Free Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Faith Hunter

deadly important. For me, it was comic relief, even though I’d made a study of the relevant parts of the Vampira Carta and its codicils for this job, and understood the penalties for vamp-misbehavior, which were not comic at all.
    Since nothing important was on the docket until after dinner, I let my mind wander back over the kiss and conversation with Rick, careful not to react to the memory in any way. I wasn’t interested in becoming part of the tasting ceremony, and a physical response in any of the observers would have reached the noses of the vamps instantly in such close quarters. Noir Wine Room held space for only twenty or so, and the intimate accommodations meant we shared each other’s scent reactions.
    Rick’s last words, before he disappeared, silent as a stalking cat into the long shadows haunted me. “But I’ll still want you, Jane.” He had meant it, totally and completely. But we both knew that we didn’t always get what we wanted in life.
    Good mate,
Beast thought sleepily at me.
Big-cat. Bigclaws. Good killing teeth.
She rolled over, her claws scraping across my mind.
We could be black leopard, mate to Ricky Bo.
    That statement pulled me out of my own thoughts and back to the enervating, mind-numbing boredom of the parley. The vamps were discussing the length of time Shaddock’s scions were chained while they cured, which was my smoked-meat term for the time it took newly turned vamps, who always rose insane, to remember their own minds. It took only five years for most of Shaddock’s scions to go through the curing process, a speed that had been well documented for sixty years. Most vamps, when bitten, spend ten years nutso—lost in what they call the devoveo, the insanity that comes to all freshly risen vamps—chained in their maker’s basement, before they recall who they had been and develop bloodlust control, allowing them into human society. Or into the feeding pool, as Grégoire phrased it. The speed with which Shaddock’s scions recovered had made him a master vamp at a young age. And now there was the two-year-wonder, the vamp who cured in two years. A record.
    Beast flicked an ear tab, returning my attention to a subject she thought more important than the parley.
We could go back to hot, flat, wet place,
she thought, talking about New Orleans,
and take Bruiser as mate.
Slyly she added,
And Leo
. She sent a mental picture of the three of us in a big bed, the sheets ripped, slashed, and bloody. Beast’s idea of a good time. I exhaled—not quite a sigh. Beast was less interested in a long-term relationship than I was, and far more interested in taking the biggest predators as mates.
Big-cats do not mate for life,
she thought at me.
    Yeah. So you told me. Humans do. Sometimes.
    I/we are not human,
she thought disdainfully.
    She had me there. We weren’t human. And then I realized I had missed something. Maybe something vital. The vamps were gathering up their blood-servants and belongings as if to leave. My heart shuddered and Grégoire looked up fast. He had heard my heart-thump of anxiety.
Crap! What did I miss?
As Leo’s head of security it was my job to pay attention, not woolgather.
    Was not chasing sheep,
Beast thought, humor in herwords. She sniffed and added,
Vampire, who smells of man-spices and cooked meat, has asked pale vampire, who smells of flowers and fresh streams, to see the den where he keeps his chained scions.
    Relief washed through me.
Scion Lair. Got it.
And,
Crap!
The field trips were planned for next week. Grégoire had been invited to pay a surprise visit to a location I had never been given the address or GPS coordinates for, and had not reconnoitered. Though Shaddock had been agreeable about a lot of info, he’d been reticent about sharing the coordinates of his Clan Home and scion lair until the night before the visit, which would have meant Monday night. I wasn’t happy at allowing the vamps to go to someplace I hadn’t scouted and set up a perimeter.