“I know what you think,” he said when he reached it, glancing back, hands on his hips. His expression had turned stern, concern evident in the tightness around his eyes. “That I’m just ignorant, or that I’m pissed about something that happened a hundred years ago.” His eyes suddenly flashed silver, and the hair at my neck stood on end as magic spread through our corner of the library, leaking as his emotions rose.
“We are immortal, Sentinel. These were not harms done to our ancestors, to our forebears. They were harms done to us. Our families. Our lovers. Our children. Ourselves.”
With that, he walked away.
A foot-high stack of books in my arms, I blinked after him for a moment, thinking not just about the anger in his voice, the pain over acts that had happened, but the fear, the worry that without vigilance, such things could happen again.
And I thought of the passion I’d heard in Gabriel’s voice, his desire to protect his Pack members. I thought of the anger I’d once heard in Nick’s voice, his desire to keep his family safe.
I matched all that disdain and contention together . . . and I still wondered who was the bigger threat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE JUST DANCE The next night dawned cool and clear. I pulled open my anti-sun shutter and cracked my window. A welcome breeze was blowing through the city, clearing out a little of yesterday’s humidity. I was scheduled to train with Ethan again, so I got up and headed over to the kitchen, grabbed some orange juice, blood, and a bacon-topped donut shellacked in maple frosting. Yes, you heard that correctly. Bacon. And maple. In a donut.
Sure, I wasn’t thrilled about training again. I’d seen a lot of Ethan over the week, and I wouldn’t have minded an evening to myself, without political drama or relationship conflict, without swordplay or side kicks. But what could I do? Because I’d sworn my oaths, camping out in my room, donut in hand, wasn’t an option. So, after I’d scarfed down breakfast, I slipped into flip-flops and pulled on a track jacket, then headed down the hallway.
I was about to take the stairs to the basement when I saw her. She stood on the landing between the first and second floors in a black suit, her arms crossed and one eyebrow arched.
She was a Master made in her own Master’s image.
I took the steps but stopped a riser or two above the landing, my eyebrows arched. “Waiting for me?”
“You and Ethan have a unique relationship,” Lacey said.
“We have a relationship?”
“I don’t play games, Merit.”
All evidence to the contrary, but I forced myself to be polite. “Respectfully, ma’am, I don’t, either. May I help you with something?”
“I don’t give up easily. He and I are perfect for each other.”
I almost snarked out a response, but held back. If she truly believed that, more power to her. Besides—he’d invited her here, so maybe he believed it, too.
“You know what?” I asked instead, moving past her. “Good luck with that.”
She followed me down to the first floor. Ethan, timing as impeccable as always, picked that moment to begin the climb upstairs toward us, his suit jacket discarded, body hugged by lean, dark trousers, a white button-down, and black tie. He must have been on his way up to change.
His eyes widened at the sight of us together, as if he wasn’t quite prepared for the meeting of old and slightly less old lovers—his own fault, since he’d thrown us together under one roof.
“How was your call?” Lacey asked. “And how are things in London?”
It was easy to read between the lines on that one—Dear Sentinel: Your boss made a phone call to the GP he didn’t tell you about. Guess you aren’t in the loop about everything! Love, his most bestest protégé.
Her second time at bat, she’d swung for the fence. I had to stifle down a growl.
“Not as helpful as I’d have liked, but so goes the GP,” Ethan said. When he glanced at me, the line of worry had appeared between his eyes. “I’ll meet you in the Sparring Room momentarily.”
I nodded. “Liege.”
He walked past me. “Lacey, with me, please,” he said, and she obediently followed.
I glanced behind me and watched her trail after him like a puppy on a string as they took the stairs to the third floor.
Something struck me as she followed him. Ethan was, and always would be, her Master. And although I’d heard her disagree with him, raising concerns about my being a “common soldier,” there was something acquiescent even in her posture. She moved as if she were his property, as if there were nothing she wanted more than to be at his side. Even though she had her own House, she wanted back in Cadogan.
Lindsey had told me that Lacey was a Very Strong Strat. So maybe part of the adoration was political. Maybe, like him, she was worried about alliances, wanted to ensure her link to the fourth-oldest House in the country.
Or maybe it was something simpler. Maybe she just wanted him.
Whatever the future had in store for me and Ethan (or me and not Ethan, as the case may have been), I made a vow then and there not to become one of those vampires. I vowed to stay my own person, to remember who I was, to think rationally about alliances and the people I might have allied with.
If only I’d remembered those things a few nights ago . . . or when Mallory had needed me. But what was done was done.
A girl could only move forward.
I was limbering up by practicing kicks when Ethan and Lacey made their appearances. He entered the Sparring Room from the main door; Lacey took her spot on the balcony, this time amongst a mass of vampires. The balcony was nearly full, from Lindsey and Luc—who must have been taking a break from their guarding duties—to Margot and Michelle and some of the other vampires I’d had drinks with. They waved at me, a fan club for a once-reticent vampire.
But I’d passed through reticence . . . and I’d become one of them, at least in part largely because I was a Novitiate who’d been wronged by a Master. Or Two, if you counted Lacey. Or Four, if you counted the former and current Masters of Navarre.
However regrettable (and however embarrassing), those wrongs had created a kind of bond between me and the other vampires of Cadogan House—a chance for me to get to know them without my rank between us.
Silver lining? Maybe. Or maybe the world just worked in mysterious ways.
Ethan walked toward me, his posture businesslike, his expression just shy of grim. “Prepare to fight,” he said.
I guess we were skipping the complicated teaching protocols . . . and the greetings.
“Liege,” I said, and angled my body toward his, knees soft, elbows bent, prepared to strike or defend.
He must have had aggression of his own to work out, as he immediately struck out with a punch-kick-punch combination that had me hurrying to defend myself. But I parried his punches and the kick, and then tried a shot myself—a crescent kick that he nevertheless fended off.
We bounced around the mat for a bit, offering up testing jabs, but not yet committing to an actual punch. The crowd began to murmur and call out for action.
I tried a side kick, which he easily blocked.
“You’re hardly trying,” he said, but he didn’t stop moving. He bobbed around me before executing a perfect front kick that caught me in the right collarbone. I think he pulled the kick; it was still bone jarring, but the full force of it would have cracked the bone in half.
I rubbed the sore spot, anger beginning to boil my blood. Ethan kept bobbing and weaving; I kept trying to hit him. This, he seemed to think, was exactly the problem—that I was trying to do it, instead of actually doing it. Here we were again, and he was running out of ways to motivate me with fear and anger.
“I want you to use the skills you’ve learned,” he said. “How to rely upon your senses, your instincts.”
I ducked to avoid a strike. “I’m trying, Sullivan.”
“Try harder.”
Why did people always think demanding we try harder was going to help? I was trying as hard as I could. My inability to best him wasn’t for lack of effort on my part.