Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

Faith Hunter



To Jessica Wade, at ACE/Penguin Random House, with all my thanks.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The HUBS. For EVERYTHING.

Teri Lee, Timeline and Continuity Editor Extraordinaire, for the tight reins and careful details. All the changes . . .

Norman Froscher for the wine suggestions.

Margot Dachuna for the French.

Mindy “Mud” Mymudes, Beta Reader and PR.

Donald Kirby, daddy to a fierce Monster, Druid or witch, writer and gay man, who was my sensitivity reader and beta’d all the scenes with werewolves, queens, and LGBT.

Let’s Talk Promotions at ltpromos.com, for managing my blog tours and the Beast Claws fan club.

Lee Williams Watts for being the best travel companion and PA a girl can have!

Beast Claws! Best Street Team Evah!

Carol Malcolm for the timeline update.

Sheila Moody for the really good copy edit. Best one in ages!

Melissa Gilbert for the character history! 330 pages and still growing!

Mike Pruette at celticleatherworks.com for all the fabo merch!

Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency, as always, for guiding my career, being a font of wisdom when I need advice, and for applying your agile and splendid mind to my writing and my social presence.

Cliff Nielsen . . . for all the work and talent that goes into the covers.

Poet and writer Sarah Speith for giving me Jane’s medicine bag. It is still perfect!

As always, a huge thank-you to Jessica Wade of Penguin Random House. Without you there would be no book at all!





CHAPTER 1


    I Killed the Only U’tlun’ta in NOLA





I had been in my bed for all of one hour, and though the scent of Bruiser from the sheets and from his boxing gloves tied to my bedpost usually filled my head with calm, today his personal aromatherapy wasn’t working. I had rolled over half a dozen times trying to find a comfortable spot. Now the covers were twisted around me, my hair was tangled in a knotted mess, trapping me, and I was ready to explode. I resorted to punching my pillows in growing irritation, not that it helped. “I should give up and find something else to punch. Someone else to punch,” I muttered, thinking of Leo Pellissier, the Master of the City of New Orleans.

My attitude was so bad that my Beast retreated into the deeps of my mind to get away, her paws padding in a jog. “Coward,” I snarled at her. Being two-souled wasn’t easy for either of us.

A soft knock sounded at the front door. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap. The first tap in each repetition more forceful than the others, but barely loud enough to hear through the closed bedroom door. Maybe a preacher. Or a steak salesman. Beast stopped and looked back at me. Excitement zinged through her. Man who sells meat? Cow at door?

I chuckled internally. Could be, I thought back at her. Or a proselytizing vacuum cleaner salesman. Did vac salesmen even exist now?

Is vacuum good to eat? Or salesman? Both? she added hopefully.

The knocking came again, a bit louder. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap. It was a rhythm that Aggie One Feather, my Cherokee Elder, might have drummed. My partner and soon-to-be adopted brother Eli hadn’t answered the door, and I could hear shower water upstairs. I grinned and I was pretty sure I was showing teeth. Lots of teeth. I wondered if they were all mine, but I didn’t really care. I was sleep deprived and ornery and if this was some vamp’s minions calling to cause trouble about the arrangements for the upcoming Sangre Duello, that might actually make my day. I could use a good fight. A blood challenge to the death between Leo and the European emperor and all their pals would surely provide that, but until then, I had the knocking visitor.

I threw off the covers and twisted my long black hair back in a knot. In the black yoga pants and black T-shirt, I looked like a ticked-off ninja. I picked up a fourteen-inch-long vamp-killer I kept on the nightstand and tore open the bedroom door. The knob slammed into the wall behind as I reached the foyer. Eli stopped on the stairs behind me, shower-wet, a weapon at his side. My partner in protect mode. I shared my grin at him and his brows lifted, an infinitesimal gesture that meant loads for the former (and forever) Army Ranger. I didn’t bother to try to figure out loads of what. I peeked out the front, through the tiny slice of clear glass in the layers of bullet-resistant and stained glass window.

On the other side of the door stood a man, facing the street. He was tall, lean, maybe six feet three. Straight black hair hung long, down his back to his hips. Golden skin showed at his clean-shaven jaw, which looked tight with frustration. He was wearing black slacks and black blazer jacket. A white dress shirt collar showed from this angle and he was wearing polished leather cap-toe oxford shoes, what my boss, the Master of the City and walking, talking fashion plate, called a Balmoral. Imported shoes.

It griped my goat that I knew all that. Just another useless thing I had learned hanging around vamps. Another way they had changed me and my life. My irritation flamed.

I yanked open the door. The air swept his scent in. It was vaguely floral. A scent that teased at the back of my mind. Tsalagi. Cherokee scent. Beast surged into the forefront of my brain, landing crouched on silent paws. The man turned.

He had yellow eyes.

Beast thought, Littermate.

What? I said to her.

“Hello, e-igido. Dalonige’ i Digadoli,” the man said, his expression soft but intent. “Nuwhtohiyada gotlvdi.”

How did he know my Cherokee name? I knew those last words: Make peace with me.

The air swirled inside and back out. The man’s nostrils widened as he took a breath. Taking in my scent. His face changed—fear, horror, revulsion, dread. “U’tlun’ta,” he whispered, the word meaning liver-eater, black-magic skinwalker. Evil. Faster than I could follow, he drew a weapon, centered it on my chest.

Inside me Beast tore through, doing . . . something.

In a single instant, the man fired.

Beast screamed.

Time stood still.

The round exiting the weapon was stopped an inch from the barrel. The killer was frozen. Everything was frozen except me. Beast had bubbled time, taking me outside of normal space/time/relativity physics. She had saved my life. Again. “Thanks,” I muttered aloud to her.

She snorted, a half chuff, half growl, staring through my eyes at the man, even as the headache/bellyache/muscle aches hit. It was like a tiny bomb going off behind my left eye combined with a case of the flu, and if the two most recent time-bubbling experiences were an indication, it would only get worse. For now, I was okay-ish. Not perfect. Not totally okay. But able to function.

The stranger was firing one of the new Glock GDP-20s, a military-issued police service weapon. I looked closely to see a hollow-point round. Somehow, being shot at calmed my anger. Using my vamp-killer and muscle power, Beast knocked the round down, changing its trajectory to impact the floor molding. The sound of silver-plated vamp-killer blade hitting lead was a dull tang in the Gray Between. The wood stood the best chance of stopping the round and the hole could be filled with wood filler and painted over. Eli was good at that kinda stuff.