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After I'd challenged Ethan in our second duel, he decided he needed to supplant Catcher as my trainer.
But he didn't know how much Catcher had taught me.
. . .
I finished the seventh form, spun to a stop, sword between my hands, perpendicular before my body.
The lights above us caught the gentle curve of the steel, the entire room suddenly silent.
Ethan stared.
"Do it again," he said, his words barely audible, a glint in his eyes. I didn't mistake the glint for lust.
Although the chemistry between us was keen, Ethan was unambiguously, ubiquitously political - always maneuvering.
I was a weapon.
I was his weapon.
That glint? Avarice, pure and simple.
"Liege," I said, tilting my head in acknowledgment and returning to the beginning position.
I completed the moves again, sword arcing perpendicular to the floor, slicing downward, an across-and-up combination, then the arc-and-spin combinations, the backward thrust, the overhead strike. I ended in the final position.
"Again," he ordered a third time, and I obliged.
By the time I'd run through the Katas in sequence again, and then done seven or eight repetitions of one or two favorite Katas at his request, my chest was heaving with the effort, my hands slippery around the rayskin-wrapped handle of my sword. I glanced up and saw that the vampires in the wooden balcony that ringed the Training Room were leaning forward, arms on the railing, curiosity in their expressions.
They tended to look at me that way - either, because of my strength, as a curiosity or, because of my unfortunate habit of challenging Ethan to duels, as a freak. For what it's worth, I was really planning on breaking that habit.
"Well done," Ethan said quietly, then addressed the balcony. "I believe that answers more than a few questions about our Sentinel. And while she's onstage" - he tilted his head toward me - "anything our new social chair would like to add about upcoming Cadogan events? Picnics? Mixers?" A blush spread to the roots of my hair. Ethan had named me House social chair as punishment for challenging him. As punishments went, it was pretty light. But it was also mortifying, and it took me a moment to get myself together.
"I'm thinking about something for summer solstice. A barbecue, probably. I thought we'd invite vampires from the other Houses."
The room went silent as Ethan considered the idea - and his audience waited for the verdict.
"Good," he finally said with an authoritarian nod, then looked back at the crowd. His expression changed to something much more serious.
"We thought at one time," he began, "that our superiors believed assimilation with humans was best.
That staying under the radar was the best way to ensure our survival and to keep peace with the supernaturals around us.
"To some extent, Celina has made that impossible. With all due respect to our friends in Navarre House, she has sought, at every opportunity, to increase our profile, to alienate us from humans, and to alienate us from ourselves." In a rare moment of humanity, Ethan looked down at the ground, worry furrowing a line between his eyes.
"We are on the brink," he said. "The brink of what, exactly, remains to be seen. As it stands, we've been gifted with a time of peace and relative tranquility, a time in which the Houses have blossomed financially. But our coming out, by hook or by crook, for better or worse, has put us back in the public eye - a public that hasn't always been kind toward us. Whether our pseudocelebrity will last - who knows?
"And now, as you may have heard, the shifters are preparing to meet this week in Chicago. We've been informed that during this convocation, they will decide, for one and all, whether to stay in their respective territories or to return to their ancestral home in Alaska. If they go, and the tide turns against us - Well, I don't need to remind you about our shared historical experiences with shifters." There was mumbling in the crowd, a spike of discomforted magic in the air. Shifters had retreated before when vamps had been in trouble. Vamps blamed shifters for the resulting deaths, and vampires now feared that if the human tide turned against us, shifters would do it again, leaving us here holding the supernatural baggage.
"As you know, we don't have formal allies within the Packs. They have avoided such ties. But my hope remains that should we face animosity or anger or fear, they will agree to help us." A male vampire stood up. "They've never helped before!" he shouted down.
Ethan regarded him thoughtfully. "They haven't. But suggesting that they 'owe us' hasn't worked. We will do what we can to form new connections between us. And in the meantime . . ." He paused, and the room was silent as the vampires waited for his next words. My issues with Ethan notwithstanding, he knew how to work a crowd.
"In the meantime," he continued, "I ask you, not as your Master, but as your brother, your colleague, your friend. Be careful. Mind the company you keep. Be aware of your surroundings. And most of all, don't be afraid to come to me. Any of you. Anytime." Ethan cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was crisp, clear, and Master-like again.
"Dismissed," he said, and the vampires in the balcony began to file out of the Sparring Room.
Ethan walked toward us. "My apartments," he told Luc, then glanced at me. "You, too."
"Your apartments?" I asked, but Ethan had already turned away, smiling politely at a vampire who'd trekked down from the balcony. I didn't know her, but her goal was obvious enough in the cant of her hip, the subtle play of her fingers as she pushed her long dark hair behind her ears. She leaned toward him and asked something. He laughed and chuckled politely, then began explaining - with visual aids - how to correctly position her hands on the handle of her sword. My lip curled involuntarily, but before I could get out a snarky comment, I felt a tug on my ponytail. I glanced back.
"Let's go," Luc said.
"What did he mean by 'his apartments'?"
"We have a meeting."
The last time we'd had a meeting, Ethan had told me about raves, mass feedings in which humans became unwilling vampire snacks. "About the raves?"
"Not today," Luc said. "We haven't heard anything else about raves since the attempt to blackmail us went bad. Malik's working up a long-term strategy. Today we're talking shifters. Let's go - unless you want to keep watching?"
I stuck out my tongue at him, but I followed when he headed for the door.
The basement of Cadogan House was all business, most of it violent - Training Room, Sparring Room, Ops Room, arsenal. The first floor, like the second and third, was about decor. Soft lighting, French antiques, hardwoods, expensive furniture. "Five-star hotel" had been my first impression. The rest of the rooms were equally fancy, from Ethan's masculine office to his luxe apartments.
