Chicagoland Vampires - Friday Night Bites Part 36

"You're thinking Navarre."

His tone was soft, unusually gentle, and he was right. I was thinking very discomforting thoughts about the current Master of Navarre, but without more proof I wasn't going to offer him up to Ethan as a sacrifice.

"I don't know."

"Perhaps we need to rethink your position."

I looked up at him. "How so?"

"To date, you're guarding the Housefrom the House. Patrolling the premises, working with the House guards, studying theCanon . We've given you the roles and responsibilities that, historically, a Sentinel would have had. They'd have been tied to the castle, physically guarding it, but also advising the Master, the Second, the Guard Captain, on issues related to security, politics, maneuverings."

He shook his head. "The world is a vastly different place now. We're governed by a body situated a continent away, and we interact with vampires at a distance of thousands of miles. We're no longer merely defending our own ground, but trying to establish ourselves in the wider world." He looked up at me. "In this project, we've expanded your role, at least socially, to include a broader swath of the city.

It's unclear what we'll reap from that strategy. Although we seem to have forestalled the immediate Breckenridge crisis, Nicholas remains a concern. His animosity is obvious, and I don't think we cana.s.sume that we've put that problem safely to bed."

"So what are you proposing?"

"I believe we need you on the streets, rather than guarding the grounds. Our best hope of countering Celina's insurgency plans may be gra.s.sroots tactics of our own." He rose and went for the door. "I need to speak with Luc, and we'll identify some strategies."

Of which, I guessed, they'd inform me at some later date.

"Ethan, what are we going to do about . . . what I did?"

"You'll be punished. There's no avoiding it." He answered a little faster than made me comfortable. My stomach clenched, but not in surprise. The headline NOVITIATE VAMPIRE ATTACKS HER MASTER wasn't going to read well unless it was followed by LATER STRICTLY PUNISHED.

"I know," I told him. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for it."

"Partly sorry," he said. "And partly glad we had it out. Perhaps it will . . . clear the air."

If he meant that it might clear the air between us, I doubted that, but I nodded anyway. "Am I out of Cadogan House?"

This question took longer for him to answer. More consideration, maybe, or more political evaluation.

More strategy. He rubbed absently at his neck as he thought it out, but then shook his head. I wasn't sure whether I was relieved or not.

"You'll stay in Cadogan. Stay the day here, come back tomorrow night. See me first thing. But we'll adjust your duties, and you'll train-and not with Catcher this time. You need to be trained by a vampire, someone who understands the draw of the predator, who can help you control your-let's call it your predatory instinct."

"Who?"

He blinked. "Me, I suppose," was his answer, and then the door opened and closed, and he was gone.

I stared at the closed door for a moment.

"f.u.c.k,"was all I could think to say.

I knew who it was before the door opened, before she'd even knocked, from the cotton-candy brightness of her perfume in the hallway.

She peeked in, blue hair slipping through the crack between the door and jamb. "Is your head still spinning around?"

"Are you still trying to throw blue flaming s.h.i.+t at me?"

She winced and opened the door, then stepped inside the bedroom, hugging her arms. She was in pajamas, a shortish T-s.h.i.+rt and oversized cotton pants, white-painted toes peeking from beneath them.

"I'm sorry. I'd just gotten back from Schaumburg. I was actually on my way to Cadogan when Luc called me, said you were in a bad way."

"Why were you on your way to Cadogan?"

Mallory leaned back against the doorjamb. There was a time-a few days ago-when she'd have plopped onto the bed beside me. We weren't there anymore, had lost that easy sense of comfort.

"Catcher was going to meet me, and we were going to talk to Ethan. Catcher had some . . . concerns."

It wasn't difficult to translate the hesitation in her voice. "About me. He had concerns about me."

She held up a hand. "We were worried about you. Catcher thought you were holding back when you trained, thought something was up." She blew out a breath, ran a hand through her hair. "We had no idea you were some kind of freaky super vampire."

"Said the woman who can shoot fireb.a.l.l.s from her palms."

She raised her eyes, looked at me. I saw something there-pain or worry-but it was tempered by her own reluctance to be candid with me. That made my stomach knot uncomfortably.

"This isn't easy for me either," she said.

I nodded, dropped my gaze, dropped my chin onto the upthrust pillow in my lap. "I know. And I know I bailed. I'm sorry."

"You bailed," she agreed, and pushed off the door. The bed dipped as she sat beside me, wiggled into a cross-legged position. "And I pushed you about this Morgan thing. It's just-""Mallory."

"No, Merit," she said. "d.a.m.n, just let me finish this for once. I want good things for you. I thought Morgan was one of those things. If he's not, then so be it. I just . . ."

"You think I'm in love with Ethan."

"Are you?"

A fair question. "I . . . No. Not like you think. Not like you and Catcher. It's stupid, I know. I have this thing, this idea. This bulls.h.i.+t 'Mr. Darcy' idea, about the one that changes his mind. That comes back for me. And I'll look up some night, and he'll be there in front of me. And he'll stare at me and say, 'It was you. It was always you.' "

She paused, then offered, so quietly, so gently, "Maybe the kind of guy worth your time is the kind of guy who's there from the beginning. Who wants you from the beginning."

"I know. I mean, intellectually, I understand that. It's just . . ."

Admit it, I thought to myself. Admit it and get it out there, and at least that way it won't be rolling around in your head anymore.

"I don't agree with him a lot of the time,most of the time, and he drives me crazy, but I get him. I know I drive him crazy, but I feel like he . . . like he gets me somehow, too. Appreciates something about me.

I'm different, Mallory. I'm not like the rest of them. And I'm not like you anymore." I looked up at her and saw both sadness and acceptance in her eyes. I thought of what Lindsey had said, and parroted her words. "Ethan isn't like the rest of them, either. For all the strategy, the talk of alliances, he holds himself back from them."

"He holds himself back from you."

Not every time, I thought, and that was the payoff that kept me coming back for more.

"And you're holding yourself back from me, from Morgan."

"I know," I said again. "Look, about Morgan, there are other considerations. What you know isn't the entire story." What I knew wasn't the entire story either, but I wasn't sure I was ready to tell the rest of it, to tell Mallory about the lingering relations.h.i.+p between the current and former Masters of Navarre. "It doesn't matter. It's done anyway."

"Done?"

"Earlier. Before she found me. We ended it." Not that it truly mattered. He didn't trust me, had never trusted me. Maybe his own insecurities, maybe the rumors that seemed to follow me, maybe the sense that I'd never been really his.

Mallory interrupted my reverie and was, as usual, right on. "There is nothing we want quite as much as the thing we know we can't have."

I nodded, although I wasn't sure if she meant me or Morgan. "I know."

The room was silent for a minute. "You looked dead," she said.

I glanced back at her, saw tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g at her lashes. And yet I still couldn't reach back, the barrier still between us.

"I thought I'd killed you." She sniffed, swiped absently at a tear. "Catcher had to hold me up. The vampires freaked; I think they wanted to take us out. Ethan checked your pulse, said you were alive, and he was all bloodied up. Blood everywhere. You were, too, cuts and scratches on your arms, on your cheeks. You two beat the s.h.i.+t out of each other. Catcher picked you up, and someone brought Ethan a s.h.i.+rt, and everyone got in the car. I brought your sword." She pointed to the corner where it balanced on its pommel against the bedroom wall. It was back in the scabbard, cleaned, probably by Catcher, who'd have taken exquisite care of the blood-tempered blade.

"He carried you up here."

"Catcher?"

Mallory shook her head, then rubbed at her eyes and ran her hands through her hair, seemed to shake off the emotion.

"Ethan. He rode with us. They-the vampires,your vampires-followed him in another car."

Myvampires. I'd become something else to her. A different kind of thing.

"Catcher said you needed to sleep it off, that you'd heal from it all."I looked down at my arms, which were pale and pristine once again. I had healed, just like he'd predicted.

"So Ethan carried you up here, and Catcher took care of me, I guess, and Lindsey and Luc-we all waited downstairs." She glanced up at me. "You were unconscious the whole time?"

I looked back at her, my best friend, and I didn't tell her what I'd done.

That I'd gone through some part of the change again, and in the haze of it, the bloodl.u.s.t of it, had taken blood from someone else.

His blood.

Ethan's.

And it had been like a homecoming.

I couldn't even begin to deal with that, to process it.

"I was out," I told her.

Mallory looked at me, but nodded, maybe not buying it completely, but not arguing the point. She sighed and leaned forward, enveloped me in a hug. "There's a reason they call it hopelessly romantic."

"And not rationally romantic?"

"Well-developed-thoughtly romantic."

I half chuckled and knuckled away my own tears. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Don't mock me." She squeezed, then let me go.

"You fireballed me. Knocked me out." Made me drink him, I thought, but didn't voice that aloud, being ill-equipped for the Freudian a.n.a.lysis that would follow the confession. "I'm ent.i.tled to mock a little."

"It's not fire. It's a way to transmit the magic. A kind of conduit." Mallory sighed and stood up. I hadn't noticed how tired she looked. Dark circles shadowed eyes already swollen from tears.

"As much as I'd like to continue this conversation, which is honestly not at all, dawn's nearly here. We both need sleep." She stood, went for the door and, hand on the doork.n.o.b, stood there for a moment.

"We're going to change. This is going to change us both. There's no guarantee that we come out the end of it still liking each other."

My stomach clenched, but I nodded. "I know."

"We do the best we can."

"Yeah."

"Good night, Merit," she said, and flipped off the light, then shut the door behind her as she left.

I lay back, one hand under my head, one on my stomach, eyes on the ceiling. It hadn't been a particularly good night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

THE KING AND I.

The next night bloomed warm and clear. The house was quiet when I emerged downstairs, beeper and sword in hand. I nabbed a bottle of juice from Mallory's refrigerator, avoiding the last bag of blood, the drinking I'd done last night either satiating me fully or putting me off the taste completely.

Not that it had been horrible.

Because it hadn't been horrible.

And that was the thought that played over and over again in my head as I drove south again-just how unhorrible it had been.

My beeper sounded just as I pulled in front of the House. I unclipped it, found MTG @ U. NOW.

BLRM scrolling on the display.

Charming. The entire House was being called to discuss my punishment, I presumed, given that the meeting was being held in the House's ballroom, rather than somewhere, I don't know, more intimate?

Like Ethan's office? With only me and him in attendance?

Grumbling, I parked and closed up the car, thinking I wasn't exactly dressed for public humiliation in myleftover jeans and fitted black T-s.h.i.+rt. My Cadogan suit had been shredded; I wore the fanciest thing still in my closet at Mal's house. I had to pause outside the gate, not quite ready for the onslaught.