“Liege, you can’t feed her the first time. She needs human or Novitiate blood. You’ve got too much power for a first feeding. She’s strong enough as it is.”
Ethan growled but didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was, beneath my lips, a silent submission. Pleased, I slid my hands around his waist.
“Get her off him, Lucas!”
I felt the cold touch again—a drop of chilled water against my heated skin. Irritating. Unwelcome. It was my conscience, I realized, begging me to wake up, to shoulder through the hunger. But superego warred with deep-seated instinct and latent attraction.
Id won.
I growled and flicked the tip of my tongue against his ear, ignoring my own warnings.
“Ethan.”
“Luc, you’ll have to—I haven’t—” He groaned earthily—and God, what a sound, thick enough to touch—as I trailed a line of kisses down his neck. “I haven’t fed in two days. Merit, you have to stop.” Given that he was leaning into my body when he said it, his words lacked conviction.
A hand grasped my arm. Ever so slowly, I turned my head to find coral-painted nails digging into my biceps. The touch was enough to distract me, to make me realize, my lips still against Ethan’s neck, that I was acting out the
Canon
. Despite his protests, I’d pushed on and was preparing to bite him. I was preparing to rip down his clothes and take him on the floor.
I was preparing, in every conceivable fashion, to service my lord.
That insight did it, pushed me through the hunger with an ice-cold hand, pushed me through the desire to the other side—back to the land of rational thought and good choices.
Gathering all the strength I had, I inhaled and pushed myself away from him and from her, needing space to regain control of my body. I hunched over, hands on my knees, gasping for breath. The hunger left me sweating even in my thin T-shirt and jeans, goose bumps prickling my arms as my body cooled again. I could still feel the hunger, a caged tiger prowling through my body, eager for sustenance, waiting to rise again. I knew any control I displayed was temporary. Illusory.
But in some deep, new core of me, I reveled in that knowledge. The tiger paced and was thrilled to be merely biding her time. She would have her chance.
She would drink.
Luc asked, “Blood?”
“Kitchen,” Ethan hoarsely answered. “They delivered bagged. Amber, go with him. Give us a minute.”
“Lot of control for seventy-two hours,” Luc observed. “She reined it back in.”
“If I wanted observations, I’d ask for them.” His voice was firm, obviously troubled. “Go into the kitchen and ready the blood, please.”
When we were alone, when I’d slowed my breathing, I stood straight again and dared to meet his eyes. I waited for a sarcastic response, but he merely looked back at me, his expression carefully blank.
“It’s fine,” he said, his tone clipped. “To be expected.”
“Not by me.”
Ethan pulled at the edges of his shirt collar, then smoothed the lapels of his jacket. Regaining his composure, I thought, maybe because he’d wanted something from me, as well. The silvering of his eyes demonstrated that, however much he protested.
“First Hunger can arise suddenly,” Ethan said. “There’s no need to apologize.”
I arched a brow at him. “I wasn’t going to apologize. If it wasn’t for you, there’d be no thirst.”
“Don’t forget your place, Initiate.”
“As if you’d let me.”
“Someone has to remind you,” Ethan said, stepping closer so that the cuffs of his trousers topped my sneakers. “You promised me submission. You agreed that your rebellious behavior was done. You agreed not to challenge me again. And yet you’re poised to bring the walls of Cadogan House down around us.”
“Master or not,” I said, glaring up at him, “take it back, or I’ll challenge you again.” I’d been betrayed enough times in my life to know the value of honor and honesty, and tried to live by that code. “I have given you no reason to doubt my loyalty, which is a fairly tremendous thing given how you changed me.”
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t challenge the statement. “Merit, so help me, if you support Tate’s office over my House. . . .”
I looked at him blankly. “Tate?
Mayor
Tate? I don’t even know what that means, supporting his office. Why would I be supporting his office?”
“The Ombud is a creation of the Mayor.”
I still missed his point. “I understand that. But why would the mayor care what I do? Why would he care if one of his employees brings a grandkid to work?”
Ethan gazed down at me. “Because even if you’re estranged from your father, he’s still Joshua Merit, and you’re still his daughter. On top of that, you’re the granddaughter of one of the most influential men in the city. And, in case we needed additional fuel, you’re clearly stronger than average.” He flicked a hand in the direction of the kitchen. “Even they recognize that.”
Ethan stuffed his hands into his pockets and moved away, turning to look at a row of books on the shelf next to the front door. “Tate’s not trustworthy,” he said. “He knows about us—has known about us—and even though his appointment of your grandfather seems well-intentioned, the man’s secretive. We understand that he knows about Rogue vampires, but he hasn’t released that information to the public. That raises questions—is he trying to avoid more public panic, or is the information a bargaining chip he’ll use against us later on? And, he won’t speak to the heads of the Houses; instead, he works through the Ombud’s office. As helpful as he may be”—he turned back—“as well-intentioned as he may be, your grandfather still works for Tate. Tate controls the purse and the policy direction. That means he pulls the strings.”
“My grandfather is his own man.”
Ethan stepped back from the bookshelf, crossed his arms, and looked at me. A line creased his forehead. “Think about it, Merit: Vampires announced their existence here, in Chicago. We’re the first Houses in the U.S. to do so. Tate stands first among Mayors in that regard—first in terms of setting supernatural policy, in terms of making alliances with the Houses, maintaining security. A man can use that power, that position. But whatever he has planned—and rest assured the man has plans, probably has had them as long as he’s known about us—he’s not being forthright. I can’t afford for you to become part of his plans, or for my House to be caught in the eddies. So until you’ve learned enough to act appropriately, to use discretion when discussing our concerns, you’ll stay away from the Ombud’s office.”
I wouldn’t stay away, and he probably knew that, but there was no sense in belaboring the argument. Instead, I cocked my head at him. “How did you know I went to his office?”
“I have my sources.”
I didn’t doubt it. But while I wondered which source he’d tapped—Catcher, Jeff, the undercover vamp who serviced the Ombud’s office, or someone else assigned to watch me—I knew better than to ask. He’d never tell me.
But someone had given him information about my activities, someone who hadn’t been close enough to know exactly why I was there. That was worth passing along.
“Some free advice,” I said. “The person who’s giving you information wasn’t inside the building. If they had been, they’d have known why I was there, what was discussed. And more important, what
wasn’t
discussed. They made deductions and managed to convince you those deductions were fact. They’re playing you, Sullivan, or at least trying to puff up sparse information to increase their own cachet.”
For a moment, Ethan didn’t speak. He just looked at me, like he was seeing me for the first time, had suddenly realized that I was more than his newest rebellious underling, more than the daughter of a financial mogul.
“That’s a nice analysis.”
I shrugged. “I was in the room. I know what went on. She, or he, doesn’t. And back to the point, he’s my grandfather. Other than Mallory, he’s all I’ve got. He’s my only real family tie. I can’t cut that tie. I won’t, even if you think it’s a challenge. Even if you think it’s rebellious and goes against your sovereign authority.”
“You have other ties now, Initiate. Cadogan House. Me. You’re my vampire now. Don’t forget that.”
I think he meant it as a compliment, but the tone was still too possessive for my taste. “Whatever happened six days ago, I belong to no one but myself, Sullivan, and least of all you.”
“You are what I made you.”
“I make myself.”
Ethan took a step forward, then another, until I was stepping away to avoid him, until he’d backed me against the living room wall, until I felt the cold slickness of painted plaster behind me.
I was caught.
Ethan braced his hands against the wall, one on each side of my head, boxing me in, and stared down at me. “Do you want disciplining, Initiate?”
I stared at him, a flame igniting in my core. “Not especially.”
Liar
.
His eyes searched mine. “Then why do you persist in taunting me?”
The eye contact felt too intimate, so I turned my head away and tried to swallow down the reluctant arousal, uncomfortably aware that I couldn’t blame my actions, my interest, on the vampire lurking inside me. On the genetic change. She and I were one and the same—same mind, same genetics, same unwanted,
undeniable
, attraction to Ethan Sullivan.
But I reached out for that whisper of denial, wrapped hands around it, and held it like a life preserver. In that second, I dreamed of running away, of beginning again with a new name, in a new city, where I didn’t long to clench fingers into his hair and push my mouth against his until he capitulated and took me against the cold white wall, pushed his body into mine to alleviate the need, to warm the chill.
Instead, I said, maybe honestly, “I wasn’t taunting you.”
He didn’t move, not until he lowered his head, his lips even closer to mine than before. “You wanted me a moment ago.”
This time, his voice was quiet, his words not the challenge of a Master vampire, but the entreaty of a boy, of a man:
I am right, aren’t I, Merit? That you wanted me?
I forced myself to be honest, but I couldn’t force myself to speak. So I stayed silent, and let the silence stand for words that I couldn’t bring myself to say:
I want you. Despite myself, I want you. In spite of what you are, I want you.
“Merit.”
“I can’t.”
He dropped his head so that his lips hovered just above mine, his breath on my cheeks. “Give in to it.”
I flicked my eyes up to meet his, which were the deep, dark green of primeval forests—ancient, unknowable, and hiding monsters in their wooded depths. “You don’t even like me.”
He smiled a little evilly. “That doesn’t seem to matter.”
A slap wouldn’t have pulled me out of the trance any faster. I twisted beneath his braced arms, then moved away. “I see.”
“I’m not happy about this either.”
“Yes, I get that you don’t want to be attracted to me, that you think I’m beneath you, but thank you for pointing it out anyway. And in case you haven’t realized it, I’m not thrilled about it, either. I don’t want to like you, and I certainly don’t want to be with someone who’s appalled by me. I don’t want to be . . . desired begrudgingly.”
He stepped toward me with the grace of a slinking panther. And just as dangerous.
“Then what do you want me to say?” His voice was low, thick with lambent power. “That I wanted you to taste me? For all that you’re stubborn, sarcastic, completely unable to take seriously my authority, and patently disrespectful, that I want you? Do you think this is what I would choose?”
There it was again—the list of flaws. The reasons he shouldn’t have been attracted to me. The reasons he hated the chemistry that, against both our wills, flared between us. My voice quiet, the sound oddly far away, I told him, “I don’t want anything from you.”
“Liar,”
he accused, and lowered his mouth to mine.
He kissed me, and the circuit closed again.
His lips were soft and warm, and implored a reaction, challenged me to join in, to give in, even if only briefly, to the chemistry. My limbs loosened, my body daring me to sink into it, to revel in it. But I’d come close enough to the fire, when I’d nearly jumped him to pull the blood from his veins. That had been enough. That had been too much. So I kept my lips together and tried to turn my head away.
“Merit,” he intoned, “be still.” Ethan’s fingers slid along my jaw, knotted into my hair, and he used his thumbs to tilt up my chin. He took a small step forward, our bodies aligning, just touching.
He dipped his head and kissed me again, thumbs stroking my cheeks as he moved his lips across mine, caressing, calming, not coercive. Then, when his tongue slipped between my lips and stroked mine, when the electric thrill slid up my spine, I gave in.
Tentative at first—and only responding after promising myself that I’d never,
ever
touch him again—I kissed him back. I gave back his kiss, sucked on the tongue he offered me, responded to his nips and bites with my own.
I couldn’t seem to help it. I couldn’t
not
kiss him. He tasted so good,
smelled
so good. He was heaven, a golden beacon in the supernatural darkness that spindled around me. But this wasn’t something to blame on magic. This was much more elemental, much more powerful. It was want, desire in its most basic form.
But I couldn’t afford that, not to want someone who didn’t want me. Not really.
So I put my hand on his chest, and felt the thud of his heart beneath the soft cotton of his dress shirt before I pushed him away. “Stop.”
He took two halting steps backward, his chest rising and falling as he pulled in air, and stared down at me.
“That was a mistake,” I said. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
He wet his lips, then ran a hand across his jaw. “No?”
“No.”