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And when we all looked up again, we shared a smile and began to pass the bowls.
It was a homecoming, the family homecoming I'd always wanted. Jeff said something ridiculous; Catcher snarked back. Lindsey asked Mallory about her work; my grandfather asked me about mine. The conversation took place while we heaped meat loaf and vegetables on our plates, sprinkled salt and pepper, sipped at the iced tea that already sat in our glasses. Napkins were put into laps, forks lifted, and the meal began.
When we'd eaten our fill, leaving bowls empty but for crumbs and serving spoons, when the men had unbuttoned the tops of their pants and leaned back in their chairs, happy and sated as cats, Lindsey pushed back her chair, stood, and raised her glass.
"To Merit," she said. "May the next year of her life be full of joy and peace and AB positive and hunky boy vamps."
"Or shifters," Jeff said, raising his own glass.
Catcher rolled his eyes, but raised his glass as well. They saluted me, my family, and brought tears to my eyes. As I sniffled in my seat - and wolfed down my third helping of meat loaf - Mallory brought in a gigantic box wrapped in pink-and-purple unicorn- covered paper and topped by a big pink bow.
She squeezed my shoulders before putting it on the floor beside my chair. "Happy birthday, Mer."
I smiled at her, pushed back enough to pull the box into my lap, and pulled off the bow. The wrapping paper was next, and I complimented her juvenile taste as I dropped crumpled balls of it onto the floor. I popped open the box, pulled out the layer of tissue paper, and peered inside.
"Oh, Mal." It was black, and it was leather. Buttery soft leather. I pushed my chair all the way back, dropped the box on the seat, and pulled out the jacket. It was trim black leather with a mandarin collar. Like a motorcycle jacket, but without the branding. It wasn't unlike the jacket Morgan had worn at Navarre, and as chic as black leather came. I peeked into the box, saw that it contained matching black leather pants. Also sleek, and hot enough to make Jeff's eyes glaze over when I pulled them out.
"There's one more thing in there," Mallory said. "But you may not want to take it out right now." Her eyes glinted, so I grinned back, a little confused, and peered inside.
It could arguably have been called a "bodice," but it was closer in form to the black spandex band I had worn during training. It was leather, a rectangle of it, presumably designed to fit across my br**sts, with a slat of corsetlike ties in the back. The band was maybe ten inches wide, and would reveal more skin than it covered.
"Vampire goth," Mallory said, drawing up my gaze again. I chuckled, nodded, and closed the box around the pants and "top."
"When you said you were going to buy me a black suit, I thought you meant the one you already bought." I grinned at her. "This goes above and beyond, Mal."
"Oh, I know." She stood up and came around the table, taking the jacket to help me shrug into it. "And don't think you don't owe me."
Mallory held out the leather, and I slid one arm in, then the second, and zipped up the snug, partially ribbed bodice. The arms and shoulders were segmented to give me some freedom of movement, a handy thing when I'd need, at some point in the future, to swing a sword around.
Jeff gave an appreciative whistle, and I struck a couple of ass-kicking poses, hands clenched in front of me in guard positions.
This was a new style for me. Not goth, exactly. More like Urban Vamp Soldier. Whatever it was, I liked it. I'd be able to bluff a lot better in leather than in a pretentious black suit.
While Mallory and Lindsey patted the buttery softness of the leather, Catcher rose, and, with the lifting of an imperious eyebrow, motioned me out of the dining room. I made my excuses and followed him.
In the middle of my grandfather's small fenced-in backyard lay a square of white fabric - a linen tablecloth I remembered from dinners hosted by my grandmother. One hand at the small of my back, Catcher steered me toward it. I took a place facing him on the opposite side of the square, and when he went to his knees across from me, I did the same.
He had a katana in his hand, but this one was different. Instead of his usual black- scabbarded model, this one was sheathed in brilliant red lacquer. Handle in his right hand, scabbard in his left, Catcher slipped the sword from its home. The scabbard was laid to the side, and the sword was placed on the linen square. He bowed to it and then, his hand inches above the blade, passed the flat of his palm over the length of the sword. I'd have sworn he said words, but nothing in a language I'd heard before. It had the staccato rhythm of Latin, but it wasn't Latin. Whatever the language, it had magic in it. Enough magic to ruffle my hair, to create a breeze in the still April night.
When he was done, when goose bumps peppered my arms, he looked up at me.
"She will be yours, Merit. This sword has belonged to Cadogan since the House existed. I've been asked to prepare it for you. And prepare you for it."
Admittedly, I'd been avoiding Ethan, so it was fine by me that he wasn't here, that Catcher was commanding the arsenal. But I still didn't get why it was him, and not Ethan, who'd been charged with giving me the sword. "Why not a vampire?"
"Because a vampire can't complete the temper." Catcher lifted the sword, flipped it around so the handle was on my right, and laid it down again. Then he nodded down at my arm. "Hold out your hand. Right. Palm up."
I did as he directed, watched him pull a small squarish knife from his pocket, the handle wrapped in black cord. He took my right hand in his left, then pressed the sharp tip of the knife to the center of my palm. There was an immediate sting, as a drop of blood, then two, appeared. He gripped my hand hard against my instinctive flinch, put aside the knife, and rotated my palm so it was positioned directly above the sword.
The crimson fell. One drop, then two, three. They splashed against the flat of the steel, rolled across the sharpened edge of the blade, and dropped onto the linen beneath it.
And then it happened - the steel rippled. It looked like waving heat across hot asphalt, the steel flexing like a ribbon in the wind. It lasted only seconds, and the steel was still again.
More words were whispered in that same rhythmic chant; then Catcher released my hand. I watched the pinprick in my palm close. Props for vampire healing.
"What was that?" I asked him.
"You've given a sacrifice," he said. "Your blood to the steel, so that she can keep you from shedding it in battle. Care for her, respect her, and she'll take care of you." Then he removed a small vial and cloth from a pocket of his cargo pants, showed me how to paper and oil the blade. When the sword was clean again and lay gleaming in the light of the backyard flood lamps, he rose.
