“Second, I have said this to you once before, and this is the last time I’ll say it. You need to remember your position. I make no argument with the age or prestige of your House, Greer. But you have been a Master for less time than Merit has been a vampire, and you might recall that you owe your House to her, because your former Master saw fit to make an attempt on my life.” He stopped talking, but the look in his eyes said plenty that he’d left unspoken—that if Morgan did challenge Ethan again, Ethan would see that he suffered the consequences of it.
The room fell heavily silent. After a minute of continuing to flay Morgan with that narrowed gaze—and Morgan staring back defiantly—Ethan slowly lifted green eyes to me, and I saw something different there.
Respect.
My stomach clenched with the force of that look, of being looked to as an equal by someone who’d previously seen me as something much less. We’d become a kind of team, a Cadogan duo united against our foes.
“Now,” Ethan said, returning to his seat. “If they are shifters, how does that inform our investigation?”
“Maybe they’re protecting the weaker member,” Luc concluded. “They’ve been guarding Jamie, protecting Jamie, from this supposed threat against him. And from what I understand, that’s unusual for the Brecks. Jamie had previously been the black sheep. The aimless one. Maybe that’s why the Breckenridges were picked. Maybe someone knows something about Jamie, thought that made the family vulnerable.” He frowned. “Jamie could have a magic glitch. Maybe he can’t transform completely, maybe he can’t shift at will. Something.”
“If that’s true, Papa Breck has a problem,” Ethan concluded.
“And since Jamie’s still alive, Papa Breck has a secret,” Luc concluded.
I frowned at Luc. “What do you mean, since Jamie’s still alive?”
“The Packs are strictly hierarchical,” Noah explained. “The strongest members lead the Pack, the weaker members serve, or they’re culled.”
Culled. A politic way of suggesting the runts of the litter were put down. “That’s . . . horrible,” I said, my eyes wide.
“In human terms,” Noah said, “Maybe. But they aren’t human. They’re ruled by different instincts, have different histories, different challenges in their histories.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not sure it’s for us to judge.”
“Killing off members of your society?” I shook my head. “I’m fairly comfortable judging that, regardless of their history. Natural selection is one thing, but this is eugenics, social Darwinism.”
“Merit,” Ethan said. There was gentle chastisement in his voice. “Neither the time nor the place.”
I closed my mouth, accepted the criticism. I heard a disgusted sniff from Morgan’s side of the table, assumed he’d disagreed either with the chastisement or with my obeying it.
“Putting aside the ethics,” Ethan said, “Jamie is clearly still a part of the family. Either Gabriel doesn’t know, or he knows and doesn’t care.”
“Jesus Christ,” Scott said, scrubbing hands across his face. “It was bad enough when it was us against the Trib and the city of Chicago, but now we’re gonna face off against the goddamned North American Central? Greer was right,” he said, worry clear in his face. “We’re fucked.”
“Suggestions?” Ethan asked.
“Let me make a phone call,” I said, figuring I already owed Jeff one favor. One more wasn’t going to hurt.
Ethan looked at me for a moment, maybe deciding if he was willing to trust my judgment. He nodded. “Do it.”
I volunteered to meet Jeff at the door of Cadogan House. I figured he’d appreciate the personal attention and be a little more comfortable in a House of vampires if he had his own personal guard and attendant. At least, that’s how I explained it to him.
I stood in the doorway, arms crossed, waiting for the RDI guards to clear Jeff onto the property. He walked up wearing khakis and a long-sleeved, button-up shirt over his thin frame, the shirtsleeves rolled halfway to his elbows. His brown hair flopped as he bobbed up the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and a goofy grin on his face.
He hopped up the portico stairs and met me at the open door. There was a little more adoration in his eyes than I was comfortable with, but Jeff was doing us a big favor—particularly as a shifter, walking into a den of enemies—so I dealt.
“Hi, Merit.”
I smiled at him. “It’s about time you got here. Any news about the e-mail?”
“Yeah,” he said, casting a worried glance inside the House. “But not here. Too many ears.”
His answer didn’t bode well, but I took the hint. “I appreciate your coming over here. And spending your evening sourcing an e-mail.”
“That’s why they call me the Champ.”
I chuckled and moved aside to let him in the House. “Since when do they call you the Champ?”
He paused in the foyer as I closed the door behind us, and gave me a grin. “Remember how you and I are dating?”
“Right,” I solemnly said. “How’s that going, by the way?” I pointed the way toward Ethan’s office and he fell in step beside me, surveying the House and the scattering of vampires.
“Well, they do call me the Champ. I mean, my work is suffering, though.”
“Is it now?”
We reached the closed office door, and Jeff ran a hand through his hair. Nerves, I imagined, but he looked at me, laughed it off.
“Yeah, you tend to be a little . . . distracting. You know, with the hands. And always calling me, texting me.” He looked over at me, and while he smiled, fear tightened his eyes, marked the air with an astringent tang.
“When we go in there, I’m your Sentinel, too.”
This time he smiled, and I think a little of the tension went out of his shoulders.
“And you know what?” I asked him, clasping the doorknob.
He ran a hand through his hair again. “What?”
“You’re my most favorite shifter.”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “Not that I’m denying my manly appeal, but I’m the only shifter you know.”
“Actually, Jeff, that’s kind of our problem.” I opened the door, and in we went.
CHAPTER 20
THE RUNT OF THE LITTER
Although the rest of the vamps were still seated around the conference table, Luc had moved closer to the door and was leaning against the back of a leather chair when we walked in. I appreciated the move. This way, we could both escort Jeff to the table, give him protection from two sides. While Catcher had once assured me that Jeff could take care of himself, and having seen the depth of Nick’s fury, I didn’t doubt the shifter had it in him. But at twenty-one, he was younger, by far, than everyone else in the room, and the member of a group that wasn’t high on the vamps’ list of favorites right now. Even if there wasn’t much of a risk that we’d have to break out the weaponry, this ensured that the Masters kept their manners.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with us,” Ethan said, standing and extending a hand as we moved to the table. “Especially on such short notice.”
“No problem,” Jeff lightly said, taking his hand. “Glad I can help, I guess.” He sat down in an empty chair; I took the seat beside him.
Ethan smiled and turned back to the rest of the table. “I believe you know everyone here, but we’ll do the introductions for form.” He made the intros and the vampires responded graciously, probably because I gave everybody the evil eye, a warning against snarking back to our House guest.
Introductions complete, Jeff looked at Ethan, then me. “So, what do you want to know?”