Twice Bitten (21 page)

“There are no details to offer. We had a fling; he decided he couldn’t afford to date me, so I’m now working on my I-Will-Survive vibe.”

We took the stairs to the first floor, and had just turned the corner at the stairwell when we were blocked by an entourage of vampires—Margot, Katherine, and a female vamp with a shaved head and cocoa skin whom I didn’t yet know. They literally stopped in front of us, a blockade to the rest of the first floor.

“
Chicas
,” Lindsey said, propping her hands on her hips, “what’s up?”

The girls shared a look, then glanced at me, then turned back to Lindsey.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Margot said, “but we have a visitor.”

Lindsey looked at me and frowned. “Right now? It’s nearly dawn. And there wasn’t anyone in the dailies.” The dailies were our once-daily dossiers of news and events at the House, planned guests, and off-campus trips planned by Ethan or Malik. Today’s had been dominated by the shifter party, so I shook my head.

Margot, who looked mighty uncomfortable, gnawed on the edge of her lip. “I’m not supposed to say anything.”

Katherine bumped her with an elbow. “Spill it.”

“It’s just—he asked me a couple of hours ago to make a big sunset meal,” Margot said. “Steak
au poivre
, soufflé, the whole bit. And I thought something was odd, because he hasn’t asked for steak
au poivre
in years.”

My first thought, given that the food was French and the arrival secret, was that Ethan had invited Celina over for a sit-down. Since she’d tried to have me killed, it made sense that he’d want to keep the meeting on the down-low.

“Then we heard he was bringing in a guest,” said the new girl, “and that she’s on her way from the airport.”

“Oh, and this is Michelle,” Lindsey absently whispered, gesturing toward the new girl. I offered Michelle a smile and a wave.

“If it matters at all,” Katherine said, “if it makes any difference, he’s being a huge asshole, and we were totally rooting for you.” There was pity in her expression.

My stomach tightened with nerves.

“Alrighty, ladies,” Lindsey said, holding up her hands. “Dawn is on its final approach, so someone start at the beginning. What in the sam hell is going on?”

The three girls glanced at one another again before Michelle, misery in her expression, looked back at Lindsey.

“It’s the Ice Queen.”

“Oh,
shit
,” Lindsey murmured.

Margot nodded. “Lacey Sheridan’s on her way to the House.”

My heart nearly stopped.

That sickening feeling returned again, twisting my stomach and threatening to push back the pizza I’d eaten earlier. Not only had Ethan decided I wasn’t worth the trouble—he’d already made arrangements to pick up the pieces of our stunted relationship with someone else.

I didn’t know how not to take that personally.

“Good Lord,” Lindsey muttered. “Hot or not, the boy has issues.”

“I can’t believe he’d ask her to come back here,” Margot said. “Especially now.”

Especially now that he’d slept with me, or broken up with me?

The pity in Margot’s voice brought hot tears to the edges of my lashes, but I blinked them back and looked up at the plastered ceiling to keep them from tracing down my cheeks. In that moment of weakness, when I was focused only on not crying in front of these virtual strangers, some of the walls that kept back the noise and sound began to tumble. The whispers I could no longer filter out began to circle around me. I belatedly realized we weren’t the only vampires clustered together in the foyer, waiting for something to happen.

Black-clad vampires stood in groups of three or four, some with heads together as they whispered, some with eyes on me, some with gazes out the front windows that flanked the front door.

“She’s on her way to the House,” someone said.

“What about Merit?” asked someone else.

I clenched my eyes shut. My name was being whispered around the room. There were ninety witnesses to the act and now to the request that Lacey get to Chicago
as soon as goddamned possible
.

I opened my eyes again. I could feel my skin beginning to heat as humiliation and defeat gave way to that much more satisfying emotion—anger. Grief twisted into fury, and I could understand exactly how Celina’s dismissal by some English beau could pull an emotional trigger, turning sadness outward into a spray of bitter shrapnel. I’m sure she wasn’t the only woman—or man—in history for whom rejection had become fuel, that fire in the belly that moved her to action—to violence, to war, to destruction.

The vampire ego was no less fragile than the human one.

It was comforting, that anger; the ability to direct the emotion toward Ethan, instead of seeing my rejection as my own failure. I closed my eyes as goose bumps lifted on my arms, my body sinking into the feeling as though into hot bathwater.

When the room went silent, I opened them again.

The girls had silenced their pity party, all heads turning as Ethan walked through the main hallway and past us toward the front door.

“She must be here,” Margot muttered, and we turned to watch him move.

She
, I realized, must have been the reason for the phone call he’d received when he left the Ops Room—the reason he’d dismissed us.

Ethan opened the door, then leaned forward to embrace a woman. “Lacey,” he said, “thank you for coming on such short notice.”

His voice was warm, the implication of his words clear—he’d asked her here.

She must have been the cool sherbet to my garlic sauce, the palate cleanser he needed after a night with me. I swallowed down a sudden bout of nausea.

When he released her and stepped clear, then began shaking hands with the remainder of her entourage, I got my first look.

She was tall and slender, her blond hair cut into a sharp bob that ended just below her chin. Her face was model perfect—straight, long nose, wide mouth, blue eyes that held an icy sheen. She was dressed in a pale blue pantsuit that hugged her lean body; on her right hand was a single ring that carried an oversized pearl.

She was beautiful, put together, elegant.

She was everything he’d want.

And she was here, in Chicago, from San Diego, because he’d asked her.

“The House looks lovely, Ethan. I like what you’ve done.”

He turned back to her and smiled. But as he turned his head to look over the room, as he caught sight of the knots of vampires in the hallway, his smile faded. He surveyed us, body tensing, and finally met my eyes.

As we stared at each other, I wondered why he’d called her here, what succor he thought she could provide.

I wondered why dating me would have been a sacrifice, but inviting back a former lover was not.

I saw nothing in his eyes that would explain it, only a dose of shock that I’d caught him in the act. I don’t know what I wanted to say to him, but I took a step forward, intent on telling him
something
.

“Whoa, whoa,” Lindsey said, moving to stand in front of me. “Don’t go storming over there. You don’t want to be that girl.”

I snorted, half the room’s attention on me now. “What girl? The girl who got replaced within a matter of
hours
?” I fiercely whispered, then looked around the room. “They may not have known about the breakup, but the evidence is pretty clear. Is there anyone who doesn’t think it now?”

Margot, Katherine, and Michelle all looked away.

“Mer,” Lindsey said, putting her hands on my arms, “we’re your friends, your fellow Novitiates. But Ethan’s a Master, and so is Lacey. Embarrassing yourself in front of them would be a whole different level of humiliating.”

She had a point.

Okay, I decided. I wouldn’t confront him, but I also wouldn’t hurt myself further by watching their interactions.

I turned around and, without another word, took the stairs to the second floor. I went to my room and locked the door behind me. I didn’t cry—
wouldn’t cry
. Not again.

I also wouldn’t sleep.

It being minutes before dawn, I changed into pajamas and climbed into bed. It had been a long night, but I lay awake, one arm behind my pillow, staring at the ceiling. Dawn was coming, the pull of it enticing my eyes to close, my brain to shut off. But the human part of me kept replaying the moments we’d shared, few though they were, and wondering if there was something I could have done, should have said, to give us a chance.

I’d made myself vulnerable, and I was paying the price. But the real insult was that the entire House now knew—or would soon enough—about my being summarily dumped and replaced.

Admittedly, I’d given him a chance. But that didn’t mean I had to keep making bad decisions. I blew out a breath and swore off dating vampires.

It was at that moment, ironically, that my would-be RG partner decided to give me a call. Assuming he was getting in touch because he’d heard from Luc about ConPack, I plucked up my phone and flipped it open. “Merit.”

“It’s Jonah,” he said. “Are you ready for this thing tomorrow night?” I appreciated the concern in his voice, but I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me on a personal level, or because I was potentially an RG asset.

“We’ve met the Pack leaders, spent some time with the NAC, and seen schematics of the building. We have a communications plan, and you guys are backup.” I shrugged. “That’s as prepared as we can be.” I skipped the details of the interaction that would have embarrassed Ethan; no point in both of us feeling miserable.

Jonah offered a vague sound of agreement. “If I’m asked later, we never had this conversation. But I’m wondering if this is a time to request RG backup? To have guards on standby?”

I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “This is definitely
not
that time. I appreciate the offer of support, but there are plenty of shifters out there who hate us.” I’d seen that in action, firsthand. “Sending in special ops and black helicopters isn’t going to help. It will only fuel the fire. Trust me—we’re in better stead than we might have been if we hadn’t been at the bar, but we’re not ‘in’ by any means.”

He was quiet for a moment. “And if the shit goes down?”

“Then Luc will call you in. You’re a Red Guard, which means at that point you’d have the authority to make decisions on their behalf. But you can’t move early on this one. They think we’re too political. Untrustworthy. If we show up with extra vampires in tow—and without a crisis to justify it—we’ve proved their point. Let’s go in assuming there’ll be trouble that we can handle. And if things escalate into your jurisdiction, you can make the call.”

Another moment of consideration. “We’ll stand by for now. Good luck.”

I hoped we wouldn’t need it.

It had been a good week since I’d gone for a run. Since I had a couple of hours before we’d meet to go to the convocation, I pulled on a running bra, tank, and running shorts so I could kick out three miles through Hyde Park. Training with Ethan or the guards was a workout, certainly, but not the kind that loosened up your bones and mind, cleared away everything but the pounding of the pavement, the rhythm of your breathing, and a good old-fashioned sweat.

But first, I needed some fuel for the gas tank. I wasn’t ready to face down the rest of the vampires in the House, or risk the possibility of a Sheridan-Sullivan meeting. So I opted to avoid whatever drama might be awaiting me downstairs and scavenge breakfast on the second floor. I headed down the hallway and through a swinging door into the tiny rectangular kitchen. Granite-topped maple cabinets lined both long sides of the room, and a refrigerator and other appliances were built into the cabinets in the same maple wood. The countertops held baskets of napkins and the like and smaller appliances. The refrigerator was covered in magnets and take-out menus from Chinese, Greek, and pizza places in Hyde Park. That was the advantage of living near U of C—the undergrads kept food delivery in business at all hours, and that was good for the rest of us.

I went for the refrigerator and pulled it open. It wasn’t unlike something you might have seen in an office building—a lot of leftover takeout, yogurt containers, and half-eaten desserts with initials marked on the top. It was all the detritus of prior vampires’ meals and dates, labeled to keep other fangs away.

But there were also House-supplied goodies, including lots and lots of blood in pourable pint bags and smaller drink boxes. I took a second to appraise my need and decided it was time to stock up. I grabbed two drink boxes, shook and poked in the attached straw, sipped . . . and grimaced. Biting Ethan had been like drinking a rare vintage—rich, complex, intoxicating. Drinking from a plastic box now tasted exactly like that—flat, plasticky, sterile. It tasted dead, somehow, as if the blood had lost the infusion of energy you got from drinking from the tap, so to speak.

But since that particular supply had been cut off, I knocked it back, then did the same to the second box. This wasn’t the time to let personal preference stand in the way of biological need, especially in light of the physical and emotional challenges I could be facing in a couple of hours.

I tossed the empty boxes in the trash and out of curiosity opened a couple of the upper cabinets. They were stocked with healthy snacks—bags of granola, nuts, high-protein cereals, natural popcorn.

“Blech,” I muttered, then closed the cabinet doors again and headed through the swinging kitchen door. When they stocked the cabinets with Twinkies, I’d be back. I made a note to talk to Helen, the House’s den mother, about that.

Breakfast in the bag, I headed outside. It was a warm and muggy June night. Not terribly late, but the streets were still quiet. I thought avoiding the paparazzi altogether risked making them a little too interested in vampire activities, so I headed down the street to the right and toward the group at the corner. I smiled and waved, flashbulbs snapping and popping as I moved nearer.

“Hey,” one called out, “it’s the Ponytailed Avenger!”

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Any comment on the bar shooting, Merit?”

I smiled thoughtfully at the reporter, a youngish kid in jeans and a T-shirt, a laminated press badge around his neck. “Only that I hope the perpetrators are caught.”

“Any comment on the stakings in Alabama?” he asked.

My blood ran cold. “What stakings?”

The man beside him—older, pudgier, with a mass of frizzy white hair and similar mustache—gestured with his small, reporter-style notebook. “Four vamps were taken out at a, well, they’re calling it a ‘nest’ of vampires. Apparently part of some kind of underground, anti-fang movement.”

Gabriel’s concern about rumblings, then, had clearly been real. Maybe it was only an isolated incident. Maybe it was a horrible, but random, act of violence that didn’t signal the turning of the tide for the rest of us.

But maybe it wasn’t.

“I hadn’t heard,” I said quietly, “but my thoughts and prayers go out to their friends and families. That kind of violence, the kind that grows from prejudice, is indefensible.”

The reporters were quiet for a moment as they scribbled down my comments. “I should get going. Thanks for the update, gentlemen.”

They called out my name, trying to get in additional questions before I trotted off into the night, but I’d done my duty. I needed the run, the chance to clear my head, before heading back into Cadogan House and the drama that undoubtedly awaited me there—political or otherwise.

The first mile was uncomfortable; doable, especially as a vampire, but painful in the way first miles often were. But I eventually found a rhythm, my breathing and footfalls aligned, and made a circle around the neighborhood. I skirted U of C, the wound of no longer being enrolled in my would-have-been alma mater still a bit too raw.

A breeze had stirred up by the time I made it back around to Cadogan House, and I nodded at the guards as I reentered the grounds, trying to slow my breathing, hands on my hips. I had to run faster as a vampire to get my heart rate up, and I wasn’t really sure how much good it did, but I felt better for having done it. It felt good to escape the confines of Cadogan House for a little while, to focus only on my speed and rhythm and kick.

Figuring cleanliness was next on my to-do list, I went back to my room to grab a shower.

I made it as far as my door.