Friday Night Bites (9 page)

Turns out, it wasn’t difficult: a picture of Brad and Angelina was pinned to her bulletin board, a tiny cutout of Lindsey’s face glued over Angelina’s. “Bradsey,” maybe?

The door opened before I had a chance to knock. Lindsey stood in the doorway, her gaze on the magazine in her hands. Her hair was in a low ponytail, and she was out of her Cadogan suit, having exchanged it for a fitted, short-sleeved T-shirt and jeans.

“I was waiting for you,” she said.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“I’m psychic, remember?” She grinned up at me and waved one hand in the air. “Woo-woo,” she said, apparently mocking the supernatural quality of it. “I sensed you were coming, and I know you’re hungry.”

“You can psychically tell that I’m hungry?”

She hmphed. “I can tell because you’re Merit. When are you
not
hungry?”

She had a point.

I only got a peek of Lindsey’s room before she threw the magazine inside and shut the door. The layout and furniture scheme were the same as mine—basic vampire dorm—but her room was riotous with color. The walls were crimson red, loud posters and pictures and album covers papering a good portion of them. Directly above her bed hung a giant New York Yankees
flag. Lindsey was born in Iowa, but she’d done some time in New York. Apparently, it took. While I loved the Big Apple as much as the next girl, I was a Cubs fan through and through. She couldn’t seem to shake her pro-Yankees affliction.

When the door was shut, she glanced at me, then clapped her hands together. “All right, Hot-shit Sentinel. Let’s go downstairs so you can get your feed on and share your live-in goodness with the rest of your brothers and sisters, yes?”

I scratched absently at my biceps. “The thing is . . .”

“They don’t hate you.”

“You have really got to stop doing that.”

Lindsey held up both her hands. “That one was written on your face, chica. Seriously, they don’t hate you. Now, shush so we can chow.”

I obediently shushed, then followed her down the hall to the main staircase and down again to the first floor.

At this time of night, the main floor was all but empty of vampires. One or two sat around in conversation or with a book in hand, but the House was beginning to quiet as vampires settled in for sunrise.

We walked through the main hallway to the cafeteria, where a handful of Novitiates carried trays through a U-shaped line around glass-shielded, stainless-steel bulwarks of food. We joined the end of the line, grabbed our own trays, and began to follow the route.

The food was largely breakfasty—sweet rolls and bacon and eggs. It didn’t seem like a typical dinner spread; on the other hand, it was nearly five o’clock in the morning.

I plucked a box of organic chocolate milk from an array of drinks, then snatched a cherry Danish and a pile of bacon. I probably didn’t need a heavy pre-sleep breakfast, but I figured the protein would do me good. And, seriously, when you wave a plate of bacon at a vampire, is she really gonna say no?

My tray full, I sidled behind Lindsey, waiting for her and the vamps in front of us to make their selections. She squeezed honey from a plastic bear onto a bowl of oatmeal, then lifted her tray and walked toward an empty table. I followed, taking the seat across from hers.

“Do I want to ask what’s going on downstairs?”

I glanced up at her. “Downstairs?”

She dipped her spoon into her oatmeal, then nibbled a bit off the end. “Again,” she said, “I’m psychic. There are vampires wigging out all across Cadogan House tonight. There’s a kind of nervous energy. Preparations, maybe?”

There was little doubt that Lindsey, as a guard, wouldn’t ultimately hear about Celina. “Celina’s been released,” I whispered, tearing a corner from my cherry Danish.

“Oh, shit,” she said, surprise and worry in her voice. “That explains why your energy’s all over the place.”

When I glanced up at her, her head was tilted to the side, an expression of curiosity on her face. “And there’s something else there, too. A different kind of energy.” After a pause, she grinned. “Ooooh,” she said. “I got it now.”

I lifted a brow. “Got what?”

“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “If you don’t want to talk about Celina, I’m not going to talk about why you’re all hot and bothered.” She closed her eyes and put her fingertips against her temples. “Although I’m seeing someone—yep, definitely someone there. Someone with blond hair. Green eyes.” She dropped her hands and gave me a flat stare.

“Shut it,” I warned her with a pointed finger, a little embarrassed that she knew Ethan was the one who’d gotten me “all hot and bothered,” but glad she thought it was lust-related—and not because I might have been biologically amiss. Well, vampiri cally amiss, anyway.

I glanced around, noting the curious looks of the vamps who
sat at the wooden tables around us. They sipped at mugs and forked through bowls of fruit, their eyes on me.

They didn’t look too impressed with their Sentinel.

I leaned toward Lindsey. “Have you noticed that everyone is staring at me?”

“You’re a novelty,” she said. “You challenged their Master before you even took the oaths, you were named Sentinel, you threw down at the Commendation ceremony, and our beloved leader still covered for your skinny ass.”

That made me smile sheepishly. “I got thrown down. Not exactly the same thing.”

“Did you know that I’ve been in this House one hundred and fifteen years? In all that time, Ethan’s only nominated one other Master.”

I tore at a corner of my pastry, popped it into my mouth. “I’m not a Master.”

“Yet,”
she said, pointing at me with her spoon. “But that’s only an issue of time. Of course, you could have inherent magic, be able to work some of that Mallory Carmichael juju—she’s going to be good, you know—and you still wouldn’t measure up to the Golden Child.”

“I know she’s going to be good,” I agreed. “It scares me on a daily basis. Who’s the Golden Child?”

“Lacey Sheridan.”

I’d heard that name but couldn’t place it. “Who’s Lacey Sheridan?”

“The Master Ethan nominated. Master of Sheridan House.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding dawning. I remembered seeing the House name in the
Canon
. There were twelve vampire Houses in the United States. Sheridan was the newest.

“Lacey was in Cadogan for twenty-five years before Ethan nominated her for Testing. She passed, and Ethan Apprenticed her before she took the Rites. Then she moved to San
Diego, opened Sheridan House. They were close, he and Lacey.”

“Business partner close or . . . ?”

“Touchy-feely close,” Lindsey said. “And that was unfortunate.”

I didn’t disagree. Something twinged in my chest at the thought of Ethan being touchy-feely with anyone, and that was despite the fact that I’d been a firsthand witness to the act. Nevertheless, I asked, “Why unfortunate?”

Linds frowned, seemed to consider the question as she stirred her oatmeal.

“Because Lacey Sheridan was picture-perfect,” she finally said. “Tall, thin, blond hair, blue eyes. Always respectful, always acquiescent. ‘Yes, Liege,’ ‘No, Liege.’ She always wore the right thing, looked like she’d stepped out of an Ann Taylor catalog. Always said the right thing. It was unnatural. She was probably barely human even when she was one.”

“Ethan must have been crazy about her,” I said, thinking she was the kind of woman he’d prefer to prefer. Elegant. Classy. And, I thought, as I nipped the end of a strip of bacon, acquiescent.

Lindsey nodded. “ ‘Crazy’ is the word for it. He loved her, I think. In his way.”

I looked up at her, bacon halfway toward its vampiric end. “You’re serious?”

I couldn’t imagine Ethan in love, Ethan letting his guard down. I wouldn’t have figured him capable of trusting someone enough to let the man inside him peek through.

Well, except for those weird few moments with me, and he never seemed happy about those.

“Aspen-stake serious,” Lindsey said. “When he realized how strong she was—she’s rated a Very Strong Psych—he took her under his wing. After that, they were constantly together.”
She ate another spoonful of oatmeal. “They were like . . . arctic bookends, like some Nordic fairy couple. They were beautiful together, but”—Lindsey shook her head—“she was all wrong for him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Ethan needs someone different than that. He needs a girl who’ll stand up to him, who’ll challenge him. Someone to make him better, more. Not someone who’ll kiss his ass twenty-four/seven and bow to every little suggestion he makes.”

She eyed me speculatively.

I caught the glimmer in her eyes, shook my head. “Don’t even think it. He hates me, I hate him, and acknowledging that’s the only way we stand to work together.”

Lindsey snorted and grabbed a strip of my bacon. “If you hate him, I’ll eat my napkin. And he may hate you, but that’s only skin-deep. That’s only the surface.” She took a bite, shook her head, and waved at me with the rest of it. “No. There’s more to him than meets the eye, Merit. I know it. There’s heat beneath the chill. He just needs . . . reforming.”

I made an impatient gesture. “So tell me more about Lacey.”

“She had friends here, still does, but I thought she was cold. Arrogant. She’s a Weak Physical, but a Very Strong Strat. She’s political through and through. Maneuvering. She always came off as vaguely friendly, but like she was a politician on a campaign stop, like she was going through the motions.” Lindsey paused, looked contemplative, and her voice softened. “She wasn’t kind, Merit. The guards hated her.”

“Because of her attitude?”

“Well, yeah, in part. Look, Ethan rules the House, so he’s kind of . . . separate from the rest of us. And honestly, I’d say the same thing about you. Folks are suspicious about how you made the Sentinel short list, about your family. You’re completely
naïve about vamps, and yet you’ve got this historically important position, and although you’re kind of a guard, you’re closer to him than the rest of Luc’s corps.”

I grumbled at that, downed the bacon.

“It’s not like I think you two are doing it,” she said, but she paused, apparently waiting for confirmation.

“We are not ‘doing it,’ ” I said dryly and jammed the little plastic straw into my chocolate milk box. It bore the brunt of the aggression that question always aroused. Tasty, though.

“Just checking,” Lindsey said, hands raised in détente. “And if it helps, they’ll get over it once they get to know you.” She grinned at me, winged up her eyebrows. “I did. Of course, I have excellent taste in friends, but whatever. Not the point. The point is, Lacey was different. Not like us. She was the classic teacher’s pet—wanted to be near Luc, near Ethan, near Malik, constantly near the source of authority. She didn’t hang with us, didn’t work well with us. But,” she said, bobbing her head, “even if she was fake, she was really, really good. Always analyzing. Strategizing. She was a guard, and while she couldn’t have fought off a wet cat, she had the mind for it. Planning. Long-term ramifications. Future steps.”

My next question probably belied my feigned lack of interest. “Why did they break up?”

“He and Lacey? They stopped seeing each other after Testing, when she came back to Cadogan to Apprentice, to get ready for her own House. Word was, it was important to him that they stay professional while she trained. Too much at stake, ha ha, to spend time gazing into each other’s eyes.”

“He wouldn’t care for the emotional interruption,” I agreed.

“I’ve heard he flies out to San Diego occasionally to, what, copulate?” She nodded, grinned. “Yeah. I bet he’d put it like that. Very formal. He and Lacey probably mapped out a contract, probably negotiated terms.”

“Hmm.” I spared myself the embarrassment of considering, exactly, the terms they’d negotiated.

I glanced up, noticed that Malik had walked into the cafeteria. He nodded at me, then made for the buffet line.

Malik—tall, caramel-skinned, handsome, and quiet—was a mystery. In the two months I’d been a member of Cadogan House, I’d had approximately three conversations with him. As Ethan’s Second they shared the bond of House leadership, but they rarely ventured off campus together in order to protect the line of succession should someone make an attempt on Ethan’s life. I had the sense he played the part of CEO and understudy, learning how the House worked, how to manage it, administering the details while Ethan played Chairman of the Board. But I still hadn’t gotten a feel for Malik as a vampire. As a man. The vamps who were obviously well-intentioned—Luc and Lindsey came to mind—were easy to spot, as were the overtly strategic ones—Ethan and Celina. But Malik was so reserved that I wasn’t sure where he fit in. Where his allegiances lay.

Of course, he and Ethan did have one thing in common—excellent taste in Armani. Malik wore a suit as crisp and pristine as Ethan’s usually were.

I watched him move through the line, but his eyes were on the vampires around him. He was all business around Ethan—at least when I’d seen them together—but he was downright friendly with the other Cadogan vamps. They approached him as he selected his breakfast, said hello, chatted. Interestingly, while the other Cadogan vamps tended to give Ethan a kind of respectful distance, they went to Malik. Talked to him, joked with him, shared a camaraderie they didn’t afford their Master.

“How long has Malik been Second?” I asked Lindsey.

She swallowed bacon, then lifted her gaze to where he stood in line, chatting with a vampire I didn’t know. “Malik? Right after the House was moved to Chicago. ’83.”

That’s 1883, not 1983, for those of you following along at home.

“Ethan picked Chicago, you know. Once Peter Cadogan died, he wanted the House out of Wales, out of Europe. Malik lived in Chicago. He was an orphan.”

“He lost his parents?” I asked. “How awful.”