Twice Bitten (18 page)

“My reaction was uncalled for,” he finally said.

“You thought he was going to hurt me.”

Ethan shook his head. “I’ve been critiquing Morgan. I’ve complained that he overreacts. That he allows his emotions to get in the way of the needs of his House.”

My stomach twisted, and I had the sickening feeling that I knew where this conversation was going. “Ethan,” I said, but he shook his head.

“If Morgan had pulled that stunt, I’d have taken him out. I’d have hauled him out of the room and reminded him of his obligations. Of his duties to his House and the rest of them. I’m frankly surprised Gabriel didn’t take action of his own.”

Gabriel hadn’t, I thought, because with a touch, Tonya had reminded Gabriel of the reason Ethan had acted—
for me
.

“You stepped in to protect me. It’s understandable.”

“It’s
unacceptable
,” he countered.

That word stung like a punch, and I turned my face to the passenger side window so he couldn’t see the tears that had begun to fill my eyes. However grand his gesture at the Breck house, Ethan was preparing his excuse.

“I could have mooted all of Gabriel’s overtures, destroyed all the good rapport he’s building between shifters and vampires, because of my reaction. Just like that,” he added, snapping his fingers.

Then he went quiet for a moment.

“It’s been a long time for me since I’ve cared for someone. Since I’ve allowed instinct to take over.” His voice softened, as if he’d forgotten I was in the car. “I should have seen it coming. I should have considered the possibility that I’d react in such a way.”

Was I supposed to appreciate the admission that he cared for me when he was drowning in regret about it?

“What if Gabriel did offer an alliance, friendship, because of what you’d done for Berna? If we continued our relationship, and our emotions became intertwined, entangled, and it came to the same end as yours and Morgan’s—what then? All the bitterness? The bad feelings?”

What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to argue with him? Remind him of the physical bliss? Reassure him that he wasn’t Morgan, and that our relationship was different?

“If we form an allegiance with the Pack, we’ll have made history. We’ll have made an allegiance that’s unique in history. And now my reaction has put that allegiance at risk. If that’s how I’m going to react, then I’m not ready for this—maybe not capable of it. Not when it puts the safety and security of the House at risk.” He was quiet for a moment. “There are
three hundred
Cadogan vampires, Merit.”

And I’m one of those three hundred, I silently thought, and forced myself to ask the next question. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I can’t do this. Not now. Things are too fragile.”

I waited to speak until I was sure my voice wouldn’t waver. “I don’t want to just pretend it didn’t happen.”

“I don’t have the luxury of remembering. A girl isn’t reason enough to throw away my House.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and, with tears drying on my cheeks, made my decision. I’d spurned Ethan’s advances when he’d offered just sex. But I’d given in when he’d said he needed me.

In fact, he’d decided I was disposable.

I felt stupid—naïve. But I wouldn’t let him see it, so I locked down my heart and found I could speak in that same cold voice he’d used. “You’ve changed your mind before. If you end it now and change your mind again, I won’t come back. I’ll stand Sentinel, but only as your employee. Not as your lover.”

It took a moment for him to answer . . . and break my heart.

“Then that’s the risk I take.”

I was too embarrassed to stay there, too humiliated at having been so unceremoniously dumped for the possibility of Ethan’s burgeoning friendship with Gabriel. He’d given me up because dating me risked his bond with the Pack.

A bond, ironically enough, that I’d helped create.

I got into my car and headed north across the river, hoping distance would help ease the hurt. At the very least I wouldn’t have to cry within earshot of the Cadogan vampires.

I should have known better. I should have known he wasn’t capable of adapting, that he would always pick strategy over love, that no matter the words he’d used, he was still the same cold bloodsucker.

I considered calling Noah and consenting to join the Red Guard right then and there, consenting to partner with Jonah to oversee the Masters, to judge them, to take action when they fell short of their potential. But that was a betrayal I still couldn’t commit. Ethan had his reasons for deciding a relationship between us wouldn’t work. Even if I didn’t agree with them, I understood them.

None of that, unfortunately, diminished the embarrassment, the feeling that I’d offered and been found lacking, the feeling that being put aside was wholly my own doing.

And, most important, the feeling that in taking Ethan’s side, I’d stood against one of two people in the world who loved me unconditionally.

That regret sent me to Wicker Park, not even sure if she’d be there, but without a better idea. I parked outside her narrow brownstone and hopped up the stairs, then knocked on the door.

She opened it a second later. Her ice blue hair was getting longer and now reached her shoulders. She wore a simple skirt and short-sleeved shirt, her feet bare, her toes painted in a rainbow of colors, from indigo to red.

Her smile faded almost immediately. “Mer? What is it?”

Despite the speech I’d planned on the way over, a regret-filled “I’m sorry” was all I managed to get out. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Mallory gave me an up-and-down appraisal before meeting my gaze again. “Oh, Merit. Tell me you didn’t.”

“Couch,” she directed. “Sit.”

I did, taking a seat on the middle cushion.

Mallory grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the side table, then sat beside me, handed them over, and pushed the hair from my face. “Tell me.”

I did. I told her about the shifter bar, the pizza, the chocolate. I told her about the party, Gabriel’s friendship, and the bully; about Ethan’s reaction and the “risk” he was willing to take. By the end of it, I was in her arms, crying into her shoulder. Crying like a girl whose heart had been shattered into tiny, brittle pieces, even if it had been my fault for falling in the first place.

“I gave him the benefit of the doubt,” I said, mopping at my face with a tissue. “At first, I thought, oh, he’s just afraid. He just can’t give more because he’s not capable right now.” I shook my head. “It’s not because he isn’t capable. It’s because he wants something else.”

That sickening feeling rolled through my stomach again, that horrible twist that only rejection could trigger.

Mallory sat back on the couch, hands in her lap, and sighed, long and hard. “In this case, Merit—and I don’t want to make a martyr of him, because he is far beneath our consideration at the moment—it’s probably a little of both. I’ve seen him with you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I know I’m hard on him.”

Her voice softened. “I know I was hard on you. But there’s more than just desire in his eyes when he looks at you. It’s not just the physical stuff. There’s something else—some kind of affection, maybe. Some kind of appreciation that’s not just about hormones and pink parts. The problem is, he’s a four-hundred-year-old vampire. He’s
not
human, and he hasn’t been in a long time. We don’t even know if he thinks the same or wants the same things.”

“Don’t blame the vampire,” I told her. “That doesn’t get him off the hook.”

“Oh, trust me,” she said. “You give me ten minutes alone with Darth Sullivan, and he will feel my most excellent wrath.” A tingle of magic lit the air and sent a prickle of foreboding down my spine. Powerful, was my sorceress friend.

“All I’m saying is, it sounds as if he doesn’t think he has a choice. That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation.”

I blew out a slow breath and knuckled tears from beneath my eyes. “It’s not as if I don’t know those things. I know he’s not human, not really, even though he has these incredibly vulnerable moments that make my heart clench. You should have seen him when he jumped the shifter, Mallory. He went ballistic—shoved the guy against a wall.”

“Just like I would have done. But with sorcerer juju instead of vampire juju.”

I nodded. “But you wouldn’t have regretted it. He did. Gabriel understood why he’d done it—I know he did. But that wasn’t good enough. I mean, it’s as if I’m being punished because Ethan’s black nugget of a heart actually started beating again.”

“It’s definitely not fair, hon. And I wish I had some magic thing to say that would fix the whole scenario, but I don’t.”

“It’s just—I know he’s not perfect. He can be cold and controlling. But I’ve seen that passion, the affection that he’s locked away. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. He’s just—he’s also, I don’t know—”

“He’s Ethan.”

I looked over at her and sniffed.

“He’s Ethan. For some bizarre reason, he seems to be
your
Ethan. And for better or worse, you seem to be his Merit. That irritates me on a daily basis.”

“I’m so stupid.”

“Not stupid. Just a little too human for your own good.”

I didn’t mention that we’d both criticized Morgan for exactly the same thing. “Sometimes too human, sometimes not human enough. And either way, sometimes a stone-cold idiot.”

“Now, that,” Mallory said, “I can agree with.”

“He’s been in love, you know.”

Mallory looked over at me. “In love? Ethan?”

I nodded and relayed the information Lindsey had once passed along. “Her name was Lacey Sheridan. She was a guard for a couple of decades, I guess. Lindsey thinks he was in love with her, although they broke it off years ago when she started her own House.”

“She’s a Master?”

“One of twelve.”

“Is it perfectly fitting that if you were the next Master in line, you’d be the thirteenth House?”

“Given my luck, pretty damned appropriate.”

She rose off the couch, then walked toward the hallway. “Come on, genius. Let’s get you something to eat.”

I wrapped my hands around my stomach, which was just beginning to stop swimming. “I’m not hungry.”

She glanced back and offered a flat stare.

“Well, not
that
hungry,” I said, but followed her to the kitchen anyway. I had missed dessert, after all.