Хлоя Нейл - Hard Bitten

While waiting for her highness’s arrival, I poked a straw into one of the drink boxes and pored through the stack of books that was beginning to crawl its way up my bedroom wall.

It was my TBR—my To Be Read stack. The usual subjects were there. Chick lit. Action. A Pulitzer Prize winner. A romance novel about a pirate and a damsel in a low-cut blouse. (What?

Even a vampire enjoys a little bodice ripping now and again.)

Even though I’d spent the final hours of more than a few evenings in my vampire dorm room, my TBR stack hadn’t gotten any shorter. With each book I finished, I found a replacement in the House’s library. And I’d occasionally wake at dusk to find a pile of books outside my door, presumably left by the House librarian, another Novitiate vampire. His selections were usually related to politics: stories about the ancient conflicts between vampires and shape-shifters; biographies of the one hundred most vampire-friendly politicians in Western history; time lines of vampiric events in history. Unfortunately, no matter how serious the topic, the names were usually just silly.

Get to the Point: Vampire Contributions in Western Architecture.

Fangs and Balances: Vampire Politicians in History.

To Drink or Not to Drink: A Vampire Dialectic.

Blood Sausage, Blood Stew, Blood Orange: Food for All Seasons.

And the awfully named Plasmatlas , which contained maps of important vampire locales.

Maybe the managing editor of the vampire press was the same guy who wrote the chapter titles for the Canon of the North American Houses , my vampire guidebook. Both were equally punny—and just as ridiculous.

The names aside, let’s be honest—with Ethan running around the House, there were definitely advantages to reading in my room. Was it Master avoidance? Absolutely. But when faced with the temptation of something you couldn’t have, why not find something more productive to do?

Put another way, why order dessert if you couldn’t take a bite?

So there I was—in a tank and boxers—cross-legged on my bed with To Drink or Not to Drink in hand, the rain pummeling the roof above me. I sighed, leaned back against the pillows, and sank into the words, hoping that I might find something moderately edutaining. Or infotaining.

Whatever.

An hour later, Lindsey knocked, and I dog-eared the book (a bad habit, I know, but I never had a bookmark handy).

The book had actually been informative, discussing the earliest recorded instances of a condition the author called hemoanhedonia—the inability to take pleasure from drinking blood.

Vamps with the condition tended to demonize those who drank. Add that to the fact that being a “practicing” vampire was dangerous in its own right—humans didn’t usually take kindly to being treated like sippy cups—and vampires began drinking together privately, away from the criticism. Abracadabra, raves are born.

With that historical nugget in mind, I put the book on the nightstand and opened the door.

Lindsey, fellow guard and my best friend in the House (assuming Ethan didn’t count, and I don’t think he did), stood in the hallway with a blond ponytail, killer figure, and silly smile on her face. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt with CADOGAN printed in white block letters across the front. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted gleaming gold.

“Hi, blondie.”

“Merit. I like those duds.” She cast an appraising glance at my ILLINOIS IS FOR LOVERS! tank top and shamrock-patterned Cubs shorts.

“Off-duty Cadogan Sentinel at your service.

Come on in.”

She hit the bed. I shut the door behind her.

One of our earliest dates as new friends had been a night in her room with pizza and reality television. It wasn’t exactly cerebral, but it gave us a chance to be silly for a little while, to be concerned with which celebutante was dating which rock star or who was winning this week’s crazy challenge . . . instead of worrying about which groups of people were trying to kill us. The latter was exhausting after a while.

I flipped on my tiny television (my Sentinel stipend at work) and changed the channel to tonight’s reality opera, which involved male contestants solving puzzles so they could escape from an island of ex-girlfriends.

It was high-quality stuff. Classy stuff.

I joined Linds on the bed and pulled a pillow behind my head.

“How was the meeting with Tate?” she asked.

“Drama, drama, drama. Luc will fill you in.

Suffice it to say, Ethan could be in Cook County lockup next week.”

“Sullivan may have a heart of coal, but I bet he looks really good in orange. And stripes.

Rawr,” she said, curling her fingers like a cat.

Lindsey was even less convinced that Ethan had had a legitimate post-breakup change of heart. But that didn’t make him any less pretty.

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate your compliments when he’s climbing into that jumpsuit,” I said.

“Although Luc might get jealous.”

As a guard, Luc was Lindsey’s boss. He was tall and touslehaired, his dark blond locks sun streaked from years, I imagined, as a boots-wearing cowboy on some high-plains ranch where cattle and horses outnumbered humans and vampires. Luc kept the boots after becoming a vampire, and he’d developed a monumental crush on Lindsey. Long story short, nothing had come of it until the attack on the House. Then they started spending more time together.

I didn’t think it was überserious—more like a movie night here, a snack at sunset there. But it did seem like he’d finally managed to push through the emotional barriers she’d erected to keep him at a distance. I completely approved of that development. Luc had pined pretty hard; it was about time he tasted victory.

“Luc can take care of himself,” Lindsey said, her voice dry.

“He’d enjoy it more if you were doing the caring.”

Lindsey held up a hand. “Enough boy talk. If you keep harping about Luc, I’m going to hit you with a Sullivan one-two combination, in which case I’ll be quizzing you about his hot bod and emotional iciness for the rest of the evening.”

“Spoilsport.” I pouted, but let it go. I knew she wasn’t completely convinced about Luc, even if she was spending more time with him, and I didn’t want to push her too far too fast. And to be fair, just because I thought they’d be good together didn’t mean she was obligated to date him. It was her life, and I could respect that.

So I let it go and settled into a comfy position beside her, and then let my mind drift on the waves of prerecorded, trashy television. As relaxation went, it didn’t exactly rank up there with a hotrock massage and mud bath, but a vampire took what a vampire could get.

When I awoke again, I dressed in my personal uniform—jeans and a tank top over high-heeled boots, my Cadogan medal, my sword, and my beeper—and headed out.

I stopped at the House gate, intending to get a sense of the gauntlet I’d have to walk to get to my car. One of the two fairies at the gate guessed my game.

“They are quiet tonight,” he said. “Ethan planned ahead.”

I glanced over at him. “He planned ahead?”

The fairy pointed down the street. I peeked outside the gate, smiling when I realized Ethan’s strategy. A food truck hawking Italian beefs was parked at the corner, a dozen protesters standing beside it, sandwiches in hand, their signs propped against the side of the truck.

Ethan must have made a phone call.

“Hot beef in the name of peace,” I murmured, then hustled across the street to my ride, a boxy orange Volvo. The car was old and had seen better days, but it got me where I needed to go.