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“I’m fine,” I assure him, pulling my hands away. I don’t enjoy being coddled.
“Are you certain?” Ethan asks. “You have no injuries at all?”
“Nope,” I tell him, not keen on going into the fact that I had been hurt but I’m better now because I drank Dru’s blood. Ethan looks deep into my eyes and seems to see something there.
“You seem relaxed,” he remarks, “too relaxed, in fact.” Then he pulls me close to him and takes a deep breath. He curses in Romanian. “Drusilla, get over here now,” he demands, low and threatening.
Dru saunters over. “What’s the problem Cristescu?” she asks, annoyed to be called away from Antonia.
“You had Tegan feed from you? Are trying to provoke me?” he spits, his voice seething with anger.
“She had a cracked rib,” Dru answers, nonchalant, “she was in a lot of pain, so I volunteered to help,” she shrugs and a smile just about touches her lips.
“You are aware of our relationship and yet you allow her to drink from you? You must be either very stupid or actively looking for a fight.” Ethan says to her, in a strict toneless voice.
“Calm down, Cristescu, my blood will be out of her system in no more than a week or two,” Dru replies. “It was an emergency, I wasn’t thinking of how your fragile ego might get bruised.”
Ethan steps forward, raising his hand, and it looks like he’s about to strike Dru just before Antonia intervenes from her lying position over on the table.
“Touch her and you will have me to deal with Ethan,” she calls, and there is no denying the threat in her words. “There are more important issues at hand. You two can settle your differences between yourselves another time.”
Ethan lowers his hand and turns away from Dru and back to me, while Dru walks back over to her boss. I am vaguely repulsed by the fact that he had been about to hit a woman, even if she does look like she could more than handle herself if it came to blows. Ethan goes to put his hand on my shoulder but I step aside quickly.
“You would have hit her, wouldn’t you?” I say, shocked despite the fact that I’ve witnessed this man kill with his bare hands.
“In our world it is highly offensive to do what Dru did. It would be weak of me not to reprimand her, especially since I outrank her both in status and in age.”
“Don’t you dare try to get back at her later Ethan, she helped me back there when I was in pain. I will not tolerate you going after her for this.”
Ethan glares down at me. “Are you telling me what to do now?”
I return his glare. “And if I am?” I ask, wondering what he might be inclined to do to me.
He seems to become even more angered by my antagonism, however he pushes it away, it is still there though, and that truly bothers me. It takes a lot for him to turn away from me and walk over to the bar to speak with Lucas and Delilah. I feel like maybe taking my chances and slipping out of the club to go home, but then I remember Finn and Gabriel are here, and I want to find out why. They are sitting in a booth over on the far side of the club, away from the injured vampires. I go to them, sliding into the booth beside Gabriel.
“I have to say, I never expected to see you two here,” I tell them, smiling with amusement at how uncomfortable they both appear.
“We haven’t got much of a choice,” says Finn. “We don’t want to see Theodore back in power and the only way to stop him is to team up with the vamps for the time being. Everyone in North Tribane agrees with Pamphrock’s decision to allow the Sorcerer to take over the South. They think he’ll stop once he has the vamps under his rule, but as soon as that happens he’ll be setting his sights on our territory, Pamphrock is a fool not to see that.”
“So this is a case of ignoring the lesser evil to take on the bigger one,” I say.
“That’s about it,” says Gabriel with a sigh.
I look at him, and he seems terribly exhausted. “What about Marcel? I presume he’s happy to let Theodore have his way so long as he doesn’t impose himself on North Tribane.”
“Marcel is old school,” says Gabriel. “No matter how bad things get with Theodore, he will always prefer a magic user, even a Sorcerer, over the vampires. That’s just his way.”
“Oh.” I reply, I would say something insulting about Marcel if it weren’t for the fact that Gabriel seems so disappointed with him. “I’m sorry Gabriel, I know he’s your friend, and I know it’s probably very difficult for you to be here right now. You don’t like Ethan much do you?”
“No. No I do not.” He answers, staring down at his open palms.
“Hey,” Finn interrupts. “This isn’t easy for me either. I do kill these things for a living.”
I laugh as Finn peers over his shoulder at the assembled vampires. “Yeah they do sort of look like they want to jump you, don’t they,” I say, glancing over at a male vampire with short blond hair who is glaring in Finn’s direction.
Finn sees where I’m looking and laughs. “Had a bit of a scrape with that one a while back. If we ever get rid of Theodore he’ll be the first one to want to rip my throat out. We called a truce before you got here and agreed to put our differences aside until Theodore is out of the picture.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” I say just as my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Rita asking if I got out of the port all right. I tell her I’m fine and that I’ll talk to her tomorrow. When I look up I find Delilah standing in front of the booth with one hand on her hip and the other twirling a red curl around her finger.
