Хлоя Нейл - Twice Bitten

And if anyone came up with a quirk not catalogued before, we had to take a double round.

Since I’d made virtually no headway with my “manly” drink, Sean took pity on me and brought over a plastic cup of ice water. That I wasn’t drinking alcohol didn’t make fun at the expense of the most pretentious of vampires any less enjoyable.

We drank for every mention of Amit Patel, for every speech Ethan gave about duty, for each mention of alliances, for each time he answered a knock at his office door by saying, simply, “Come.” We drank for each time he jiggled his watch, each time he straightened his cuff links, each time he shuffled papers when you reported to him in his office.

Ethan had quirks enough that half the table had switched to soda or water by the time we were through. Ethan had quirks enough that I had to excuse myself from the table. And that was why I was on the way back to the table from the back of the bar when I saw them—photos that had been tacked to the wall, decades of pictures of vampires together, all taken at Temple Bar.

“Cool,” I murmured, my gaze scanning the gathering of pictures. There were Afros and disco wear, 1980s hairstyles and shoulder pads . . . and a picture that was half tucked into a corner of the display.

With my fingertips, I turned the photograph on its thumb-tack pivot to get a better view. The white Polaroid border framed a beautiful boy with cut cheekbones and a fall of blond hair across his face. At his side was a blond girl, her arm tucked in his, a martini glass in her hands.

He looked at her . . . with adoration in his eyes.

My stomach knotted.

It was Ethan and Lacey, a picture taken some years ago, given the outfits in the photograph, but a picture of them just the same—a boy and girl, happy together, love in their eyes.

I slid the picture back into its place, partially hiding it from view. But there was no unringing the bell. He’d definitely had feelings for her.

And after he’d slept with me, he’d called her back.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I couldn’t begrudge him love. I couldn’t. Not if that was what they had together. But goddamn, did I rue being in the middle of it, being the trigger for his reminiscence of that emotion.

Sometimes, knowledge did no one any good. I stood in the hallway for a few seconds, until I was ready to face the vampires again. When I finally returned to the table, I paused at my chair and touched Lindsey’s shoulder.

She looked up, her smile fading as her gaze tracked my face. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I’m fine.” I hitched a thumb toward the front door. “I’m going to take a little breather.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

I gave her my best smile. “I’m fine, really. I just want to get some air.” That was the truth. My shifter-magic-induced headache wasn’t helped by the spilt magic of a hundred vampires.

She looked at me for a moment, apparently debating whether I was telling the truth. “You need company?”

“I’m fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay. But if you meet any cute humans out there who need any blood work, you let me know.”

“You’ll be the first vampire I call.”

I wove through the bar to the front door, then accepted a hand stamp from a cute, smiling, curly-haired vamp at the door.

Once prepped for reentry, I walked down the sidewalk, my gaze on the restaurants, bars, and eclectic shops that filled this part of Wrigleyville. I figured I might as well scope out interesting places to visit the next time I made the trip.

I’d just passed a dusty used bookstore—now at the top of my to-visit list—when I heard footsteps scratch on the sidewalk behind me. I instinctively put a hand at my waist, at the place my sword would usually be belted, before realizing I’d left it at the House.

“You wouldn’t need it even if you did have it,” said a low voice behind me.

CHAPTER TWENTY WHAT’S IN A NAME?

I froze, then glanced back over my shoulder.

Jonah stood in a puddle of streetlight, auburn hair kind of curving softly around his face. He wore a snug, dark button-up shirt with jeans, and brown boots on his feet.

“Merit,” he said.

I lifted my eyebrows. “Jonah.”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“Grey House isn’t far from here, right?”

“It’s down Addison,” he said, then bobbed his head to the left. “A little farther west. It’s a converted warehouse.”

“And you decided to take a walk and see what was happening at the Cadogan House bar?”

Jonah looked away for a moment before meeting my gaze again. “It may not be entirely coincidental that I’m here.”

I waited for elaboration. When none came, I prodded. “And exactly how noncoincidental is it?”

He took a step toward me, hands in his pockets. He was close enough, and tall enough, that I had to look up to see his face.

“If you join us,” he said quietly, “you’ll be my partner. My asset. My companion. The one I follow into battle, the one who takes up arms to protect me. I don’t take that responsibility lightly.”

“Are you guarding me, or making sure I meet your standards?”

“Fair enough,” he admitted. “A little of both, probably.” He nodded toward an alley between the buildings, then walked toward it. I followed. The moon was high enough to light the alley, although the view was hardly worth the light: bricks, graffiti, empty wooden packing crates, and the steel skeletons of rusty fire escapes.

“You’ve made a name for yourself,” Jonah said, turning to face me again, arms crossed over his shirt. The angel and devil on his arms stared back at me, both with empty eyes, as if neither was pleased with the side they’d chosen. “With a profile that high, humans may get a little too curious about the newest vamp celeb. And curiosity might be the nicest of their emotions.”

“I didn’t ask for the press,” I pointed out. “The story was a kind of favor.”

“I hear you managed to hold your own at the shifter convocation.”

I assumed Luc had given the other Guard Captains a debriefing, so I nodded my agreement.

“And there are rumors Gabriel Keene likes you.”

That one I wouldn’t confirm. Reviewing the basics of our security plan at the convocation was one thing—Luc had already talked to Jonah about that. But the things I’d heard from Gabriel were among Ethan, me, and the Pack.

Besides, if I was going to sell out Ethan, I wasn’t going to do it without being a full-fledged guard member. If I was going to incite his rage, I was at least going to get a membership card out of it.

“Gabriel’s a friendly guy,” I finally said.

“Playing it close to the chest?”

“I’m not a Red Guard.”

“Yet.” Jonah’s tone was pretentious. I’d had plenty of pretentious today, so I half turned to leave, hitching a thumb over my shoulder.

“Unless you have something interesting to say, I’m going back to join my friends.”

“You may not join,” he said, surprise in his voice. “You might actually say no.”

I let my silence stand in for an answer.

“I’m told no one’s ever said no.”

I turned around again and smiled lightly. “Then maybe I’ll start a new tradition of thinking for myself, instead of doing something just because everyone else has done it.”

“That’s obnoxious.”

“I’ve had an obnoxious night. Look,” I said, crossing my arms, “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s been a long night, and a longer week. I’m not crazy about being stalked because someone I might work with in the future wanted to find out if I was as incompetent as he imagined.”

He didn’t protest. Wasn’t that flattering?