by Хлоя Нейл
I was so impressed with the move—it looked like something Gene Kelly might have done, it was his brand of defying gravity—that I dropped my guard.
In that instant, he nailed me.
Catcher followed through with the spin, a full 360-degree turn, and brought his own bokken, the inertia of his body weight behind it, across my left arm.
Pain exploded. I threw out a curse and clenched my eyes against the pain.
“Never drop your guard,” Catcher unrepentantly warned. I looked up, found him back in the starting position, bokken bladed. “And never take your eyes off an assailant.” He bobbed his head at me. “You’ll heal, and you’ll probably have worse injuries than that when it’s all said and done. Let’s go again.”
I muttered a choice curse about “my assailant,” but bladed my body again and adjusted my grip on the handle of the bokken. My biceps throbbed, but I was a vampire; I’d heal. It was part of our genetic deal.
He may not have been a vampire, but he was good. I was fast and strong, but I didn’t have either his natural knack or his experience at sparring. I was also injured. And I was trying, as hard as I could, to fight without fighting. To tamp down that coursing rush of adrenaline and anger that would bring her to the surface—in front of a crowd of combat-trained vampires. And loosing a half-formed vampire into the world, and in front of an audience, couldn’t be a good thing.
But it was a tough line to walk.
As a newbie vamp, and a former grad student at that, I was still just reacting to whatever Catcher threw at me: spinning to get out of the way or slashing my own sword down when he failed to block rather than carrying out my own plan of attack. He was moving too quickly for me to both react defensively and take offensive strikes of my own, although I tried. I tried to analyze his moves, tried to watch for weaknesses.
The longer we sparred, the harder that analysis became.
With each arc of my bokken, each slash and spin, my limbs loosened and my mind relaxed, and I began to fight back.
Unfortunately, the second I began to really fight back, to let the adrenaline rush me and let my body dance with the bokken in my hands, the vampire inside began to scream for release.
As I spun, bokken before me, she stretched through my limbs, and my eyes fluttered with the sensation of it, like warmth spilling through my veins as she moved. The warmth was fun enough—it was hard to come by in a vampiric body—but then she went a step too far.
Without warning, she pushed forward and took control, as if someone else had stepped inside my body. I watched events play out before me, but it was she that moved my arms, that prompted my sudden speed and agility. Speed and agility that were unmatched even by a sorcerer whose expertise, whose magical raison d’être, was weaponry.
She had little patience for the maneuverings of a human. Where I’d fought defensively, she advanced, slashing at Catcher and forcing him around and backward nearly to the other edge of the mat. It played out like a movie before me, as if I were sitting in a theater in my mind, watching the fight happen.
When my bokken grazed the side of Catcher’s head, millimeters away from skull and scalp, the thought that I might have hurt him, and severely, pushed me—pushed Merit—back through. I blew out a breath as I spun away from another strike, forcing her back again.
When I’d sucked down oxygen and glanced back at him again, I found something unexpected in his eyes. Not reprobation.
Pride.
There was no fear that I’d nearly taken a swipe at his throat, no anger that I’d gone too far. Instead, his eyes shone with the thrill of a man in battle.
I think that look was almost worse. It thrilled her, that pride, that eagerness in his eyes.
It terrified me. I’d momentarily loosed her, and I’d nearly concussed my training master. That math was pretty simple—the vampire was going to stay repressed.
Unfortunately, although repressing the vamp decreased the chance that Catcher would lose a vital appendage, it also decreased my ability to keep up with him. Just like Yeats predicted, things began to fall apart. The parts of my brain that had been focused on fighting back and keeping her down now also had to think about how close I’d come to taking his blood, to battering the man who was trying to prepare me for combat.
And expert in the Second Key or not, Catcher was tiring. He knew how to use the weapons, sure. How to and where to swing his bokken for maximum effect. But he was still human (or so I assumed), and I was a vampire. I had more endurance. What I didn’t have—when I was struggling to keep myself together—was any skill at sparring. Which meant that even if he was tiring, I was getting worse. I endured his criticism, humiliating as it was. But the shots were harder to take.
Twice, he swung his bokken around in a kind of halfhearted arc. Twice, I got whapped with it. Once across my left arm—which still burned from the last contact—and once across the back of my calves—a shot that put me on my knees in front of my colleagues.
“Get up,” Catcher said, motioning with the tip of his bokken. “And this time, at least try to move out of the way?”
“I am trying,” I muttered, rising off my knees and blading my body again.
“You know,” Catcher said, slicing forward with the bokken in a series of moves that backed me to the opposite side of the mat. “Celina isn’t going to give you a chance to warm up. She isn’t going to pull her punches. And she’s not going to wait while you call for backup.”
He half turned, then brought the bokken around in a sweeping move like a backhanded tennis shot.
“I’m doing,” I said as I avoided one strike and tried to maneuver my way back to the near side of the room, “the best”—I swung my katana, but he stopped it with his own steel—“that I can.”
“That’s not good enough,” he bellowed, and met my bokken with a two-handed strike that whipped the wood from my sweaty hands. As if embarrassed by my clumsiness, the bokken flew, bounced on the mat once, twice, and finally came to a rolling stop.
The room went silent.
I risked a glance up. Catcher stood in front of me, bokken in one hand, skin damp from his exertions, bewilderment in his expression.
I wasn’t interested in answering the question in his eyes, so I bent over, hands on my knees, my own breathing labored. I wiped sweaty bangs from my face.
“Pick it up,” he directed, “and give it to Juliet.”
I walked over to where the bokken lay, bent down and picked it up. Juliet stepped forward, and after a sympathetic glance, took it from my hand. Assuming I’d been dismissed, I turned away and rubbed sweat from my eyes.
But Catcher called my name, and I glanced back to meet his gaze once again. He searched my eyes, scanning my irises in a preternatural way I’d come to expect of the answer-seeking sorcerer. Seconds passed before his focus sharpened and he was looking at me again, instead of through me. “Is there anything you need to tell me?”
My pulse pounded in my ears. He had forgotten, apparently, that we’d broached the subject before, that I’d tried to talk to him about my malfunctioning vampire. I was more than happy to keep it that way. I shook my head.
I could tell he wasn’t satisfied by that, but he looked at Juliet and prepared to fight.
Catcher worked Juliet through the same seven katas, her moves practiced and precise, the daintiness of her form belying her skill at wielding the lengthy weapon. When he was done with her, he asked us for critiques. The guards, at first with trepidation and then with confidence, offered their observations of her performance. Generally, folks were impressed, thinking that an enemy’s underestimation of her slight form would work to her advantage.
Peter was also given a workout before Catcher called the session to an end. He ended with a few parting comments and generally avoided eye contact with me, before shaking Luc’s hand, pulling on a T-shirt, grabbing his weapons, and leaving the room.
I gathered my sword and stepped into my flip-flops, intent on catching a post-training shower. Lindse
y walked over and put a hand on my arm as she toed into her shoes.
“You all right?” she asked.
“We’ll see,” I whispered back as Luc crooked his finger at me.
“Ethan’s office,” was all he said when I reached him. But given the irritation in his voice, that was plenty.
“Should I shower first? Or change?”
“Upstairs, Merit.”
I nodded again. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d done to deserve a visit to the principal’s office, but I was assuming my performance during training had something to do with it. Either they’d been impressed by the minute or two I’d allowed the vampire to take control, or they’d been unimpressed by the rest of it. Or, given the shots I’d taken and the fact that I’d actually dropped the bokken, actually offended by it. Either way, Catcher and Luc would have had questions, and I assumed those questions had been sent upstairs.
Scabbard in hand, I trotted up to the first floor and headed for Ethan’s office, then knocked when I reached the closed door.
“In,” he said.
I cracked the door and found him seated at his desk, hands clasped together on the desktop, gaze on me as I entered. That was a first. It was usually the paperwork that had his attention, not the vampire at the door.
I shut the door behind me and stood before him, stomach fluttering with nerves.
Ethan made me stand there for a good minute, maybe two, before speaking. “Word travels.”
“Word?” I asked.
“Merit,” he began, “you stand Sentinel for this House.” He looked at me expectantly, eyebrows raised.
“That’s what I hear,” I dryly responded.
“My expectation,” he continued without comment, “the expectation of this House, is that when you are asked to improve your skills, to strengthen your abilities, you do so. Upon request. Whenever you are asked, whether during your one-on-one training or in front of your colleagues.”
He paused, apparently expecting an answer.
I just looked back at him. I could admit that I looked sloppy out there. But if they’d known the workout I was putting myself through, I guarantee they’d have been impressed.
“We’ve talked about this,” he continued. “I need—we need—a functioning Sentinel in this House. We need a soldier, someone who will put out the effort that is required of her, whose dedication to this House does not falter, whose effort and attention are always given. We need a vampire who gives of herself, entirely, to this cause.” He adjusted a silver stapler on his desk, aligning it with the silver tape dispenser it sat next to.
“I would have thought, given the fact that we’d trusted you with respect to the Breckenridges, the raves, that you understood this. That you wouldn’t need an elementary lecture regarding the level of your effort.”
I looked at him, managed not to offer up the bruise that had blossomed on my left arm—fading but not yet gone—as obvious evidence of my effort. Of my concerted exercise in self-control.
“Am I making myself clear?”
Standing there before him, sweaty in my workout gear, sheathed katana in my hand, I figured I had three choices. I could argue with him, tell him I’d worked my ass off (all evidence to the contrary), which would probably prompt questions I didn’t want to answer. Or, I could come clean, tell him about my half-baked vampire problem, and wait to be handed over to the GP for handling.
No, thank you. I opted for choice number three.
“Liege,” I acknowledged.
That was all I said. Although I had things to say about his own trust issues, I let him make his point, and I got to keep my secret.
Ethan looked at me for a long, quiet moment before lowering his eyes and scanning the documents on his desk. The knots in my shoulders loosened.
“Dismissed,” he said, without glancing up again.
I let myself out.
Once upstairs again, I showered and donned clothes that were decidedly not within the Cadogan dress code—my favorite pair of jeans and a short-sleeved, long-waisted red top with an off-center scooped neck. I had a date with Morgan and a not-going-that-far-away party for Mallory to attend. The neck-revealing top was very appropriate for a date with the vampire boyfriend.
I applied gloss and mascara and blush, left my hair down around my shoulders, slipped into square-toed, red ballet flats, then grabbed my beeper and sword—both required accessories for House guards—and locked my room behind me. I walked down the second-floor hall and rounded the corner.
As I took the stairs, I lifted my gaze from the treads to the boy ascending the other side. It was Ethan, suit jacket over one arm.
His expression showed a kind of vague male interest, as if he hadn’t yet recognized exactly whom he was checking out. Given the change from sweaty, post-workout Merit to pre-date Merit, not surprising that he didn’t recognize me.
But as we passed, when he realized it was me, his eyes widened. And there was an incredibly satisfying hitch in his step.
I bit back a smile and kept walking. As I strolled through the first floor and out the front door, I probably looked unconcerned.
But I knew I’d always remember that little hitch.
CHAPTER 12
MERIT’S DEEP, DARK (72% COCOA) SECRET
It was nearly midnight when I made it to Wicker Park, but I got lucky, finding a corner grocery with its neon OPEN sign still blazing in the window. I grabbed a bottle of wine and a chocolate torte, my calorie-laden contribution to Mallory’s not-going-that-far-away party.
On my way north, I tried to shrug off the job tension. It wasn’t that I was the first girl to have boss issues, but how many bosses were four-hundred-year-old Master vampires or sword-wielding sorcerers? It didn’t help that the same sword-wielding sorcerer was one-fourth of Mal’s party.
Once in the ’hood, I opted to leave my sword in the car. Since I was off duty and off Cadogan House turf, it was unlikely that I’d need it and, more importantly, the act felt like a tiny rebellion. A wonderful rebellion. A rebellion I needed.
Mal opened the door as soon as I popped up the steps. “Hi, honey,” she said. “Bad day at the office?”
I held up booze and chocolate.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, holding open the door for me. When I was inside and the door was closed and locked behind us, I handed over the gifts.
“Chocolate and booze,” she said. “You do know how to woo a girl. You’ve got mail, by the way.” She bobbed her head toward the side table, then headed for the kitchen.
“Thanks,” I mumbled after her, picking up the pile. Apparently the post office hadn’t completely caught up with my change of address. I set aside magazines, interesting catalogs and bills, and dumped credit card offers addressed to “Merit, Vampire” into a pile for shredding. There was also a wedding invitation from a cousin and, at the bottom of the stack, a small crimson envelope.
I flipped it over. The envelope was blank but for my name and address, both written in elegant white calligraphy. I slid a finger beneath the flap and found a thick, cream-colored card tucked inside. I pulled it out. It bore a single phrase in the same calligraphy, this time in bloodred ink:
YOU ARE INVITED .
That was it. No event, no date, no time, and the back was completely blank. The card contained nothing but the phrase, as if the writer had forgotten, mid-invite, exactly what party she’d been inviting me to.
“Weird,” I muttered. But the folks my parents hung out with could be a little flighty; maybe the printer was in a hurry, couldn’t finish the stack. Whatever the reason, I stuffed the half-finished invite back into the pile, dropped the pile back on the table, and headed for the kitchen.
“So, my boss,” I said, “is kind of an ass.”
“Which boss did you mean?” Catcher stood at the stove, stirring something in a saucepan. He glanced back at me. “The asshole vampire or the asshole sorcerer?”
“Oh, I think the name applies pretty well to either.” I took a seat
at the kitchen island.
“Don’t take Darth Sullivan personally,” Mallory said, twisting a corkscrew into the wine like a seasoned expert. “And really don’t take Catcher personally. He’s full of shit.”
“That’s charming, Mallory,” he said.
Mallory winked at me and filled three wineglasses. We clinked, and I took a sip. Not bad for a last-minute quick-stop find. “What’s on the menu for dinner?”
“Salmon, asparagus, rice,” Catcher said, “and probably too much talk about girly shit and vampires.”
I appreciated the light mood. If he could leave our issues in the Sparring Room back in Cadogan House, I could, too. “You are aware that you’re dating girly, right?” I asked. Mal may have loved soccer and the occult, but she was all girly-girl, from the blue hair to the patent leather flats.
Mal rolled her eyes. “Our Mr. Bell is in denial about certain issues.”
“It’s lotion, Mallory, for God’s sake.” Catcher used a long, flat spatula and the tips of his fingers to flip salmon in his sauté pan.
“Lotion?” I asked, crossing my legs on the island stool and prepping for some good drama. I could always appreciate being the audience for a domestic squabble that had nothing to do with me. And God knows Mal and Catcher were a constant source—I’d been able to give up TMZ completely, my need for gossip sated by Carmichael-Bell disputes.
“She has, like, fourteen kinds of lotion.” He had trouble getting out the words, his shock and chagrin at Mallory’s moisturizer stockpile apparently that intense.
Mallory waved her glass at me. “Tell him.”
“Women moisturize,” I reminded him. “Different lotions for different body parts, different scents for different occasions.”
“Different thicknesses for different seasons,” Mallory added. “It’s pretty complicated, actually.”
Catcher dumped a cutting board of trimmed asparagus into a steamer pot. “It’s lotion. I’m pretty sure science has advanced to the point that you can buy a single bottle that will take care of all that.”