“Don’t tempt me, Sentinel.”
I peeled off my suit jacket and dropped it onto the ground, then put my hands on my hips and, hopefully for the last time tonight, pulled out my vampire bravado. “Are you afraid you can’t handle me?”
His expression was priceless—equal parts tempted and irritated—the masculinity warring with the urge to tamp down the challenge to his authority. “Watch your mouth.”
“It was a legitimate question,” I countered.
Ethan was already walking closer, the smell of his blood growing stronger.
I won’t deny it—my hunger was perked. I’d bitten Ethan twice before, and both times had been memorable. Sensual, in ways I wasn’t entirely comfortable admitting. The scent of his blood triggered those memories again, and I knew my own eyes had silvered, even if I wasn’t thrilled about bring tempted.
“It was a childish question,” he growled out, taking another step forward.
“I disagree. If you want to fight, try a vampire.”
“Your attempts at being clever aren’t serving you, Sentinel.”
He moved within striking range, blood dripping from his right knuckles, which were split nearly to the bone. They’d heal, and quickly, but they must have hurt.
“And yet,” I said, squeezing my own hands into fists, “here you are.”
His eyes flashed silver. “Remember your position.”
“Does putting me in my place make you feel better?”
“I am your Master.”
“Yes, you are. In Hyde Park and in Creeley Creek, and wherever else vampires are gathered, you’re my Master. But out here, it’s just you and me and the chip Tate put on your shoulder. You can’t go back to the House like this. You’re pouring magic, and that’s going to worry everyone even more than they already are.”
There was a tic above his eyebrow, but Ethan held his tongue.
“Out here,” I quietly said, “it’s just you and me.”
“Then don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With no more warning, he offered up his favorite move, a roundhouse kick that he swiveled toward my head. But I dropped my arm and shoulder and blocked it.
That move thwarted, Ethan bounced back into position. “Don’t get cocky, Sentinel. You’ve only taken me down once.”
I tried a roundhouse of my own, but he dodged it, ducking and spinning around the kick, before popping up again. “Maybe so,” I said. “But how many Novitiates have beaten you before?”
He scowled and offered a jab combination that I easily rebuffed. For all the vampiric power we could put behind our shots, this wasn’t a real battle. This was play-fighting. The release of tension.
“Never fear,” he said. “You may have gotten me down, but I’ve been above you before, and I’m sure I’ll manage it again.”
He was being arrogant, letting the gentle, insistent veneer he’d been wearing lately slip.
But I’d managed to transmute his anger into romantic steam, which softened his punches.
I swatted away a halfhearted jab. “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not that kind of hungry.”
“My hopes, as you call them, are perpetually up when you’re in the vicinity.”
“Then I’ll try to stay farther away,” I sweetly responded.
“That won’t exactly be conducive to your standing Sentinel.”
“Neither will your being arrested,” I said, bringing him back to the point.
Ethan ran his hands through his blond locks, then linked his fingers together atop his head. “I am doing everything I can to keep the city together. And it’s only getting harder. And now, within a few hours, we see the ugly side of freedom of speech, we learn Chicago has a militia, and we discover Tate’s out for blood. My blood.”
My heart clenched in sympathy, but I resisted the urge to reach out to him. We were colleagues, I reminded myself. Nothing more.
“I know it’s frustrating,” I said, “and I know Tate was out of line with the warrant. But what can we do but try to solve the problem?”
Frowning, Ethan turned back to the lake, then walked toward it. The edge of the peninsula was terraced into stone rings that formed giant steps into the water. He shed his suit jacket, placing it gingerly on the stone ledge before sitting down beside it.
Was it wrong that I was a wee bit disappointed he didn’t just shed the shirt altogether?
When I joined him, he picked up a pebble and pitched it. Even with the chop, it flew like a bullet across the water.
“This doesn’t sound like a rave,” I said. “What Mr. Jackson described, I mean, at least not like how you’ve described them before. This didn’t sound like it was about seduction or glamour.
This isn’t some underground hobby.” As I waited for him to answer, I pushed the bangs from my face. The wind was picking up.
Ethan wound up and threw another pebble, the rock zinging as it skipped ahead. “Continue,” he said, and I incrementally relaxed. We were back to politics and strategy. That was a good sign.
“I’ve experienced First Hunger, and First Hunger Part Deux. There was a sensual component to both, sure, but at base they were about the blood—the thirst. Not about conquering humans or killing them.”
“We are vampires,” he dryly pointed out.
“Yes, because we drink blood, not because we’re psychopaths. I’m not saying there aren’t psychopathic vampires, or vampires who wouldn’t kill for blood if they were starving for it, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what happened here. It sounds like violence, pure and simple.”
Ethan was quiet for a moment. “The hunger for blood is antithetical to violence. If anything, it’s about seduction, about drawing the human closer. That is the quintessential purpose of vampire glamour.”
Glamour was old-school vampire mojo—the ability of vampires to entrance others, either by manipulating their targets or by adjusting their own appearances to make themselves more attractive to their victims. I couldn’t glamour worth a damn, but I seemed to have some immunity toward it.
“This is the second time raves have gotten us in trouble,” I pointed out. “We’ve avoided them until now, and it’s time we shut them down. But we can’t go in assuming this is some run-of-the-mill party that got out of hand. This just sounds . . . different. And if you want a silver lining, at least Tate’s giving you a chance to resolve the problem.”
“Giving me a chance? That’s putting it mildly.
He’s doing precisely what Nick Breckenridge attempted to do—blackmailing us into taking action.”
“Or he’s giving us an opportunity we didn’t have before.”
“How do you figure that?”
“He’s forcing our hands,” I said. “Which means that instead of tiptoeing around the GP and worrying what this House or that might think of us, we’re forced to get out there and do something about it. We get to spend some of that political capital you’re always harping about.”