by Chloe Neill
Glass shattered. For a second, I was afraid I’d put too much strength into the gesture and cracked our champagne flutes. But the noise had come from elsewhere.
“Get your hands off me.” A vampire’s voice, pitched high and angry, echoed across the yard.
I looked back. Tomas, the vampire who’d agreed with the fairies during the opening session of the peace talks, faced down Riley a few yards away. And there was hatred in Tomas’s eyes.
“You should step back, vamp,” Riley said. His expression was calm, but his eyes were just as hot as Tomas’s, magic swirling gold in his irises.
We reached the scuffle just as my father did.
“Problem?” he said, so that it was less a question than an order, a demand that any problem be immediately resolved.
“This animal attempted to strong-arm me.”
Riley’s expression was a mix of bafflement and sheer rage. “I didn’t lay a hand on you. You were about to run into me, you dick, and I put my hands out to keep you from making contact.”
“You’re all alike,” Tomas muttered. “Animals.”
“Tomas,” my father said, and the word was a warning. “You are a guest in this city and, for now, a guest in this House. But if you cannot find your manners, you’ll find yourself a guest of neither.”
“I don’t take ‘animal’ as an insult,” Riley said, gaze unwavering on Tomas. “But I don’t care to have my intentions questioned.”
“I’m surprised,” my father said, glancing at Tomas, “that, being a vampire, you’d find a shifter intimidating. You’ve your own strength, and you certainly don’t seem impressed by the Pack.”
Tomas’s eyes fired. “I am perfectly capable of handling myself, Sullivan. The fact that you’d take their side over mine confirms what the fae said. You’ve forgotten your loyalties.”
“Loyalties?” my father asked, a single eyebrow lifted. It was one of his favorite expressions, and this time it managed to convey both surprise and anger. “Cadogan House is allied with the North American Central Pack. Cadogan House is not allied with Casa Cardona, as you refused our offer. Moreover, despite our efforts to organize these peace talks—for the direct benefit of your vampires—you have done nothing but attempt to derail the process. I am very aware of with whom my loyalties lie, Tomas. And you’d do well to remember that.”
Furious magic pumped off Tomas in waves. But however petulant his behavior, he was at least smart enough to know when to fold. Facing down my father and his allies at my father’s House was apparently that time.
“We are not optimistic about this process or the intentions behind it,” he said, lifting his chin. “But the vampires of Catalonia are not cowards. We will not abandon this process to those who would seek to do us harm.”
He turned on his heel, his short black cape twirling as he moved, and stalked away.
The entire crowd seemed to exhale. As magic and the threat of violence faded, the other vampires drifted away.
My father looked at Riley. “I apologize for his behavior. I hope you know it does not represent the attitude of this House.”
Riley smiled, offered my father a hand. “He’s just a stuck-up asshole. I know you’re good people.” He looked at me and offered a wink that had Connor stiffening beside me, which just made Riley’s grin spread even more.
And with that, the crisis was averted and peace returned to the land.
Hunger I’d been ignoring for hours suddenly blossomed; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. “I’m going over there,” I said, pointing to the buffet. “And I strongly suggest no one get in my way.”
* * *
• • •
They didn’t get in the way. Instead, they followed me through the line, then over to a table where we could sit and eat—and I could keep an eye on Seri and Marion.
There’d been no other outbursts, no other hints of violence. I’d glimpsed a few fairies—in addition to all the other supernaturals my father had invited—but they’d mostly milled around like everyone else. Except they hadn’t eaten any of the food, but that was a cultural thing. Fairies only ate food they’d prepared themselves, because they didn’t trust what they called “Others” enough to share their grub. Ironic, given that fairies were historically known for their trickery and theft. Maybe they were projecting. Convinced Others would try to harm them, given the fairies’ penchant for doing just that.
We ate and chatted, and when the party began to wind down and Seri failed to stifle a yawn, I rose from the table.
“I’m going to go check on the Maison Dumas delegates. Looks like they’re about ready to go.”
“Couple of hours until dawn,” Theo said with a nod, checking his watch. “The party will probably be wrapping up pretty soon, anyway.”
“My father will politely begin to shoo them toward the door,” I agreed, then glanced at Petra. “It was good to see you again.”
“You, too, Lis. I hope we see more of you while you’re in town.”
“We’ll see how the talks go.” Because that would figure largely in whether I had free time.
I glanced at Connor, was prepared to offer a polite goodbye, but he was chatting with Tabby, who’d rejoined him when she’d given up on William Dearborn.
“He wouldn’t hear you, anyway,” Theo said with a grin.
“Can’t argue with that,” I said. I grabbed my glass and headed toward the empty tray standing at the edge of the tables.
The crowd was thinning some, delegates having returned to their Autos and hotels, the Cadogan vampires returning to their rooms upstairs.
I lost sight of Seri, turned a circle to find her again, and detected the scent that vampires were most familiar with.
Blood. And a lot of it.
I picked up my dress to keep the silk from dragging along the dewy grass of early morning, walked toward the brick patio that surrounded the House’s outdoor kitchen.
Tomas lay on the ground, blood soaking into the brick beneath him.
He’d been divested of his head, which lay two feet away from the rest of his body.
Standing over both, eyes wide, tuxedo shirt splattered with blood and clutching a blood-smeared knife, stood Riley Sixkiller.
TEN
I stared at the scene, tried to process what I was seeing. “Riley. What the hell—what did you do?”
My heart was racing, and not just because of the blood on the ground. The hunger was ruled, fortunately, by the part that had no interest in the blood of a dead man.
Riley looked at me, then down at the body, and his eyes went huge. “Elisa. What is—” And then he seemed to realize he was holding a knife and took two halting steps backward, as if he could simply walk away from it.
“Riley,” I said again, my throat so tight I could barely manage a whisper. “What did you do?”
Before he could answer, a scream split the air. I spun around, found a female vampire—one of the German delegates—shrieking behind me.
Metal struck stone, and when I looked back again, Riley had dropped the knife, was backing away. He made it two steps before he ran into Connor.
“What the fuck?” Connor said, his voice harsh. And then he turned his eyes, huge and cold, on Riley.
“I didn’t do this,” Riley said, but there was more than a little uncertainty in his voice. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t even—I don’t even know him. He popped his cork earlier, and that’s it between us. I didn’t fucking touch him.”
All evidence was to the contrary, which made my stomach roll in greasy waves.
Connor nodded, but put a hand on Riley’s shoulder, and his fingers were white with tension. Riley wasn’t going anywhere.
The German delegate screamed again, and people began running over, creating more noise and more chaos. I scanned the crowd for Kelley or my parents, or someone from the Ombuds
’ office. But while there’d been plenty of people to meet earlier, no one had yet appeared to handle this crisis.
“Ma’am,” I said, “please stop screaming.”
But she didn’t stop, and the sound triggered more rounds of yelling from the people who joined us.
“Step back!” Connor yelled over the din. His hand was still on Riley’s shoulder, but this time the move looked protective. “Everyone step back and shut the hell up.”
The vampires closest to us, to Tomas, were smart enough to follow the angry shifter’s instructions. But the other delegates from Spain arrived, and the ear-piercing screams—this time joined by wails—began in earnest again.
“¿Que paso? Who did this? Who has hurt Tomas?”
Someone tried to pull a delegate away, but he yanked his arm back, making contact with another vampire who stood nearby. Thinking he was being attacked, the second vampire struck out.
I cursed and ran toward them, grabbing one by the arm and pulling him away from the crime scene and the fight.
What should have been a moment of quiet reflection became—because of fear, shock, language barriers, and the vampire ego—a comedy of errors.
“That blond vampire is attacking!” someone screamed, and someone else tried to wrench me away from the fighters I’d been attempting to separate.
“I’m not the one attacking!” I said. “I’m the one trying to break it up!” While my katana might have been handy, it was probably better that I didn’t pull it on visiting vampires.
The vampires behind me were shoving each other, which pushed me forward so I nearly tumbled into the spreading blood on the patio.
“Elisa!” Connor called my name, but he’d shoved Riley behind him and jumped into the fray to separate two more fighting vampires.
The fight was all around us, chaos spreading like a rippling wave through the party my parents had so carefully arranged.
A male vampire with platinum hair and pale skin ran toward Riley, malice in his expression. I moved to intercept them, grabbed the arm he raised to strike Riley’s back, and twisted.
The vampire was old, and he was strong. He swung around and backhanded me, and would have sent me to the ground if I hadn’t kept my grip on his free hand.
Pain sang across my face, and the monster decided it had waited long enough. It was heat in my bones and fire across my skin, and it slammed against the edges of my consciousness, trying to break through.
I fought back against two opponents—avoiding the vampire’s next strike and bearing down to keep the monster contained, to keep it from rising up and taking me over.
The vampire snatched his arm away, and this time I let him. He had to shift his weight to stay upright, and I took advantage—a front kick that connected with his chin. A snap of his head, and he fell back to the ground.
Someone grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms. I screamed and kicked backward, fought my way free, and punched the vampire who’d held me, sending him stumbling backward and radiating pain through my arm.
Pain was a drug that fed the monster, and it grew stronger still. If it couldn’t have freedom, it would take blood.
Its rise pushed me down, as if I were sinking slowly to the bottom of a pool, watching the world through sun-dappled water. My body still moved, but the monster was in control. And it was far more bloodthirsty than me.
The vampire I’d punched climbed shakily to his feet and aimed furious quicksilver eyes in my direction.
The monster stretched through my limbs, rolled my shoulders, and then plunged forward. A side kick to put the vampire off balance, and then a front kick to put him down. He hit the ground and grabbed my ankle, and I used my stiletto-clad foot to stomp on his hand.
He screamed, and the monster reveled in it.
Memory flashed—of the man I’d left bruised and bloodied on the sidewalk, my knuckles cracked and raw . . .
Not again, I told myself. I won’t let it happen again. I mustered every ounce of strength, worked to push up, to swim through the monster’s magic.
“Stop this now!”
My father’s words were an earthquake of power and fury. And they were enough to freeze every supernatural in the scuffle—and send the monster back to its depths. I sucked in a breath like a diver breaking the surface, and felt my fangs retract. . . . And I hoped to god my eyes weren’t crimson when my father got a look at my face.
He stood behind us, eyes silvered and fangs gleaming, absolute fury in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. The crowd parted as he moved forward, the first sensible thing they’d done.
He gave Tomas a long and somber look, but moved to me first.
“Are you all right?” he asked when he reached me.
“I’m . . . fine.” I rubbed my forehead, which had the benefit of covering my eyes. “Just a little dizzy. I don’t know who slapped me, but he had some power. Just stings.”
I wasn’t too dizzy to be nervous that my father had seen the monster, to be worried that I’d been discovered. That others would have seen it peeking through and would be just as horrified.
“I’ll be fine in a few minutes. Dad, this was like . . . mass hysteria.”
“So I see,” he said, then turned his gaze back to Tomas.
Around him, the scene began to order itself as onlookers stepped back, moved away. As if keeping vigil, my father kept somber eyes on Tomas until Theo and Petra joined him and began working to preserve what they could of the scene.
“I’m going to take a minute,” I said to no one in particular.
Still holding myself in check, I walked into the grass, kept going until I’d reached a copse of shadowed trees. I reached out to touch one, dug fingers into the bark, and found focusing on the sensation—and the pain—made the anger and fury recede.
When my heart slowed, I pulled my hand back. I’d left deep white gouges in the bark.
“Those look like claw marks.”
I spun around, found Connor standing behind me.
“Just some extra energy to burn off,” I said, hating the monster for the necessity of the lie.
His expression didn’t change. “Your eyes. They were red. They’re silver now,” he added, probably having felt the punch of my suddenly panicked magic. “And I doubt anyone else noticed given the chaos. This was . . . what happened before?”
Another memory flashed—this time, the reason the monster had first overpowered me. Because she’d lain on the sidewalk like a broken doll. One of the men had held her backpack. The other had looked down at her with sickening interest, his smile twisted. And I hadn’t even tried to hold back the rage.
There was compassion and concern in Connor’s eyes. I’d have understood admonishment or horror, and they might have made me feel better. I could stop being angry at myself, let someone else take over. But I hadn’t earned anyone’s compassion, and I didn’t understand what to make of the sentiment coming from him, of all people.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, refusing to engage. But when I started to walk away from him, he grabbed my arm.
“It was the same thing,” he said. “It still affects you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. You can tell me.”
I looked up at him for a long time, into a face that was almost unfairly handsome and eyes that looked like they’d seen their share of darkness.
Ironic, wasn’t it, that the boy who’d driven me crazy for most of my life—and vice versa—was the only one who knew the truth? The only one I could unburden myself to.
And much as I wanted to pretend that what had just happened hadn’t actually happened, the secret—and the power—was eating me alive from the inside. So I let myself say the word, and it still felt heavy on my lips.
“Yes.”
He nodded, gaze shifting from me to the
gouges in the wood. “Did that help?”
“Not really,” I said, and nearly smiled.
“Here,” he said, pulling off his tuxedo jacket, revealing his own torn and bloodied shirt beneath. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m okay,” I said, and couldn’t manage to tear my gaze from the sweeps of blood, the magic that drifted into the air from them. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. Just scratches.” He held out the jacket. “Put this on until you can get fixed up.”
I looked down, realized my dress was ripped, one of the halter straps torn and unraveling, so the top was little more than a flap of fabric waiting for an opportunity to fall.
I took it from him, our fingers brushing across dark wool.
“Thanks,” I said, and slipped my arms into the sleeves and bunched it around me.
The jacket smelled like heat and cologne and a hint of animal that reminded me of wildness and freedom. It smelled like Connor.
I looked up at him, trying to get my bearings. “Are we friends now?”
“Don’t go crazy, brat,” he said with a smile. But his eyes were dark when he looked back at the vampires clustered on the patio and surrounding his Pack mate, accusation in their eyes.
* * *
• • •
The fairies’ interruption at the peace talks had been strange but nonviolent. They hadn’t managed to break the peace, only to bend it a little. But this was real violence, an undeniable breach of two decades of peace. This was murder. And how could we help Europe’s Houses with a cease-fire if we couldn’t even manage it in our literal backyard?
I was a witness to some of it, and knew I’d need to stay and make a statement—and help my parents, if I could. I talked to Marion, got her permission to stay behind, then found two Cadogan guards to escort them back to the hotel.
I hadn’t taken all of my clothes to Paris, so I went back to my room on the third floor, changed from the stained and ripped dress into jeans, a T-shirt with a scoop neck, and a pair of well-worn suede boots with a low cuff. I stuffed the dress, clutch, and shoes into a tote bag, carried that and Connor’s jacket downstairs again.
