Хлоя Нейл - Twice Bitten

And do me a favor—no Armani. It won’t work for this crowd.”

“No Armani,” Ethan agreed.

“Then I’ll send you the pre-meet address in a bit, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He slid his hazel-eyed gaze my way. “Leather, maybe, Kitten?”

“I’m sure she’ll find something appropriate,” Ethan darkly interjected, holding out a hand. “You have my contact information. We’ll await the details.”

They walked toward the door, the leader of vampires and the leader of shifters, the fate of thousands in their hands. They shook, and when Ethan opened the doors, Helen—the House’s den mother—was waiting there, presumably to take Gabriel back downstairs. Ethan must have used his telepathic mojo to give her instructions.

When he’d closed the doors again, Ethan headed straight for the cart and popped open a box of Blood4You.

“And they say vampires are dramatic,” Luc intoned.

Ethan finished the box of blood in a single gulp, then crumpled the container in his hand. When he looked at us again, his normally green eyes swirled with remnants of quicksilver. He’d gone a little vampy, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the blood, or because the blood was bringing him back down from full-vamp mode.

Luc plucked his own box of blood from the cart and popped in the attached, disposable straw. “Nice little speech you gave there, Sentinel.”

I shrugged. “I’m a Merit. We can give good talk when the need arises.”

“It was well done,” Ethan agreed.

I crossed my arms and tilted my head at Ethan. “If they leave, is it really such a loss? I mean, we’ve survived, and they’ve never taken our side before, so why does it matter? Even if worse comes to worst—if Celina manages to start some kind of internal war amongst vampires or if humans turn against us, what would it matter if they’re gone?”

“Vampires are predators,” Ethan said. “Humans walk the line between predator and prey. But shifters are kith and kin of the earth itself. They have powers that would put even Catcher’s abilities to shame. We leak magic. Sorcerers can use that magic, funnel it, mold it to their wills. But shifters are magic. They are part of all that is around them. If they retreat, we lose that connection to the world, to the earth, to Chicago, and we’ll all be less for it. We lose their strength. We also lose their numbers. We lose potential allies who could help stand up for us—and as you pointed out, who could rely upon us to stand up for them.”

“If they forsake us again,” Luc quietly said, “the stakes could be much worse—we won’t just be fighting an army of French peasants with muskets and the occasional bayonet.”

“Well, let’s not continue to beat the poor dead horse,” Ethan said after a moment. “The pre-meeting is tomorrow night. We’ll show up, wield our steel, and probably learn a good deal more about shifters. That’s all we can do for now.” He looked at me. “I’m a bit concerned about your sparring should the need arise for it. You still haven’t managed to beat me one-on-one.”

“But she works the Katas like a master,” Luc said, taking his drink box back to the couch. “At least she’s half skilled.”

“I’d prefer to be good at both,” I said, in between bites of sausage. It was good stuff—meaty and savory, with just the right amount of kick.

“It will come,” Ethan said, his tone all quiet confidence. “Given the piecemeal nature of your change, let’s be patient. Well, at least until we train tomorrow evening.”

“Maybe tomorrow will be the big day,” I said, hoping we wouldn’t have much longer to wait. And speaking of issues that awaited resolution . . .

“Since we’re here, what can you tell me about the Red Guard?”

Both Ethan’s and Luc’s heads jerked up so quickly, and with such alarm in their expressions, you’d have thought I’d suggested vampiricide.

Ethan sat down on the sofa, then rolled his shoulders as if the tension there had suddenly become unbearable. “Where did you learn about the Red Guard?”

I pulled a corner from a square of cheddar and popped it into my mouth, aiming for nonchalance. “There were some references in a couple of vampire history books I found in the library.”

When Ethan arched an eyebrow at Luc, he stuttered out an answer.

“Oh, well, you’re on a need-to-know basis, Sentinel,” Luc said, then raised his eyebrows at Ethan, as if getting the okay to continue. “And right now you don’t need to know.”

I took the axiom, assuming Luc was quoting some movie I hadn’t heard of, and glanced over at Ethan. He was staring back at me, his expression flat. I guessed he wasn’t eager to discuss the RG. I knew he’d be conflicted about the organization and its purpose, but I’d expected vitriol, not silence. Maybe I’d actually managed to render him speechless. Given his vast love of speechifying, that was quite an accomplishment.

“Okay,” I said, standing up. “In that case, if we’re done for the day, I’m heading out.” I glanced at Ethan. “I’ll meet you first thing in the Sparring Room.”

Ethan nodded. “Dismissed.”

“I’ll walk you to the stairs,” Luc said, hopping off the couch. He glanced back at Ethan. “I need to see a girl . . . about a girl.”

“And speaking of things I don’t need to know,” Ethan said lightly, then waved him off with a hand. “Go see her.”

Luc staked a toothpick of sausage and cheese before accompanying me to the door. When we were out in the hallway, the doors closed behind us, Luc began to spill.

“RG is the vampire version of a law enforcement internal affairs department,” he said. “But with a regulator bent. They were created to guard the original French council members, but they stuck around. Now they’re more of a watchdog organization. That makes them controversial.”

We headed for the stairs, then trotted down to the second floor. “And that’s why Ethan doesn’t like to talk about them?”

“Sentinel, does Ethan Sullivan strike you as the type who appreciates challenges to his authority?”

“Not really his bag,” I agreed. That was exactly why I’d held off giving Noah an answer. It wasn’t that I thought keeping an eye on the Masters was a bad idea—case in point Celina—but I could appreciate Ethan’s sensitivity.

We stopped in front of the door to my favorite room in Cadogan House—the library.

Luc eyed the door, then me. “You looking for more inappropriate information?”

“If I didn’t keep you two on your toes, Luc, what fun would you have?”

He shook his head in amusement, but then turned around and headed right toward the stairs . . . and toward Lindsey’s room. “Gotta see a girl about a girl?” I called after him.

He answered with a gesture. That’s what I got, I supposed, for baiting a vampire.

Grief was a miserable emotion. A friend once told me the hurt that came with the end of a relationship was painful because it was the death of a dream—the future you’d imagined with a lover, a loved one, a child, or a friend. That loss was its own painful, nearly tangible thing. You had to reimagine your future, perhaps in a different place, with different people, doing different things than you might have first imagined.

In my case, it was imagining a future without my best friend—without Mallory.

We’d said hurtful things, things that put an obstacle between us. We’d talked since then, but that breach was still there, a barrier that seemed impassable, at least for now.

It was perhaps the most frustrating kind of breakup—when the person you loved lived down the street, in the same building, or across town but they were still inaccessible to you.

I couldn’t bring myself to call her. It didn’t seem right—like a call would have violated a silence we’d agreed upon.