Death's Rival

my single moment of reaction time. I did not expect his whispered “Leo. I—No!” I jerked my arm and twisted my body.

Bruiser held on to me. And my trust was shattered.

Katie caught my free arm, which was reaching for my ankle holster, in a vise. The Mercy Blade stepped on my foot, which was lifting to my hand, and forced it back to the cement floor. Sabina circled behind me and caught my head, twisting my chin up, stretching my neck, holding me still. I was immobilized. The electric door whirred down behind us, enclosing us in the dark. Leo walked out of the echoing shadows, footsteps measured and slow. He was vamped out, his fangs snapped down, eyes all black pupil in bloody, scarlet sclera. Sabina unlatched the clasp on my silver and titanium necklace.

Bruiser swallowed, the sound of his throat moving loud in the sudden silence. “I brought her to you. But . . . This is not what . . .” His voice sounded thick, confused, and trailed off into nothing, but my eyes were on Leo. I understood what was about to happen. My heart thumped hard once and raced to a limping beat. I wrenched my body, fighting for freedom. It was like wrestling shaped steel.

Beast is not prey! she raged inside me.

“George. Bruiser. Don’t let him do this,” I said, my words strangled from the angle of my neck.

“I . . . can’t. I’m sorry,” he said again, real regret clotting his voice, and maybe real pain.

Leo stepped up to me, like a dance step, measured, smooth, like the opening movement to a tango. He was slight but strong, shoulder-length black hair pulled back in a queue with a black ribbon, the end hanging over one shoulder. His eyes, Frenchy black; his face, usually so pale, was now suffused with blood. He looked well fleshed, as if he had been working out and had put on muscle. His usual scent, like pepper and papyrus, was different, with a hint of berries and oak and fermentation, like fine wine. I realized that Leo had fed long and deeply.

His fangs clicked down, three inches of glistening white, his jaw having to do something odd to allow the movement. My breath heaved and my heart raced, and Leo’s eyes bled slowly black and scarlet, vamping out as he smelled my fear. “You, my new Enforcer, have equally served me well and caused me much grief,” he said, the words sibilant and echoing in the empty space. “You found my enemy, which is a service to be well rewarded. But this trouble you have brought to me must end. I have taken council of my advisers and have discovered a way to reward you for both.” He smiled, and my heart sped even faster. Leo chuckled softly and leaned in, breathing deeply of my panic. “Yessss,” he whispered, his lips close to my ear. “And then you will be my new Enforcer indeed. You will be bound to me as the Carta rightly requires. You, rather than my George, will act as my second in the Blood Challenge I will issue to this enemy you have identified.” He smiled and it was snakelike. “That is, if you survive your own duty and fate.”

“Boss—Leo, don’t—” Bruiser stopped as if his throat was choked shut and buried his face in my hair, speaking now to me. “I’m sorry,” Bruiser whispered, the word echoing exactly as Leo’s had. “I can’t stop him. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I could smell his misery, his self-disgust. His compulsion. He was sorry. But he didn’t let me go. He couldn’t. He was blood-trapped, blood-drunk. Compelled. Leo’s slave. This was why vamps were evil. This stealing of will.

“I’m sorry for causing you trouble,” I said, fear like lightning, my words gasping. “And I don’t need any reward for discovering Lucas de Allyon. I haven’t even proved he’s your enemy. I said it’s possible.”

“Your analysis was exemplary and your conclusion valid,” Gee said. “We concur with your hypothesis and analysis. My master’s true-dead uncle had previous . . . rivalry with this Mithran regarding some small territorial disputes following the Civil War. Hence this necessity.”

Leo lifted a hand to my face, calloused along the thumb side of his index finger, and warm from all the blood he had ingested. The Mercy Blade pressed against my knees and they buckled, the vamps riding me down until my knees hit the cool floor, a supplicant, as if begging. I might have thought that Gee DiMercy would save me as he did once before, would have compassion, but he wasn’t human either. And he too was Leo’s.

Bruiser fell to his knees beside me, still holding my arm. I started to threaten Leo, but Sabina yanked down on my bun so hard my hair tore and my scalp bled. I could smell it. I fought to inhale with my head at this angle, my breath sounding tortured. Leo bent over me, his black hair falling forward, to caress my cheeks. From the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of steel and smelled Leo’s blood where he cut himself. One of Sabina’s inhumanly strong hands held my head back; the other hand pinched my nose closed.

“Blood to blood,” Leo murmured, “mind to mind. My power calling to your power.” He bit into my throat. Electric pain cut through me. Magic slammed into me, hot and wet, raw and scarlet, heavy with semisolid things that flooded into my spirit cave and molded to my soul like clots.

Leo’s wrist covered my mouth as I gasped. I breathed down the drops of blood and the magic, choking, feeling it hit my lungs and slam into my bloodstream, my jaws suddenly aching with heavy pressure, my fingertips burning, as Beast struggled to break free. There was nothing of compulsion in Leo, nothing of the painkilling laving of tongue that could have blunted the pain. Nothing of the mesmerizing ability that made the taking of blood pleasurable for the victim. This was control. This was dominance, not the reward he’d promised. If I fought, he’d rip out my throat.

As soon as I thought that, a wave of pleasure rippled through me, starting at my neck and following every nerve ending across my torso to settle low in my belly. Heat and desire coiled there, mating together. No, I thought. No . . .

Tears blurred my eyes, and my stomach roiled. My mouth filled with Leo’s blood, almost human-warm, gelatinous, with a sharp, peppery, fermented flavor. I had no choice but to swallow. My gulps tore my throat where Leo’s teeth pierced me, and more pain/pleasure flared out. My heart beat fast against my ribs as he drank, fangs buried deep, lips sealed tight. Sucking hard. And I swallowed as he swallowed, a dance of pleasure and agony. Two, three, six gulps. Need cascaded through me with each sip of his blood. If my hands had been free, I’d have clutched him to me, and I hated him for that control, for that want. This was what made blood-slaves willing to do anything to get their next high. Anything at all.

Leo’s arm moved from my mouth and I finally got a breath, inhaling, the sound a hissing panic and a gasping desire, and Leo drank in my fear and craving. He slid his arms around me and pushed me flat to the floor, until I stared up at the shadows. Sabina released me, stepping away; the Mercy Blade followed her, leaving me on the floor with Leo and Bruiser. They held me between them, the two of them, as Leo’s magic welled up, twining around me, sliding inside me, like electric vines. In the dark I could feel it, a prickling breeze over my exposed skin. Could see it, wisps and strands of pale gray light. Could smell it, like old parchment and pepper, Leo’s personal scent. His magic flowed beneath my skin, pumped through my veins, mingled with my blood, and I sobbed once, only once, my flesh throbbing against his fangs. My heartbeat was a soft thump-thump, thump-thump, growing louder as the blood I’d breathed in and swallowed was carried with his magic through my body, through my heart, and arteries and veins. Changing me. Empowering me. Half a dozen gulps of my blood. Stolen.

Thief of blood, Beast hissed.

Leo’s fangs withdrew, the motion slow and cutting like twin razors. I grunted with the pain. Bruiser was still whispering, his lips barely moving air, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Katie took Leo’s place, standing over me, staring down, alpha to my zeta. I curled back my lips and growled at her. She chuckled at the sound, her own power flowing over me like cold water, brown and teal and dark green. She held up her arm and I smelled her blood. Three claw marks scored her wrist, blood running down to her fingers and up to her elbow. Beast had drawn blood. I snarled at her. I felt Beast’s fangs in my mouth, long and pointed and built for killing, for shredding meat, not for draining the blood of prey.

“You are not human,” she said. She licked her own blood, staring down at me as her wrist healed. “We have always known this. Your blood will taste sweet.” She knelt and bent over my elbow, rolling my sleeve up, lifting my arm to her mouth, bending it at a painful angle. She bit me.

The pain this time nearly broke me, an electric shock that froze my breath and darkened the edges of my vision. I lay still, my body against the cool cement. She was lying across me, her legs to the side, her weight far heavier than I expected.

Leo’s heir took only three deep gulps before withdrawing her fangs. They clicked back into her mouth on the little bone hinges and she slid her tongue along my arm, closing the wounds before she wiped her lips with a finger, licking off a drop of my blood. Bruiser was curled along my side, still whispering his sorrow.

“Now you are mine,” Leo said.

“Now I can bind you easily should Leo fall,” Katie said. “Our defenses will not be subsumed, nor will they fail should the worst happen. The Vampira Carta is now our defense.”