Some Girls Bite (15 page)

Silence, then, “I could offer you more.”

I blinked, looked up, met his eyes. “What?”

“Power. Access. Rewards. You’d need be available only to me.”

My lips parted, words momentarily failing me, the shock of it was so overwhelming. “Are you asking me to be your mistress?”

He paused, and I had the sense that he was deciding if that was, in fact, what he was offering me. Likely weighing the costs and benefits, deciding if easing his erection was worth the trouble I’d cause. A flush crossed his sculpted cheekbones. “Yes.”

“Oh, my God.” I dropped my gaze, put a hand at my abdomen, wondering how this night had suddenly become so bizarre. “Oh, my
God
.”

“Is that a yes?”

I looked up at him again, saw the flash of panic on his face. “No, Ethan, Jesus. Definitely not.”

His eyes flashed, and I wondered if he’d ever been turned down before, if any woman in his nearly four hundred years of existence had rejected the opportunity to service him. “Do you understand what I’m offering you?”

“Do you understand that it’s not 1815?”

“It’s not unusual for Masters to have Consorts.”

“Yes,” I said, “and your current Consort’s in my kitchen right now. If you need . . .
relieving
, talk to her.” The shock—the sheer shock of his offer—was beginning to wear off, replaced by a little bit of hurt, a little bit of insult that he didn’t like me enough to offer me something else, and that he thought I’d be flattered by the little he did offer.

“As much as it pains me to say it, Amber isn’t you.”

I stared at him. “I don’t even know what that means. Should I—What? Be flattered that while you don’t like me, you’re willing to sacrifice just to get into my pants?”

His nostrils flared, a tiny line appearing between his eyebrows. “You’re crude.”

“
I’m
crude?” My voice, the whisper that came out, was fierce. “You just offered to make me your whore.”

He took a step closer, his jaw clenched, the muscle trembling. “To be the Consort of a Master vampire is an honor, Initiate, not an insult.”

“It’s an insult to me. I’m not going to be your—anyone’s—sexual outlet. When that . . . happens for me, when I meet
him
, I want partnership. Love. You don’t trust me enough for the former, and I’m not even sure you’re capable of the latter.”

He flinched, and I immediately regretted the words.

I took a breath and took some space, moving to the couch.

It was a long moment before I could stand myself enough to meet his eyes again. “I’m sorry. That was a really horrible thing to say. It’s just—I live in a different time,” I told him, “with different expectations. I wasn’t born to serve someone indiscriminately, without thoughts of my own. Whatever else my father may have done, he raised me to be independent. To find my own way.” He just didn’t believe my own way was the correct one most of the time.

“I’m trying to be myself, Ethan. To keep some sense of myself in the middle of all this”—I raised a hand, made an abstract gesture with my fingers—“chaos. I can’t be that kind of girl.” There was more to that statement, I thought, than just my response to his offer, than a response to being his mistress. I wasn’t sure I could ever be what he wanted—the acquiescent vampire, the perfect little soldier in his Cadogan army.

Ethan’s expression, already shuttered, completely blanked, his green eyes going flat. “Then we’re done here. I’ve explained the situation to you. Whether you like it or not, we’re not human. You’re not human. Not any longer. Our rules are different than those you’re used to, but they are the rules. You can decry them, deny them, but they are the rules.” His eyes shone with power. “And if you disobey them, if you balk, you defy
me
.”

“I’m not rebelling,” I said, as calmly as I could, realizing how many lines I’d already crossed, we’d already crossed, in the span of the evening. “Nor am I trying to usurp your authority. I’m just trying to”—I searched for words—“avoid it.”

Ethan straightened the cuffs of his shirt. “We have rules for a reason, Merit. We have Houses for a reason—for a multitude of reasons, regardless of your opinion, regardless of whether you find . . .
merit
in the idea. Like it or not, you are my subject. If you deny your House, there will be repercussions. You’ll be deemed an outcast. A Rogue. You’ll be rejected by all vampires—ignored and ridiculed because you chose not to trust me. You’ll have no access to the Houses, to the members, or to me.”

I looked up at him. “There has to be something between anarchy and subjection.”

Ethan glanced up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes. “Why do you think of it as subjection? You saw the vampires at my House. You saw the House. Was it a dungeon? Did they look miserable? When you challenged me, was I unfair to you? Did I treat you cruelly or give you a fair chance to prove yourself? You’re smarter than this.”

He was right, of course. The vampires in the House clearly respected him and looked, at least to my eyes, to be happy in their acquiescence to his leadership. But that didn’t mean I was able, blindly, to put my trust in him, or any of them. I didn’t have a cache of faith big enough for that.

We stood silently until Ethan made a final, frustrated sound and called for Amber and Luc. As they moved through the living room, Amber skewered me with a look that was both knowing and victorious. She somehow knew, had probably heard, what he’d offered me, and that I’d turned it down. But I hadn’t just taken myself out of the running; I’d secured her position. She winked jauntily, and I felt a sudden, unwelcome stab of jealousy. I didn’t want his hands on her. I didn’t want her touching him. But I’d had my chance to take her place, and I’d refused. The decision had been made, so I ignored the irritation and looked away.

“Let’s go,” Ethan said.

Luc nodded at me. “There’s blood on the counter. It’s warm and ready to drink.”

Ethan didn’t look at me as he turned for the door, and I felt the weight of his disappointment. However illogical, I wanted him proud of me, proud of my fight and my strength, not disappointed that I’d failed to meet the basic criteria for vampire behavior. On the other hand, I shouldn’t have to apologize for not crawling into bed with the head of my House.

Luc and Amber preceded him outside. There were two vehicles at the curb—a black Mercedes roadster that I guessed was Ethan’s, and a heavy black SUV. Luc and Amber headed for the latter. Traveling security, I assumed.

When he reached the first step, Ethan turned and glanced back at me, his face carefully blank.

“I would have asked you if I could have, Merit. I’d have asked for your consent, and had you make the decision then and there. But I didn’t. Couldn’t have, without your dying. There certainly wasn’t time for you to debate the merits of affiliation. Would that I had. Would that I had, so the choice would have been made.”

After a pause, he continued, his voice suddenly tired. “The clock is ticking. You have four days until the Commendation, until your formal initiation into the House. The time is coming when you’ll have to take a stand, Merit. One way or the other, you’ll decide whether you want to accept the life you’ve been given and make the most of it, or run away and live on the fringes of our society, withstand the humiliation of being rejected by the House, by everyone else like you. By everyone who understands what you are. Who you are. How you thirst.” His gaze intensified. “Your desire. And that decision, such as it is, is yours.” With that, he trotted down the stairs.

I followed him outside, and flanked by the two guards at my door, I stood on the stoop and called his name. He glanced back.

“About the . . . hunger. Will it always be like that?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “Rather like being a Cadogan vampire, Merit, it will be what you make it.”

 

I had to give him credit—he was right about one thing. The time had come for me to make a decision. To make a choice, either to accept the life he’d given me, such as it was, or eschew Ethan, the House, the community of vampires. I could choose to live as a member of the American Houses, or make a life for myself on the outskirts. But an eternity of watching friends, the world, change around me while I stayed the same, was going to be lonely enough. Watching while Mallory aged, while my grandfather aged, while I looked eternally twenty-seven. What kind of life would it be, to also reject the House, to pretend at being human, and outlive my family, no companions but musty books and medical-grade plastic bags?

Still, I wasn’t ready to take that next step. Not yet. There were loose ends to be wrapped up. Well, one major loose end. And that was what put me in the car at four o’clock in the morning, leaving the sanctum of Wicker Park for the neighborhood of vampires.

This time, I wasn’t headed for the House. I was headed for the university. And I was a woman on a mission, so when I arrived, I ignored the permit warnings, parking in the first empty on-street spot I could find. I got out of the car, locked it behind me, and walked to the main quad, empty satchel over my shoulder.

I stood at the edge of the quad and stared at the expanse of grass, sidewalks and trees, my hand at my neck. I’d always loved this spot, had usually paused before heading into the Walker Building, which housed the English department, so that I could get a taste of grass and sky. I walked to the spot where I’d been attacked, crouched in the spot where my blood had been shed, and touched a hand to the grass. There was nothing here, no blood, no trampled grass, no indication at all that the few square yards of lawn had been witness to birth, to death. To me. To Ethan.

The tears I thought I’d finished shedding began to fall. I dropped to my knees, knotted fingers in the carpet of grass, wishing that things had gone differently. That I hadn’t made the regrettable decision to leave the house, to walk the quad. I sobbed there on my knees, the frustration, the regret, nearly overwhelming.

There was laughter across the lawn. I knuckled away tears, lifted my head. Two students, a couple, walked hand in hand down the sidewalk, before disappearing between buildings. Then the night was quiet again, most of the windows dark, no breeze to stir the trees that dotted the quad.

I closed my eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Opened my eyes again. But for the cloak of grief, it was a beautiful night. One of an eternity of nights I’d have the opportunity to see. But in order to see those nights, I’d have to figure out a way to deal with loss, to mourn lives that would end, even as mine continued. A way to deal with my obligations to Cadogan.

A way to deal with Ethan.

I’d have to figure out how to support Mallory, how to keep my relationship with my grandfather in spite of our positions. I’d have to figure out how to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the strange, new world I’d been dropped into.

More important, I’d have to figure out whether I was one of the good guys. Whether Ethan was one of the bad guys.

I realized the means to that end. It had to be a
choice
. I’d been made a vampire without my consent—attacked and violated, of course, without my consent. The only way I’d be able to move on, to build a new life, to take ownership of my new life, would be to make that conscious decision for myself, for better or worse. To live, or not to live, as an acknowledged vampire.

I could make that choice. Here and now, I could take ownership, take back my life again.

“Vampire it is,” I whispered. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get me off my knees in the middle of the night, in the middle of the quad.

And this time, I rose on my own terms.

My direction decided, I resituated the empty satchel diagonally across my chest and headed for Walker. The building was dark, locked. I pulled out my key, unlocked the door, and made my way up the stairs.

Each graduate student had a mailbox. I used mine like a scrap-book, kept in it the detritus of my time at Chicago. A ticket stub from a midnight screening of
Rocky Horror
I’d watched with fellow TAs and lecturers. A ticket stub from a basketball game we played against NYU, where I did my undergraduate work.

I opened my satchel and loaded papers, memorabilia, mementos into the bag. Tangible memories. Evidence of my humanity.

But also in my box was something new—a pink envelope, sealed but unsigned. I unhitched my bag, placed it on the floor at my feet, and slipped my thumb under the seal.

Inside was a scalloped pink card, glittery letters congratulating a girl for her sixth birthday. I grinned, opened it, and found inside, beside an equally glittery unicorn, the signatures of a good chunk of the grad students in the department, most with smartalecky well wishes for my new, fanged life.

I didn’t realize until I saw the card that I’d needed it. I needed the connection between my old life and my new one. I needed them to know why I’d disappeared, why I’d stopped showing up to class. It was closure of a kind. It didn’t excuse the fact that I hadn’t called my friends in the department, hadn’t called my mentor or my committee chair. God only knew when I’d have the strength to do that.

But it was something.

For today, it was enough.

So I grabbed my bag, left the key in my mailbox, and walked away.

 

I returned to the brownstone to find, as promised, a glass of now-cold blood on the kitchen counter. The house was quiet, Mallory still asleep. I was alone, and glad that she wasn’t there to witness what I was about to do.

I stared down at the thin orange-red liquid in its glass, and felt the hunger rise again—signaled by the humming of my blood. My pulse quickened, and I didn’t need a mirror to know that my eyes had silvered. Still, it was blood. My mind rejected it, even while my body craved it.

Craving won.

I wrapped a hand around the glass, fingers shaking, and raised it, knowing this was truly the end of my life as a human, and the beginning of my life as a vampire. There’d be no more justifications, no more rationalizations.