by Neill, Chloe
Connor turned to me, his smile satisfied and smug.
“Connor Keene,” I said. “That little bit of strategy was positively vampiric.”
“I’m going to assume that’s a compliment.”
“Oh,” I said with silvered eyes, “it absolutely was.”
“Good,” he said, then pulled me toward him. “Let’s try a little more vampire drama.”
He kissed me with abandon, let his magic mingle with the eddies of power at our feet, let the others feel the power, the attraction, the emotion. And when he pulled back, his breathing was hard, and there was a mix of amusement and desire and alpha confidence in his eyes.
“Aw, keep going,” Alexei shouted. “I’m recording this.”
We turned to look his way, found him holding up his screen.
“Why would you do that?” Connor asked.
“Because it was a good kiss, and someone will pay good money for the footage.”
“Alexei.” Connor’s voice was flat.
They watched each other for a second, and Alexei smiled first. “Because the Pack will want to know who she is and who you are. She may not be a shifter. But I think they’ll like what they see.”
I arched a brow. “That’s the best compliment I’m likely to ever get from you, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” Alexei said.
“Then I’ll take it. And thank you.”
His cheeks actually pinked a little.
Blue and red lights flashed as Sheriff Paulson’s vehicle pulled into the parking lot. He got out, looked around. “What the hell is happening out here?”
“We’re just visitors,” Connor said, and we limped back to the cabin. “Talk to Cash. He’s got all the answers.”
EPILOGUE
I woke to a single message, the one I’d been hoping for—and dreading at the same time: SHE’S AWAKE. That was the bat signal, the green light for Connor and me to drive back to the coven’s house.
I was nervous about the trip. Not sure of the expectations, of my beloved rules. Not certain what I’d feel for the girl I’d changed so profoundly. And I didn’t relish the idea of playing politics with Ronan.
“It’s like he’s playing at being a vampire,” I said when we were in Georgia’s SUV and driving toward the house. We’d decided it would be safer, all things considered, to take a vehicle that offered more protection than his bike.
Connor glanced at me. “What?”
“Sorry. Finishing a conversation I started in my head. He talks about doing what’s necessary to keep his people safe, but when I made a hard choice to protect someone—in the way only vampires can protect them—he accused me of disloyalty. Of threatening his kingdom. Isn’t that hypocrisy?”
“I imagine he’s not well-versed on how well-socialized vampires behave. Not as isolated as they are.”
“Maybe,” I said. But I guessed that was just one of the many dysfunctions caused by the coven’s isolation.
We pulled beneath the covered drive, and I looked up at the dark and imposing doors.
One of the vampires who’d accompanied Ronan to the resort opened the door, escorted us into the house.
I didn’t want to go back inside, to feel oppressed by red velvet and dark wood—or the emotional weight that layered over it. But I recognized that feeling for what it was now. It was the magic that had been laid down, frosted over the house and seeping into the furniture and fabric, designed to dull the senses of humans and keep their questions at a minimum.
“The spellseller did this,” I said to Ronan, who waited in the foyer.
He wore a dark suit today with a low collar over a V-neck shirt. “Yes,” he said, nodding at me, at Connor. “To protect us.”
“And are you better for it?”
He looked at me for a long time. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said by way of answer, and moved to the staircase.
Despite their obvious age, the treads were silent as we walked upstairs. Perfectly built or magically honed? Their inconsistencies wiped away or the sounds muffled?
Light shifted as we walked beneath the dome and rays of moonlight that filtered through the iron bars that held the glass in place.
We reached the landing, took another impeccably paneled hallway, and then turned into a room on the right. It was simpler by far than the rest of the house. A small rectangle of a room, with a window opposite the wall, a bureau, a desk, a small four-poster bed. Moonlight streamed through the window, cutting across the dark furniture.
The room was lit by a Tiffany-style lamp, or maybe an original, whose glass shade matched the style of the dome and cast soft gold-tipped light.
She sat cross-legged on the bed, a burgundy T-shirt over dark leggings. Her feet were bare. A book was in her lap, her gaze focused as her eyes tracked the lines of print.
Carlie looked up. She was still pale, but that was an improvement over the gray pallor she’d worn when I’d last seen her. She looked stronger—not just healthier, although, being immortal and now self-healing, she almost certainly was. But a little more sculpted. Cheekbones slightly rounder, muscles slightly tighter. It happened to most who were transformed—bone and muscle rearranging to make the package just a little more beautiful. All the easier to capture a wary human.
“Carlie,” Ronan said quietly. “You have a visitor.”
He stepped to the side as Carlie looked up, revealing me behind him. I made myself meet her eyes and braced myself for anger, for hatred, for the lash of words—and, depending on how angry she was, for fangs.
Her eyes went huge, went silver, and she leapt off the bed, was in front of me before I’d even considered grabbing a weapon.
She was fast. So fast.
And she wrapped her arms around me, embraced me with fierce strength she probably didn’t yet know she had.
“Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“I— Okay,” I said, and patted her back, could practically feel my bones creaking beneath her embrace. “You’re welcome, I guess.”
“Let’s give them a minute,” Connor said behind me, and I could hear the relief in his voice.
Ronan opened his mouth to speak, probably to ask Carlie if she was all right to be left alone with me. But he held his peace, probably when he saw the expression on her face. They left us alone, closed the door behind them.
She stepped back, linked her fingers together. “I’m sorry. You don’t even really know me, and I’m probably just overwhelming you.”
“It’s okay. I’m—I’m a little surprised you aren’t furious with me.”
Her brows popped up. “Why would I be mad at you?”
What sounded like genuine confusion in her voice loosened some of the tension in my chest; bindings of fear unbuckled.
“Because I changed you—or started the process—without your consent.”
She snorted. “My consent was bleeding all over the freaking ground. I knew, when that thing picked me up, that I was a goner. I could feel it kind of”—she looked away, emotion welling in her eyes—“bite through me. There was so much pain. He was running, and every time his feet hit the ground, it got worse. And then I got cold, and I got tired, and I felt like I was floating. He jerked and put me down, and then you were there.”
She looked back at me, her smile so beatific I wanted to cry. “I heard you talking to me, and then you took the pain away. When you bit me,” she added, as if I hadn’t already committed every second of that night to memory.
“And then I was gone for a while, and then you began to feed me, and I came back. It was sudden, like I’d been thrown right into my body again. And the blood was . . . weird but amazing. You saved my life, but if you need my consent now, then you have it, lady. You freaking have it.”
She grinned. “Besides, do you have any idea how dull it is to be a human in Grand Bay, Minnesota? To sme
ll like doughnuts all the time? Even the Sups are dull. I mean, I like Georgia, but the resort is a dive, and all the pretending to be human? Why would you do that?” She pointed at herself. “This looks a lot more fun.”
I smiled. “I think we’ll be seeing some leadership changes there. And the monsters have been caught. So they won’t bother you anymore.”
“Good,” she said with a nod.
“So, do you think you’ll want to stay in Minnesota?”
She bit her lip, looked apologetic. “I don’t want you to be mad or anything, but yeah.” She looked around the room. “I kind of like it here. The vampires seem nice, and the house is really cool, and Ronan said I could stay and still work at the shop at night. But if that’s not cool with you—”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “Absolutely fine. I mean, we can stay in contact as much as you want, and you can maybe come visit me in Chicago sometime. But things have changed for you so quickly, and you don’t have to be in a hurry to make a decision. Your life is here, at least for now. I think you should see what that looks like for you as a vampire, and then decide.”
“That sounds good. Would it be okay if I gave you a hug?”
“Of course,” I said, and she embraced me and nearly broke every rib.
“Gently,” I said. “You’ve got to learn your strength.”
“Crap, sorry,” she said, and pulled back. “That’s what Ronan said. Did I break anything?”
“Nothing that won’t heal.” I rose, knowing I needed to let her go, to find her way.
“I know you didn’t come up here to make a vampire,” she said. “And I had to explain that to Ronan, because, damn, it would have been easier to find a person in Chicago. But I’m really glad you did.”
“I’m glad, too,” I said, and meant it. “I should go. We’re getting ready to head back to Chicago.”
She nodded. “Thank you again.”
“You’re very welcome,” I said, and left the room feeling much lighter.
* * *
* * *
Ronan and Connor waited for me downstairs, twenty feet between them. Fast friends they were not.
Connor looked at me, and I nodded. “We’re good here,” I said.
His smile looked as relieved as mine had been.
“Before you go,” Ronan said, “there are some things I should say. Privately.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of him.”
Connor brushed the tips of his fingers against mine—the lightest touch, but full of emotion. Of promise.
“I suppose I had that coming,” Ronan said.
“At the least,” Connor said.
Ronan didn’t spare him a look. “I underestimated you. Or perhaps I should say I prejudged you. I believed I understood who and what you were, what you would be. And I believed I understood what had happened with Carlie. I was wrong on all accounts.”
“Were you?” My question didn’t sound very sincere.
“I believed you had made her without thinking. Perhaps because you’d been raised to take what you wanted. Or perhaps because you simply wanted a vampire of your own. And then I spoke with her.”
“And she told you the same thing I did.” My tone was desert dry.
“She did,” he said, guilt darkening his eyes. He walked to the windows, pushed back the curtains with a finger, looked out. “Regardless, she survived, and that’s what matters.”
“Carlie said you’d invited her to stay here. You’ll take care of her?”
“She is one of us now,” he said simply, with a certainty that made me feel better about returning to Chicago.
“If she needs anything—if she needs me—you can reach out.”
“I will,” he said.
And that was the best détente we’d reach for now.
* * *
* * *
Back at the resort, we gathered outside the RV. It still smelled like feet and Cheetos.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I said, giving Lulu a hug, then Theo.
“Technically, our rescue,” Connor said, shaking Theo’s hand. “And thanks all around.”
“We’re family,” Lulu said. “You’d probably have done the same for me.”
“Absolutely would have done the same,” I said. “Down to the cheap vodka and spelunking.”
“You do know how to woo a girl,” she said, then slid her gaze to Alexei, just looked at him with raised brows.
He stared back at her wordlessly.
“No emotional goodbye?” she asked.
“We live in the same city.”
Lulu just rolled her eyes, climbed into the RV. Theo followed, giving us a wave before closing the door behind them.
Alexei pulled a candy bar from his pocket, began to unwrap it as he walked to the bike he’d already prepped and loaded. It sat beside Thelma, which held our bags and helmets.
“You sure you don’t want to ride with them in the RV?” Connor asked.
“I’m sure.” I looked back at Thelma. “I want Thelma.”
His smile was broad and very, very pleased. “Grab the helmet and come sit right here.” He patted the leather seat, the look in his eyes suggesting he wasn’t entirely focused on the bike.
I smiled at him. “You misunderstand. I don’t want to ride,” I said with a grin. “I want you to teach me how to drive it.”
He just looked at me for a long moment. “Are you seeing anyone else?”
The sudden change of topic made me take a moment. “I— What? No. Why?”
He cupped my face in his hands, kissed me until the tips of my fingers tingled. “Because I want you all to myself.”
I grinned up at him, watched the answering glow in his eyes. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he said, then kissed me again, sealing the deal.
He threw a leg over the bike, patted the seat in front of him.
“Come on, Elisa Sullivan. We’ve got a long way to go.”
Read on for an excerpt from the first Chicagoland Vampires Novel,
SOME GIRLS BITE
Available now
ONE
The Change
EARLY APRIL
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
At first, I wondered if it was karmic punishment. I’d sneered at the fancy vampires, and as some kind of cosmic retribution, I’d been made one. Vampire. Predator. Initiate into one of the oldest of the twelve vampire Houses in the United States.
And I wasn’t just one of them.
I was one of the best.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me begin by telling you how I became a vampire, a story that starts weeks before my twenty-eighth birthday, the night I completed the transition. The night I awoke in the back of a limousine, three days after I’d been attacked walking across the University of Chicago campus.
I didn’t remember all the details of the attack. But I remembered enough to be thrilled to be alive. To be shocked to be alive.
In the back of the limousine, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to unpack the memory of the attack. I’d heard footsteps, the sound muffled by dewy grass, before he grabbed me. I’d screamed and kicked, tried to fight my way out, but he pushed me down. He was preternaturally strong—supernaturally strong—and he bit my neck with a predatory ferocity that left little doubt about who he was. What he was.
Vampire.
But while he tore into skin and muscle, he didn’t drink; he didn’t have time. Without warning, he’d stopped and jumped away, running between buildings at the edge of the main quad.
My attacker temporarily vanquished, I’d raised a hand to the crux of my neck and shoulder, felt the sticky warmth. My vision was dimming, but I could see the wine-colored stain across my fingers clearly enough.
Then there was movem
ent around me. Two men.
The men my attacker had been afraid of.
The first of them had sounded anxious. “He was fast. You’ll need to hurry, Liege.”
The second had been unerringly confident. “I’ll get it done.”
He pulled me up to my knees, and knelt behind me, a supportive arm around my waist. He wore cologne—soapy and clean.
I tried to move, to give some struggle, but I was fading.
“Be still.”
“She’s lovely.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He suckled the wound at my neck. I twitched again, and he stroked my hair. “Be still.”
* * *
* * *
I recalled very little of the next three days, of the genetic restructuring that transformed me into a vampire. Even now, I only carry a handful of memories. Deep-seated, dull pain—shocks of it that bowed my body. Numbing cold. Darkness. A pair of intensely green eyes.
In the limo, I felt for the scars that should have marred my neck and shoulders. The vampire that attacked me hadn’t taken a clean bite—he’d torn at the skin at my neck like a starved animal. But the skin was smooth. No scars. No bumps. No bandages. I pulled my hand away and stared at the clean pale skin—and the short nails, perfectly painted cherry red.
The blood was gone—and I’d been manicured.
Staving off a wash of dizziness, I sat up. I was wearing different clothes. I’d been in jeans and a T-shirt. Now I wore a black cocktail dress, a sheath that fell to just below my knees, and three-inch-high black heels.
That made me a twenty-seven-year-old attack victim, clean and absurdly scar-free, wearing a cocktail dress that wasn’t mine. I knew, then and there, that they’d made me one of them.
The Chicagoland Vampires.
It had started eight months ago with a letter, a kind of vampire manifesto first published in the Sun-Times and Trib, then picked up by papers across the country. It was a coming-out, an announcement to the world of their existence. Some humans believed it a hoax, at least until the press conference that followed, in which three of them displayed their fangs. Human panic led to four days of riots in the Windy City and a run on water and canned goods sparked by public fear of a vampire apocalypse. The feds finally stepped in, ordering Congressional investigations, the hearings obsessively filmed and televised in order to pluck out every detail of the vampires’ existence. And even though they’d been the ones to step forward, the vamps were tight-lipped about those details—the fang bearing, blood drinking, and night walking the only facts the public could be sure about.