Хлоя Нейл - Twice Bitten

And he brought it.

It was like watching a monk do battle—complete calm in his expression and his eyes, but every move perfect, every move precise. He was a fantastic fighter, his strikes and kicks on target and his blocks perfectly timed to defend against the blows of his attackers. At one point, he caught my stunned gaze and offered back a cheeky grin.

“Sorry, babe. I’m taken.”

I rolled my eyes and swung my katana, and together we fought back the army of people and shifters hell-bent on destroying our House.

I’d taken down four attackers when I finally heard his answering call in my head.

Merit?

I said a silent thank-you to the universe. Ethan, where are you?

First floor. My office. Get here if you can. If not, find Malik and keep him safe.

My stomach sank. Malik was basically Ethan’s vice president, the vampire charged with taking over the House if anything happened to Ethan. Had Ethan given up? Was he already trying to establish a line of succession?

I let out a curse that should have blistered Jeff’s ears.

Stay where you are, I told him. I’m on my way.

MeritI am the Sentinel of this House, Ethan. It’s my call.

That was met with silence.

“Jeff, Ethan’s in trouble. I need to get inside. Can you find Malik and make sure he’s okay?”

“Hands are full, Merit,” he said, using a strike to the chest to push someone back. “Can you wait until we’ve secured the front yard?”

I glanced around, wondering how much longer that would take—and smiled.

I’d made the call, and the cavalry had arrived.

Six of them strode into the gate in black and red leather jackets, Noah at the front, five other vampires behind. Together, they looked like avenging angels, katanas bared, expressions fierce, ready to fight for vampirekind. Jonah wasn’t among them, and I assumed he’d skipped the fight so he could maintain his anonymity as a member of the Red Guard.

Some of the tension left my shoulders at the sight of them.

Noah signaled that they’d take the outside perimeter. When I nodded my agreement, he began to bark orders to the rest of his crew. They broke formation and dispersed into the crowd.

“Merit—to your left!”

At Jeff’s warning, I immediately threw up my katana to block the attack. The perp’s blow was deflected, and Jeff’s punch to the guy’s kidneys brought him down.

“Fun, fun,” he said, smiling down at his fallen prey.

“Yep,” I said, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. “You and Fallon are gonna get along just fine.”

With that, I mounted the stairs and headed into the House.

Gray smoke was now spilling down from the second floor, vampires evacuating as firemen ran down the hallway, hoses in hand.

One of them paused on his way up the stairs and lifted his hood. “Ma’am, you need to evacuate!”

“Vampire!” I yelled out. “I’m immortal.”

He winked at me. “Grey House,” he said, then flipped down his hood and proceeded up the stairs with his comrades.

“Carry on, my friend,” I said, then hustled down the hallway to Ethan’s office.

His suit coat was discarded, spots of blood and smears of smoke a sharp contrast against the white of his shirt. He stood at the back of the room, the office’s velvet curtains now shredded and smoking behind him, a fan of four shifters in front of him.

But even the direness of the situation couldn’t trump my relief at seeing him hearty and hale.

Need some help, Sullivan?

He scanned my body, looking for injuries. A look of relief crossed his face. Thank God, he said.

I offered him a smile before turning my attention to the shifters. “Aren’t you kids a little outnumbered?” I asked. When they turned to look at me, Ethan took advantage of their distraction, sending two of them to the ground with lethal slashes. I edged around the other two, putting myself between them and Ethan.

Unfortunately, the perpetrators picked that moment to call out to four or five of their friends, who appeared at the door with weapons—guns and what looked like pieces of Cadogan House furniture—in hand.

They realized they had us cornered, and began to work their flanks, encircling us so that we stood in of the middle of them.

Back to back, I told him, and he nodded, then turned so we stood with our backs together, our swords horizontal in front of us, surrounded by foes.

And then we fought.

Whatever miracle of vampire genetics I might have been was nothing compared to the miracle of our fighting . . . together. We both swung out, the magic and power surrounding us seeming to actually increase as we fought, bullets flying as we battled back the interlopers who’d threatened our home. The Master of Cadogan House and its Sentinel, their steel honed, tempered, and raised against a common foe.

We made quick work of the first couple of attackers, but then they started getting creative, moving around to make it more difficult for Ethan and me to coordinate our movements, even when we could give each other silent directions.

On the other hand, that also forced us to get a little more creative. Eventually, we were fighting side by side, Ethan slicing out with his katana to keep an attacker off balance, and me kicking him into submission. Ethan would spin into a high kick, and I’d use a low throw to force him to the ground when he tried to dodge Ethan’s attack.

Eventually, the room was cleared, and we stood there together, chests heaving, a spray of shifters and humans on the floor in front of us. We weren’t entirely undamaged—I’d taken a bruising shot to my right thigh, and Ethan had slices across his belly where he’d been caught with the edge of a bar of steel broken from someone’s office chair.

But we were alive.

We glanced over at each other. I was just about to speak, but before I could get out words, his hand was at the back of my head, his mouth pressing against mine. The intensely possessive kiss left me gasping for breath, but even as he pulled back, his fingers stayed knotted in the back of my hair.

“Christ, Merit, I thought you were dead. You left after we talked, and no one could find you. And when they attacked and you didn’t show—where the hell were you?”

“I was at the bar,” I said. “I’ll give you the details later. Long story short, this is all Adam’s doing. He set it all up, had a plan to kill Gabriel and frame the House.”

Ethan smiled wickedly. “And you figured it out before Adam could take you both out, but he’d already started the attack.”

“Well, I am the Cadogan Sentinel.”

“Indeed you are,” he said, then kissed me with brutal force again. “This isn’t over,” he growled, and then he was gone, ready for battle again.

I wasn’t going to waste the time arguing with him, but as soon as his back was turned, I raised my fingertips to my mouth, the feel of his lips still there.

I could feel it coming. The sun wasn’t far from making its way above the horizon, and it had begun to pull at my shoulders. Fortunately, the combined strength of the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Fire Department, the Ombud’s office, half the North American Central Pack, the vampires of Cadogan House, and the Red Guard had finally managed to stop the attack.

Ethan seemed to take the Red Guard’s participation in stride. He didn’t bat an eyelash when he saw them, but he also didn’t have any reason to tie their presence to me.

That meant if I decided to join them, I could still keep my secret under wraps.

But positives aside, the House wasn’t without its casualties. Seven shifters and humans had been killed in the attack. We lost three vampires. I didn’t know any of them to speak of, although two lived on the second floor not far from my room. Two were lost to wooden stakes; their ashen remains now mingled with the destruction in the House.