Twice Bitten (6 page)

“Sentinel, does Ethan Sullivan strike you as the type who appreciates challenges to his authority?”

“Not really his bag,” I agreed. That was exactly why I’d held off giving Noah an answer. It wasn’t that I thought keeping an eye on the Masters was a bad idea—case in point Celina—but I could appreciate Ethan’s sensitivity.

We stopped in front of the door to my favorite room in Cadogan House—the library.

Luc eyed the door, then me. “You looking for more inappropriate information?”

“If I didn’t keep you two on your toes, Luc, what fun would you have?”

He shook his head in amusement, but then turned around and headed right toward the stairs . . . and toward Lindsey’s room. “Gotta see a girl about a girl?” I called after him.

He answered with a gesture. That’s what I got, I supposed, for baiting a vampire.

We’d said hurtful things, things that put an obstacle between us. We’d talked since then, but that breach was still there, a barrier that seemed impassable, at least for now.

It was perhaps the most frustrating kind of breakup—when the person you loved lived down the street, in the same building, or across town but they were still inaccessible to you.

I couldn’t bring myself to call her. It didn’t seem right—like a call would have violated a silence we’d agreed upon.

That’s what put me in my car two hours before sunrise—two hours before the sun would send me deep into unconsciousness (and worse, if I wasn’t careful)—heading north from Hyde Park to Wicker Park, Mallory’s neighborhood.

I swore to myself that I wouldn’t drive past the brownstone we had shared; that seemed a little too stalkerish even for me. Besides—seeing the lights on, the glare from the television, the shadow of people in front of the picture window—would only make me that much more miserable. Her life wasn’t just supposed to go on. I know it sounded petty, but this was supposed to be hard for her, too. She should have been grieving, as well.

Instead, I stayed on Lake Shore Drive. I drove past her exit, the Lake on my right, then turned off the radio and rolled down the window. I drove until I’d run out of street. And then I pulled over.

I parked and got out of the car, then leaned back against it and stared out at the water. With much-needed space between me and Wicker Park and Cadogan House, I let down the defenses I’d erected, and let the sounds and smells of three million people, not to mention vampires and shifters and fairies and nymphs, take me over.

And in that noise and ocean of sensation, I lost myself for a little while, finding the blankness, the anonymity I needed.

I stayed there, my gaze on the water, until I was ready to go home again.

I walked to the kidney-shaped pool, then knelt beside it and trickled my fingers across the surface of the water.

I didn’t look up when I heard soft footsteps.

“It’s a nice evening,” he said.

“Yes, it is.” I flicked the water from my fingers, then stood up again. Ethan stood on the other side of the water in his suit pants and shirt, hands in his pants pockets, hair tucked behind his ears, gold Cadogan medal peeking from the triangle of skin at the hollow of his neck.

“You left?”

I nodded. “For a little while. Just to clear my head.”

He cocked his head at me. “Shifters?”

I assumed he was asking if they were the reason I needed space. “Sorcerers,” I corrected.

“Ah,” he said, then lowered his gaze to the water. “Mallory?”

“Yeah. Mallory.” He knew we’d fought. I didn’t think he knew that he’d been what we’d fought over—part of it, anyway.

Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “The transition can be a challenge for friends. For loved ones.”

“Yes, it most definitely can,” I agreed, then opted to change the subject. “What are you doing out here? Shifters?”

“Yeah,” he mimicked, a hint of a smile on his face. “Shifters.”

“Maybe the shifters have it right,” I said. “I mean, heading off into the woods, keeping to themselves.”

“Your theory being that if you don’t have contact with anyone, you can’t be hurt by them?”

That was a very astute conclusion for a four-hundred-year-old vampire who usually seemed clueless about human emotion. “That would be the idea, yes.”

This time, when he looked at me, there was sadness in his eyes. “I don’t want to see you become cold, Merit.”

“Not wanting to be hurt isn’t the same as becoming cold.”

“Not at first,” he said. He walked to a low brick wall that surrounded the pool and leaned back upon it, ankles crossed in front of him, arms still crossed. And then he looked at me, the pool lights making his eyes glow like a cat’s.

“Now that you’ve finally completed the change, beware the creep of insensitivity. Humans accept the concept of death; they may not wish for it, but they recognize that the decay of the human body is inevitable. Vampires, on the other hand, have the possibility of immortality. They implore strategy to protect it, and they often forget about the details of life between the change and the aspen stake.”

He shook his head. “You are a wonder of vampiric strength, yet you treasure your humanity and care greatly about those who were in your life before your change. Stay that way,” he said. “Stay just the way you are.”

“Quit flirting with me, Sullivan,” I said dryly, but I wasn’t kidding. Ethan was seductive enough when he was being snarky; I wasn’t prepared for complimentary Ethan.

“I’m being completely honest,” Ethan said, lifting a hand and holding up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

I made a doubtful noise, then glanced up at the sky. As the earth turned on its axis, the indigo of evening was beginning to shift and lighten.

“We should get inside,” I suggested. “Unless you want to test your sunlight allergy defenses?”

“I’ll pass,” Ethan said, standing and holding out a hand. I walked past him, across the backyard and to the brick patio that spanned the back of the House, then to the back door. When we reached the door, he reached to grasp the handle, but then paused.

I glanced over at him.

“I’m not your father, you know.”

It took me a moment to find words. “Excuse me?”

“I’m capable of giving you a compliment and being completely sincere about it.”

I opened my mouth to snipe back, but I realized he had a pretty good point. Offering a compliment to goad someone into doing something was just the kind of thing my father would do. I gave Ethan credit for recognizing the difference.

“Then thank you,” I told him, a hint of a smile at my lips.

He nodded graciously. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you in the evening.”

“Good night, Sullivan.”

“Good night, Sentinel.”

And I was very definitely single.

I’d actually been single for a while, if you didn’t count the few weeks I spent nearly dating Morgan. He’d “won” the right to date me by challenging Ethan in front of half of Cadogan House, Noah, and Scott Grey. We’d had a handful of halfhearted dates afterward. Unfortunately, while the “half” part was from my end, Morgan seemed to be all-in from the get-go. I didn’t feel the same, and he was convinced my reticence had something to do with my relationship, physical and otherwise, with Ethan. I could admit Ethan was on my mind more than made me comfortable, but calling our prickly interactions a “relationship” was like calling an office softball team the Cubs. Bats were swung either way, but it just wasn’t the same.

Having stretched out, I glanced back at the alarm clock. It was mid-June, so the days were still getting longer, my hours of awareness shrinking a little each day until the summer solstice would click the clock back in the other direction. Figuring I could delay my inevitable training session with Ethan for only so long, I put the stacks of books on the floor, then followed with my feet.

I didn’t bother with a shower since I was training with Ethan, but I did change into my sports bra and yoga pants, then threw on a fitted Cadogan T-shirt. I was hungry and headed for a pre-training breakfast, and I didn’t want to show up in my minimal workout gear.

When I was dressed and shoed and had my katana in hand, I took the stairs up to Lindsey’s third-floor room. She’d become my meal buddy. Her room was also my after-work hang-out. The value of bad television after a night of supernatural drama really should not be underestimated. “Mind-numbing” had its role in the life of a vampire.

Lindsey stood in her open doorway, cell phone in hand, when I arrived. Since she was the guard corps’s resident psychic, I assumed she’d guessed I was headed her way. Unlike me, she was dressed in her Cadogan black suit, her long blond hair pulled into a sleek, low ponytail at the base of her neck. She crooked a finger at me, then walked back inside.

“Babe, I have to go. My breakfast date is here. I’ll talk to you later. And don’t forget about those pants I love. No—the latex ones. ’Kay. Hugs. Bye.” She snapped her phone closed, then looked back at me, grinning at what I’m sure was a look of horror on my face.

I really couldn’t fathom a single thing to say. But I’d apparently moved out of the Carmichael-Bell love shack and right into the House of Latex.

I mean, I knew Lindsey had been flirting with Connor. He was, like me, a newbie Cadogan vamp. But “latex” was not a word I needed to hear this early in the evening.

“I can’t believe you aren’t being supportive,” she said, rolling her eyes. She toed into sensible black heels as she slid her phone into the pocket of her jacket.

“I’m—I’m supportive. Yay, Lindsey.” My tone was flat, but I gave her a halfhearted fist wave.

Once she was shoed, she put her hands on her hips, one blond eyebrow arched. “I’ve found the love of my very long, very immortal life, and all I get is ‘Yay, Lindsey’? Some friend you are.”

“Love of your life? Connor? Are you sure?” That time, my voice actually squeaked.

She nibbled the edge of her lip like a love-struck teenager, then put her hand over her heart. “I’m wicked sure.”

We stood there in silence for a minute. “Yay, Lindsey,” I said again, when words failed me.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. I’m not having a lusty, sordid affair with a hot, nubile Novitiate. That was my dry cleaner on the phone.”

I resisted the urge to ask how she was going to explain “latex” the next time she talked to her dry cleaner. . . . On the other hand, that actually kinda worked.

“Thank God,” I said. “I was having Mallory and Catcher flashbacks.”

She pushed me back out the door, then closed it behind us. We began the trek to the first floor and the Cadogan buffet. “Was it really that bad? I mean, Bell is
hot
. H-A-W-T hot.”

“So hot you lost your appreciation for spelling?”

“Yeppers. Surface-of-the-sun hot.”

“You know who else is hot?” I asked her.

“Don’t say ‘Luc.’ ”

“Oh. My.
God
,” I said, putting my hand against my chest in mock surprise. “You
are
psychic.”

She grumbled, as she was wont to do every time I brought up the name of the boy she should have been chasing. Not that I was nosy . . . but they’d be so good together.

And then she brought out the big guns.

“I’ll be ready to discuss Luc with you,” she said as we trotted down two flights of stairs to the main floor, “when you’re ready to talk about your plan to ensnare the second-prettiest blond vampire in the House.”

“Is Luc first in that calculation?”

Lindsey snorted, then tugged at her own blond ponytail. “Hello?”

“Well, however you calculate it, I have no plans to ensnare anyone.” We took the long, main hallway to the back of the House, where the old-school cafeteria was located. Wooden tables and ladder-back chairs were placed in front of a stainless-steel buffet where vampires could help themselves. There was not a slice of processed cheese or a cellophane-wrapped snack cake in sight.

“Uh-huh,” Lindsey said, leading the way to the buffet. She got in line behind a dozen or so Cadogan vampires—all dressed in the requisite black. The room was filled with them, vamps preparing for an evening of work in the House or a night out in the Windy City. Cadogan House was akin to a company town, so some of the vamps were employed by the House—like the guards—while others worked in the Chicago metro area and contributed a portion of their income back to the House. (Cadogan House vamps got a stipend for being House members, so the work wasn’t technically necessary, but vamps liked to be productive.)

Of the House’s three hundred eighteen vampires (having lost Peter and Amber), only about one-third actually lived in the House. The rest lived elsewhere but retained their affiliation, having sworn their oaths to Ethan and his fanged fraternity.

Lindsey and I moved slowly through the line, pushing our plastic trays along the steel rack and nabbing food and drink as we passed. Since I’d fought yesterday, and would be fighting again in a few minutes, I didn’t want to overdo it, but there were a few essentials I needed: a pint of Type O; a mess of protein (satisfied today by sausage links and patties); and a solid dose of carbs. I plucked a couple of biscuits from a warming pan and arranged them on my tray before grabbing a napkin and silverware and following Lindsey to a table.

She picked a seat beside Katherine and Margot, two vamps I’d first met in Lindsey’s room during a night of pizza and reality television. They smiled as we approached, then adjusted their trays to make sure we had room to sit down.

“Sentinel,” Margot said, pushing a lock of gleaming, short dark hair behind her ear. She was absolutely gorgeous, with a bob of dark brown hair that curved to a point across her forehead, and long, whiskey-warm eyes that would have been equally well suited on a seductive tiger. “Training tonight?”

“Indeed,” I said, sliding into a chair and popping a chunk of biscuit into my mouth. “After all, what would a day in Cadogan House be if Sullivan couldn’t humiliate me?”

Lindsey nodded. “Lately, that would be very unusual.”

“Sad but true,” I agreed.

“Were you serious about the barbecue?” Katherine asked, her long brown hair falling around her shoulders, a lock at the top pulled back with a small barrette. Kat was pretty in an old-fashioned way—with the big eyes and fresh face of a girl from a different time. She’d been born in Kansas City when the town was thick with stockyards and cattle. Her brother, Thomas, was also a member of the House.

“Aspen-stake serious. Folks have been asking for a mixer,” I said, nudging Lindsey with an elbow. She snorted, then sipped orange juice from her glass.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware,” she said, “but I’m not up for a mixer.”

We all stopped and looked at her. Margot tilted her head. “Is that because you’ve dumped Connor, or because you’re an official item?”

“Please say ‘dumped,’ ” I murmured. “Please say ‘dumped.’ ”

This time, she elbowed me. “We are no longer an item. He’s just so . . .”

“Young?” the three of us asked simultaneously.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I wonder what life as a vampire would be like without all these other vampires around.”

Margot stuck out her tongue at Lindsey.

“You’d miss us terribly,” I reminded her. “And you’d miss Luc.”

She got quiet.

“I’m not responding to that,” she finally said.

Margot, Katherine, and I grinned at one another, figuring that was answer enough.