Хлоя Нейл: Hard Bitten

“They are,” I agreed. We’d had a few days of loud chants, picket signs, and bongo drums until protesters realized we weren’t aware of the noises they made during the day, and the denizens of Hyde Park would tolerate noise after nightfall for only so long.

Score one for Hyde Park.

“Makes for a nice change. How are things out here?”

“We’re moving along,” I said, wiping away an errant drip of stain. “But I’ll be glad when we’re done. I don’t think construction is my bag.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for future projects.” I could hear the amusement in his voice. After taking a second to check my willpower, I looked over at him. Tonight Ethan wore jeans and a paint-smeared T-shirt, and his shoulder-length golden hair was pulled back at the nape of his neck. His dress might have been casual, but there was no mistaking the air of power and unfailing confidence that marked this prince among vampires.

Hands on his hips, he surveyed his crew. Men and women worked at tables and sawhorses across the front lawn. His emerald gaze tracked from worker to worker as he gauged their progress, but his shoulders were tense, as if he was ever aware that danger lurked just outside the gate.

Ethan was no less handsome in jeans and running shoes while taking stock of his vampiric kin.

“How are things inside?” I asked.

“Moving along, albeit slowly. Things would go faster if we were allowed to bring in human construction workers.”

“Not bringing them in does save us the risk of human sabotage,” I pointed out.

“And the risk that a drywall contractor becomes a snack,” he mused. But when he looked back at me again, a line of worry appeared between his eyes.

“What is it?” I prompted.

Ethan offered up his signature move—a single arched eyebrow.

“Well, obviously other than the protesters and constant threat of attack,” I said.

“Tate called. He asked for a meeting with the two of us.”

This time, I was the one who raised my eyebrows. Seth Tate, Chicago’s second-term mayor, generally avoided mingling with the city’s three Master vampires.

“What does he want to meet about?”

“This, I assume,” he said, gesturing toward the protesters.

“Do you think he wants to meet with me because he and my father are friends, or because my grandfather works for him?”

“That, or because the mayor may, in fact, be smitten with you.”

I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t stop the warm blush that rose on my cheeks. “He isn’t smitten with me. He just likes being reelected.”

“He’s smitten, not that I can’t understand the emotion. And he hasn’t even seen you fight yet.”

Ethan’s voice was sweet. Hopeful.

Hard to ignore.

For weeks he’d been this attentive, this flattering.

That was not to say he didn’t have his moments of snark. He was still Ethan, after all, still a Master vampire with a Houseful of Novitiates who didn’t always please him, and to add insult to injury, he was nearing the end of a months-long rehab of that House. Construction didn’t always go quickly in Chicago, and it moved even more slowly when the subject of the construction was a three-story den of vampires.

An architectural gem of a den, sure, but still a den of night-walking bloodsuckers, blah blah blah. Our human suppliers were often reticent to help, and that didn’t exactly thrill Ethan.

The construction notwithstanding, Ethan was doing all the right things, making all the right moves. Problem was, he’d shaken my trust. I hoped to find my own happily ever after, but I wasn’t yet prepared to trust that this particular Prince Charming was ready to ride off into the sunset. Two months later, the hurt—and humiliation—was still too real, the wound too raw.

I wasn’t naïve enough to deny what was between me and Ethan, or the possibility that fate would bring us together again. After all, Gabriel Keene, the head of the North American Central Pack, had somehow shared with me a vision about a pair of green eyes that looked like Ethan’s . . . but weren’t. (I know. “What the hell?” had been my reaction, too.) I wanted to believe him. Just like every other girl in America, I’d read the books and seen the movies in which the boy realizes he made a horrible decision . . . and comes back again. I wanted to believe that Ethan mourned the loss of me, that his regret was real, and that his promises were earnest. But this wasn’t a game. And as Mallory had pointed out, wouldn’t it have been better if he’d wanted me from the beginning?

In the meantime, while I weighed the new Ethan against the old Ethan, I played the dutiful Sentinel. Keeping things professional gave me the space and boundaries I needed . . . and it had the added benefit of irritating him. Immature? Sure.

But who didn’t take the opportunity to tweak their boss when they had the chance?

Besides, most vampires were members of one House or another, and I was immortal. I couldn’t exactly sidestep working with Ethan without damning myself to an eternity spent as an outcast. That meant I had to make the best of the situation.

Avoiding the intimacy in his voice, I smiled politely at him. “Hopefully he won’t need to see me fight. If I’m brawling in front of the mayor, things have definitely gone south. When do we leave?”

Ethan was quiet long enough that I looked over at him, saw the earnestness in his expression. It plucked my heartstrings to see him look so decided about me. But whatever fate might have in store for us down the road, I wasn’t taking that exit today.

“Sentinel.”

There was gentle reprobation in his voice, but I was sticking to my plan. “Yes, Liege?”

“Be stubborn if you wish to, if you need to, but we know how this will end.”

I kept my face blank. “It will end as it always does—with your being Master and my being Sentinel.”

The reminder of our positions must have done it. As abruptly as he’d turned on the charm, Ethan turned it off again. “Be downstairs in twenty minutes. Wear your suit.” And then he was gone, striding purposefully up the stairs and back into Cadogan House.

I swore quietly. That boy was going to be the death of me.

Leaving Cadogan House used to be a bit of a trick, mostly involving avoiding the irritation of the paparazzi on the corner who were waiting to snap our pictures. Now it was actually dangerous.

We were both in black suits (official Cadogan wear) and in Ethan’s black Mercedes convertible, a slick roadster he parked in the basement beneath the House. We drove up the ramp that led to the ground level, then waited while one of the fairies stationed at the gate pushed it open. A second stood in front of the ramp, his wary gaze on the protesters who were beginning to move in our direction.

We pulled onto the street. The fairy at the gate closed it again, then joined his partner at the side of the car. We moved at a crawl as humans began to gather around us, candles in hand. They moved without sound, their expressions blank, like zombie believers. Their silence was completely unnerving. That was worse, I think, than if they’d been shouting anti-vampire epithets or obscenities.

“Apparently they’ve seen us,” Ethan muttered, left hand on the steering wheel, right on the gearshift.

“Yes, they have. Do you want me to get out?”

“As much as I appreciate the offer, let’s let the fairies handle it.”

As if on cue, the fairies took point, one at each door. “We pay them, right? For the security?”

“We do,” Ethan said. “Although, as they detest humans even more than they detest us, it’s probably a task they’d have taken on for free.”