Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(60)
“You are becoming sagacious and perspicacious, my catty Enforcer. Titus Flavius Vespasianus was a powerful general, who became the Roman emperor Titus,” Leo said, crossing his ankles, bending his elbow, and propping his head on a hand. The scant covering slipped again, just enough, and I willed my eyes to not look down. “As a human, he and his second-in-command, Tiberius Julius Alexander, besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem, which had been occupied by its Jewish and Mithran defenders. The siege ended with the sacking of the city and the destruction of its famous Second Temple. He returned home and gained the throne, ruling Rome for two years before he was turned by his vampire concubine, a woman he captured from the fall of Jerusalem. He is the undisputed ruler of the European Mithrans.”
I remembered the story of Sabina, the other outclan priestess. She had been turned early in the time of the first vamps. “Sabina?”
“No. Not Sabina,” Katie said. She pulled a chenille throw from beneath her and wrapped it around herself fully.
Thank God. One covered, two to go.
She slid out of the bed, stood, and went to the armoire, from which she removed two bottles of wine, both red, and three glasses. “Another turned him. Long true-dead.”
I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth, but she had no reason to lie.
“Though Titus Flavius Vespasianus signed the Vampira Carta,” Leo said, speaking of the legal papers that passed for law among vampires, “he did so against his will. He is still the ruler of the vampires, all vampires, Mithran and Naturaleza. Humans are cattle to him. No one has successfully stood against him, though my uncle Amaury successfully kept these shores from his influence.”
“Titus Flavius is strong,” Katie said, applying a corkscrew to the first bottle. “Not as powerful as the Sons of Darkness, but his blood is potent. Some say it is by way of blood magic.”
“The kind of stuff the Damours used?” I asked.
“Titus Flavius visited the island of Saint-Domingue during the time the Damours were landowners and slave owners there, free to pursue the most vile forms of magics,” Leo said. He rolled off the bed, not taking the covers.
I averted my eyes fast, but not fast enough. I got the full frontal nudity and I could smell Derek’s concealed amusement, laughing at my nude-body-squeamishness. This was one reason I’d never make it as a full-time Enforcer. Eww. I found myself staring at a painting of Katie, one I hadn’t seen before. In it she was naked—Katie was always presented in a state of undress—lying in a bed with a man wearing a crown and nothing else. It was night through the windows of the painting, a quarter moon hanging in the evening sky. A woman stood at the window, her dark-skinned face shadowed, only her eyes bright, vaguely familiar. She was watching the couple. I couldn’t place her but her eyes drew me. I might have met her. But the context didn’t come to me. I played a timeline game, going back to the moment I met my first vamp—Katie—and moving through until now. I knew those eyes, but who she was, I didn’t know, not with her forehead, lower face, and hair hidden.
The timeline game was better than watching Leo, Katie, and Grégoire, who still occupied the bed, his nether regions and his delicate boyish face covered, thank God. Grégoire looked fifteen, and he had been horribly abused by his creator, Le Batard. Katie crawled back into the bed and gathered Grégoire in her arms, his back to her now, covering her from chest to midthigh, her arms around him, holding a glass to his lips. He took the glass and sipped, and Katie’s arms dropped into his lap. To his . . . Oh. My. God. I needed blinders. Or a fork to stab out my mind’s eye. Stab, stab, stab. I stared at the fire, hoping the flames would blind me to the rest of the room.
Standing naked, Leo took a glass of the red wine as well, the bowl cupped in his palm, and rolled the liquid up around the rim and back. “Good legs,” he said, holding the glass to the light, one arm high. Showing off. Naked. Dang it. And my nickname was Legs. Which he knew. Leo sniffed the wine in tiny sharp bursts. “A nice blend of Merlot with a sterner, later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon. Full in body, lush velvety tannins, and intense plum and blackberry flavors. The Europeans will hate it. See that Lee orders a dozen cases.” He was smiling when he said it. “Overnight delivery. And the other red?”
Katie passed him a second glass. “It is sweet.”
Leo tasted and made a face. “Indeed it is. Too sweet for me to simulate enjoyment. That one may be struck from the list.” He handed it back and looked at me. “My Jane.”
I heaved a sigh. In the painting, the king had his hands all over Katie. Maybe it wasn’t so good to be staring there. “Yes.”
“You seem dismayed at my lack of attire. This is your doing. We are practicing our parts in the grand play that will shock and amuse the Europeans.”
I opened my mouth and nothing came out.
“You once suggested that we play Petruchio to Katherine’s shrew.” He gave Katie a small bow. “My apologies, mon coeur.”
She shrugged a perfect shoulder. “I was a shrew to him. I was a shrew to all of them. It was the title I deserved. But only you conquered my heart, Leo.”
“Are we done here?” I asked.
“When Titus Flavius Vespasianus arrives, you will play your part, my Jane. Until then you are dismissed.”
I grabbed the blood bottle, turned tail, and ran. Well, actually turned on a toe and walked out of the room and back to the limo. But with very long strides. Eli kept up with me and I could tell he was laughing. When the door closed on us I said, “Speak and die.”