Some Girls Bite (32 page)

When he’d finished drinking, he sat back, then put a hand on Mallory’s knee. He slid a glance to me, then looked at Ethan. “By the way, she’s not the one.”

“I know,” he said, not even pausing to reflect. That drew a look from me, which he didn’t meet. I opened my mouth to ask questions—
How do you know? Why don’t you think I’m the one?
—but Catcher jumped in first.

“And speaking of prophesying, I hear Gabe’s heading back, and sooner than we thought.”

Ethan’s head snapped up, so I could guess the import of that little revelation. “How reliable?”

“Reliable enough.” Catcher looked at me. “You remember, this is the head of the North American Central—Jeff’s pack.” I nodded my understanding. “He’s got people in Chicago, and he’s got the convention coming up. He wants to assure himself that things are safe and secure before he brings in the pack. And I’ve heard Tonya’s pregnant, so he’ll want her and the kid safe.”

“If things aren’t safe,” Ethan clipped out, “it’s none of my doing.”

Catcher’s tone softened. “I realize that. But things are coming to a head. And if he wants assurances, he’ll get them, or he’ll skip Chicago altogether and order the pack to Aurora.”

“Aurora?” I asked.

“Alaska,” Catcher said. “Home base for the North American packs. They’ll disappear into the wilderness and leave the vamps to fight it out alone. Again.”

Ethan sat back, seemed to consider the threat, then slid me a glance. “Thoughts?”

I opened my mouth, closed it again. The master of strategy apparently wanted another bit of “canny analysis.” I wasn’t sure I could produce brilliant supernatural strategy off the top of my head. But I gave it a try, opting to stick with common sense, which seemed to be in notoriously short supply in the supernatural communities.

“There’s little to be lost in getting people together, talking things out,” I said. “Humans already know about us. If we can’t work together, if we fight one another, it sets the stage for problems down the road. If worse comes to worst, and the tide turns, we’ll want friends to turn to. We’ll at least want honest conversation, open communication.”

Ethan nodded.

“Why would it take capital for you to call the Houses together?” I asked. “What did you do to make them not trust you?”

Ethan and Catcher shared a look. “History,” Catcher finally said, tearing his eyes from Ethan and leveling that green-eyed gaze on me. “It’s always history.”

The answer was unsatisfying, but I nodded, guessing it was the best I was going to get today.

Catcher leaned forward again, grabbed a handful of curly fries. “Well, something to think about. You’ll call if you need support.” The last wasn’t a question, or a suggestion, more a prediction of how Ethan would act. They were definitely friends of a sort, Ethan and Catcher, although God only knew what weird history had brought these two—rebellious magical bad boy and neurotic, obsessively political vampire—together. Probably a good story, I decided.

“How was the Commendation?” Catcher asked, then leveled an amused glance at me. “Any surprises?”

“I did nothing,” I said, grabbing an uneaten pickle from the flat of fries in front of Ethan.

“She wreaked havoc.” A smile tipped one corner of Ethan’s mouth.

I grinned at Mallory. “He’s just jealous that I can withstand his call.”

“I have no idea what that means,” she said, grinning back, “but I’m thrilled to hear it.”

“Can she?” Catcher asked Ethan.

“She can.”

“And you named her Sentinel.”

Ethan nodded. “On the expectation that you’ll continue to work with her, to prepare her for that duty. You do have the expertise, after all. Your . . .
unique
brand of instruction would be invaluable.”

Catcher paused for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll work with her. Teach her. For now.” He shifted his gaze to Ethan. “And that instruction will fulfill the debt I owe.”

The debt he owed? There was definitely a good story there.

Another pause while Ethan considered Catcher’s offer. “Agreed.” He folded his arms over his chest, and slid me a dubious glance. “We’ll see if she can rise to the occasion, do what needs to be done.”

I gave Mallory a pointed look. “We’ll see if she can manage not to kill her Liege and Master, especially if he continues talking about her like she’s not in the room.”

She snickered.

“Yes,” Ethan drily said. “Forget the Merit money. Clearly, her worth is in her superb sense of humor.”

The room went silent, Mallory’s brow knitting with obvious concern. Catcher nervously cleared his throat, balled up the foil from his hot dog. It was up to me, I guessed, to ease the tension that bringing my family into the mix had fostered.

I looked over at him, saw the sudden tightness around Ethan’s eyes, realized he regretted saying what he probably, on first blush, thought was a compliment. And in a way, in a twisted, completely Sullivan-esque way, it was.

“That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me,” I told him, realizing when the words were out that I was only barely lying.

For a second, I got no reaction.

And then he smiled, kind of a quirky half smile that tipped up only the right corner of his mouth. Because of that smile, that goddamn human smile, I had to swallow down a burst of affection that nearly brought tears to my eyes. Instead, I looked away, and hated myself—for my inability to hate him despite the things he said, the things he did, the things he expected.

I wanted to beat my fists against the floor like a child in tantrum. Why couldn’t I hate him? Why, in spite of the fact that I knew, as readily as I knew that I was sitting on the sofa in his office with my best friend and her boyfriend nearby, that my inability to hate him was going to bite me right on the ass one day?

That was going to be a very, very bad day, and I wasn’t sure if I was better off for knowing that it was coming.

“Well,” Catcher said, suddenly rising, his voice cutting through the strain that still thickened the air in the room, “we should get back to the house.” He looked at me. “It’ll be dawn soon. You need a ride?”

I rose and began stuffing empty food wrappers back into the paper bags. “I drove over. But I should get back, too. I’ll walk you out.” I looked at Ethan. “Assuming we’re done?”

He bobbed his head. “I had wanted to touch base with you about the murder investigations, their impact on the House, but I suppose this discussion has negated the need for that.” His voice softened. “It’s late. You’re dismissed.”

“I’ll ride with you,” Mallory lightly said, her tone making clear that she had words planned.

“Well, then,” Ethan said, standing with the rest of us. “Thank you for the meal.” He reached out and offered Catcher his hand, and they shook over the table and the crumpled remains of our dinner.

“Sure,” Catcher said. “A word with you before we head out?”

Ethan nodded, and Catcher pressed his lips to Mallory’s forehead. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Sure thing,” she said, her hand brushing his abdomen as she reached up to press her lips to his. The goodbyes complete, she turned to me, smiled, and offered her hand. “Let’s let the boys clean up the rest of this mess, shall we?”

We did, leaving them on either side of the coffee table, napkins and paper cups and bags of trash between them. Her arm linked in mine, we left Cadogan House, walked quietly down the block to my car, and stayed quiet until we’d driven a block away.

“Merit, you’ve got a bad track record with guys.”

“Don’t start on me.” I gripped the steering wheel a little harder. “I don’t have a thing for Ethan.”

“You’ve got a thing that’s written all over your face. I thought this was just physical.” She shook her head. “But whatever went on in there, that was more than physical, more than chemistry. He pushes some kind of button for you, and although he’s doing a little better job of fighting it, I’d say you do the same for him.”

“I don’t like him.”

“I understand that.” She reached out, tapped a fingertip lightly against my temple. “But that’s up here. That’s logical. He’s pulled you in. And it’s not that I don’t want to support you in whoever you’ve found. I’m a
Buffy
fan girl, I’m apparently a sorcerer, and I’m dating a former sorcerer . . . or whatever the hell he is. Regardless, I’m the last person who should give a lecture on weird relationships. But there’s something. . . .”

“Inhuman about him?”

She clapped a hand against the dashboard. “Yes. Exactly. It’s like he’s not playing by the same rules at the rest of us.”

“He’s a vampire.
I’m
a vampire.” Jesus, was I defending this? I was in a bad way.

“Yes, Mer, but you’ve been a vampire for, what, a week? He’s been a vamp for nearly four hundred years. That’s a freakin’ plethora of weeks. You have to think it, I don’t know, bleeds some of the human out of him.”

I gnawed on my bottom lip, staring blankly at the passing houses, the side streets. “I’m not in love with him. I’m not that stupid.” I scratched absently at my head. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, so fiercely that I thought for a second we were under attack. “I’ve got it.”

Once I was sure she was fine, that there weren’t bat-winged beasts descending on the car, I slapped her arm. “Damn, girl. Don’t do that when I’m driving.”

“Sorry,” she said, swiveling in her seat, her face alight. “But I’ve got an idea—maybe it’s the vampire thing—the fact that he made you? They say that’s supposed to create a bond.”

I considered that, decided to embrace it, and felt some of the tension leave my shoulders. “Yeah. Yeah. That could be it.” It did explain the connection between us, and was much more emotionally satisfying than imagining I was falling for someone so utterly, completely wrong for me. Someone so embarrassed by his interest in me.

As we pulled into the drive, I gave the thought a final hearty nod. “Yeah,” I told her. “That’s it.”

She looked at me, waited a beat, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

She grinned at me. “Good.”

I grinned back at her. “Great.”

“Great, fine, wonderful,
Jesus
, let’s just get out of the car.”

We did.

 

 

 

O
ne day passed, then two, then four. It was surprisingly easy to fall into the routines of being a vampire. Sleeping during the day. Supplementing my diet with blood. Learning the ropes of Cadogan security (including the protocols) and doing my best to prepare for the responsibility of defending the House. At this early point, that generally involved pretending to be as competent as my actually skilled colleagues.

The protocols weren’t difficult to understand, but there were many to learn. They were divided, much like the katas, into categories—offensive action plans, defensive action plans. The bulk of them fell into the latter category—how we were supposed to react if groups attacked the House or any particular Cadogan vampire, how we’d structure counterattacks. The maneuvers varied by the size of the band of marauders and whether they used swords or magic against us. Whoever the enemy, our first priority was to secure Ethan, then the rest of the in-house vamps and the building itself, coordinating with other allies when possible. Once Chicago was secure, we were to check in with the Cadogan vamps who didn’t live in Cadogan House.

Under the House, beneath a small parking structure I was clearly too low in the chain to have a spot in, were access points to underground tunnels that ran parallel to the city’s extensive sewer system. From the tunnels, we could scramble to our assigned safe houses. Cheerily, we were only given the address of one house so the locations of the slate of them couldn’t be tortured out of us. I was working on managing my panic about the fact that I was now part of an organization that had a need for secret evacuation tunnels and safe houses, an organization that had to plan around the possibility of group torture.

I also learned, after nearly a week of watching Luc and Lindsey interact, that he was seriously hung up on her. The vitriol and sarcasm he dished out on a daily basis—and there was a lot of it—was clearly a plea for her attention. A dismally unsuccessful plea. Luc may have had it bad, but Lindsey wasn’t buying.

Ever curious, and that was going to burn my ass one of these days, I decided to ask her about it. We were in line, trays in hand in the first-floor cafeteria, picking from a selection of almost irritatingly healthy menu choices, when I asked her, “Do you want to tell me about you and everyone’s favorite cowboy?”

Lindsey pulled three cartons of milk onto her tray, taking so long to answer me that I wondered if she’d heard the question in the first place. Eventually, she shrugged. “He’s okay.”

That was all I got until we were seated around a wooden table in ladder-back chairs, dark with age. “Okay, but not okay enough?”

Lindsey folded open a milk carton and took a long drink, then shrugged with more neutrality than I knew she actually felt. “Luc’s great. But he’s my boss. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You were goading me a few days ago about having a fling with Ethan.” I lifted my sandwich and took a bite that was heavy on sprouts and light on flavor. Wrong kind of crunch, I concluded.

“Luc’s great. He’s just not for me.”

“You get along well.”

I pushed, and she broke. “And wouldn’t that be lovely,” she said, dropping her fork with obvious irritation, “until we broke up and then had to work together? No, thanks.” Without looking up at me, she started picking absently through a pile of Cheetos.

“Okay,” I said, in my most soothing voice (and wondering where she’d found the Cheetos), “so you like him.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “But—what?—you’re afraid to lose him, so you won’t date him in the first place?”