Hard Bitten cv-4

by Хлоя Нейл

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Your eyes are silvered.” He looked back to Tate, probably suspected my hunger had been tripped. “What did you do to her?”

  I gripped the handle of my sword tighter, the cording biting into the skin of my palm, and forced myself to say the words.

  “Tate said you met with my father. That he paid you to make me a vampire.”

  I wanted him to tell me that it was a lie, just more falsehoods thrown out by a politician grasping at straws.

  But the words he said broke my heart into a million pieces.

  “Merit, I can explain.”

  Tears began to slide down my cheeks as I screamed out my pain. “I trusted you.”

  He stuttered out, “That’s not how it went—” But before he could finish his excuse, his eyes flashed to the side.

  Celina was moving again, a sharpened stake in hand. “I need to move,” she plaintively said. “I need to finish this now.”

  “Down, Celina,” Tate warned. “The fight isn’t yet yours.”

  But she wouldn’t be dissuaded. “She has ruined enough for me,” Celina said. “She won’t ruin this.” Before I could counter the argument, she’d cocked back her arm and the stake was in the air—and headed right for me.

  Without a pause, and with the speed of a centuries-old vampire, Ethan threw himself forward, his torso in front of mine, blocking the stake from hitting my body.

  He took the hit full on, the stake bursting through his chest.

  And through his heart.

  For a moment, time stopped, and Ethan looked back at me, his green eyes tight with pain. And then he was gone, the stake clattering to the ground in front of me. Ethan replaced by—transformed to—nothing more than a pile of ash on the floor.

  I didn’t have time to stop or think.

  Celina, now fully feeling the effects of the V, was moving again, a second stake in hand. I grabbed the stake she’d thrown, and praying for aim, I propelled it.

  My aim was true.

  It struck her heart, and before a long second had passed, she was gone, as well. Just as Ethan had fallen, there was nothing left of her but a pile of ash on the carpet. My instinct for preservation replaced by shock, I glanced down.

  Two tidy cones of ash lay on the carpet.

  All that was left of them.

  She was dead.

  He was dead.

  The realization hit me. Even as others rushed into the room, I covered my mouth to hold back the scream and fell to my knees, strength gone.

  Because he was gone.

  Malik, Catcher, my grandfather, and two uniformed officers burst into the room. Luc must have called them. I looked back at Tate, still behind his desk, a peppery bite of magic in the air but no other sign that he was even vaguely worried by what had gone down in his home.

  No way was I letting this go unpunished. “Tate was distributing V,” I said, still on the floor. “He drugged Celina, let her out of jail. She’s gone.” I looked down at the ash again. “She killed Ethan—he jumped in front of me. And then I killed her.”

  The room went silent.

  “Merit’s grieving,” Tate said. “She’s confused the facts.” He pointed at Paulie, who was now rushing toward a window on the other side of the room. “As I believe you already know, that man was responsible for distributing V. He just confessed as much.”

  Paulie sputtered as the officers pulled him away from the window. “You son of a bitch. You think you can get away with this? You think you can use me like this?” He pulled away from the uniforms, who just managed to wrestle him to the floor before he jumped on Tate.

  “This is his fault,” Paulie said, chest-down on the floor, lifting his head just enough to glare at Tate. “All of this was his doing. He arranged the entire thing—found some abandoned city property for the warehouse, found someone to mix the chemicals, and set up the distribution network.”

  Tate sighed haggardly. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Mr. Cermak.” He looked over at my grandfather, sympathy in his expression. “He must have been sampling his own wares.”

  “You think I’m dumb?” Cermak asked, eyes wild. “I have tapes, you asshole. I recorded every conversation we’ve ever had because I knew—I just knew—that if worse came to worst, you’d throw me to the wolves.”

  Tate blanched, and everyone in the room froze, not quite sure what to do.

  “You have tapes, Mr. Cermak?” my grandfather said.

  “Dozens,” he said smugly. “All in a safe-deposit box. The key’s around my neck.”

  One of the uniforms fished inside Cermak’s shirt, then pulled out a small flat key on a chain.

  “Found it,” he said, holding it up.

  And there was the evidence we needed.

  All eyes turned to Tate. He adjusted his collar.

  “I’m sure we can clear this up.”

  My grandfather nodded at Catcher, and they both stepped toward Tate. “Why don’t we discuss this downtown?”

  Four more officers appeared at the office door.

  Tate took them in and nodded at my grandfather.

  “Why don’t we?” he said politely, eyes forward as he strode from the room, a sorcerer, an ombudsman, and four CPD officers behind him.

  The first two uniforms led Paulie away.

  Silence descended.

  Probably only minutes had passed since I’d thrown the stake. But the minutes felt like hours, which felt like days. Time became a blur that moved around me, while I—finally—had become still.

  I stayed on my knees on the lush carpet, hands loose in my lap, completely helpless before the remains of two vampires. I was vaguely aware of the grief and hatred that rolled in alternating waves beneath my skin, but none could penetrate the thick shell of shock that kept me upright.

  “Merit.” This voice was stronger. Harsher. The words—the base, flat, hopeless sound of Malik’s words—drew up my eyes. His were glassy, overlaid with an obvious sheen of grief, of hopelessness.

  “He’s gone,” I said, inconsolable. “He’s gone.”

  Malik held me as the ashes of my enemy and my lover were collected in black urns, as they were sealed and carefully escorted from Tate’s office.

  He held me until the room was empty again.

  “Merit. We need to go. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

  It took me a moment to realize why he was there. Why Malik was on the floor beside me, waiting to escort me home.

  He’d been Second to Ethan.

  But he was Second no longer.

  Because Ethan was gone.

  Grief and rage overpowered shock. I’d have hit the floor if Malik hadn’t put his arms around me, holding me upright.

  “Ethan.”

  I struggled, tears beginning to stream down my face, and pushed against them to get away.

  “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!” I whimpered, cried, made sounds better suited to the predator than the girl, and thrashed against him, skin burning where his hands clamped my arms. “Let me go!”

  “Merit, stop. Be still,” he said, this new Master, but all I could hear was Ethan’s voice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  LETTING GO

  That night we mourned publicly: eight enormous Japanese taiko drums lined the sidewalk outside the House, their players beating a percussive dirge as Ethan’s ashes were moved into the House.

  I watched the progression from the foyer. Out of respect, and to guard Ethan’s progression into the afterlife, Scott and Morgan took the lead, Malik behind them, a new Master engaged in his first official act—transporting the remains of his predecessor into a secured vault in the Cadogan basement.

  When the urns were placed inside and the vault was closed and locked again, the rhythm of the drums changed from fast and angry, to slow and mournful, covering the range of emotions I slipped through as the night wore on.

  The grief was heavy and exhausting, but it was equally matched by anger and fear. As much as I grieved Ethan�
�s loss, I was afraid that he’d communed with my father, sold me into a life of vampirism to ease some financial concern.

  I wanted to rail at him. Scream at him. Cry and yell and bang my fists against his chest and demand that he exonerate himself, take it back, prove his innocence to me.

  I couldn’t, because he was gone.

  Life—and mourning—went on without him.

  The House was draped in long sheets of black silk like a Christo sculpture. It stood in Hyde Park like a monument to grief, to Ethan, to loss.

  We also mourned privately, in a House-only ceremony by the shores of Lake Michigan.

  There were circles of stones along the trail beside the lake. We gathered at one of them, all wearing the black of mourning. Lindsey and I stood beside each other, holding hands as we stared out at the glassy water. Luc stood at her other side, his fingers and hers intertwined, grief breaking down the walls Lindsey had built between them.

  A man I didn’t know spoke of the joys of immortality and the long life Ethan had been fortunate enough to live. Regardless of its length, life never quite seemed long enough. Especially when the end was selected—perpetrated—by someone else.

  Malik, wearing a mantle of grief, carried bloodred amaranth to the lakeshore. He dropped the flowers into the water, then looked back at us. “Milton tells us in Paradise Lost that amaranth bloomed by the tree of life. But when man made his mortal mistake, it was removed to heaven, where it continued to grow for eternity.

  Ethan ruled his House wisely, and with love. We can only hope that Ethan lives now where amaranth blossoms eternally.”

  The words spoken, he returned to his wife, who clutched his hand in hers.

  Lindsey sobbed, releasing my hand and moving into Luc’s embrace. His eyes closed in relief, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  I stood alone, glad of their affection. Love bloomed like amaranth, I thought, finding a new place to seed even as others were taken away.

  A week passed, and the House and its vampires still grieved. But even in grief, life went on.

  Malik took up residence in Ethan’s office. He didn’t change the decor, but he did station himself behind Ethan’s desk. I heard rumblings in the halls about the choice, but I didn’t begrudge him the office. After all, the House was a business that he needed to run, at least until the receiver arrived.

  Luc was promoted from Guard Captain to Second. He seemed more suited for security and safety than executive officer or would-be vice president, but he handled the promotion with dignity.

  Tate’s deputy mayor took over for the city’s fallen playboy, who was facing indictment for his involvement with drugs, raves, and Celina.

  Navarre House mourned her loss. The death of Celina, as a former Master and the namesake of the House, was treated with similar pomp and circumstance.

  I got no specific rebuke from the GP for being the tool of her demise, but I assumed the receiver would have thoughts on that, as well.

  The drama had no apparent end.

  Through all of it, I stayed in my room. The House was virtually silent; I hadn’t heard laughter in a week. We were a family without a father. Malik was undoubtedly competent and capable, but Ethan, as Master, had turned most of us. We were biologically tied to him.

  Bound to him.

  Exhausted by him.

  I spent my nights doing little more than bobbing in the sea of conflicting emotions. No appetite for blood or friendship, no appetite for politics or strategy, no interest in anything that went on in the House beyond my own emotions and the memories that stoked them.

  My days were even worse.

  As the sun rose, my mind ached for oblivion and my body ached for rest. But I couldn’t stop the thoughts that circled, over and over, in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And because I grieved, because I mourned, I didn’t want to. Events and moments replayed in my mind—from my first sight of him on the first floor of Cadogan House to the first time he beat me in a fight; from the expressions on his face when I’d taken blood from him to the fury in his expression when he’d nearly fought a shifter to keep me from presumed harm.

  The moments replayed like a filmstrip. A filmstrip I couldn’t, however exhausted, turn off.

  I couldn’t face Malik. I don’t know what he’d known before following Ethan onto campus that night, but I couldn’t imagine he didn’t wonder about the strangeness of the task—or its origin. I wouldn’t deny him the right to run the House as he saw fit, but I wasn’t ready to make declarations of his authority over me. Not without more information. Not without some assurance that he hadn’t been part of the team who’d sold me to the highest bidder. My anger became a comfort, because at least it wasn’t grief.

  For seven nights, Mallory slept on the floor of my room, loath to leave my side. I was hardly capable of acknowledging her existence, much less anything else. But on the eighth night, she’d apparently had enough.

  When the sun slipped below the horizon, she flipped on the lights and ripped the blanket off the bed.

  I sat up, blinking back spots. “What the hell?”

  “You’ve had your week of lying around. It’s time to get back to your life.”

  I lay down again and faced the wall. “I’m not ready.”

  The bed dipped beside me, and she put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re ready. You’re grieving, and you’re angry, but you’re ready. Lindsey said the House is down another guard since Luc took over as Second. You should be down there helping out.”

  “I’m not ready,” I protested, ignoring her logic. “And I’m not angry.”

  She made a sound of incredulity. “You’re not?

  You should be. You should be pissed right now.

  Pissed that Ethan was in cahoots with your father.”

  “You don’t know that.” I said the words by habit. By now, I was too numb and exhausted with grief and rage to care.

  “And you do? You were human, Merit. And you gave up that life for what? So some vampire could put a little extra cash into his coffers?”

  I looked up as she popped off the bed, holding up her arms. “Does it look like he’s hurting for money?”

  “Stop it.”

  “No. You stop mourning for the guy who took your humanity. Who worked with your father—your father, Merit—to kill you and remake you in his image.”

  Anger began to itch beneath my skin, warming my body from the inside out. I knew what she was doing—trying to bring me back to life—but that didn’t make me any more happy about it.

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “If you believed that, you’d be out there, not in this musty room stuck in some kind of stasis. If you believed he was innocent, you’d be mourning like a normal person with the rest of your Housemates instead of in here afraid of the possible truth—that your father paid Ethan to make you a vampire.”

  I stilled. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know because it might be true.”

  “I know, honey. But you can’t live like this forever. This isn’t a life. And Ethan would be pissed if he thought you were spending your life in this room, afraid of something you’re not even sure he did.”

  I sighed and scratched at a paint mark on the wall. “So what do I do?”

  Mallory sat beside me again. “You find your father, and you ask him.”

  The tears began anew. “And if it’s true?”

  She shrugged. “Then at least you’ll know.”

  It was barely after dusk, so I called ahead to ensure my father was home before I left . . . and then I drove like a bat out of hell to get there.

  I didn’t bother to knock, but burst through the front door with the same level of energy I’d applied to my week of denial. I even beat Pennebaker, my father’s butler, to the sliding door of my father’s office.

  “He’s occupied,” Pennebaker said, staring dourly down from his skeletal height when I put a hand on the door.

  I glanced over at him. “He’ll see me,” I assured h
im, and pushed the door open.

  My mother sat on a leather club chair; my father sat behind his desk. They both stood up when I walked in.

  “Merit, darling, is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Give us a minute.”

  She looked at my father, and after a moment of gauging my anger, he nodded. “Why don’t you arrange for some tea, Meredith?”

  My mother nodded, then walked to me, put a hand on my arm, and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

  “We were sorry to hear about Ethan, darling.”

  I offered up as much gratitude as I could. At this point, there wasn’t much.

  When the sliding door closed, my father looked at me. “You managed to get a mayor arrested.”

  His voice was petulant. He’d been supporting Tate for years; now he had to build up a relationship with the new deputy mayor. I imagine he wasn’t pleased by that.

  I walked closer to his desk. “The mayor managed to get himself arrested,” I clarified. “I just caught him in the act.”

  My father humphed, clearly not mollified by the explanation.

  “In any event,” I said, “that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then what brings you by?”

  I swallowed down a lump of fear, finally lifting my gaze to him. “Tate told me you offered Ethan money to make me a vampire. That Ethan accepted, and that’s why I was changed.”

  My father froze. Fear rushed me, and I had to grip the back of the chair in front of me to stay upright.

  “So you did?” I hoarsely asked. “You paid him to make me a vampire?”

  My father wet his lips. “I offered him money.”

  I crumpled, falling to my knees as grief overwhelmed me.

  My father made no move to comfort me, but he continued. “Ethan said no. He wouldn’t do it.”

  I closed my eyes, tears of relief sliding down my cheeks, and said a silent prayer.

  “You and I don’t get along,” my father said. “I haven’t always made the best decisions when you were concerned. I’m not apologizing for it—I had high expectations for you and your brother and sisters. . . .” He cleared his throat.