He smiled slowly, watching her face. “He allows you freedom and leeway that he allows no others.” When her expression didn’t change, he added, “I think perhaps he cares for you.”

Jane leaned in slowly, her scent wild and untamed, feral as a hungry predator. She smelled of deep woods, and danger, and long hunts beneath a full moon. He didn’t know what she was, and he wanted to. He wanted to know everything. Jane said, “Leo Pellissier cares for nobody and no one except those he drinks from . . . and owns,” she added carefully, watching his reaction to her insult. George smiled, amused at the words. He had heard much worse over the decades. She said, “Leo doesn’t own me. He has no control over me. None at all. And I could give a rat’s hairy backside what he wants. I am a free agent, not one of his dinners.”

George chuckled and curled his fingers under to keep from reaching out and caressing her face. “Then I pray he never drinks from you, Jane Yellowrock. I like this freedom of yours. This splendid, wonderful freedom.”

“Yeah. Whatever. I got your e-mail with the request from His Royal Fanghead about the disturbance at the club. You got any more details than a rogue, but sane, vamp trying to drain the lead singer?”

“Yes. We’ve had two different attacks this week, incidents when we’ve found employees passed out, blood-drunk, but who claimed they had no memory of a Mithran accosting them. Such complete compulsion suggests an older, masterful Mithran and none have come forward.”

“And no one smelled a new vamp? I mean, I know the odors in the Royal Mojo Blues Company can be overwhelming, but vamps can smell other predators.”

“Leo would like for you to inspect the premises and give us your opinion.”

Her eyes narrowed, the amber irises constricting with her thoughts. “So he knows or guesses who it is, but he’s playing politics. He can’t move against the person himself, but I can.”

“You are learning how Mithrans operate,” he said with approval in his voice.

“Yeah. Back to that rat’s hairy—”

“And you don’t care about Mithran politics,” he interrupted. “I know. Would you like to ride with me or follow on your bike?”

“I’ll meet you there,” she said. She finished the omelet with quick, economical bites and drank down the tea. Standing, she left the restaurant and he followed, watching her legs move beneath the jeans. Her legs were, arguably, the most incredible part of her. Her long braid bounced against her marvelous bottom, begging to differ with his assessment.

Behind him, the waiter cleaned the table. He would add the bill to Leo’s account along with his customary thirty percent tip. Bruiser knew how hard most people worked to make a living, and he wasn’t miserly.

* * *

He pulled his car in behind Jane and parked next to the bike she called Bitsa. He’d learned when she explained that the Harley was made from bitsa this and bitsa that, by a Harley Zen master, mostly from two old rusted bikes. He’d been a motorcycle man in his day. Someday he would show her his collection, and perhaps offer her one of the older pan heads. But not until she was already his.

With the key, he unlocked the restaurant and held the door for her. She lifted her eyebrows at the gallantry and he smiled, waiting for a comment about she was strong enough to open her own doors. But this time she said nothing as she moved into the dark of the club. She stood in the shadows, sniffing in long bursts, breathing in that odd way she had, so like a wild animal. Upon their first meeting, she had growled at him. He smiled to himself as he turned on the lights. She had taken both him and Leo down fast. It was one of his best memories of her—and he had many.

Lights on, the bar was revealed for what it was. An old building renovated to current standards for bathrooms, sprinkler systems, and wheelchair access, with a long bar, food service and kitchen, storeroom, and bandstand stage in front of a dance floor. He had watched Jane dance there several times, her body lissome and supple and exceedingly flexible. His smile widened as he remembered.

Jane moved across the room, smelling everything, going into bathrooms, checking out every part of the empty building. She ended up at the back door and when she called he met her there. “Open this?”

He hadn’t checked this entrance himself. It was a fire escape, and was unlocked from the inside during business hours. There was no way for anyone to use it without an alarm going off. But Jane didn’t know that, and so she’d found something he had missed. Fresh eyes and better-than-human nose. What is she?

Using another key, he turned off the alarm and unlocked the door, which opened onto a narrow alley, no more than three feet wide.

When the door was open, Jane dropped to one knee and studied the filthy ground, sniffing, studying the alleyway. “Female vamp. Old. She stood in the alley for a while, then came in through here,” she said. “Someone turned off the alarm for her and opened the door, so she has an accomplice. Human, I’d say, male, healthy, possibly a new blood-servant, blood-drunk, complaisant enough to do anything she wants.” She pointed at the paved alley and George knelt beside her. “See these marks? Heels. Stilettoes. Tiny feet, maybe a size five.”

George saw what she was pointing to. He’d studied tracking with an old Arapaho Indian many years ago, but applying learning gained from a moccasin-wearing teacher was difficult to apply to modern footwear in a paved alley. He made a soft “Hmmm” as he followed the footprints with his eyes, losing the print about ten feet down. Jane stood and moved along the alley, avoiding piles of trash and feces and wet spots that indicated vagrants used the alley as a public toilet. He grimaced. He’d see it was hosed down after this was over.

She stopped in front of a recessed area in the brick of the building beside her. Like RMJB Club, it had been many things over years, once a dress shop, once an art gallery, once even a strip club, back when the French Quarter had catered mostly to the flesh.

Jane bent and studied the door, and once again he thought she was smelling it. Satisfied, she said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to walk around it.” She moved into the daylight at the front of the building. Shortly, she appeared at the back of the building, navigating the narrow space. Her jeans were dirty. Her T-shirt was dusty. Her boots were caked with something he didn’t want to inspect too closely.

“She lairs here”—she thumbed at the building—“coming and going through this door most of the time, though she accessed the front door a few times too. The human who lets her in lives with her. And I believe she’s there now. Do you want me to take her?”

“No. Not now. I’ll pass the information to Leo. He’ll make the final decision.”

Jane shrugged. “We’re done here, then.” She looked at her boots. “Is there an outside spigot in back?”

“Yes.” I’ll let you back in from there and out through the front, to your bike.”

“Ducky.” She turned on her filthy heel and moved, catlike, back into the shadows.

* * *

When she came in the back door, she smelled fine and he looked the question at her.

“It wasn’t anything too nasty. Just an old, squishy hamburger.”

She had washed her hands and brushed off her jeans andT-shirt, and looked . . . wonderful. Acutely aware of her, George locked the door and led her through the kitchens to the main room, where he had left an old ’seventies rock and roll LP on the record player in back. The sound coming through the speakers was smooth and rich with a full-bodied sound, as only old vinyl and an excellent speaker system can make it.

Jane walked to the center of the dance floor and stopped, her head back, her braid dangling free. She seemed to inhale the music, her chest rising and falling. “Good sound. Allman Brothers?”

“From their decade of hits album.”

“I like,” she said. “Hey, Bruiser. Dance?” She held out her arm, her head still back, her eyes still closed.

His heart did a small thump, and he moved across the floor to take her in his arms, thinking about the beat, the sort of dance that might work with the music. He pulled her into a slow, easy number, part waltz, part something else that his feet seemed to find as he held her in a close embrace, the closed position of dance, that forced her to follow more intimately. With a subtle transfer of weight, he turned her beneath his arm, her body brushing his suggestively. Eyes still closed she smiled, relaxed into his arms, and let him lead her through the dance. He thought she didn’t relax often, and perhaps never with her eyes closed while another held her. There was a sensation of trust in the way her body moved. Of . . . giving in.

The music changed. He didn’t listen to the music, though it was one of his favorite LPs; he adjusted the rhythm of the dance, slowing, and pulled her even closer, releasing her hand and sliding both arms around her, one hand flat on her back, between her shoulder blades, the other rising to rest against the back of her neck, under her braid. He could feel her breathing against his chest, her ribs moving slowly, her breasts pressing against him. She was hard and muscular, all angles and solid planes, but she was also all woman. He dropped his head to her neck and breathed in, controlling his arousal for fear of frightening her away. He’d lived many years with Mithrans, and had learned how to control his body, his reactions to fear and desire and delight and hunger. Jane brought out all of these in him. He wanted her.

And then the record ended, far too soon.

Jane slid a hand from his waist and up, between their bodies, and pressed him away.

George almost complied but . . . he could not. He stilled his steps, sliding his hand around to cup her jaw, his thumb on her chin, and tilted her head up. Her eyes came open and she met his. So close. Dropped his mouth. Closer. Her lips opened. Her irises grew wide and black. He breathed her breath and gave it back to her. Lips nearly touching. So close.

She tilted her head, bringing her mouth to his. Lips to his. And she laughed softly, a sound that was pure desire, a purr of need and want, vibrating through him.

He felt it to his core. An electric flame sped through him, hot as a flash fire. He pulled her to him, and kissed her as she laughed, rising on her toes, pressing hard to him. Her laughter softened as his tongue touched hers. Standing in the silent, empty bar, he danced a different kind of dance, pouring everything he knew about love and need and desire into the kiss. His body responded, growing hard. Demanding.