Хлоя Нейл: Some Girls Bite

Well, except for the vampire thing.

Mallory squeezed my hand. “You ready?”

“No,” I admitted. “But I need to do this.”

We followed the sidewalk to a gap in the iron fence where two black-clad men stood, swords belted at their sides. Both were tall and lean, with long, straight dark hair, tied back tightly. They looked alike, the guards, their just-this-side-of-gaunt facial features fraternally similar.

The one on the left whispered something into his mouthpiece, then touched his earpiece, and finally nodded at me. “You can go in,” he told me, then shifted his gaze to Mallory. “But she can’t.”

Easy decision. “She goes, or I don’t.”

He turned his back on us, and I heard faint whispering as he touched the headset again. When he turned back again, a nod was the only affirmation we got.

As we walked up the sidewalk, Mallory took my hand and squeezed it. “Chatty fellows. They had swords.”

Not just swords, I thought, glancing back at the lean, slightly curved scabbards and long, straight handles.

“I think they’re katanas.” These were the swords of the samurai, a fact I’d learned while researching weaponry for my dissertation. Although I was interested in the romantic side of medieval literature—think Lancelot and Tristan—the genre was heavy on the war and weapons.

“Do you think you’ll get a sword?”

“What the hell would I do with a sword?” We reached the front door, which was unguarded. The portico that covered it was arched, and four symbols, the lowest one a stylized “C,” hung above the door.

“Hmm,” I said. “Knock or just go in, do you think?”

We were saved the decision. The door was opened by a tall, exquisitely handsome man with caramel-colored skin. His hair was short, his eyes a pale green. He wore a black suit that was perfectly fitted to his frame, and a crisp white dress shirt beneath. He extended a hand. “Malik.”

This was the second vampire. Not the one who turned me, but his colleague.

“Merit,” I said, taking his hand. “And Mallory.”

His nostrils flared as he looked at Mallory, and his brows lifted. “Magic?”

Mallory and I looked at each other. “I beg your pardon?” I asked. He didn’t respond, but moved aside to let us enter.

The interior of the House was as impressive as the outside. Contrary to what I’d expected—black tulle, leather furniture, red candles, pentagrams—the House was very tastefully decorated. Actually, it looked like a five-star hotel. The floors were gleaming wood, the high ceilings girded by ancient beams of thick oak. The decor—lots of inlaid woods, urns of flowers, carefully selected lighting—was sophisticated and French-inspired. Malik escorted us past one parlor and into another.

“Stay here,” he instructed in a tone that brooked no argument. We obeyed, Mallory and I standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway so we could survey the room. Ten or so men and women, all dressed in trendy black suits, milled around, some with PDAs in hand, others on couches perusing laptop computers. I felt incredibly gauche in jeans and a T-shirt, especially when their gazes began to fall on Mallory and me.

“New girl,” Mal whispered. “It’s like your first day at school.”

I nodded. “Feels like that.”

“Do you think he’s in here? Sullivan, I mean?”

I looked around, which was futile. “Maybe?” I offered. “I don’t know what he looks like.” I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face when he bit me, and if he’d been there while I was recuperating, I had no memory of it. I had an inkling that he belonged to the distinctly green eyes I remembered, but that was only a hunch.

“Use your spidey sense.”

I chuckled. “Even if I had a spidey sense, I wouldn’t know how to use it.”

A voice suddenly echoed through the parlor—louder than the quiet whispering of the working vamps. “That’s fine, Celina. I appreciate your calling me.”

The words belonged to a man with a cell phone at his ear who’d stepped into the doorway on the opposite side of the long room. He was tall, two or three inches over six feet, and lean like a swimmer—narrow waist, broad shoulders, long legs. His hair was straight, shoulder-length, and golden-blond. His face was chiseled—knife-edge cheekbones and a firm jaw, his brow strong, his lips worth calling home about. He was dressed in a black suit that fit his body like a glove, beneath which was an impeccably white dress shirt, top button unclasped, no tie.

“He’s prettier than Beckham,” Mallory breathlessly whispered. “Jesus.”

I nodded in silent agreement. He was incredibly handsome.

The blond was accompanied by an equally attractive redhead, her skin luminously pale. She wore only a slim burnt orange cocktail dress, the toes of her bare feet painted red. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and while she stood intimately close to the blond, she scanned the room with an almost mechanical precision. She looked around, saw Mallory and me, and tensed. Then she leaned toward the blond and whispered something. He raised his head, a lock of golden hair across his brow, and looked up.

Our gazes locked. He stared, and I stared back.

A chill raced up my spine, an eerie premonition of something I couldn’t quite discern. Vampires definitely had some sort of spidey sense, and mine was sending up flares—enormous, fiery flares that put the Fourth of July fireworks at Navy Pier to shame. I pushed down the sensation and the disturbing, burgeoning sense of familiarity. I didn’t want him to be familiar. I didn’t want him to know me, to know who I was, to have taken part in my change. I wanted this beautiful man to be new to the House, a regular vampire doing a hard night’s work for the Master he secretly loathed. I wanted him to approach me, introduce himself, be pleasantly surprised that I was a vampire and that I’d just joined his cool kids’ club.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I stared. He stared back, lips parted in shock or surprise, his knuckles white around the file folder he held in his free hand.

The rest of the room stilled and quieted as the vampires watched us, probably waiting for cues— Should we jump the new girl? Mock her for wearing jeans and sneaks? Welcome her into the ancient brotherhood of vampires with a pancake breakfast and mixer?

Making some decision, the blond snapped his cell phone shut and walked toward us, his stride confident and swift. Each step seemed to make him more handsome—his perfectly sculpted features coming into sharper relief.

Before that moment, before watching him walk toward me, I’d been a normal girl. If I saw a boy I found attractive, I might smile. I might, on the rare occasion, say hello or give someone my phone number. I wouldn’t say I was forward, but I made a move when I was interested. But something about this boy, maybe mixed with the fact that I’d recently become a vampire, made every molecule in my body tingle. I wanted to sink my fingers into his hair and push my lips against his. I wanted to claim him for my own—the rising of some deep-seated, instinctual need. Time seemed to speed up, to zip by, my body driving me toward a fate my head didn’t understand. My heart thudded, hammerlike inside my chest, and I could feel the blood rushing through my veins.

Mallory leaned toward me. “FYI, your eyes are silver. I’ll just add ‘horny’ to the list of reasons that happens.”

I nodded absently.

My beautiful blond moved closer, until he stood in front of me, until, looking up, I could see the color of his eyes.

They were a deep, translucent, emerald green.

Impossibly green.

And as my heart sunk, I realized, familiarly green.

“Shit,” was all I could think to say.