Well, I liked everything except the part about me having to go to a trial. Crap.
I looked out the tinted windows at my house. I'd called it my freebie house for ages, refusing to claim it. But lately I'd been calling it what it was. My house. My place. I was part of the world of vamps whether I liked it or not, and that meant being part of vamp politics. I hate politics.
Jane wants to be first with all her mates, Beast thought at me, smug. And Jane needs good den.
"And . . ." Bruiser took a slow breath and I tensed. "If you'll bond with Leo properly, and not do whatever you did to loosen the bond when he tried last time, he will be able to use you in the parley," he finished.
And theeeeere it was. I knew my face changed, because Eli said to him, "Man, you are dumber than dirt. To have lived as long as you have, you really have no clue about women."
I could smell Bruiser's sense of insult, tart and bristly on the air. I didn't look away from the house. "You need to get Leo and the other vampires to a safe haven for daybreak," I said, barely moving my lips, "someplace not on any record, and with lots of protection around. Protection armed with high-caliber weapons. Bazookas if you have them. I think Gregoire has a lair in the Garden District. I also think there may be a lair beneath the Nunnery in the Warehouse District."
"I know my duty," Bruiser answered, confusion in his tone. "Leo and all his remaining personal possessions have been moved to a safe location."
"Well, goody for you," I said, and my tone was adult and understanding and gracious. Not. I opened the door and left the limo, stomped to my house, and let myself in. I slammed the door. "He really has no clue. He is dumber than dirt," I said to the empty house. I went to my room and closed the door. Turned the small lock, though I knew it was no impediment to Eli.
Once I shifted, my flesh wasn't dirty or bloody anymore, but my clothes were still grotty. I stripped in the dark, tossed my ruined clothes into one pile and the ones that were just bloody into another, showered, and dressed quickly in the dark, pulling on jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved knit T-shirt under my armored, vamp-fighting leather coat. I didn't expect to be fighting anyone, but the last few days had been hard on my wardrobe. I didn't have a lot of fashion choices left.
I could hear the guys moving around in the house, one upstairs showering, one in the kitchen. I left without seeing either, kicked Bitsa on, and took off. I had no desire to check out the security at Gregoire's place - the Arceneau Clan Home - but it was part of the job whether I liked it or not. I'd left the Pellissier Clan Home in the hands of Leo's true Enforcer and primo blood-servant, and that just got the place burned down. It wasn't going to happen again.
I got to the clan home in the Garden District near two a.m. and pulled through the six-foot-tall, black-painted, wrought-iron gate, the twisted bars in a fleur-de-lis and pike-head pattern at the top. As I braked at the back bumper of the black limo, one of Gregoire's identical twin blood-servants stepped to the porch holding what looked in the night like a small Uzi. I killed the engine, unhelmeted, and unwound my legs from the bike.
"Little Janie. I assumed you would be by here sometime tonight."
"Security check. Will Leo and Gregoire be close by day? Close enough to be protected by you guys?" I asked as I walked up to the porch.
"Close enough," the B-twin agreed. "And the lair is hard-wired in to the security here at the clan home." The three-story house was larger and deeper than it looked from the street, forty-six feet across the front and nearly twice that deep, taking up most of the small lot. It entered into a foyer with dining room and parlor on opposite sides and a wide staircase to the right leading up to the second floor, the stairs carpeted with a blue, gray, and black Oriental rug.
Nothing decorwise had changed since my last visit except the clutter in the dining room. Stacked on the floor and on the hand-carved cherrywood dining table and chairs was a