Cadogan Initiate.
That was where Mallory found me—sitting on the kitchen floor, empty medical bags at my feet—minutes before the sun began to rise. She was prepped for work—black suit, heels, chunky jewelry, sassy handbag, blue hair a frame around her face.
Her smile faded. She crouched in front of me. “Merit? Are you okay?”
“I just drank three bags of blood.”
Dropping her purse at my feet, Mallory picked up an empty plastic bag with the tips of two fingers. “So I see that. How do you feel?”
I giggled. “Fine, I think.”
“Did you just giggle?”
I giggled again. “Nope.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you drunk?”
“On blood? No.” I swatted the idea with a hand. “It’s mother’s milk to me.”
Mallory picked up the other bag, then walked them both to the trash can and tossed them in. “Uh-huh.”
“And how are you? Feeling witchy?”
She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a soda, then popped the tab. “I’m adjusting. I guess I can say the same for you?”
I frowned, considering, then began counting off the events on my fingers. “Well, I found out my grandfather’s been lying for four years about his job. I met a sorcerer, met a shape-shifter of indeterminate origin, got propositioned by said shifter, found out I was almost the victim of a serial killer, almost got hit by these magical electric blast things, made out with Ethan, rejected Ethan, was threatened by Ethan.” I shrugged. “Pretty average day.”
Her mouth fell open, and she gaped at me until closing it with a click of teeth. “I don’t know where to start on all that. How about, your grandfather’s been lying?”
I pulled myself up from the floor, hands on the countertop to steady myself. It took a moment for my head to stop spinning—the aftereffects, I presumed, of drinking so much blood at one time. “Drink, please?”
Mallory went back to the fridge and grabbed another soda, held it up for my approval, and when I nodded, popped the top.
After she handed it over, I took a long pull, discovering to my delight that diet grape soda was a refreshing chaser to three pints of human blood. I thanked her for the drink, then filled her in on the Ombud and his slate of employees. I didn’t tell her about Catcher’s recommendation that Mallory get training. I decided the safer course of action was just to put the two of them in a room together—all that beauty and stubbornness—and watch the fur fly.
“I have to train tonight,” I told her. “I’m meeting Catcher at a gym on the Near North Side. You want to come along?”
She shrugged. “I could do that.”
“Do we need to talk about something? I mean, are we okay?”
Mallory smiled ruefully. “We’re fine. It’s not your fault I’m . . . whatever I am.”
“I bet Catcher has some answers for you.”
“That’d be nice.”
I finished my drink and tossed the can. “I need to be at the gym by eight thirty. But first I have to sleep. Dawn’s coming, you know.” I yawned, pointed out, “You haven’t asked me about kissing Ethan.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why would I need to? It’s obvious you have the hots for him.”
“No, I don’t.”
She gave me an obviously skeptical glare, in response to which I shrugged, lacking the energy to argue the point . . . and it would have required a heavy bit of lying and thickly laid self-denial anyway.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll indulge you since you recently became the walking dead. Was he good?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Technique? Skill? Hands?”
“High passes in all categories. Of course, after four hundred years, the boy’s gonna have some skills.”
“Quite a résumé,” she agreed. “And it wouldn’t matter if he was inexperienced and inept. Just being in the same room, you two melt the drapes. All that heat, it’s not surprising you came to blows again,” she added. “Didn’t land one, did you?”
I went silent.
“Merit?”
“He asked me to be his mistress.”
She just stared at me, openmouthed.
“Yeah.”
We stood quietly for a moment, until she moved to the refrigerator and grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer. She found a spoon, popped the ice-cream top, and handed the duo to me. “No one has ever deserved this more.”
I wasn’t sure that was true, but I took them both anyway and helped myself to a dose of Chunky Monkey.
Mallory leaned against the countertop, tapped a manicured finger against it. “You know, it’s kind of flattering in an ass-backward way. Even if he’s conflicted about it, he clearly finds you attractive.”
I nodded around a spoonful of ice cream. “Yeah, but he doesn’t like me. He admitted it. He’s just . . . kind of . . . accidentally attracted.”
“Were you tempted?”
I shrugged.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Merit.”
What could I have said? That even in the midst of it, some tiny bit of me, some little secret room in my heart (or more accurately, my loins), wanted to say yes? To finish out that kiss with caresses and something more, anything more, than a lonely day beneath cool, empty sheets?
“Not really.”
She cocked her head at me, seemed to evaluate that. “I can’t tell if you’re lying or not.”
“Neither can I,” I admitted around another spoonful of ice cream.