Wild Hunger

by Chloe Neill

  “Our arms would be so tired,” I said with as much smile as I could muster.

  He grinned, pointed at me. “Exactement!” He pulled from a suit jacket a small box and flipped up the lid. A half dozen tiny and violently crimson macarons sat inside. “Would you care for a bite before we disembark?”

  Seri shook her head. “No, merci.”

  Blood-flavored macarons were all the rage among French vampires. I could deal with the flavor; I was a vampire, after all. But I didn’t like macarons even in the best of times. They were too indecisive. Were they candies? Cookies? I had no idea, and I didn’t like snacks that couldn’t commit.

  “No, thank you,” I said with a smile.

  “You may proceed,” the flight attendant said, allowing us to move toward the door. “Have a wonderful evening.”

  Victor gave a little salute. “Ladies, au revoir. I will see you at the party.”

  “Au revoir,” Seri said, and lifted a hand to him. “You really shouldn’t encourage him,” she murmured when Victor disappeared ahead of us.

  “He’s charming in his way,” I said, following her into the aisle.

  “You should not have laughed at the bat joke. He will believe he is a great comedian, and we will never be done with his attempts at humor. I don’t know if I can stand an immortality of it.”

  “We will persist,” I said gravely. But his offer had me thinking—and worrying. “I didn’t bring any souvenirs for my parents. Maybe I should have bought macarons at the airport.”

  “It is a rule,” Seri said, “that one should not buy gifts at an airport.”

  “Okay, but which is more important? Buying gifts for your family at an airport, or showing up without gifts at all?”

  She pursed her lips as she considered. “You should have bought macarons at the airport. But Chicago will be glad to have you home, macarons or not. You are the prodigal daughter returning!”

  “I guess we’ll see about that,” I murmured, descended the steps, and breathed in the humid air of a Midwestern August.

  * * *

  • • •

  I didn’t recognize the cluster of humans who waited on the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs, but they introduced themselves as members of the mayor’s staff. With apologetic and politic smiles, they explained delegates were arriving from all over the world, so the mayor simply couldn’t greet every sup personally.

  Given she was human, I didn’t expect her to be literally in more than one place at a time.

  A line of vehicles waited to take passengers and luggage to their respective hotels. Most were boxy and gleaming Autos that didn’t need drivers, and would have been preprogrammed to send us to our destination.

  In front of them stood my parents.

  My father, Ethan Sullivan, was tall and pale, with golden blond hair down to his shoulders that matched my own. As on most nights, he wore a black suit and a cool expression. That was the result of four hundred years of playing vamp politics and having to learn early on to ignore the details to focus on the primary goal: the survival of his House and the vamps who lived there.

  My mother, Caroline Merit—just Merit to most—stood beside him in slim-fitting black pants and a simple pale blue top, her hair dark and straight, her face framed by bangs. Her eyes were pale blue, her nose straight, her mouth wide, and she was pretty in an elegant way.

  My dad called her Duchess, which fit until you heard her curse like a sailor or do battle against nachos. There was nothing aristocratic about that or her fighting skills. Give a trained dancer a katana, and she’ll show you something spectacular. She now stood Sentinel for the House, a guardian for the organization and its Master.

  My mother was over fifty, and my father more than four hundred. Neither had aged since I’d been born; they looked barely older than me. Humans usually found that weird, but to me it just was. They were my parents, and they looked the way they looked. Wasn’t it weirder to have parents who looked a little different with each month and year that passed?

  I’d eventually stop aging, too, or so we assumed. As the only vampire child ever born, we were writing the book about the growth of vampire children. For now, at least, I figured I looked exactly my twenty-three years.

  Bag and katana in hand, I made my way down the stairs. And the second I stepped foot onto asphalt—onto Chicago—the monster reached for the ground, for the city and its magic. And the power of its desire nearly buckled my knees.

  My parents didn’t know about the monster. They knew only that I’d once lost control and a human had paid the price. I had a momentary flash of panic that I’d be overwhelmed by it, that they’d see that the monster was still inside me, caged but alive. Had probably been there since I’d been born, since I’d been magically fused to my mother. Because evil had been magically fused to me, or at least that’s what I thought had happened.

  Knowing would break their hearts, and I couldn’t bear both the monster and weight of their grief. So I reached for every ounce of strength I had, forced myself to take one more step, then another. Four years of intense training, and cold sweat still trickled down my spine as I walked toward my parents. But they didn’t seem to see it.

  “It’s so good to see you,” my mother said, wrapping her arms around me the moment I put down my bag and placed the scabbard on top. She smelled the same, her perfume clean and crisp and floral. The scent made me think of our apartments in Cadogan House, where the pale and pretty fragrance had permeated the air.

  “We missed you so much,” she said quietly, her arms a ferocious band that seemed to quiet the monster.

  Maybe the monster was afraid of her. If my theory was right, it had reason to be. . . .

  “I missed you guys, too,” I said.

  “You look happy,” my father said, giving me a hug and pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

  When he released me, my mother held out a steaming to-go cup. “I thought you could use this after your flight.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and took a sip. It was hot and sweet, with just a hint of hazelnut. I’d have sworn the grogginess started to fade immediately, but that might have been my obsession talking.

  “This is perfect,” I said. “Leo’s?”

  “It is,” she said with a smile.

  Leo’s was my favorite coffee spot, a tiny box of a drive-through in Hyde Park not far from Cadogan House. The menu was limited, the servers were always surly, and it took only cash. But if you could get past the irritations, it was the best coffee in the city.

  “If you’re going to do something,” she said, in a pretty good imitation of my father’s voice, “do it right.”

  “You’re hilarious, Sentinel.”

  “I know. I love your hair,” she said, touching a long curl of it.

  “Thanks.” It had taken a while to figure out what to do with the blond waves I’d inherited from my father’s side of the family. Too short, and it was a puffball of curls I couldn’t pull off. Longer, the curls relaxed and became waves that were much more flattering.

  “How was your flight?” my father asked.

  “I was asleep for most of it.” I held up my hand. “No burns, so the shutters worked. Private jet from Europe was nice. Free headphones and socks.”

  My mother’s eyes lit. “Was there a snack basket?”

  “You have an entire kitchen at your disposal,” my father said.

  “And Margot’s too busy to walk around and offer me snacks all night.” Her gaze narrowed. “Although that gives me some ideas.”

  “As you can tell,” my father said with amusement, “your mother has not changed a whit since we saw you in May.”

  “I’m good with that,” I said.

  “We saw the footage from Paris,” my father said, and put a hand on my mother’s shoulder.

  I’d prepared them, told them we’d been involved
, so he wouldn’t learn about the fight secondhand. But the fear and grief in his eyes was still keen.

  Tears welled in my eyes, too. Suddenly swamped with the horror I’d seen the night before, I pushed the cup of coffee at my father and flung myself into my mother’s arms.

  “All right,” she said, embracing me again. “It’s all right. Get it out of your system. You’ll feel better.”

  “It was horrible.” I mumbled it into her shirt. “It was stupid, and it was senseless, and it was . . . so violent.”

  “It always is horrible,” she whispered, rubbing my back. “It’s not an advantage to be numb to terrible things. It means we can’t feel. When we can feel, and we do it anyway, we show our bravery. And terrible times are when we need to act most of all. That’s when we do the most good.”

  She held me while I stood there, crying onto her shirt, until I’d wrung out the worst of the emotion. Then I pulled back and wiped my cheeks.

  “Sorry,” I said, trying for a half laugh. “I’m not sure why I’m crying. That was . . . not very professional.”

  My father pulled an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket. I took it, swiped at my face. I felt childish for needing to cry, but a little better for having done it.

  “You’ve had a long twenty-four hours,” my mother said. “And you care about people, and you care about Paris. That’s as professional as it gets.”

  “She’s right,” my father said, earning a thumbs-up from my mother. “You handled yourself well. We were very proud.”

  The tightness in his eyes said he was working hard not to replay the discussion we’d already had about the risks of my Dumas service. He knew this was my story to write.

  “Thanks,” I said, and gave my face a final wipe, then stuffed the handkerchief into my pocket.

  “Now,” my mother said, looking around. “When do we get to meet Seraphine?” She hadn’t been in town when they’d come to my graduation.

  I glanced back at the jet, found Seri chatting with Odette at the bottom of the Jetway, and waved her over.

  “Bonjour,” she said brightly when she reached us, slipping an arm through mine.

  “Seri, these are my parents, Ethan and Merit.”

  “It is lovely to finally meet you!” Seri said, and exchanged kisses with them. “Your daughter is a jewel.”

  “We agree,” my father said. “And we hope you enjoy Chicago as much as she’s enjoyed Paris.”

  “I’m sure I will.” She looked at my mother. “I understand we should discuss, um, cake shakes?”

  My mother’s face lit up like she’d won the lottery. “We should discuss them. Maybe we’ll make good progress at the talks tomorrow, and we’ll have time for a Portillo’s adventure.”

  “Let us hope,” Seri said with a smile, which quickly faded. “You have heard about the recent attack?”

  “We did,” my father said.

  “Have there been any threats against the talks?” I asked.

  My father lifted an eyebrow.

  “I’m in service to Maison Dumas,” I reminded them. “I’m working.”

  “No threats,” my mother said, taking my father’s hand and squeezing, probably giving him a signal. They could also communicate telepathically—one of the common vampire skills I hadn’t developed, probably because I hadn’t been made in the traditional way of vampires—so it wasn’t often I’d heard them disagree aloud about how to handle me or something I’d done.

  Because of that, I’d had zero luck playing the “Mom said it was okay” card. Mom and Dad could check with each other without my even knowing it.

  “Although the Spanish delegates are still arguing about seating positions,” my father said, clearly not impressed with the behavior.

  “You’ve seen the security plan for the Sanford?” my mother asked.

  The talks would be held at the remodeled Sanford Theater. And while Chicago might have been peaceful, the event’s organizers weren’t taking any chances. There’d be barriers outside the building, guards inside and outside the facility, and security forces in the room in case anyone got brave. The forces would be a mix of human and supernatural—primarily vampires and members of the North American Central Pack of shifters, as the Pack had made its home in Chicago. Gabriel Keene was its wolfish Apex, no pun intended, and a friend of my parents.

  Gabriel’s son, Connor, and I had grown up together, or mostly. He was two years older than me—and figured he was two years hipper and wiser. He’d been the bane of my childhood, the irritation of my adolescence. We’d tolerated each other for our parents’ sake, or at least as much as two kids could.

  He thought I was bossy. I liked things the way I liked them.

  I thought he was reckless. He said he was the prince and could do what he wanted.

  And unlike everyone else in my life, Connor Keene had seen the monster.

  “If you don’t mind,” Seri said, “I’m going to join Odette, as she appears frantic.”

  We looked back at the Autos, where Odette was gesturing angrily at the growing pile of luggage.

  “I hope they haven’t lost your bags,” my mother said.

  “I’m sure it is fine.” She smiled, reached out to squeeze each of my parents’ hands in turn. “It was wonderful to meet you, finally. I hope we will have time to talk!”

  “We hope so, too,” my mother said.

  “She seems lovely,” my father said, when she’d moved toward the car.

  “She is. She doesn’t take what she has for granted, which would be very easy for her to do.”

  “Then she’s in good company,” my father said with a smile. “Not many would agree to a year of service when it wasn’t owed.”

  “It was owed in spirit, even if not technically,” I said.

  “You are your mother’s daughter,” my father said, with not a little pride in it.

  “As if the thirty-eight hours of labor didn’t prove it,” my mother said with a smile.

  “I recall them well,” my father said flatly. “You were . . . very angry.”

  “Was it the cursing that tipped you off?”

  “And the throwing of many objects,” he said, counting them off on his hands. “And challenging an Apex shifter to a knife fight. And accusing your sister of being a Russian spy. And promising to stake the doctor if you didn’t get drugs.”

  “Nonsense. I was a paragon of patience and gentility.”

  My father winked at her. “Of course you were, Duchess. And, to my point, you were also a very careful Sentinel.”

  “Why are you smiling?” my mother asked me, eyes narrowed.

  “Just . . . it’s good to be home,” I told her. And I hoped it would stay that way.

  “Good,” my mother said. “Because we’re glad you’re here, too.” She tapped a silver band on her right ring finger, checked the time. “You should probably get to the hotel. Someone from the Ombudsman’s office will meet you there, give you your badges, and make sure you get into the reception.”

  Relations between Chicago’s humans and vampires were managed by the city’s supernatural Ombudsman. My great-grandfather, Chuck Merit, had been the first Ombudsman, and the office had grown since his retirement ten years ago. William Dearborn held the office now.

  “Sounds good.”

  I glanced over at the slate gray McLaren coupe parked between the Autos, and guessed it was my father’s newest vehicular obsession. He didn’t care to be driven, and much preferred to drive.

  “Yours?” I asked him, gesturing to it.

  My mother pulled a key fob from her pocket, smiled. “Mine. He’s destroyed too many vehicles.”

  “In fairness, you were with me for most of those incidents.”

  “That’s why I’m driving,” she said, and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “The Auto will take you to the hotel. We’ll see you at t
he reception.”

  I nodded. “See you there.”

  Odette met us at the Auto and offered small bottles of water. Like Seri, Odette had been made a vampire by a powerful and respected Master.

  “Your parents are very much in love,” Seri said, when we slid into the vehicle together.

  “Yeah, they are.” I looked as my dad reached out, took my mother’s hand. They walked together toward her car. “It’s pretty disgusting,” I said with a smile.

  THREE

  The drive from the airport to downtown Chicago was like a weird dream from childhood. I’d seen the buildings and landmarks a thousand times before, but my memories had fuzzed around the edges like feathering ink.

  The city had changed as I’d grown up, as supernatural tourism and creativity pumped money into the economy. The River nymphs had become fashion designers, and they’d made their eponymous headquarters in a gleaming gold building near Merchandise Mart that was nearly as large. The fairies, whose population had boomed after an evil sorceress spread magic through the city, turned a run-down block in South Loop into an undulating park with their new home, which was more castle than mansion.

  The human parts of the city had changed, too. The newest buildings were topped by living roofs of plants and trees, and were dotted with wind-power funnels. Solar panels were mounted on cars, warehouses, and billboards with the city’s “Zero Waste!” motto.

  But some things hadn’t changed at all. Even with Autos, traffic was snarled before we reached downtown. We headed east toward Michigan Avenue, passing the spot where that evil sorceress had tried to destroy Chicago. My grandfather, Joshua Merit, had owned the building where she’d made her stand, and it had been torn apart in the battle with her. It hadn’t fared any better in the second round, but the architect probably hadn’t planned for a dragon attack.

  Since my grandfather would have given Scrooge McDuck a run for his money, he’d tried to rebuild. But no one wanted to invest money in what had been a lightning rod for magic. So he’d pulled down the building’s shell, sold the scrap, and donated the land to the city. Now there was a pretty plaza where tourists and buskers gathered when the weather was warm.