Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(121)
“Whoop!” Alex said. “Bro, I promise I will get up early and wash all the dishes and clean the kitchen if you let me skip it for tonight.” Eli lifted his eyebrows and said nothing. “Okay. I’ll clean the grill too.”
“Deal,” Eli said. “Let’s get pretty, bro.”
That left Edmund and Bruiser and me at the table. I put down my fork and knife and sighed. “I feel better. So. What else do I need to know?”
Edmund stood and took the rest of the dishes to the sink, where he swished them in sudsy water. “While you healed last night and today, Eli went into the attic space and discovered that it’s open and livable. Nothing but rough wood studs, but they are beautiful wood, and the flooring is cypress. He thinks he can board up the windows and make it safe for me. And for Brute. If you are willing for us to move.”
He meant move into the house proper and not behind the wall of shelving that protected my family and guests from them both.
I rubbed my overfull belly and thought. “Stairs?”
“He’ll hire a contractor to open up the space and put a stairway in the wide part of the second-floor hallway. He suggested a circular one. We’ll get bids on both and you would make the final decision, of course.”
“Gee’s my Enforcer now. Where would he sleep?”
“I assume a bed could be found. There’s quite a bit of square footage up there.”
“Okay. Good by me. It’s cheaper than buying a bigger house.”
Edmund gave me a small smile and finished his wine. “I took it upon myself to purchase Brute a new mattress, memory foam, with a lining and white cotton sheets so they could be bleached easily. Wolves are often dirty. He should be back by morning. One assumes he will be cranky, and the bed may ease that.”
A cranky werewolf would be dangerous. “Thank you,” I said.
Edmund nodded and stood. “I’ll dress. My mistress shall require proper attendants at the soiree.” He glanced at Bruiser. “Someone who will focus on threats and not simply dancing.”
Bruiser’s brown eyes warmed. “What we do is not simply dancing.”
Edmund’s eyes rolled.
“Seriously?” I asked. “You did an eye roll?”
Edmund said, “You would prefer me to suggest that you get a room?”
Bruiser chuckled, the low burr of sound that slid along my nerves like heated velvet, and pulled me to my feet and into his arms. “Let’s get dressed and go ‘simply dancing.’”
I managed a nod, feeling again that odd warmth and fullness in my chest, as if my heart was expanding, too big for my rib cage. Bruiser wrapped my hand in his and led me from the kitchen.
In my room, on my bed, was a box all wrapped up in shiny silver paper, with a bow big enough to hide a small car. I opened the card. It was plain white, with Bruiser’s distinctive scrawl on the inside. Jane, love, it read. This was a gift for a future evening, but nothing will be more important than celebrating your return to me. Madame Melisende claims to have created the perfect dancing dress for you. I hope she is correct and that you adore it. I’ll call for you at the designated time. Love, Bruiser.
I touched the last line, a small smile on my face. Sat on the bed and opened the box. Inside was a dress, a black dancing creation with spaghetti straps, a tight bodice, and a flared, split skirt to my calves. It came with a loose shawl in a dark shade of gold that matched my eyes, swirled through with blue, the color of a midnight sky. In its own velvet box was a gold necklace with a matching blue faceted stone. I kissed my Onorio and he kissed me back. Things happened. Hot, hard, and fast. We ended up having to take our own vehicle to the dance club.
? ? ?
In some cities, a major flood might mean closing up shop and waiting out the cleanup. In New Orleans, in parts of the French Quarter, especially, flood cleanup was down to an art, and nowhere so advanced than at Royal Mojo Blues Company, Leo Pellissier’s bar and grill and dance hall. If wallboard had been reapplied to the walls after Katrina, the cleanup would have been longer, stinkier, moldier, and messier, but the walls had been left with the raw brick exposed. The recent flood had meant pulling out the pressure washer and blasting the walls and concrete floors, cleaning out the bathrooms and the appliances, and letting it all dry before bringing in a ton or two of food and liquor. And New Orleans, after a day and night of miserable hard work, wanted to party, so every open bar and dance joint in the city was bursting to capacity.
Half an hour after arriving, I was sweaty and tired and utterly satisfied, ready to take a table reserved by Bruiser for our crowd, one just off the dance floor. We had been boogieing to Roddy Rockwell, the band having driven in from Mobile to entertain the city, and the mix of music from the last seventy years was perfect for dancing. They had ended the set with a Bro-country version of their eighties hit “Blindsided,” and we had whooped it up with a country line dance created on the spot by Eli. My partner could dance, especially with a stunning witch encouraging him. Bliss, who would forever after be called Ailis, was swinging her booty and stepping high. Eli was entranced with the black-haired, pale-skinned witch. Unlike Sylvia, Ailis didn’t use guns, but then, as a witch, she didn’t need them. I hoped neither one would get hurt from the rebound attraction.
After the set, we all gathered around two tables, my clan and Leo’s vamps, drinking and laughing and telling stories from the last few days, filling each other in, and bragging about head count. Vamp head count. So far, I seemed to be in the lead. Go me. Or not.