Chicks Kick Butt by Nancy Holder, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Vincent, Rachel Caine, Jeanne C. Stein, Susan Krinard, Lilith Saintcrow, Cheyenne McCray, Carole Nelson Douglas, Jenna Black, L. A. Banks, Elizabeth A. Vaughan Read Free Book Online

of shutting down the smuggling ring he’d been running. Not to mention that the little guy had done me a few pretty big favors recently.
    I was going to have to figure a way to get him out of this.
    I could always stake him later.
    “Then he
was
lying,” Cheung said, looking satisfied.
    I glared at Ray, whose eyes were still doing the huge and pleading thing. He clearly thought this was it. It didn’t help that I was pretty sure he was right.
    I sighed and accepted the inevitable. “Not exactly.”
    Cheung’s forehead creased slightly. “You are assuming responsibility for him?”
    “I am saying I already have it.” I reached down and jerked Ray over to me by his collar. His eyes bugged out a little, but he didn’t protest. If nothing else, that told me how serious this was. He usually whined nonstop. “He’s mine.”
    “Yours?” One dark eyebrow rose. “You did not sire him. By vampire law, he is my property to do with as I wish. And I doubt the senate will flout thousands of years of tradition, even to save the life of their favorite … what is the word? Canary?”
    “Your vocab’s a little out of date,” I said sourly. “And that’s not how I remember it.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “The last time you, me, and Ray were all together, you gave him to me.”
    The crease grew into a frown. “I did nothing of the kind.”
    “In exchange for me helping to cover up the fact that you’d kidnapped a senator’s brother, threatened him with death, and trashed his new and very expensive car. Ring any bells?”
    “There was no formal transfer made. You misinterpreted a casual remark.”
    I had done no such thing, and he damn well knew it. “I guess we can let the senate decide that.” They’d have to support Ray, like it or not, or lose all that lovely information he still had locked in his fat little head.
    Scarface came up the stairs and Cheung glanced at him. “Careful,” he told him, looking at me narrowly. “She is dhampir. I don’t know what she can pick up.”
    Not a hell of a lot, I didn’t say. Vampire mind-speak had never been my forte. Especially not if it was in Cantonese.
    But Mircea had spent some time in the East, and for all they knew, so had I. I decided to capitalize on the moment. “May I speak to Ray privately?”
    Cheung hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded, probably wanting his own private confab. I didn’t give him time to change his mind, but dragged Ray through the door into the office and slammed it shut with my foot. “Are we private?” I demanded.
    He sighed morosely. “There’s a privacy spell on the room; they can’t hear us. Not that it matters. They’re going to kill me.”
    “You should be more worried about me at the moment,” I hissed. “Why the hell did you tell Cheung I was your bodyguard?”
    “Well, you should have been,” he said spitefully, suddenly growing some backbone. “Or somebody shoulda been. What did you think was gonna happen, as soon as I started spilling my guts? The master was gonna give me a medal?”
    “He knew I was going to take you in. He had to expect—”
    “What he expected was that I’d die before the senate could question me. I was a little under the weather, if you remember?”
    The sarcasm was understandable. Ray had been sans a head at the time Cheung and I had cut our deal, and the body parts he’d had left had been pretty beat-up. Vampires are sturdy, but what he’d been through would have killed many at a higher power level than he was ever likely to reach. Cheung’s conclusion had been reasonable.
    But Ray was tougher than he looked, and he’d had some supernatural help Cheung hadn’t known about. He’d not only lived, but once all his parts were reattached, he’d sung like … well, like a canary. And what a song it had been.
    “Why didn’t you ask the senate protect you?” I demanded. “You’ve given them enough information already to shut down half the illegal smuggling in