Hard Bitten cv-4

by Хлоя Нейл

“As of this instant, you will both begin to comport yourselves like Masters. Like the princes you were meant to be. Not squabbling like human children.”

  Darius looked up, icy eyes drilling into me.

  “Your Sentinel is off the streets. She is not to be engaged in any further investigation of whatever issues your mayor imagines to exist.”

  Ethan’s eyes could hardly have been wider.

  “And if the warrant for my arrest is executed?”

  Darius’s gaze slipped back to Ethan. “The mayor of the city of Chicago is surely intelligent enough not to think that a man-made prison can hold you. However much he may enjoy using the threat of incarceration to coerce you into solving his problems for him, those problems are still his to solve. And, more important, have any of you seen evidence that the three girls your mayor believes were killed are actually dead? Have you seen any evidence three girls were missing in Chicago?”

  Catcher had promised he’d look into the girls’ deaths, but hadn’t passed any information along to me. But just because they hadn’t solved the crime didn’t mean a crime hadn’t been committed.

  I spoke up. “The eyewitness believed that three women were killed. And the things he described were accurate—vampires who were trigger-happy, doped on violence, ready to fight.”

  “In other words,” Darius began, his manner supremely smug, “just like vampires?”

  Let it be, Sentinel, echoed Ethan’s voice in my head. Battling six hundred years of entrenched belief is not a fight you can win.

  He’s wrong, I protested.

  That’s as may be. But our fight is for Chicago, not Darius West, whatever his power.

  Fight the fight you can win. For now, he added in classic Ethan style, be still.

  “And the fact that raves are becoming larger and more violent?” Ethan asked.

  “Vampires are acting as vampires have always acted. If a few errant vampires break the rules of their home city, let the city respond.”

  “And if that’s not enough?”

  “Then the GP will discuss it, and the GP will act. Maintain control over your own House, Ethan, and leave the GP to its work. You are not to consider this issue any further.”

  A heavy silence filled the room.

  “Sire,” Scott said, finally speaking up. “I’m informed our guests have arrived. As you have presented your directives, perhaps Ethan can acknowledge receipt and we can move into dinner?”

  Darius tilted his head at Ethan, the move more canine than vampiric. “Ethan?”

  Ethan moistened his lips, and I knew he was stalling. Given the spiel he then offered up, I knew why.

  “Sire, I acknowledge receipt of your directives and . . . will act as commanded.”

  He might as well have been crossing his fingers behind his back for all the rebellion in his body language. But you couldn’t fault his answer. He sounded completely obedient—in word and tone.

  Those words, probably holdovers from some feudal ritual, were enough, for Darius nodded.

  “Let us eat, drink, and be merry.”

  He walked to Ethan, arm extended. In a move similar to one I’d seen Ethan and Malik make, Ethan extended his arm, as well, and they grasped forearms and shared a manly half hug.

  Whispering followed, quiet enough that I couldn’t make out the words.

  When the gesture was complete, Ethan and Darius exited the office. Morgan followed, then Scott. I was last out the door, but I didn’t make it very far.

  Morgan cornered me in the hallway, putting his hand on my arm to stop me. “She was my Master. I had to tell him.”

  I pulled my arm away. “No,” I whispered, “you didn’t have to tell him. You knew we were handling it, that we were investigating. What you apparently had to do was sell me—and my House—down the river because our relationship didn’t work out and you’re still pissed about it.”

  His eyes widened, but he didn’t comment.

  “I’m done helping you,” I told him. “We’re the ones fighting to keep the Houses, the city, together. I thought I could count on you as an ally, which is why I gave you the information. I thought it would help if we were all on the same page. I was obviously wrong about that, because you’d rather act like a stung fourteen-year-old than a grown-up.”

  “I am still a Master,” he said, puffing out his chest a little.

  “For Navarre, that remains to be seen, ’cause you’re letting Celina keep control. And as for me?” I leaned forward a little. “You’re not my Master.” I walked away, undoubtedly leaking a trail of magic behind me.

  I’d thought when Morgan took over Navarre that at least we wouldn’t have an enemy in place, someone who used people whenever the whim struck her. But as was the case with so many other things since I’d become a vampire, I’d been wrong.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  RED, RED WINE

  Our dinner party was assembled in another room accessible through the atrium, a space in the warehouse nearly as large as the joint office had been. This one looked like a room for special events; tonight, a single, rectangular table was set in the middle of the room, a handful of modern-style chairs surrounding it.

  Gabriel Keene, head of the North American Central Pack of shape-shifters, stood beside the table with his wife, Tonya. The Masters were already moving toward their chairs, having apparently already offered their introductions, which left the shifters to me.

  I walked toward them, ignoring the vampire behind me and the others in the room. I wouldn’t call Gabriel and Tonya friends per se, but Gabriel certainly had more foresight than Darius, which I could respect.

  “I understand congratulations are in order,” I said, offering them both a smile.

  Gabriel was as manly as they came—big, brawny, tawny-haired, and honey-eyed with a love of leather and fine Harleys—but his face beamed with paternal pride. “We have a beautiful baby boy at home,” he confirmed. “We appreciate the sentiment.”

  “It was nice of you to join us tonight,” I said with a teasing smile. “I can’t imagine you’d normally prefer vampire company to your newborn son’s.”

  Gabriel cast a suspicious glance at Darius and the others. I understood the feeling. “There are things in life we need to do,” he said, “and there are things in life we must do. Although I don’t anticipate we’ll stay very long.”

  Smiling, Tonya fished a tiny wallet out of her clutch. “Who could leave this face for long?” She held out a small photo of an admittedly adorable baby in a blue onesie. Gabriel smiled at the sight of the picture. He was clearly smitten.

  There was a wealth of pride and love in his eyes, but when he raised his gaze to me, I could see the hint of fear behind it. The fear that comes from loving something so much you feel weighted down with it, nearly crushed by it. The fear of potential loss, of potential heartbreak, that you might fail the thing you worked so hard to bring into the world.

  Parental fear, I suppose, made worse by the fact that being leader—Apex—of the Pack was hereditary. Connor was born a prince among wolves. He’d been born beneath a mantle of power, but also bearing the mantle of a responsibility he couldn’t even begin to fathom.

  It must have been a lot for Gabriel to bear, knowing the responsibility he’d one day hoist upon his child’s shoulders.

  “You’ll do right by him,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if the words were elegant enough, but they seemed right enough. And Gabriel’s small nod told me I’d said just the right thing.

  “How are things otherwise?”

  “Well, we aren’t being used as scientific experiments,” Gabriel said dryly. “That’s a small victory.” One of his concerns about announcing shifters’ existence to the world was the fear they’d become fodder for military or medical research—the kinds of things you saw in monster movies and horror flicks. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought, and I was glad to hear it hadn’t come to pass.

  “It’s not that I think humans don’t believe we’re threats,” he added. “They
just aren’t entirely sure what to do with us.”

  Shifters were generally considered the most powerful supernatural beings, at least of the groups I knew about so far. I considered humans’ ignorance on that point a benefit.

  “And the shifters who attacked the House?”

  His expression darkened. “They’re working their way through the penal system just like any average human criminal.”

  While I grimaced, Scott clapped his hands together. “Welcome, all, to Grey House. I appreciate your attendance here, and hope this can be a step toward friendship among us. Shall we dine?”

  Before we could answer, men and women in chef’s whites began pouring into the room bearing silver dome-topped trays. I took a seat beside Ethan as the trays were deposited before us. Two vampires traveled around the table with carafes of lemon water and bottles of a deep red wine, pouring as the vampires requested. Only Ethan, Jonah, and I opted for the wine; I guess we needed a drink worse than the others.

  Other vampires lifted the domes, revealing a meal that might have been described as

  “Predator’s Delight.” Loins, roasts, cutlets.

  Sausages, steaks, filets. All laid out with artistic perfection. Oh, to be sure, there were sides, as well. Small fingerling potatoes, corn, and a grain salad of some kind. But in a room of vamps and shifters—predators among humans—the carnivorous urge was undeniable.

  My stomach chose that moment to growl in a rumble that nearly echoed across the room.

  As my cheeks heated, all eyes turned to me. I smiled lightly.

  Gabriel smiled back, then lifted his water glass when the chefs disappeared from the room again.

  “Thank you, Mr. Grey, for the opportunity to share grain and beast with you. This is a meaningful gesture to us, and we hope our families can continue to commune in peace in the years to come.”

  “Hear, hear,” Darius said, raising his glass, as well. “We are now neighbors in this fine city, and we hope that our days of strife are behind us, and that we can work together in peace and allegiance for millennia to come.”

  Gabriel offered a polite nod and gestured with his glass again, but didn’t exactly commit to the

  “allegiance” bit. Vamps collected formal allegiances like baseball cards; shifters weren’t exactly crazy about that kind of thing.

  “And since I’d truly rather Merit focus on her meal than on me,” Gabriel said with a wink, “let’s stop talking and start eating.”

  But, of course, that would have been much too simple.

  I don’t know why it surprised me that Scott offered up a mean feast. The man loved the Cubs, he had an amazing warehouse turned House, and Benson’s was his House bar. Those facts screamed “Quality Master.”

  The food was no exception. The meats were choice cuts that even my particular father might have served to dinner guests. They were tender enough to make a knife irrelevant, and seared to perfection on the outside. He couldn’t have done better, especially for a group of predators.

  Honestly, if I’d been a guy, I would have finished my plate, relaxed in my chair, and unfastened the top button of my pants. Food that good deserved undisturbed digestion.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.

  I’d just taken another sip of wine—grimacing at how dry it was—when the door at one end of the room burst open. Five vampires rushed in, some in black street clothes, but a couple wearing blue and yellow hockey-style jerseys with GREY HOUSE in capital letters across the front. They all had swords in hand and malice in their expressions.

  “This is how you treat us?” asked one Grey House vamp who wore number thirty-two.

  “Some fucking shifter and his bitch get fed like kings?”

  The Grey House vamp on the other side wore number twenty-seven. “And the GP, too? Shit is falling down here in the States, and we’re serving steak to a vamp from the UK? Does that seem right to you?”

  Within seconds, my dagger was in hand. And I wasn’t the only one on alert.

  Scott Grey jumped out of his chair and marched to the end of the table. “Matt, Drew, back the fuck off. Drop the swords, and march right back to the door.”

  The Grey House vamps wavered, probably the result of some mental Master juju Scott was throwing their way. But the rest of them didn’t seem to be affected at all.

  I carefully got to my feet and moved toward them, spinning the dagger in my palm as the anticipation built. All five vamps wobbled a little on their feet, their movements erratic, their eyes darting around the room. As I moved incrementally closer, I could see the cause in their eyes—they were almost wholly silver.

  “Scott, it’s V,” I warned him.

  “Any easy solution for handling them?” he called back.

  “Not without a sorcerer,” I told him. “We’ll have to knock them out the old-fashioned way.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” Ethan said, stepping beside me, a knife from the table in his hand.

  “Nice of you to join us, Sullivan,” I teased, my gaze following the vamps as they spread out in a line, ready to rumble, whatever the cost. And with Darius, an Apex, and three Masters in the room, the cost would be high. . . .

  “Let’s go, old man,” Thirty-two said. “You want to fight your own vampires? You want to take his side over theirs?”

  “Liege,” Jonah said, “as your captain, I’m going to request you move into a safer position.”

  “Request it all you want, Red,” Scott told him, a mirthless smile on his face. “But that’s not going to stop me from putting these dumbshits in their places. That’s what they get for doing V.”

  Ditto what he said, Sentinel, Ethan silently told me. I suppose he wasn’t going to let me argue he should just sit this one out.

  The Grey House vamps seemed equally eager to brawl. “Oh, go to hell, man,” Twenty-seven said.

  “Only if you join me,” Scott said pleasantly, and before another second passed, the room erupted into violence. Jonah and Scott took the Grey House vamps. Gabriel, Darius, and Tonya were sitting this one out. That left the Rogues to me, Ethan, and Morgan.

  “I got the one in the middle,” I called out.

  “That leaves the other two for us,” Ethan said.

  “Greer, take the one on the left.”

  And with that, we moved. I slipped between the in-House squabble to the angry-looking Rogue behind them, his eyes just as silver as the Grey vamps’ had been. He was a big guy, and beads of sweat formed at his temple as he fought the rush of the drug. But this guy didn’t care whether it was rage or drugs fueling his attack.

  He bared his teeth and moved in.

  I had to give him credit—he was faster than I would have imagined given his bulk. He moved like a spider—his weight carried delicately on small, mincing feet.

  He slashed, stepping into the movement like a trained fighter. I blocked the knife with my dagger, but miscalculated his speed and felt the cold burn of pain on the back of my hand. My own blood scented the air, pushing my vampiric instincts into overdrive.

  I glanced down and saw the thin line of crimson. Only a couple of inches long and not terribly deep. It was a glancing blow, but that didn’t ease the burn.

  “Not cool,” I said, moving into a spin, the dagger in my hand slicing through the front of his shirt. He muttered a few choice phrases but jumped back again. I stayed on the offensive, my intent to make this guy as uncomfortable as possible—to keep him as off balance as possible —while watching for a chance to knock him out.

  “You think you’re any better than the rest of them?” he muttered, raising the sword over his head and slashing down. I jumped back and out of the way, but my heel caught in a knot in one of the planks. I stumbled backward and into one of the room’s giant wooden posts, catching myself with a hand.

  Ethan’s concerned voice echoed through my head. Sentinel.

  I’m fine, I assured him, then kicked off my shoes. A vamp didn’t need to fight in stilettos, anyway.

  When I
was upright again, I recentered the dagger in my hand and stared back at the vamp.

  “You were saying?”

  “Bitch,” he called out, swinging his katana in an awkward cross-body slice that would have been better suited for a broadsword than fine Japanese steel. And I cringed on its behalf as I ducked, and felt the echoing shudder of the column as his katana made contact—and stuck there. What a waste.

  I spun out from beneath him as he loosened his grip on the handle and began stepping backward, eyes widening as if suddenly aware that the Sentinel from Cadogan House was on his case.

  Maybe the drug was beginning to wear off.

  “I’m going to do you a solid,” I said, holding my dagger out to the side. “I’m going to toss this away, so we can have a fair fight.”

  I saw the relief in his expression as I chucked the steel. And when his eyes shifted to watch it spin across the floor, I made my move. I threw out a roundhouse kick that connected with his head. He went down hard, like a sack of vampire potatoes, then bounced a little before finally rolling to a stop.

  Sure, roundhousing someone while wearing a cocktail dress wasn’t exactly ladylike, but it certainly was effective.

  With my Rogue out of commission, I glanced over at Ethan. He was in the process of putting his on the floor with a twisting judostyle drop that rattled the floorboards. When he was down, Ethan used an elbow at the neck to knock him out.

  When the guy was still, he looked up at me, then noticed my guy was down. Roundhouse? he silently asked.

  It is a classic, I said, glancing up. The rest of the party crashers had been bested, as well, all five of them out cold on the floor.

  Jonah looked around the room, his gaze stopping when he reached me. “You okay?” he mouthed.

  I nodded back. That definitely seemed personal.

  “Scott,” Darius called out, “What the fuck was that?”

  Before Scott could answer, I filled in the blank. “With all due respect, Sire—those are your errant vampires.”

  Scott’s guards, including Jonah’s friends Jeremy and Danny, stormed the room not a moment later, pulling out the unconscious users. But they left the katana in the column—a visible sign to others in the House who might be stupid enough to try V.