I laughed and walked into my bedroom. “Have fun with Romeo,” I told her, and shut the door behind me. In the cool quiet of the bedroom, it still being a couple of hours from dawn, I snagged back the blankets, lit the lamp next to the bed, and settled in with a book of fairy tales. It didn’t occur to me that given the current shape of my life, I didn’t need to read them. I was living them.
CHAPTER 8
FANGS MEAN NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY.
At sunset I woke to the smell of tomatoes and garlic, and trundled downstairs in my pajamas. The television blared, but the living room was empty. I shuffled into the kitchen and found Mallory and Catcher at the kitchen island, both tucking into plates of spaghetti with meat sauce. My stomach growled. “I don’t suppose there’s any of that left?”
“Stove,” Catcher said, gnawing on the end of a piece of baguette. “We left it out. Knew you’d be down.”
Did we? I wondered with a smile, and shuffled to the stove. I wasn’t sure how I felt about spaghetti for breakfast—or breakfast at nearly eight at night—but my stomach suffered no qualms, grumbling loudly as I poured the remains of the pot onto a plate. Seeking a drink, I went to the refrigerator to grab a soda. But my hand paused over the bags of blood, my teeth suddenly pulsing with the urge to sink into a bag. I touched my tongue to my teeth, felt the prick of my descended eyeteeth. Gone, though, was that raging, aggressive hunger I’d felt two days ago. Still, I pulled out a bag of type A and looked tentatively at Mallory and Catcher.
“I need blood,” I told them, “but I can take it somewhere else if you’re grossed out.”
Mallory chuckled and chewed a forkful of spaghetti. “You’re asking for permission to bite me? ’Cause you should know I don’t care about the other thing.”
I smiled gratefully and, permission granted, pulled a clean glass from the cabinet and filled it from the bag. I wasn’t sure how long to heat it, so I set the microwave timer for just a few seconds, popped it in, and closed the door. When it dinged, I nearly lurched forward in eagerness to get to it, and drained the glass in seconds. The blood had a faintly plasticky aftertaste, presumably from the bag, but it was well worth the trouble. I repeated the move—pour, heat, sip—until I’d drained the bag, then patted my stomach happily, took my plate of spaghetti, and pulled out a stool next to Catcher.
“That took all of three minutes,” he pointed out, sprinkling red pepper across his noodles.
“And was kind of anticlimactic,” Mal said, “since you just stared at the microwave the entire time. I figured you’d at least give some kind of invocation, maybe some gnawing the plastic. Growling.” She ate another forkful of spaghetti, then offered, “Clawing the ground. Barking.”
“I’m a vampire, not a corgie,” I reminded her and tucked into my own spaghetti. “So,” I offered, when I’d chowed a couple of tasty forkfuls. Say what you wanted about Catcher’s attitude, the boy could cook. “What happened around here today?”
“Mark’s going to start skydiving,” Catcher said. “Fortunately, we don’t have to care anymore.”
Mallory gave him a skewering glance. “I really wish you wouldn’t put it like that. He has feelings, you know.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“You could also temper that attitude a little,” Mallory warned, sliding off her stool. She dumped her plate in the sink and stalked out of the kitchen.
“Trouble in paradise?” I asked when she was gone, sliding Catcher a glance.
He lifted a shoulder. “She had Mark come over so she could break up with him in person. He was pretty upset. They both cried.”
“Ah.”
We ate silently until we’d cleaned our plates, and he put both in the sink. “Let’s give her some space. We’ll go to the gym. I’ll give you a couple of hours. Then I need to get to the office.”
“On a Saturday?”
He only shrugged in response. Catcher, I was learning, was a careful guard of information. The skill probably made him invaluable to my grandfather.
As we left the kitchen, I asked, “Can I hold your sword today?”
Catcher glanced back over his shoulder and lifted a brow.
“The sword,” I corrected. “The sword.”
“We’ll see.”
We trained for two hours, skipping the fitness evaluation and moving right into the basic moves Catcher had begun to teach me the day before. I’d always been a fast learner, a skill honed from the necessity of picking up dance routines quickly, but my muscle memory solidified even faster now, and the moves were nearly automatic by the time the session was done. That didn’t mean I was elegant or graceful, but I’d learned what to do, at least.
Catcher made halfway good on his promise to let me hold the sword. He wouldn’t let me touch the unsheathed blade, but he allowed me to strap on the belt that held the scabbard, before taking it away again to demonstrate how to draw and sheath the sword from a kneeling position. The moves he taught me, he explained, were similar to those in Iaido, and were designed to allow the sword bearer to react to a surprise—and thus dishonorable—attack. I almost asked why, if a surprise attack was so dishonorable, he needed to teach me how to defend against it. But I guessed the chip on his shoulder would color his answer, and I’d get a response about dishonorable vampires. So I didn’t bother to ask.
When Catcher was done with me, I changed back into street clothes and said my goodbyes. He left for my grandfather’s South Side office, while I opted to play the good little Cadogan vamp. I drove to Hyde Park with the intention of updating Ethan on the events of the day before. I wasn’t thrilled about seeing him again, not after our last encounter, but I had no doubt he’d come to hear about our activities at Red. And that tale, I thought, would be better coming directly from me. I wasn’t sure how to broach the issue of Morgan, of the fact that I’d flirted with a Navarre vamp not even twenty-four hours after our shared kiss and Ethan’s ignominious proposal, and decided as I walked into Cadogan House, his domain, that it was probably best not to mention it at all.
Ethan, the guards informed me, was in his office. I walked directly back and knocked on his door, although I was sure he’d been informed of my arrival. He barked out a Picard-worthy “Come,” and I walked inside and closed the office door behind me. Ethan, in his uniform á la Armani, was behind his desk, an open file folder in front of him. He stared intently at its contents, his eyes tracking across the page as he read.
“Look who’s come willingly into my den of iniquity.”
I relaxed incrementally, more than happy to accept sarcasm as the prevailing mood, and stopped in front of his desk. “Can I have a minute?”
“What have you done now?”
Evidently we were going to avoid the topic of our kiss altogether. Fine by me.
“Nothing, but thanks for that ringing vote of confidence. My ego’s all swelled up.”
“Hmmm,” he muttered with obvious doubt, his gaze still on the papers on his desk. “If you’re here willingly, and I didn’t hear any screaming from Malik’s having dragged you down the hallway, I assume you’ve”—he paused contemplatively—“resigned yourself to your fate?”
“I’m working on accepting the fact that I’m a vampire,” I said, perching on the edge of his desk.
“Our hearts are simultaneously aflutter,” Ethan responded, finally looking up, those haunting green eyes on me. He relaxed into his chair. “Although I can’t see that your wardrobe has improved.”
“I was training with Catcher Bell. He’s introducing me to the katas.”
“Yes. We’ve spoken about that. What brings you by?”
“An unpleasant run-in with Navarre vamps.”
Ethan watched me quietly for a moment, then folded his arms across his chest. “Explain.”
“I went to Red last night. You know the place?”
He nodded. “It’s the Navarre club.”
If only Catcher had mentioned that going in, I ruefully thought. But no sense in dwelling. “They let us in, Mallory, Catcher and me, but kicked us out when a Navarre vamp discovered I was from Cadogan.”
Ethan’s brow furrowed. “Since I doubt you spread the information yourself, how did they find out you were from Cadogan?”
“I met a vampire from Navarre—Morgan?”
A careful pause; then Ethan nodded again.
“He introduced himself, offered his House affiliation, and I did the same.”