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“What do you know of Marco’s new second?”
“Etta?”
“Antoinette. Yes.”
“I’ve only met her a few times. I teleport Cora to Marco when she thinks she can manage to be away for the night, and then return to bring her home the next morning. I assume you’re aware of this, since you knew I’d be alone in my bedroom tonight.”
“Alone in the house, which is a rarity.”
Mordecai was dealing with business on Olympus, and the King of the Lions was in another state, handling problems with a pride. Technology has made it harder to get into buildings, but parts of the job are now easier. We have a backdoor into every major cellphone company — if I have someone’s phone number, an app on my phone will tell me where their phone is. That didn’t often help with Mordecai, but it did with Nathan.
“Is Etta a plant? Is Marco in danger?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not to my knowledge.”
She walked to her closet, stepped inside, and came out a few minutes later looking exactly the same as she’d looked when she went in — wearing an oversized t-shirt without a bra. I assumed she’d put shorts on under the shirt. My vision would tell me if she was now wearing a weapon, and it did not. With Kirsten, though, it didn’t matter because her mind and hands are lethal all by themselves. I walked to her seating area and relaxed into the chair with the Amakhosi’s scent on it. It was in a corner with a view out both windows, with the door from the hallway in my peripheral vision.
“Nathan is going to want to know why your scent is on his chair. He isn’t going to be thrilled.”
Which was of course why I’d chose to sit in it, but I didn’t want to admit to that, so I told her, “The slayers are pleased with his leadership. He isn’t in danger from us.”
“But Etta is?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
She sighed. “I know she speaks English, French, Dutch, and German. Probably others. I have no idea what her first language was, but it isn’t English. She’s powerful, but the plan is to keep her in Chattanooga, rather than giving her a city of her own. Marco’s third will take over Atlanta, but I’m not telling you anything that isn’t already common knowledge amongst the vampires.”
“Your personal opinion of her?”
“I haven’t been around her enough to form much of one. She has power, but she doesn’t feel ruthless enough to lead. Marco likes to put his top people into the surrounding cities, but he’s keeping her close. Maybe he’s waiting for turnover in those cities? I don’t know how that works.”
“He keeps newly blood-bonded vampires close to him a few centuries before he sends them out.” Etta was reportedly as old as Marco, or slightly older, but they’d be destroying her oaths to a previous master with new oaths to Marco, along with new blood-bonds.
“If you know more than me, why are you here, asking me questions?”
“He negotiated for her. She was in a…” I paused for effect, because what I was saying was an understatement, “…less than ideal situation. Marco and Antoinette were reportedly created by the same vampire, though it’s possible that’s incorrect, but they were most certainly in the same coterie when they were turned. Our records indicate they’ve lived in the same city more than once throughout the centuries. How are things with Cora and Marco?”
“You’re saying he negotiated to bring an old girlfriend into his demesne?”
“That isn’t what I said.” Though there was a decent chance it was the truth. I leaned forward and kept my gaze on her. “If Abbott hadn’t been an ass and put you in danger. If he’d been loyal and honest, would you have stayed with him? Could you have loved a creature of the night?”
“I cared for him. It could’ve turned into a lot more, but without trust…” She furrowed her brow at me but kept going. “At that time in my life, a relationship with a vampire worked just fine. We could see each other in the evenings, and I knew he’d never demand any of my time during daylight hours. Sometimes, the different schedules were a pain, but if it’d worked out between us, we’d have figured it out. Are you in love with Etta?”
“I’m a Slayer.”
“And you were raised with a visceral hate of the monsters.”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve changed your mind.”
I looked out the window and didn’t respond. She knew the answer.
She blew out a breath and sat on the edge of a chair. “I’m not taking on new patients, and I’m too close to you to be your therapist. What gives, Ryan?”
I kept looking out the window. She’s a damned good therapist, and I wasn’t up for completely baring my soul to her, as her patients invariably did. Still, I had questions I thought she could help me with. “Usually, cruel people turn into the cruelest vampires. Every once in a while, going to the dark side mellows them. Slayers won’t kill a vampire because of wholesale slaughter five hundred years ago. If the vampire is an upstanding citizen now, and has been for a while, they get a pass on what they did centuries ago.”
“What did Etta do centuries ago?”
