Biting Bad: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (9 page)

“Now who’s wicked?” he asked.

I humphed and sunk into the bath, the vessel large and deep enough that I could have almost swum to the other side. I found a perch in the corner and crooked a finger at him.

Ethan, smiling his pirate’s smile, stepped in, steam rising around his naked body as if the water itself were aflame. Before a second had passed, he disappeared beneath the water, then rose again like an ancient god, skin damp and muscles taut.

Ethan had given me breath, and now he took it away again.

He moved toward me, eyes silver and shining, and captured my waist, pulling me toward him. He engulfed me in a kiss, magic rising as passion grew between us. Ethan wasted no time, claiming me as his own, claiming my body as his. He attacked with passion, using his body as a weapon—the long fingers that roused me to the line between pain and pleasure, the lips that tortured and tempted, the eyes that watched as he pushed me higher, until my body was aflame and pleasure blossomed through me.

I screamed his name, but Ethan didn’t concede the victory. He pushed farther, twined my legs around his waist, burying himself inside me, and dropping his head to the nape of my neck to stifle his guttural moan.

“Merit,” he whispered, teeth against my sensitive skin.

Ethan found his rhythm, challenging me to rise again, to give up rational thought for feeling, for pure and unbound sensation.

His speed quickened, his breath hitching, his fingers clenched in my skin as he sought his own pleasure, my name on his lips when he found it, grasping me like he couldn’t bear to let go again.

For a moment, time stopped, and we lay together in the bath, candlelight dancing around us. And then I was airborne as Ethan lifted me from the water. He wrapped me in satin, heat steaming from our bodies, my eyes wide, my skin passion-flushed.

He placed me on the bed and tucked me into the cloud of soft and cool sheets, then lay down beside me. We held hands as the sun rose, pushing us under.

—

When the sun rose, we fell asleep in sensual bliss.

But when the sun fell again, we awoke in sloppy abandon.

We lay on our backs, sprawled sideways across the bed. The blankets were tangled around Ethan’s feet, and I’d slept with a hand across his face.

Ethan nibbled at my finger to wake me. I pulled my hand back, lest it become vampire breakfast. “Sorry about that. I was out.”

“Evidently,” he said, sitting up and arching an eyebrow at our positions. “Did we wrestle during the day?”

“Not that I recall,” I said, reaching over to pick up pillows from the floor. “Maybe we’re having day terrors.”

“God forbid,” Ethan said. “The night terrors are bad enough.”

“Speaking of,” I said, “any riot developments while we were asleep?”

Ethan groaned. “To business already, Sentinel? So much for, ‘Good morning, Liege. I love you, Liege.’” He managed a remarkably bad imitation of my voice, then feigned sweeping hair over his shoulder.

“I don’t do that.”

“You do,” he said, grinning. “But my larger point still stands.”

I rolled my eyes but sat up, sheet strategically around my breasts, and smiled at him. “Good morning, Liege,” I said in a husky voice. “I love you, Liege.”

“That’s more like it,” he said, then snatched up his phone from the nightstand and scanned it. He might not have appreciated the abrupt change of subject, but he knew my question was a legit one.

“Nothing new,” he answered after a moment. “They’re still cleaning up Wicker Park. There should be plenty for you to peruse tonight.”

“Fortunate for the rioters they didn’t make their way to Little Red. That wouldn’t have gone well for them with Gabriel in residence.”

“I imagine you’re right,” Ethan said. “The shifters avoid drama when they can, but they are not afraid to face a foe head-on. It would have been bad for the humans and, in the aftermath, the Pack. Violence, in my experience, only begets more violence.”

I picked up his free hand and ran a finger over his knuckles, noting the scars that mottled the skin there. Ethan had been a soldier in his human life, and the scars might have come from his military service. As quickly as we healed, some scars remained. The pucker on his chest where a stake had punctured his heart was evidence of that.

“Is the city heading toward something?” I wondered aloud.

He stilled. “You feel it, too?”

His response shocked and scared me. He was supposed to say my question was silly. Overreactive, even. That he didn’t dismiss the feeling only validated it, and I found I didn’t want my paranoia to be validated.

“It feels like things are building to a head,” he said. “The pressure rising. I don’t know when the inevitable explosion will occur, and I’m not sure who will be involved, but there seems little doubt the violence will continue to rise. We have asked humans to put up with much. Celina. Tate. Mallory. And they’ve demonstrated they will not go gently into that good night forever.”

“They certainly weren’t going gently in Wicker Park last night.”

“No,” he agreed. “And perhaps we are being overly pessimistic. Perhaps Wicker Park was an isolated incident. Perhaps the tide has not turned completely, and will not turn at all. But if it does . . .”

He didn’t finish the thought, which didn’t need finishing at any rate. Humans had a long and bloodied history of destroying perceived enemies, even if the perception was only that.

“I hate to bring up another unpleasant subject,” he said, “but there’s an administrative matter we should attend to.”

“Administrative?”

Ethan reached out and pulled a cream linen envelope from his nightstand. “I didn’t want to mention this last night, given what you’d been through.” He handed the envelope to me. “Open it.”

Curious, but also nervous—he was building this up quite a bit—I slid a finger beneath the envelope’s flap and pulled out a card in the same thick, cream-colored stock.

It was an invitation to dinner at my parents’ house.

For both of us.

I made a low whistle. My family and I weren’t close, owing largely to the tense relationship between my father and me. He was controlling and manipulative; I was the rebel daughter he hadn’t quite wanted. He was also the reason, at least indirectly, that I’d been made a vampire, and without my consent.

On the other hand, I’d promised my father that I’d visit my older brother, Robert, and it would be nice to see my sister, Charlotte, and her brood again.

Still. Dinner at my parents’ house? With Ethan? That would mean a lot of Merit eyes on our relationship.

Ethan, who’d been silent while I mulled over the invite, tapped it with a finger. “What do you think?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” I glanced over at him. “Dinner at my parents’ would be two hours of pure and unmitigated discomfort.”

“Because you and your father have a history?”

“And because they’ll probably spend the evening dissecting our relationship.”

“I believe that only makes them human, darling.”

“And it would be formal,” I added, pointing for emphasis. “With fancy food and cocktail attire. We’d have to use salad forks.”

“Instead of eating a sandwich out of a napkin, you mean?”

I elbowed him but smiled. I hadn’t exactly adopted my family’s formalisms. I appreciated the advantages I’d had growing up as a Merit in Chicago, but unlike Charlotte and Robert, I’d found the lifestyle—and the strictures of wealth—completely stifling. Pumas and jeans and Chicago red hots were much more my style than Emily Post manners and crystal goblets.

“I’m unfussy,” I said.

“I know. And I appreciate that about you. But try as you might, you cannot choose your family or give them back. I think we should do it.”

“I don’t know.”

“You could wear a cocktail dress.”

“You’re not selling this very well.”

“I could remove the cocktail dress afterward as a reward for good behavior.”

I paused. “You’re getting warmer.”

“I’ll throw in a sneak peak at the new House pendants.”

I sat up. “They’re done?”

“They are. And they’re quite lovely.”

Now that was an interesting offer. When we left the GP, we’d turned in our House medals, the gold pendants that provided our House position and number. They were the equivalent of vampiric dog tags, and I felt naked without one. (Granted, I had an inadvertent backup copy in the bottom of a drawer, but since I couldn’t let anyone else know it existed, much less wear it, it didn’t really count.)

Ethan had promised us a replacement, something to mark our House membership, even if we were no longer members of the GP. He and Malik, his second in command, had been researching and pricing options, but they hadn’t yet announced their decision. And he was offering to let me be the first to see? Granted, I’d get to see the pendants eventually, but as he well knew, I was not a patient person.

“Throw in a box of Mallocakes and you’ve got a deal.”

Ethan arched an eyebrow. “Mallocakes? That’s the best you can do?”

Mallocakes were a favorite snack cake. “World peace is out, Gabriel probably won’t let you buy Moneypenny for me, and I’ve already got these sweet digs.”

“Moneypenny?” Ethan’s lips twisted in amusement.

“She looks like a James Bond car. I think it’s only appropriate that she get a James Bond name.”

“Notwithstanding that, you’re correct. I cannot give you,
ahem
, Moneypenny. But a box of Mallocakes is a manageable deal.”

“When is this nightmare supposed to occur?” I asked, glancing back at the invitation. “Oh good. Tomorrow. So I have plenty of time to emotionally prepare.”

Ethan ignored that. “Shall I arrange for a dress?”

“I can dress myself.”

He gave me a flat look.

I punched him in the arm, deservedly. “I can dress myself,” I reiterated. “But we also know that you’re unusually good at picking out formalwear.” He’d arranged dresses for me—all in classic Cadogan black—on other occasions, when he still doubted I was mature enough to select an appropriately formal ensemble for a fancy party. This for a girl who’d had an official coming out and debutante ball.

“I believe the word you used was ‘stodgy.’”

“And I meant it,” I said with a grin, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I’m getting up. Feel free to ask Margot to bring up breakfast. Croissants? Crêpes? Café Americano?” I suggested, with exaggerated accents.

“You are officially spoiled.”

“I prefer to think of it as honoring the system.”

Ethan laughed, and loudly. “That was unusually politic.”

I faked a look of dismay. “Maybe we’ve been spending too much time together.”

He pinched my waist, which made me yelp.

“Kidding,” I said. “Kidding. I clearly could do no better than to learn from your fine example of what it is to be a vampire.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“An earnest vampire,” I said, continuing to spread the love. “A leader of vampires. And one, perhaps, that is open to unusual arrangements.”

“What do you want, Merit?”

“So, while we’re discussing uncomfortable things, I had an unusual conversation with Mallory.”

He looked at me, clearly waiting for the shoe to drop.

“She wants to work for Cadogan House.”

Ethan stiffened. “No.”

“I know,” I said, holding out my hands in détente. “I know. It’s worrisome. I’m only passing the idea along. That said, we’d be able to keep an eye on her, and we’re still looking for guards.”

“No,” he repeated, just as firmly.

“I’m not going to mention you said that. Not until we can give her an alternative idea.” I climbed off the bed and glanced back at him. “At some point, the shifters will be done with their intern, and the Order has proved they can’t handle her. We need a backup plan.”

Ethan scrubbed his hands over his face. “I hate it when you’re right.”

I bit back a grin that only would have gotten me into trouble, and let my mouth do it for me. “Then you must hate me often.”

I disappeared into the bathroom before Ethan could throttle me.

—

The bathroom, like the bedroom, was a bit of a shambles. I picked up clothes from the floor before getting dressed for the night, brushing my fangs like a good little Sentinel, and ensuring my weapons—my thirty-two-inch-long tempered-steel katana and the smaller, double-edged dagger Ethan had given me—were clean and ready for battle.

Not that I planned on a battle, but since a visit to a crime scene was on my agenda, I was damn well going to keep my weapons in good shape.

The bedroom was empty, but the croissants had been stocked, by the time I was dressed and armed. I grabbed a pastry and nibbled the edge while I checked my phone for messages from Jeff, Catcher, or Jonah.

I had no messages, but the phone was bristling with warnings and alerts from Luc’s newest invention—an app that sent House notifications and updates for news around the city.

Most of the notifications were mundane—information about House deliveries and visitors, traffic snarls, and weather reports. But tonight there was another little reminder—a news flash sent out by the
Sun-Times
reminding readers that the Office of Human Liaisons was hosting its first town hall meeting tonight at the Marquesa Theater.

Now that was intriguing. The Marquesa was in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood on the north side of Chicago. It also wasn’t terribly far from Wicker Park and the crime scene I’d be visiting.

My phone beeped again, and I found a text message from Catcher:
VISIT TO ROBIN POPE, THEN BRYANT INDUSTRIES?

I guessed Jeff had declined to play escort, and Catcher had taken up the standard.

I passed the phone back and forth in my hands, considering my options. I definitely wanted to talk to Robin Pope about Bryant Industries and the riots. I also wanted to visit Bryant Industries and take a look at the destruction myself.

But there was also another stop I wanted to make, a conversation I wanted to have with a man who’d caused plenty of pain and suffering to Chicago vampires.

SURE,
I responded to Catcher.
MEET IN 1 HOUR?

I figured I didn’t need much time at the Marquesa Theater. Maybe just long enough to put in an appearance, and remind him we were watching.