hatred left his eyes.
“Fine,” Lord Daryl whispered. “Do whatever you want with her. Just watch that she doesn’t put a knife in you before I can do it.” He stalked out of the room.
Jaguar knelt beside Turquoise. He reached toward her and she flinched.
“Are you okay?” he asked, not touching her, afraid of causing further injury.
Cautiously, she tried to stand. Her left eye was swollen from Lord Daryl’s first blow, and there was no doubt a lump growing on the back of her head from when she had been tossed against the wall. The left side of her rib cage was bruised, but she did not think anything was broken.
He had given her beatings worse than this one.
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered, leaning against the wall as she tried to get her bearings.
“Normally, one warning is enough for Daryl, but Jeshickah’s been favoring him lately, and he thinks that gives him power. If I’d realized how smug he’s gotten, I would have intercepted him before he could get to you,” Jaguar apologized.
Turquoise shook her head, and then flinched at the pain the movement caused. “Lord Daryl will try to kill you, if you don’t let him have me.”
Jaguar sighed in annoyance. “I don’t like murdering my own kind, but for Daryl, I would gladly make an exception. He knows it, too.”
He tried to offer a hand when she pushed herself away from the wall, but Turquoise avoided it. She was sore, and would feel worse tomorrow after all the bruises and bumps stiffened up, but Lord Daryl had never intentionally given her any permanent injuries. Even the majority of the scars on her arms had been accidental, not part of a beating.
Right now, though, she could not accept help from his kind. She would not let this small injury be a weakness. It was bad enough that she had frozen when fighting him, bad enough that she had lost every defense she had learned in two years the instant he had spoken her old name. She would not let Daryl turn her into weak prey again.
CHAPTER 13
JAGUAR ESCORTEDTURQUOISEback to the courtyard, and brought ice from the infirmary for the bruise spreading on her face, as well as some water and some aspirin, all of which she accepted gratefully.
Turquoise forced herself to stretch to avoid the stiffening of her aching muscles. Doing so hurt, but it was better than running into Lord Daryl again when she was too stiff to lift an arm in self-defense.
She was antsy to get the weapon Ravyn had promised her, but Jaguar, while not exactly hovering, refused to leave. He tumbled with Shayla a bit, and then took a break to leaf through some papers.
“Does Midnight own the town it borders?” she asked, trying to kill time as well as to understand.
Jaguar nodded. “Not quite the entire town. Two apartment complexes, most of the stores, and a couple neighborhoods. The local paper is independent, as are the schools and most of the housing.”
“Impressive.” She meant it. Running Midnight was one thing; slaves were relatively easy to handle. Running a town filled with free-willed people must have been more difficult.
She didn’t want to kill him. Turquoise realized that fact quite suddenly. She did not think Jaguar would try to protect Jeshickah, but any vampire might try to destroy two hunters he found in his territory, and if he did, Turquoise would have to kill him.
When and if the problem arose she could think these thoughts. For the moment, Turquoise needed this time to return her body and mind to fighting condition. She couldn’t afford to face Lord Daryl or Jeshickah as unfocused as she was, and she desperately needed to regain control after the last humiliating confrontation.
As Jaguar continued to work, Turquoise ran through a stunted exercise routine, just enough to warm her up. She didn’t have the energy to do her normal full set.
She collapsed onto the moss-covered ground, pausing to catch her breath, and then worked on honing her other senses. Humans relied strongly on sight, but a hunter had to be focused in all ways if she was to survive. Hearing and smell could impart much knowledge about the terrain as well as about the enemy. More important still was the animal instinct for predators.
Humans had no natural predators, and so, like smell, they mostly ignored their latent sixth sense. Strong vampires put off an aura that made even dull-witted humans edgy; a more sensitive human would avoid the leech instinctively.
A trained hunter, like Turquoise, could consciously feel a vampire’s presence. The ability made it harder to be startled, and it sped up reaction time in a fight.
She could feel Jaguar’s presence, faintly, a tingling on the surface of her skin. From the same direction, she could hear the faint rustling of papers, and the soft sound of his breathing.
Breathing? She opened her eyes. Jaguar was paying no attention to her, and so she had an opportunity to observe him. She was startled to realize that he was breathing, regularly, as a human did. While Turquoise had heard them sigh or yawn or express other emotions, she had never known one who had retained this constant human habit. It was a rather endearing detail.
Jaguar seemed to sense Turquoise watching him; he rolled onto his side, for all the world like a cat himself, to look at her. “How are you feeling?”
“A little sore, but I’ll be fine,” she answered. “Get anything productive done?”
Jaguar shook his head. “I never get anything done. If I work in my room, someone usually shows up to threaten my life or sell something to me. If I work out here, this girl gets restless.” He rubbed his hands down Shayla’s muzzle affectionately.
Jaguar’s voice was reflective as he mused aloud, “In the original Midnight, Jeshickah had an albino leopard that lived in the courtyard. Nekita, she was called.”
“I wouldn’t think Jeshickah much of a cat person,” Turquoise responded. She tried to picture Jeshickah tumbling with her leopard as Jaguar did with Shayla, and failed.
“When Jeshickah got angry, she’d tie people to the trees in the courtyard so Nekita could sharpen her claws. Usually the victims were humans, or occasionally shape-shifters. Sometimes they were other vampires.”
Turquoise grimaced. She did not ask—did not want to ask—whether Jaguar had ever been Nekita’s target. “I take it that’s part of the original Midnight you decided to change?”
He nodded. “Shayla is very gentle. She’ll hunt the prey I bring into this place—rabbits mostly, or birds if they land here—and she’ll attack if she’s frightened, but if given the chance she would rather retreat than give pain. Only humans have it in their nature to torture.”
“And vampires?”
“You think vampire blood gives one the desire to hurt another?” Jaguar responded. He shook his head. “A feeding vampire is as natural and simple as a wolf or a lion. It’s only when the human mind is in control that any creature has the desire to give pain.”
He gazed at Shayla fondly, and Turquoise recognized longing there—longing to be so innocent. She wondered how Jaguar had survived so long. Sentimentality was a deadly flaw in a predator. Even Turquoise could recognize Jaguar’s weakness the way a wolf recognizes the stragglers in a herd.
“The more you describe the original Midnight to me, the less I can picture you as one of its fearsome trainers.” Before he could speak, she added, “You don’t seem like someone who would enjoy living there.”
Jaguar looked surprised for a moment. “You mean the type of person who would enjoy power, wealth, luxury, instant obedience, and virtually anything else I ask for?”
“I mean the type of person who would enjoy manipulating another living creature.”
“Why not?” Jaguar responded unnervingly. “We all do what we’re good at, and manipulation is a skill I learned very early.”
Turquoise shook her head. “You’re trying to scare me again.”
“Maybe,” he answered. “Maybe I don’t need to try. Maybe I just need to be honest. I refuse to work as a trainer anymore,” he stated, “but that doesn’t mean I never did, and that is not work any creature can ever forget.
