“Nice,” she complimented. “You clean up very, very nicely.”
I shrugged and let her adjust the cuffs on the pant legs and collar of my shirt, then check my teeth for lipstick.
“All right. Final test. Let’s go.”
Because I was unused to walking in heels, she helped me downstairs, then made me stand at the foot of the stairs while she moved into the living room. “Gentleman, I present the newest member of Cadogan House, Chicago’s smartest vampire—Merit!”
I was disappointed she hadn’t named me “Chicago’s sexiest vampire,” but took what I could get and moved forward when she motioned me to do so. Jeff and Catcher sat on the couch, Jeff nearly propelling himself off it when I stepped into the living room.
“Woot, woot!” he yelled. “You look good enough to eat!”
I slid Mallory a glance. “He’s your test? He thinks anything with breasts looks good.”
“Since you don’t qualify, that’s why I asked him over.”
I gave her a juvenile face and cupped my breasts protectively. There wasn’t much to them, but they were mine, damn it. I dropped my hands when Jeff stood in front of me, grinning boyishly.
“You look ho-ot. Sure you don’t wanna drop this vampire business and join the Pack? We’ve got better . . . insurance.”
I grinned at him, positive that “insurance” hadn’t been the first suggestion on his mind, but was actually prompted by the finger Catcher poked between his shoulder blades. But I thanked him and held out my arms to Catcher.
“Good luck,” he offered, hugging and releasing me. “You decided yet what you’re going to do about the oaths?”
“Not yet,” I admitted, the question alone churning my nerves. As if on cue, a knock sounded at the door. Jeff, who was closest, pulled it open. A liveried driver tipped the cap on his head.
“Ms. Merit, please, bound for Cadogan House.”
I blew out a slow breath, trying to calm the fear that was making a tangled mess of my stomach, and turned nervous eyes to Mallory. She smiled and held out her hands, and I moved into her fierce hug. “My little girl’s growing up.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, which I’m sure was her intention. “You are so full of shit.” When I let her go, Catcher moved in, putting a possessive hand at the small of her back.
“Be good tonight.”
I nodded and grabbed the tiny black-and-white clutch Mallory had prepared for me. It held, she’d informed me earlier, a lipstick, my cell phone (turned off, so as not to irritate my housemates), my car keys, emergency cash.
And, ahem, a condom, Mallory apparently thinking it likely I’d be caught in a vampire-sex emergency. (Could vampires even catch STDs? Bet they didn’t cover that in the Canon.)
Purse prepared, I gave everyone a final tremulous wave and followed the driver down to the sleek black limousine that sat at the curb. During the walk to the driver-opened door, although most of my brain cells were busy trying to keep me upright in three-inch stilettos, I did take a moment to remember the last time a limo had been parked in front of our house. It had been six days ago, when I’d arrived, newly changed and stuffed into a cocktail dress, still woozy from the attack and the change.
Six days later, shape-shifters peppered Chicago, my grandfather employed a secret vampire, my roommate was dating a magician, and I was learning how to wield a Samurai-era sword.
Life definitely marched on.
The limousine trekked steadily south, halting in front of a bedecked and bedazzled Cadogan House. Torches lit the sidewalk in front of the House and the walk that led to the front door, and candles blazed in each of the House’s dozens of windows. One of the guards from the front gate opened the limousine door and gave me a knowing smile as I stepped onto the sidewalk. As I walked into the grounds, I realized that the dozens of torches that lined the sidewalk weren’t your garden-variety tikis. These were elegant, sculpted from wrought iron. And more important, they were wielded by a gauntlet of vampires—men and women, all dressed in chicly cut black suits—who stood shoulder to shoulder along the sidewalk.
My stomach clenched with nerves, but I forced myself to walk on, to walk through them. I wasn’t sure what I expected—scorn or ridicule, maybe? Some indication that they’d seen through me, and knew that I wasn’t as powerful as some seemed to believe?
Their reaction was almost more frightening. Each pair, as I walked past, bowed their heads. “Sister,” they quietly said, so the word fluttered behind me as I moved through them.
Goose bumps covered my arms, my lips parting as I absorbed the weight of what they were offering me—solidarity, kinship, family. I stepped up to the covered portico, glancing behind me, and inclined my head toward them, hoping that I was worth it.
Malik was at the open door, and he held out a hand in invitation. “He puts on a show,” he quietly said as I walked inside. “You’ll find the women upstairs in the ballroom’s anteroom.” He inclined his head toward the stairs. “All the way up and to the left.”
I nodded again and gripped the railing when I reached the stairway, well aware that that stairs, three-inch heels, and adrenaline-rocked thighs were a dangerous combination. At the top of the stairway, I went to the left.
The sound of feminine giggling and banter echoed through the hall, and I walked toward it, stopping at an open door. There were a dozen women in a room that had been decked out to look like a pageant staging area—big mirrors, lots of light, lots of “product.” Half the vamps wore traditional Cadogan black. These Novitiates helped the other five, who were dressed in a range of glamour wear (cocktail dresses, glimmery halter tops, satin-edged tuxedo pants), prepare for the ceremony. These makeupped and coiffed women were my fellow Initiates, and I suddenly felt old and fusty in my black-and-white ensemble.
As I watched them, I realized that they were all grinning. Their eyes were bright and eager, like they were preparing for the most exciting event of their lives. These were women, I thought, who’d been invited to join the House. Who’d chosen—consciously—to forgo the human world for night and blood and the political intrigue of vampires.
I felt a tight pang of jealousy. What would that have been like, to walk into Cadogan House and ask for membership, or to view the Commendation as the celebration of a profound achievement? It really was Vampire Rush for these women, former humans who believed themselves fortunate to have made the cut.
“They’re like lions preparing to jump the gazelle.”
I smiled in spite of my nerves, turning to find a smiling blond vamp behind me. She wore the requisite black, her long, straight hair pulled into a tidy ponytail at her nape.
“And Ethan’s the gazelle?”
“Oh, yeah.” She inclined her head toward the hoard—now atwitter over some new shade of M.A.C. lipstick—and shook her head. “Not that they have a chance. He doesn’t touch the new kids. But I don’t think I’ll tell them that.” Her smile widened, and I decided not to think too closely about the fact that I was a new kid, and he’d certainly touched me.
“I think I’ll let them stew,” she decided. “It gives the older kids something to enjoy later on.”
“The victory of defeat?”
“Exactly.” She stuck out a hand. “Lindsey. And you’re Merit.”
I nodded cautiously and accepted her hand, wondering what other information she’d gleaned about me or, since it seemed to be popular vampire gossip, my paternity.
“Nothing to fear from me,” she assured, without my having raised the issue.
When my eyes widened, she offered, “I’m empathic. You got really tense, and I had this sense that it was about something deep—familial maybe. But I could give a shit who your parents are. ’Sides, my dad was the pork king of Dubuque. So I know high living, chica.”
I laughed aloud, drawing the attention of the women at the mirror, who all turned to look at me. And to appraise me. I got a series of up-and-down looks and a couple of carefully arched brows before they turned back to the mirror and set about perfecting their hair and makeup. I felt like an outsider—familiar enough with Ethan and the House to have lost that “new kid” glow, but definitely not yet one of the “older kids,” whom I watched move around the newcomers with confident efficiency, offering assistance, spraying hair, calming nerves.
Lindsey suddenly clapped her hands together. “Ladies, we’re ready. If you’ll follow me, please?” She went for the door. My stomach in knots, I swallowed thickly and fell in line behind the other girls.
We walked back down the hallway, but this time passed the stairs. We moved, instead, toward a group of men who stood in a tense line outside a set of expansive double doors. There were six of them, all in trendy, well-cut suits, and they turned as we approached, smiling appreciatively. They were the rest of the new kids, the six male vampires who, in a matter of minutes, would become full-fledged members of Cadogan House.
We joined the line behind the guys, while the vampires who’d accompanied us formed a line beside us. I was the last vampire in line; Lindsey took the spot beside me.
We stood quietly for a little while, the twelve of us nervously adjusting clothing and smoothing hair, shuffling our feet as we waited for the doors to open, waited to swear our loyalty and allegiance to the man who’d hold the responsibility of ensuring our health, our well-being, our safety. I felt a momentary twang of sympathy for the responsibility he’d taken on, but I fought the feeling. I had enough to worry about.
With a soft whoosh, the doors were pulled open, revealing a ballroom that was swathed in light and thrumming with the beat of bass-heavy ambient music.
My stomach churned, and I put a hand on my abdomen to still the twitching.
“You’ll be fine,” Lindsey whispered. “I’ll escort you in. And since you’re last, you just have to do what the others do. Follow their lead.”