His jaw bunched and relaxed, bunched and relaxed. A soft plop of water hit the drain from the showerhead. Bruiser opened his mouth. “I would—” He stopped and took a slow breath. His hands tightened on the marble, fingers whitening before he relaxed. “I would give,” he said, his voice rough, “everything I am to keep you from being hurt. And that includes my freedom.” I didn’t reply, and another drop fell, measuring the silences between us.
“Freedom?” I asked. How does a blood-servant get freedom? Bruiser shrugged, his steam-damp shoulder moving stiffly. He went on more softly, “I remember, in my nightmares, the feel of your body.” I took a sharp breath, loud in the silence. “My hands holding you still. I remember the fear and the shock of being unable to move. Being frozen. I couldn’t stop them.” He shifted on the counter, putting one hand back flat against the marble. “I couldn’t stop myself. I was totally, completely under compulsion. For that I deserve for you to hate me. But I—”
He stopped again and raked his fingers through his hair, making it stand up straight and spiked, damp from the steam. “But it seems no matter what I do, I’m treading on your pain. As now. I am here because Leo sent me.”
I didn’t gasp or drop my towel, but whatever crossed my face made his mouth wrench to the side. He looked at the floor, his hair curling in the steam. Speaking to the tiles, he said, “I’ll never keep anything from you, Jane. Even when it may be uncomfortable. Painful.” Seconds went by. The shower dripped, loud in the silence.
I shuddered out a breath, feeling my throat relax just a hair, just a hint. A tear fell across my cheek, but this one felt different. No longer hot and burning. “Why did Leo send you?”
“He hired you in New Orleans for a job none of us could do. And you did that job, even when it meant killing his son. In his own way, he respects that. Before he sent me here, Leo said, ‘Jane Yellowrock has a propensity for luck.’” The words were stilted, a perfect mimic of Leo. He went on, imitating the MOC. “‘She looks for the truth, no matter how unappetizing, and uncovers it, much like a muckraker or a gravedigger, but one who carries a stake and knows how to use it.’” Bruiser chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound.
“When he heard that Mithrans were changing shape in Natchez, Leo arranged to get you involved. Some of his people told Hieronymus about you.”
Silently, everything began to click into place. Some of his people . . . Like Reach. Son of a gun. “He couldn’t just up and send me himself. That would imply that he forgave Hieronymus, which isn’t the fanghead way, not without a lot of bowing and scraping and pleading on Big H’s part, but he could make sure things were okay in his territory.”
Bruiser nodded. “Politics.”
“I hate politics. And vamp politics more than most.” I stared at the primo until his eyes lifted from the floor to me. “Can I ask questions?” I asked.
“I presume that you mean something more along the line of an interrogation.”
“Pretty much. But I need to get dressed.”
“I like you the way you are.”
The last of the pain seemed to ease away at his amused tone, and I said, “Tough. Give a girl some privacy. “
Bruiser shrugged and left the bathroom, letting in colder air before he shut the door. I shivered hard and clutched the damp towel. I went to my own room and was dressed in thirty seconds, my T-shirt sticking to my damp skin. I was braiding my hair when the primo entered my room from the bath. He was wearing a dress shirt with a subtle pattern in the weave and the dress pants, wrinkled from the steam. He stopped in the doorway and stood there, watching, as my fingers twisted and tugged my wet hair, saying nothing, his face as impassive as a vamp’s. For reasons I didn’t understand and didn’t want to explore, I didn’t ask what he was thinking.
“Twenty questions,” he reminded me.
“Tell me what you mean about having freedom.”
“What else do you want to know?” he murmured. He shoved the covers out of the way and sat on my bed. The action was odd, as if it was summertime and the comforter was hot.
“Months ago, we were fighting vamps here in Natchez. I finished off mine, and you finished off yours, and I said something. I don’t remember what. But you whirled on me, swords out. And you didn’t recognize me. At all.”
“What else?” he asked, his face taking on an intrigued attentiveness. “What else do you want to know?”
“Why has your scent changed?” I swallowed at the shift in his eyes as something feral stared back at me. “What are you?” I finished, whispering. Knowing that was the question he had been waiting for.
CHAPTER 15
You’re a Gun Whore
He did that brow-tilt thing, only one brow going up, quizzically. It was something I had tried in the mirror, but it seemed the ability to lift a single brow was innate, not learned. “All of your questions have a single answer. Have you heard the term Onorio?” he asked.
I shook my head and slid into the chair by the bed. We were close enough that our knees brushed before I drew my legs into the chair and pulled the discarded comforter over me. He said, “It means ‘honored one’ or ‘honored freeman.’” When I still said nothing, Bruiser said, “An Onorio is a revered and honored status among blood-servants, but few who attempt the position survive. Most end up dead or turned and chained. I was one of the lucky few, and only because I was mostly dead through it all.”
I remembered when he had died, his skin so pale and gray. And when the priestess lay across his body, naked and drinking. “The priestess drank. And then she fed you.”
“Yes. To keep me alive. That amount of ancient blood fed to a blood-servant begins a transformation, but doesn’t necessarily finish it. In my case, it stopped just before I was turned. Onorio status means I have many of the skills and gifts of the Mithran, but few of the drawbacks. I’ll be younger for much longer. I’ll be faster. I can see in the dark nearly as well as a vampire.”
Understanding beat its way into me. “Onorio. You mean like a Renfield?”
He laughed, the sound not particularly lighthearted. “Sometimes fiction writers get it right. Sometimes not. And sometimes only nearly so. Yes, we’ve been called Renfields, the special servants of the undead. And I will live a long, long time. Perhaps as much as three more centuries.”
“You’re hot, in an old, cold house. Even with my skinwalker metabolism, I’m chilled.” I knew two other blood-servants who had higher-than-human body temperatures. “Grégoire’s B twins, his primos, are they Renfields? Because they’re the longest-lived servants I know of.”
Bruiser tilted his head to me, the gesture oddly and uncomfortably like Leo’s. “Yes. Brandon and Brian went through the process over a hundred years ago and both survived. They are the only other Onorios whom I know. If I tell you that Renfield is a derogatory word, will that only make you use it more often?”
“Probably. Once, a long time ago, you said something about there being a way for you not to drink. For you not to be bound.” He had also said it was a way for us to be together, but I didn’t repeat that part. “Was it this Renfield thing?”
“Yes. I had thought many times about trying for Onorio status.” He shifted on the bed, leaning forward and taking my hand. His skin was feverishly hot. “I can share my thoughts and will and power with someone I bond with, much like a master vampire does with a primo blood-servant, but without the actual servitude. And, best, I have to drink only once or twice a year to maintain my status, and then from any Mithran. I am free of Leo. If I wish to be.”