Хлоя Нейл - Twice Bitten

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.”