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"I can't help that I'm conflicted."
"And I can't help you with being conflicted. You made your choice, Ethan, and we can't keep having this conversation over and over and over again. Do we or don't we? Do we or don't we? How are we supposed to work together like that?"
He asked the better question. "How are we not supposed to work together?" We stood there quietly for a moment. "If that's all you wanted," I said, "I'm going back outside." I walked toward the door, but he finally stopped me in a word.
"Caroline."
I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my hands into fists. I was eager to resist him, but he was my Master, and he'd called my name, and that alone was enough to halt my march to the door.
"Unfair," I told him. "Unfair and too late."
"Maybe if I had more time."
"Ethan, I don't think there's enough time in the world."
"What did I tell you about the Breckenridges, Merit?"
"Never burn bridges," I recited back to him, and turned around, knowing where he was going. "Before you accuse me of that, Ethan, recall that you're the one who walked away. I'm only complying with your request. We'll forget it happened, we'll work together, and we will do everything in our power to protect the House, and that will be the extent of it."
I stopped before walking into the hallway, unable to take that final step without glancing back at him.
When I looked back, there was an ache in his expression. But I'd given him my best shot, and I wasn't up for sympathizing with a man who refused to reach for what he wanted.
"If that's all?" I asked.
He finally dropped his gaze. "Good night, Sentinel." I nodded and left.
I walked through the first floor of the House, and I didn't stop at the front door. I took the sidewalk to the gate and nodded to the guards, then scanned the street to the left and right, checking the road for paparazzi. They were obediently clustered at their designated cordon at the corner to the right. An easy call - I headed left.
I crossed my arms over my chest, head down as I walked. I knew Ethan would do this. It was the way he operated - one step forward, two steps back. Rinse and repeat. He'd make a move toward intimacy, then pull back. Then he would regret pulling back, and the cycle would start again. It's not that he didn't want me; he'd made that clear. But each time he let himself be human, the strategy chunk of his brain powered on and he retreated back to coldness. He had his reasons, and I could respect him enough not to imagine they didn't matter. But that didn't mean I agreed with him or that I thought his reasons - his excuses - were good ones.
I frowned at the sidewalk, feet moving beneath me, even though I'd hardly paid attention to the motion.
We were going to have to work together; that much was clear. I had to adapt. I'd adapted to being a vampire, and I was going to have to adapt to Ethan. I looked up as a limo pulled up to the street.
It was long. Black. Curvy. Sleek. Undoubtedly expensive.
The back passenger side window rolled down. Adam Keene looked back at me from the backseat, boredom in his expression.
"Adam?"
"Gabe wants to meet with you at the bar."
I blinked, confused. "Gabe? He wants to meet with me?" Adam rolled his eyes sympathetically. "You know how he is. Give me what I want, when I want it.
Which usually means immediately. Probably not unlike a Master vampire?"
"Why me? Why not Ethan?"
Adam made a little snort, then looked down at the phone in his hand. "Mine is not to question why . . . ," he muttered, then flipped the phone's screen toward me.
"GET KITTEN," read a text message from Gabriel. Okay, so the request was legit. But that didn't mean getting into a limo with Adam was the right move. I hesitated, glancing back at the gate, light from the House spilling onto the sidewalk. If I went, I figured I'd get a lecture from Ethan about leaving the House to talk to Gabe without permission . . . and without his oversight.
On the other hand, if I didn't go, I probably had a lecture in store about not being a team player and jumping when an Apex asked me to jump. And then I'd still have to hightail it to the bar, and not in the back of a swank limousine.
Besides, I had my dagger and my beeper. Ethan could find me if he needed to.
"Move over," I growled, then opened the door and climbed inside, pulling the door shut behind me.
"Start me off with a Shirley Temple," I told him, nodding toward the bar on one side of the limo, "and we'll see how far we get."
The limo stopped in front of Little Red. The street was empty of bikes, and the plywood was still over the window. The CLOSED sign still hung from the door. The driver got out and opened the back door, his face flat and emotionless. I threw out a "Thanks," then glanced back when Adam made no move to exit. He stayed in his seat, thumbs clicking at the keys on his phone. When he realized I'd paused, he looked up at me and grinned.
"It's not me he wanted to see," he said, dimples at the corner of his mouth. "I'll have Mr. Brown here circle the block a couple of times and give you two a minute, then join you when I'm done." He held up the phone in explanation. "I need to finish this."
"Your pitch," I said, then maneuvered out the door.
"Hey, Kitten," he said before I closed the door behind me.
I glanced back.
"Have fun in there."
The window lifted again and the limousine pulled back onto the street, then took the first right around the block. I walked toward the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
PACK OF LIES
I gave the room a three hundred sixty-degree perusal. The bar was empty of patrons, and Berna was nowhere in sight. But people or not, the air was thick with magic. It also smelled of fresh blood and bruises, my palate tingling at the possibility of an early lunch. But this wasn't blood to be sipped; it was blood already spilled.
Hank Williams crooned softly through the jukebox, warbling out a haunting song about whip-poor-wills and loneliness. The jukebox suddenly hiccuped, and the song skipped, stopped, then picked up again.
I walked to the bar, where the scent of blood was stronger, and gingerly touched my fingertips to a spot on the wood. I pulled back fingers, wet with blood.
"Oh, this is not good," I murmured, wiping my hands on my pants and scanning the room for signs of the struggle that put it there. A low moan suddenly echoed from the back room. It was a sound of pain, maybe with some despair thrown in. The hair on my neck stood on end. Blood on the bar and moaning in the back room - something was very, very wrong. I glanced back at the door, wishing I'd asked Adam to stay and escort me back into the bar.
