Dark Debt

by Chloe Neill

  Balthasar’s voice was a cobra’s hiss. “You would do well to release me.”

  “You’d do well to remember where you are. In my House, in my city, surrounded by my people.”

  “Your people?” Balthasar said. “I made you, mon ami, and a continent will not sever the bond between us. They are mine as much as yours.”

  “You misunderstand the nature of things.” Holding Balthasar back with one arm, Ethan pulled a small dagger from his jacket with his free hand, held it in front of Balthasar’s face.

  “They are my people, every one of them, blood and bone, mind and soul. I will warn you once, and only once, to stay away from them. I am not the child you once knew. My priorities have changed, as has my willingness to act.”

  This was Ethan at his fiercest. If there’d been any doubts that vampires were alpha predators, the swirling fury in his eyes, the gleaming fangs would have erased them.

  “Do yourself a favor,” Ethan said. “Leave Chicago tonight, and don’t look back.”

  The office door burst open. Lindsey, Brody, and Kelley—another Cadogan guard—walked inside, swords in hand.

  Ethan slammed the dagger into the wood beside Balthasar’s temple, where it vibrated with force. And still Balthasar’s expression didn’t change. “Bored contempt” seemed the most accurate description.

  Ethan stepped back, kept his malevolent glare on his maker. “Get him out of here. Now.”

  Balthasar stepped away from Ethan as the guards surrounded him.

  “I will take my leave from your House tonight,” he said. “But I’m only just getting acquainted with your fair city.”

  Luc gestured toward the door with his katana’s curving blade, and Balthasar followed without comment. But he turned back in the doorway, found my gaze.

  “Our reunion, so sweet, has only just begun. Until we meet again.”

  And then he disappeared.

  * * *

  “Have him followed,” Ethan told Malik. “Find out where he’s staying, who else knows he’s here. I want someone on him—vampire and human—at all times.”

  Malik nodded, then rose and disappeared into the hallway to do a different kind of Master’s bidding.

  Ethan, still across the room—the distance heavy between us—looked at me. “You’re all right?”

  I swallowed, worked to collect my thoughts. “He glamoured me. He called me. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be immune. I was immune.”

  A line of worry between his eyes, Ethan moved to the small refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of blood, uncapped it, and brought it back to me. “Drink.”

  “I’m not thirsty.”

  “The blood will help eliminate the remaining magic. Take it from someone who knows—you’ll feel more yourself afterward.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “Just drink the damn blood, Merit.” His tone was sharp, his words quick and angry.

  “Why him? Why now, when I’ve been immune to everyone else?”

  Ethan sighed, sat down beside me. “I’m not certain. He is powerful. A master manipulator. Perhaps his brush with death keened his abilities, or he practiced them in the intervening years. Or it could be the flavor of the magic.” He paused. “Or it could be my fault.”

  I looked at him, saw the pinched fear and concern in his eyes. “What he did isn’t your fault.”

  “Not Balthasar per se,” Ethan said. “Your reaction.” He pushed a lock of long, dark hair behind my ear, gaze tracking my face as if checking for injuries, evaluating my psyche. “The drugs. Your change.”

  My transition to vampire hadn’t been easy or smooth. Ethan had made me a vampire to save me from an attack. A noble deed, I could recognize now, but at the time I hadn’t been able to consent. Feeling guilty about that, Ethan had given me drugs to help me through the cruelly painful transition. For most vampires, it was three days of bone-searing pain; for me, it was mostly a blur.

  Unfortunately, in addition to protecting me from pain, it also kept me from fully transitioning to vampire, so my psyche was still split between human and vampire. They were slammed back together eventually, but maybe, as Ethan feared, there were other lingering effects, such as my immunity to glamour. And maybe Balthasar’s magic had been the hammer that slammed that sensitivity back into place.

  “We’d always thought you’d just been stubborn,” Ethan said. “But perhaps the reasons were more fundamental than that.”

  I heard the guilt in his voice. “No. Balthasar did this because he wanted to prove a point.”

  “That he could get to you, and me,” Ethan agreed. “Glamour is a trait intended to entice and manipulate prey. That he used it against you, against both of us, was cruel. Drink,” he said again. “You’ll feel better. And you don’t want me to make you drink it.”

  I glanced at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  His expression didn’t change, so it seemed wise not to argue. I sat up and, with my eyes on him above the rim, drank.

  He was right. It took the edge off, neutralized some of Balthasar’s discomforting effect on me.

  When I drained the bottle, I handed it back to Ethan, and he put it aside. “Good,” he said. “Your color’s already coming back.”

  “I didn’t mean to kiss him.” The words burst out in a bubble of sound, and even I could hear the strain of guilt in my voice. I hadn’t meant to kiss Balthasar, but in that moment, I’d desired nothing less. “I didn’t want to. Not really. I’d have done anything he asked. He had control over every part of me—mentally, emotionally, physically.”

  Ethan frowned at me. “Do you think I’d blame you for that? For what he did to you?” He shook his head ruefully. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner. That he got as far as he did. His magic . . . There’s power in it.”

  He was angry at himself, believing he’d somehow failed to protect me. Since he’d been the one who intervened, who’d stopped Balthasar from drinking, he couldn’t be further from the truth.

  His arms moved around me, pulled me close. “Glamour is, and always will be, a weapon, no matter how prettily dressed.”

  A frighteningly powerful weapon.

  “I’m not really sure how to feel. It felt like a violation. And it felt wonderful. And that makes me feel guilty.”

  He gently tilted my chin so our eyes met. “Glamour is intended to make you feel good, to make the idea of vampire feel wonderful. It wouldn’t be very useful if it didn’t. You are not to blame for your perfectly natural reaction.”

  I nodded, but that didn’t relieve the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I liked it better when I was immune.”

  “I wouldn’t have had you discover it like this.” He smiled a little. “Not that you had any more interest in glamour at your lively Commendation than you did tonight.”

  As he’d intended, a corner of my mouth lifted. “And I didn’t like you very much then.”

  “No, you did not.”

  Luc appeared at the doorway, Malik beside him. He surveyed the room, looked at me. “You’re all right?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine.”

  Luc nodded. “Lindsey and one of the human guards are on Balthasar. They’ll keep tabs, and we’ll cover him in shifts.” He glanced at Ethan. “You believe his story?”

  One arm across my shoulders, Ethan dropped his head back to stare at the coffered ceiling. “His explanation was internally consistent, and explains his absence rationally. You should still verify, confirm what we can.” He lifted his head again, glanced at broken bookshelves, the shattered mementos, appropriately metaphorical. “But he’s here now, so his explanation for his absence matters less than the reason for his presence.”

  “And what do you think that is?” Luc asked.

  “To best me? To lay claim to whatever throne he believes he’s entitled to?”

&nbs
p; “So revenge and power,” Luc said. “Those are perennial vampire favorites.”

  “Of his as well,” Ethan said, rubbing his temples with his free hand.

  “We could call Nicole,” Malik said wryly, and Ethan barked a laugh.

  “To thank her for sending him our way?”

  “You think she knew?” I asked.

  “I think he’s canny enough to have visited her first, confirmed he had an ally, before coming here.”

  “She could have arranged to have the note left in our apartment while she was here for the Testing,” I guessed.

  Ethan nodded, and then his eyes narrowed. He glanced between me, Luc, and Malik. “If she knew he was alive, and if she knew it during the Testing . . .”

  “Is he the reason she abolished the GP and created the AAM?” Malik finished, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Luc sat on the arm of the chair across from us. “And how much of her maneuvering was just to give Balthasar a second chance?”

  Ethan sighed. “We all knew she had ulterior motives—that she didn’t propose the AAM because she’s magnanimous.”

  “Did she say anything about it last week?” Malik asked.

  “No,” Ethan said. The country’s Masters had met in Atlanta, Nicole’s home, for the AAM’s first meeting and to discuss the organization’s building blocks: its location, its procedures, its decision-making apparatus, its finances, the possibility of holding a formal ceremony to celebrate the organization’s creation. I’d missed that particular trip—Luc had accompanied Ethan as his body man. From the riveting discussions of parliamentary procedure I’d had with Ethan afterward, I hadn’t missed much.

  “The meeting was just as you’d expect a meeting of twelve egotistical and strategy-motivated vampires to be. If she’s trying to maneuver us into some position to support Balthasar, she didn’t show her hand.”

  “Next planning meeting is next week,” Luc said. “Maybe this is step one.”

  “I don’t know if I buy that theory,” I said, looking between them. “To go through Testing, the election, the disbanding of the GP, setting up the AAM—all the work you’ve done in the last few weeks to get the organization up and running—there are easier ways to get power to Balthasar.” I shrugged. “Hell, she could have just supported him as a candidate for Darius’s position.”

  “That’s a point,” Luc agreed.

  “Maybe you should call her,” Malik said. “Acknowledge he is here. Find out what you can. Get it out in the open.”

  “That’s what she said,” I murmured, but loud enough for Luc to hear and grin approvingly.

  “Nice, Sentinel.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “You two have clearly been spending too much time together.”

  “Two-a-days,” we said simultaneously.

  “You train more, you bond more,” Luc said. “It’s part of my trademarked regimen: ‘Luc90X.’”

  “That’s not a thing,” Malik said, “and it’s not trademarked. It’s probably a trademark violation.”

  “Details.”

  “Children,” Ethan said, standing and glancing at his watch. “Dawn is coming soon, and I think we’ve had plenty of excitement for one night.”

  “Yes,” Luc said, rising at the obvious signal. “Let that be a lesson to you about attempting to leave the House and have a private life.”

  “We’ll keep our relationship purely professional in the future,” I promised, which earned scoffs from all three of them.

  “Tell that to the man who defended your honor with French and a blade earlier this evening,” Malik said. He had a valid point.

  Reminded of the blade, Ethan walked across the room, plucked it from the wall with a fist, slipped it into a nearby drawer. “Let’s reconvene at dusk to discuss what we’ve learned about Balthasar, what we may need to prepare for.”

  “On it, hoss,” Luc said, then glanced at me. “Assuming your ‘purely professional’ schedule allows, you’ve got small blade practice tomorrow.”

  Of course I did. Because God forbid I missed a night of Luc90X.

  “She’ll see you then,” Ethan assured them. And the second they were gone, his arm was around my waist, and he’d snugged me against the hard line of his body.

  Before I could react, his mouth was on mine, firm and possessive, passionate and insistent. He pushed me beyond thinking, into that sweet oblivion where there was only sensation, only the feel and smell and taste of him.

  When he pulled back, nipping my lip in a final tease, both of us were breathing heavily.

  “Always remember,” he said. “Real lust beats old magic any day.”

  There was applause from the doorway. I turned around, found Catcher and Mallory offering a slow clap at the sight of us.

  Chapter Four

  BOSOM BUDDIES

  “What was I saying about lust beating magic?” Ethan asked quietly, and I patted his chest.

  “Down, boy,” I said, and waved them in.

  “We heard you’ve had an evening,” Catcher said. “Malik called Chuck, gave him a heads-up. We were closer to the House, so we stopped by to check in on things. Balthasar, eh?”

  “So it seems.”

  “Magic?”

  “As you’d expect,” Ethan said, and slid his gaze to me. “And glamour that managed to penetrate Merit’s defenses.”

  Or destroy them, I feared. And I didn’t like the thought of Balthasar penetrating anything of mine, psychic or otherwise.

  Catcher looked at me, head tilted and brow furrowed, as if I were a puzzle to decipher. “He changed her immunity?”

  “Or slipped past it, yes,” Ethan said.

  I waved a hand. “Still in the room.” But they were too involved in their analysis to care. Mallory walked over, rolled her eyes at their single-mindedness. She handed me a picnic basket.

  “Thought we’d return this,” she said. “Margot knocked it out of the park, as always.”

  I nodded, put the basket on Ethan’s desk. “She tends to do that.” I thought of the announcement they’d wanted to make. “Are you guys okay? Did you want to talk about something?”

  She looked back at Catcher, opened her mouth as if to answer, but quickly closed it again. “We’re good. We’ll talk about it later. Really,” she added. “It’s no big deal. But this is.” Concern crossed her face. “You okay about this Balthasar thing?”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “It was, I don’t know, scary in a different kind of way. Not Catcher-throwing-fireballs scary, or even Ethan-facing-a-fiery-death scary.”

  “It was dark-spike-right-into-your-soul scary?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. That’s pretty much it exactly.” Since she’d been assaulted by a serial killer, of course she’d have understood.

  I lowered my voice. Ethan was upset enough that I didn’t want to burden him with my lingering fear. “It was . . . personal.”

  She reached out, squeezed my hand. “I’ve been there. Feels good when you really don’t want it to?”

  I couldn’t stop the flush that warmed my neck, but nodded. “I don’t know how he’s cooking up that glamour, but he’s very, very good at it.”

  “Where’s he been?” Catcher asked Ethan, who took a seat on the couch, gestured for them to join us. Mallory squeezed my hand again before releasing it, moving to sit in the chair beside Catcher’s. I took my now-familiar seat on the couch next to Ethan.

  “According to him, he was kidnapped by a cult, tortured, incapacitated by extract of aspen.”

  “You have doubts?”

  “About his identity? I hardly could after tonight’s display. For the period in between? Well, he’s never been terribly well acquainted with the truth.”

  That was very diplomatic, I said silently to Ethan, and felt his answering warmth.

  I am trying to remember,
as a wise vampire once told me, that I am more than he tried to make me.

  I’d been that vampire and appreciated the shout-out.

  “So, what’s the next step?” Mallory asked.

  “I told him to leave the city,” Ethan said. “I suspect he won’t.”

  “And why’s he here?” Catcher asked.

  Ethan sighed, draped an arm along the back of the couch. “Hard to say at this early point, but add power, revenge, and possessiveness to the list. He said he wouldn’t leave, but I’m not yet sure if that’s because he wants to irritate me, finagle his way into our House and finances, or both.”

  “That’s comforting,” Mallory said, and Ethan nodded.

  “He’ll be well monitored, but to some extent we’ll have to wait for him to make a move.”

  “You could,” Catcher said. “Or you could provoke him into making one.”

  When Ethan’s expression didn’t change, I guessed he’d already considered that particular strategy.

  I glanced at Ethan. “You’ve come up with a plan.”

  “I’m considering disavowal.”

  “Damn,” Catcher said, shifting in his seat. “I haven’t heard that word in a while.”

  I’d never heard it, but I had seen it in print in the Canon, the collection of vampire lore and laws. Every House Initiate got a desk reference, and the entire set of books—dozens of volumes—were stored in the House’s second-floor library, one of its most spectacular rooms.

  “What’s disavowal?” Mallory asked.

  “It’s when a vampire publicly repudiates the one who made him,” I said, earning Ethan’s approving nod. “Being given immortality, whatever the circumstances, is considered a gift. It creates a bond—magically, biologically, politically—between the vampires. Disavowal severs the bond. It’s considered an extreme action, an action of last resort, and ethically questionable.”

  “So, technically,” Mallory said, “you could have disavowed Darth Sullivan?”

  The question—and the nickname we used for him—was out before she’d realized what she’d said. She mouthed a curse, squeezed her eyes closed. “Crap.”

  Ethan sat up straight, slowly turned his gaze to me. “Darth Sullivan?”