like they’ve been playing orgy in Rome for the last thousand years.”
Ben was grinning. “That was awesome. The looks on their faces.”
“How long do you think until they burst through the doors and drag us back in there to teach us a lesson?” I said, thinking not just of the couple of dozen vampires, but the lycanthropes and anyone who happened to have a gun with silver bullets. Anyone whose sensibilities we’d damaged.
He regarded the door. “You know? I don’t think they’re coming.” Head cocked, listening, he waited another moment. “They’re talking.”
When the blood stopped rushing in my ears and I managed to calm my breathing, I could hear the voices, muted but angry. People were talking fast, speaking over each other, accusing, pleading, soothing.
