I frowned back at him. “To be the permanent Enforcer, you have to be bound at least a little, but humans have a choice,” I said. “Being a blood-meal doesn’t have to be painful or degrading or sexual. It can be simple. A few drops so he can read you, and know you’re not compromised by another vamp. So he can know and feel your loyalty to him.”

“Like drinking a few sips from my wrist. Nooo.” He flapped a hand. “No other stuff. No sex stuff.”

If Derek had been white, the blush would have been scarlet. As it was, his skin went darker and his flesh smelled of a mixture of anger/shame/worry. “Yeah. Like that,” I said. “It depends on what you want. What you need. What you can handle.” How much of your soul you are willing to give up for the price Leo is offering. But I didn’t say that. Derek was already there.

He held his head in both hands, scratching it. Maybe using his upraised arms to hide his face from me. “I need my mama alive.”

“Ah.” I felt weird being in the position of comforting him, of being all Florence Nightingale or Mother Teresa or one of those loving, caring women that I had no idea how to be. But . . . maybe I didn’t have to be any of those.

I said, almost harshly, “Let me get this right. If Leo’s drinking your blood felt painful, then it’d be okay when he drank from you? But it feels good, and you’re all macho, and so the drinking gets mixed up with the feel-good part of your brain. Then your little brain starts to think sex and your big ol’ macho self goes all homo-terrified on you, right? And that petrifies you because . . . I don’t know. You’re a marine, and your head gets all wonky?”

Derek’s mouth opened as he started to deny it, so I went all guy on him. I slapped the back of his head. Hard. “What am I? Your shrink? Life sucks and then you get sucked on. And sometimes it feels good. I’m not saying to like your body’s reaction if you don’t swing that way. But get over it. Do the job. Get your mama well. Or quit and hope for modern medicine to heal her.”

Derek’s eyes filled with tears, quickly gone. If he’d been a big-cat, the look he gave me would have been a snarl, all teeth. His muscles bunched; his balance shifted, ready to attack me as my words penetrated his thick skull.

“You made a deal with the Devil,” I said, “and now it’s time to pay. As to feelings,” I snorted, “talk to a priest or a counselor about the gay part. Or talk to Leo. Lack of pain and having Leo’s mouth on your wrist isn’t the same thing as getting laid or turned into a sex toy. Drinking from you is the way Leo protects himself. And he knows you don’t like it.”

Derek looked at me in surprise, his anger melting away. “Say what?”

“You had to know that. He’s reading everything you feel as he drinks. Dude. He’s playing with you the way a cat plays with its dinner. It’s his nature. So you can accept that it feels good and decide that it doesn’t have to lead to sex, or you can tell him it bothers you. Honesty might make him quit the predator games. Leo will accept it either way. And like I said, he can make it hurt if that makes you feel better.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Derek cursed, bending his head back down. More embarrassed.

Out front, a black SUV drove in front of the driveway, going the other direction from the last one. To Derek I said, “I think that’s the same SUV that went by earlier. How fast can you get someone out to the road for the next pass and get a look at the plate?”

“I don’t have any of my guys here. I— Wait.” Derek, for all that he was having a crisis of manhood, stood and shouted a name. “Mannie. You still got the feet?”

“My brother, I got the feet and the hands. They wasn’t hurt when I got sacked in my last game.” He tapped his head. “Only the old brain box.”

“There’s a black SUV cruising past out front. Get out there and get a look at the license plate next time it comes by. Make sure they don’t see you.”

“I’ll take a pic with my phone, bro.” Mannie dashed down the drive to the street.

“Mannie Dubose? From LSU? Injured in his second season with the Saints?” I didn’t live with a sports nut for nothing. Eli loved the Saints.

“The same. Nearly lost his eyesight when he had bleeding behind his eyes. Quit with his signing bonus, two years pay, and a well-crafted injury bonus. Now he and his dad own the construction company that his ole man used to work for. They mighta lost a football career, but they used the money right and parleyed it into a family business. He’s good people.

“Legs,” he added, without looking at me. “Thanks. I needed the head slap.”

“Not the tough talk?”

He pursed his lips to keep from grinning. “Eh. I mighta needed that too.”

“Talk to Leo. Or I’ll slap your head again.”

“You need me to hurt Leo for what he did to you?”

This time I smiled, feeling all mushy inside. Derek might not be family—yet—but in his own way, he was a friend and that was good enough for now. “Nah. He gave me a big honking boon when he asked for forgiveness.”

Derek’s eyebrows did that soldier-micro-twitch thing that Eli’s did when he was surprised. “He asked your forgiveness? For real? Leo?”

I shrugged with my eyebrows. Turnabout was fair play.

“A big honking one, huh? Not bad, Legs. Not bad.”

We sat in the sun for a while until Derek’s phone rang. “It’s parked down the street, bro,” Mannie said on speakerphone. “I zoomed in and got the plate. Sending it to you now. Also a shot of the driver, but it’s not too good through the glass.”

“I’ll send it to the Kid,” Derek said to me. “I gotta get back to work.”

“Later,” I said.

We bumped fists. I pulled out of the driveway, passing and waving to Mannie, and then passing the empty SUV. No driver. Or rather, a driver lying down in the seat. That. Because an SUV appeared behind me a mile or so later. I lost him by taking a back road, one that was sinking below the water table in this alluvial landscape. Two turns later, I was free to go where I wanted. People were so stupid sometimes.

CHAPTER 6

Carrying a Vamp Head

Hours later, I looked at myself in the mirror on the closet door. I was wearing one of the first outfits I had bought when I got to New Orleans, clothes purchased because it was too hot for my mountain wear, and because they were colorful and beautiful. Now I knew enough about clothing to recognize that they were made of inexpensive fabric, with inferior workmanship. I knew that the seams were sewn cheaply, the drape wasn’t quite right, and the skirt would likely last only a few washings before it lost its shape entirely. Dumb, stupid stuff to know, of no value in a world where my most important bit of knowledge should be how sharp the blade, how well it was balanced, and how true the sights on the gun. But I’d bought the clothes with my own money and with my own taste. I’d worn the outfit on the first night I’d gone dancing in New Orleans, my first week here.