Хлоя Нейл: Friday Night Bites

T-shirts, caps, and pennants for Grey and Cadogan (and for the more morbid, Navarre) were available for sale in shops around Chicago. There were House fan sites, “I ♥ Cadogan” bumper stickers, and news updates on the city’s vampires.

Still, notorious or not, I tried not to spread too many deets about the Houses around town. As Sentinel, I was part of the House’s security corps, after all. So I took a look around the gym and made sure we were alone, that prying human ears weren’t slipping a listen.

“If you’re debating how much you can say,” Mallory said, unscrewing the top of her water bottle, “I’ve sent out a magical pulse so that none of our little human friends can hear this conversation.”

“Really?” I turned my head to look at her so quickly my neck popped, the shock of pain squinting my eyes.

She snorted. “Right. Like he’d let me use M-A-G-I-C around people,” she muttered, then took a big gulp of her water.

I ignored the shot at Catcher—we’d never have a decent conversation if I took the time to react to all of them—and answered her question about the Big Move.

“I’m a little nervous. Ethan and I, you know, tend to grate on each other’s nerves.”

Mallory swallowed her water, then wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Oh, whatever. You two are BFFs.”

“Just because we’ve managed to play Master and Sentinel for two weeks without tearing each other’s throat out doesn’t mean we’re BFFs.”

As a matter of fact, I’d had minimum contact with Cadogan’s Master—and the vampire who made me—during those last two weeks, by design. I kept my head down and my fangs to the grindstone as I watched and learned how things worked in the House. The truth was, I’d had trouble with Ethan at first—I’d been made a vampire without my consent, my human life taken away because Celina planned on me being her second victim. Her minions weren’t successful in killing me, but Ethan had been successful at changing me—in order to save my life.

Frankly, the transition sucked. The adjustment from human grad student to vampire guard was, to say the least, awkward. As a result, I’d pushed a lot of vitriol in Ethan’s direction. I’d eventually made the decision to accept my new life as a member of Chicago’s fanged community. Although I still wasn’t sure I had fully come to terms with being a vampire, I was dealing.

Ethan, though, was more complicated. We shared some kind of connection, some pretty strong chemistry, and some mutual irritation toward each other. He acted like he thought I was beneath him; I generally thought he was a pretentious stick-in-the-mud. That “generally” should clue you in to my mixed feelings—Ethan was ridiculously handsome and a grade-A kisser. While I hadn’t completely reconciled my feelings for him, I didn’t think I hated him anymore.

Avoidance helped settle the emotions. Considerably.

“No,” Mallory agreed, “but the fact that the room heats up by ten degrees every time you two get near each other says something.”

“Shut up,” I said, extending my legs in front of me and lowering my nose to my knees to stretch out. “I admit nothing.”

“You don’t have to. I’ve seen your eyes silver just being around him. There’s your admission.”

“Not necessarily,” I said, pulling one foot toward me and bending into another stretch. Vampires’ eyes silvered when they experienced strong emotions—hunger, anger, or, in my case, proximity to the blond cupcake that was Ethan Sullivan. “But I’ll admit that he’s kind of offensively delicious.”

“Like salt-and-vinegar potato chips.”

“Exactly,” I said, then sat up again. “Here I am, an uptight vampire who owes my allegiance to a liege lord I can’t stand. And it turns out you’re some kind of latent sorceress who can make things happen just by wishing them. We’re the free-will outliers—I have none, and you have too much.”

She looked at me, then blinked and put her hand over her heart. “You, and I’m saying this with love, Mer, are really a geek.” She rose and pulled the strap of her bag across one shoulder. I followed suit, and we walked to the door.

“You know,” she said, “you and Ethan should get one of those necklaces, where half the heart says ‘best’ and the other half says ‘friend.’ You could wear them as a sign of your eternal devotion to each other.”

I threw my sweaty towel at her. She made a yakking sound beneath it, then threw it off, her features screwed into an expression of abject girly horror. “You’re so immature.”

“Blue hair. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Bite me, dead girl.”

I showed fang and winked at her. “Don’t tempt me, witch.”

An hour later, I’d showered and changed back into my Cadogan House uniform—a fitted black suit jacket, black tank, and black slim-fit pants—and was in my soon-to-be-former Wicker Park bedroom, stuffing clothes into a duffel bag. A glass of blood from one of the medical-grade plastic bags in our refrigerator—promptly delivered by Blood4You, the fanged equivalent of milkmen—sat on the nightstand beside my bed, my post-workout snack. Mallory stood in the doorway behind me, blue hair framing her face, the rest of her body covered by boxers and an oversized T-shirt, probably Catcher’s, that read ONE KEY AT A TIME.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “You don’t have to leave.”

I shook my head. “I do have to do this. I need to do it to be Sentinel. And you two need room.” To be precise, Catcher and Mallory needed rooms . Lots of them. Frequently, with lots of noise, and usually naked, although that wasn’t a requirement. They hadn’t known each other long and were smitten within days of meeting. But what they lacked in time they made up for in unmitigated, bare-assed enthusiasm. Like rabbits. Ridiculously energetic, completely unself-conscious, supernatural rabbits.

Mallory grabbed a second empty bag from the chair next to my bedroom door, dropped it onto the bed, and pulled three pair of cherished shoes—Mihara Pumas (sneakers that I adored, much to Ethan’s chagrin), red ballet-style flats, and a pair of black Mary Janes she’d given me—from my closet. She raised them for my approval and, at my nod, stuffed them in. Two more pairs followed before she settled on the bed next to the bag and crossed her legs, one foot swinging impatiently.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me here with him. What am I going to do without you?”

I gave her a flat stare.

She rolled her eyes. “You only caught us the one time.”

“I only caught you in the kitchen the one time, Mallory. I eat in there. I drink in there. I could have lived a contented, happy eternity without ever catching a glimpse of Catcher’s bare ass on the kitchen floor.” I faked a dramatic shiver. Faked, because the boy was gorgeous—a broad-shouldered, perfectly muscled, shaved-headed, green-eyed, tattooed, bad-boy magician who’d swept my roommate off her feet (and onto her back, as it turned out).

“Not that it isn’t a fine ass,” she said.

I folded a pair of pants and put them into my bag. “It’s a great ass, and I’m very happy for you. I just didn’t need to see it naked again. Ever. For real.”

She chuckled. “For realsies, even?”

“For realsies, even.” My stomach twinged with hunger. I glanced at Mallory, then lifted brows toward the glass of blood on my nightstand. She rolled her eyes, then waved her hands at it.

“Drink, drink,” she said. “Pretend I’m some Buffy fan with a wicked attraction to the paranormal.”

I managed to both lift the glass and give her a sardonic look. “That’s exactly what you are.”

“I didn’t say you had to pretend very hard ,” she pointed out.