Dark Heir (Jane Yellowrock) - Softcover

Praise for the Jane Yellowrock Novels

ALSO BY FAITH HUNTER

ROC

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER 1

I stood against the wall, nursing a busted knuckle, watching my sensei try to recover. Daniel held a black belt, second dan, in hapkido, had a black belt in tae kwon do, and a black belt in tai chi—the combat martial art, not the pretty forms that hippies and old people do on beaches at sunrise. (Not that I had anything against pretty martial arts, hippies, or old people. I’d outlived all of the people who were alive when I was born, so I was old. Real old.)

Daniel hadn’t competed in years, however, believing that competition was for sissies and martial arts were for fighting and killing. He was probably a lot more dangerous than most people who did compete. And right now he was on his back on the practice mat, trying to figure out if his lungs still worked. It had been only about thirty seconds since I’d thrown him to the floor, knocking the breath out of him, but that can seem like a lot of time when you aren’t breathing.

“I’m not kissing him,” Eli Younger said, still gasping, sweat dripping off him onto the mat in little splats. My Beast and I had been sparring with both of them. Admittedly, it was a little too wound heavy to be just sparring, but testosterone and the urge to defeat the skinny girl were powerful motivators, keeping them coming back for more when they should have stayed down. And Beast had been having fun.

“Artificial respiration isn’t technically kissing,” I said, watching as Daniel fought back the natural panic of the air starved, arching his back, stretching his throat, trying to force open his airway.

“Still not kissing him. Sorry, bro,” Eli said, toeing Daniel’s shoulder. “Been nice knowin’ you.”

Daniel sucked in a breath that sounded like rubber bicycle tubing being stretched out by a couple of disgruntled sumo wrestlers. Strained. Very strained. Eli laughed. Faster than most humans can manage, Daniel whipped his arm around, his fist catching Eli on the outer knee joint. If Eli hadn’t already been bending into the direction of the hit, his knee would have buckled and Eli would have needed a brace or vamp blood to heal. Daniel was powerful, even flat on his back.

As it was, the guys rolled across each other like high school wrestlers, but punching and stabbing with fingers, kneeing below the belt. They separated, rolled to their feet, and engaged again. All I needed was popcorn and a beer and it would have been perfect. Delighted to sit this one out, I slid down the wall to the wood floor, my sweaty back to the wall, knees bent in a half lotus, and relaxed. The guys were really going at it, fists, kicks, sweat flinging, with a little blood mixed in. I had to wonder if something was bothering them, because this was starting to look real.

My sensei’s style was perfect for me, because I had always studied mixed disciplines and never went for any belt. I trained to stay alive, using a fast, violent amalgam of styles geared to the total annihilation of an attacker. My fighting style had best been described as dirty. Daniel and Eli, my partner in Yellowrock Securities, both fought dirty. I winced as Eli took a boxer’s blow straight to his chin and wobbled on his feet. But either he recovered fast or it was only a feint, because he kicked out, catching Daniel in the solar plexus. In fighters’ terms it wasn’t a low blow, but since I had just hit Sensei there, it wasn’t exactly sweet either.

Daniel skipped away, his breathing pained. I wondered whether he’d broken a rib.

The dojo was in the back room of a small jewelry store on St. Louis Street, the store specializing in faceted gems, vintage styles and settings, and real antique pieces. The dojo was down a narrow service alley, thirty inches wide, damp, and dim, and was open to the public only after store hours. I was one of a select few students Daniel saw during the day. I had my own key.

Eli took a fast series of punches to the ribs, bounced off a white-painted wall across from me and into the mirrored back wall. Daniel nearly got his boy parts crushed by a kick, but he jumped back, caught one of Eli’s ankles, and twisted it hard and fast, putting torqueing pressure on the knee. Eli was expecting the move and leaped off the floor into a twirl and kicked Daniel in the side of the neck with his other foot. They both went down. Daniel out for the count. Idiots. Eli was wheezing with pain. The hand he supported himself with had left a bloody print on the mirror.

The long room had hardwood floors, two white-painted walls—one now stained with blood—one mirrored wall (ditto), and one wall with French doors that looked out over a typical New Orleans–style enclosed courtyard planted with tropical and semitropical plants. Three cats, tails twitching, lounged on a low brick-stucco wall near the splashing fountain, which was designed in the fashion of a mountain stream, with the small pool at the bottom filled with plants. The cats, looking bored and hot, were watching the humans fight. The enclosed courtyard was surrounded by two- and three-story buildings and was overlooked by wrought-iron galleries dripping with potted vines and flowering plants. Sensei lived upstairs in one of the apartments, and he usually dropped down using a rappelling rope and climbing gear. I had a feeling he’d be going back up the hard way, one slow step at a time.

Since Daniel was rolling over, marginally awake, and it looked as if the fight was over, I shifted my weight and clapped slowly, the sound ringing brightly off the unadorned walls. “Danny boy, I think you got your butt beat,” I said.

“Maybe.” He winced as he rolled to his backside and stood upright, stretching muscles that had to have deep bruises. “But it took two of you. Tag team.” Daniel was average height, had muscles like rolls of barbed wire and a face no one would remember for two seconds. A man no one would notice.

Silent, working out the kinks, he walked around the room, bare feet solid, body as balanced as a walking tree, looking Eli and me over, considering.

I grinned at my partner and said, “Yeah, but I’m still holding back. A lot.”

“You are not holding back,” Daniel said, disbelief etching his face. “Seriously? Still?”

“Bro, she is absolutely still holding back.” Eli bent his injured knees, testing for damage that might need more than ice, elevation, anti-inflammatory meds, and time to heal. “When she really lets go, it’s nothing like human speed or human strength. She’d twist your lil’ bobblehead right off that skinny neck.”

I managed to keep the discomfort off my face. I still wasn’t used to part of the world knowing that I was a supernat, and was even less accustomed to hearing it spoken of like it was no big deal. It had been my secret for so long that it still felt like a big deal. But Eli was right. If I let go with Beast-strength and -speed, I could do some damage. Once he knew I’d been holding back, my training and sparring sessions with Daniel had changed. Now he pushed the normal human boundaries, trying to see what my limits were. There were two problems with that: I didn’t really know what my boundaries were, especially with the newfound ability to fold or bubble time, and my limits seemed to be changing now that my Beast and I had soul-bonded.

Daniel tossed a dry towel to Eli and the two guys dried off, still trash-talking.

I ignored them and pushed off the floor to my feet, seeing my reflection in the long wall mirror. I was moving a little differently now, smoother, more catlike, limbs and joints and muscles rolling and balanced and effortless. It was freaky. In the last month or so, my eyes had started to glow more often as Beast stared out at the world through my vision. Again, freaky. I still had my long black hair, currently braided close to my head, and the copper skin of my tribe—Chelokay, or Tsalagi, the Cherokee. Also known as The People.

I caught a towel tossed my way and wiped down. Showers would have to wait until we got back to the house. The dojo wasn’t set up for lockers and shower stalls.

Outside, the fountain tinkled in the enclosed courtyard. A cat made a mrowr sound, probably telling Daniel that it was suppertime. Cats could be demanding that way. I know. My Beast is a mountain lion and she’s big on being fed, though she prefers her food freshly caught and slaughtered by her killing teeth.

From the pile of gear on the floor, I heard both of our phones singing to us—both playing “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” by Pat Benatar. It was the ringtone for Alex, the other Younger brother, and the tech partner of Yellowrock Securities. If he was ringing both lines, this couldn’t be good.

I bent and caught up both cells, underhand throwing Eli’s to him and opening the Kevlar cover to mine. Eli said, “Go ahead.”

“Get to suckhead HQ. Something’s going down.”

Eli and I grabbed up our gobags and trotted from the dojo, into the alley, moving fast. I gave a single wave to Daniel as the door shut behind me. I had a glimpse of Sensei, still standing against the wall, fists on his hips, looking better than Eli’s opponents usually did. I knew he wanted to go with us—he had been hinting it—but dealing with vamps took practice and a lot of emotional and verbal restraint. I wasn’t sure how restrained Daniel would be if a male vamp came on to him for dinner and a date. Vamps were a lot less reticent about sexual matters than most humans, and Daniel gave out strong, uncompromising hetero signals, a challenge to any vamp. Eli had quickly learned to fob them off with a laugh and a polite refusal, but Daniel struck me as the belt-him-first-and-stalk-away-mad-second kind. Which could get him dead, fast.

“You’re on speaker,” Eli said to Alex as the dojo door closed. “It’s too early to be a vamp problem. An attacker would fry.” I closed my cell and listened.

“Nothing on the outside cameras. It’s inside. At the ballroom.”

Vamps could maneuver inside most of vamp central, the windows being long and narrow and newly covered by electric shutters. I took a breath to speak and got a lungful of alley stink that was enough to bowl over an elephant. It smelled of urine—some of it not from cats—and all of it baking in the summer heat and humidity. I said, “Gimme details, because I’m not heading back to vamp HQ to settle a love spat or to get in the middle of a long-standing feud between vamp factions.” There were too many vamps in the relatively small space, and there had been more than a few violent incidents. Vamp-on-vamp action was outside my job requirements as long as no humans got caught in the cross fire.

“Got nothing that makes sense,” Alex said. “Still pulling up camera footage. But it’s bloody and it’s bigger than the usual fanghead altercation.”

Still moving at speed, we emerged from the alley, clanged the gate shut, and made it to the SUV, with Eli beeping the vehicle open. The trapped heat exploded out. We opened all the doors to let it air, which gave us time to take in the scenery. Traffic clogged the streets in the French Quarter so badly that we might not be able to get out of the parking spot unless someone was looking for one and let us out so they could get in. It was bumper-to-bumper gridlock. I’d be glad when my Harley was repaired and I could again weave through the New Orleans traffic. “We’re gonna hafta hoof it to HQ, Alex,” Eli said, “but we’re not going in wearing street clothes. We’ll change here. Give us details as they firm.”

“Copy. Better you than me in this heat, dude.”

Eli got behind the wheel and synced up our cells to the vehicle. I took the backseat and started gearing up—leathers, weapons, boots. Not easy in the backseat of an overheated SUV with windows tinted vamp-black, even one as roomy as the brand-spanking-new one Leo had provided for my use. Eli turned on the cab lights and the AC, but it would take forever to cool off. I shook out a handful of baby powder and tossed the container to Eli, both of us liberally powdering down the sweat and sliding the leathers over our limbs as Alex began to give us the particulars.

“Looks like it started in the sub-four basement about three minutes ago. Two fangheads fighting over a human woman. She’s hurt. Del sent down reinforcements, but they got caught up in it and now it’s a brawl.”

Eli spat a curse under his breath, sliding on his new, high-tech combat boots and yanking on the laces. He had a point. Injured humans meant we had no choice but to intervene.

“It’s getting nasty. Sending you vid now.”

On the SUV video screen, we had a clear view of a sub-four hallway and about ten vamps. It was a bloody mess, not abnormal for vamps fighting, but weird to be happening before dusk, when most older vamps were sleepy or sleeping, and the young ones were out cold, often unable to be roused.

“That looks wrong,” I said of the fight. “But I’m not sure why.” I checked the loads of my weapons and slid them into the oversized gobag. We were licensed to carry in Louisiana, but no one wanted to get detained if a hot, sweaty cop, stuck in traffic, saw us jog by.

“Yeah. They look . . . stumble-y. Like Night of the Living Dead but faster,” Eli said.

“That’s it. Vamps are graceful, and these are klutzes. I’m ready,” I said, strapping on my thigh rig.

The SUV’s engine went silent and we slid from the dark interior into the humidity. It was like being hit in the face with a soaking-wet, wrecking-ball-sized sponge. Eli beeped the SUV locked, and we reactivated our cells and started down the sidewalk, moving fast.

Holy crap. We had to jog in this heat?

As if reading my mind, Eli called back, “It’ll put hair on your chest.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Inside me, Beast chuffed and sent an image of my half-Beast shape, covered in Beast pelt. I didn’t have the breath to reply, not in this heat, and just kept jogging, the late-day summer sun like a steam torch on my exposed skin. I followed Eli down back alleys and, once, through a T-shirt and tourist-kitsch business, out the back, through the courtyard, into the back door of a restaurant, and out the front onto the street on the other side. No one stopped us, but I’d bet we’d end up on someone’s YouTube channel somewhere.

To Alex, I said, “I know Del is in charge, but notify Bruiser that something’s transpiring at HQ. Just in case.”

“Copy,” Alex said, his voice toneless enough to make my skin itch.

Bruiser was my . . . something. Boyfriend was too high school, lover was too sex-specific, significant other seemed more long-term and stable than what we might be starting to have. So my something was the best I could do. But he was also the former primo of the Master of the City of New Orleans, and Del, while capable, might need some backup. Informing him was not the same thing as calling for Bruiser’s help like said high schooler. Or at least I didn’t think it was. Having a “my something” wasn’t exactly common for me.

We rounded the corner, approaching vamp central from an oblique angle, not one I ...