Twice Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires 3)

"Does she know?" Lindsey asked, bobbing her head toward me.

"Standing right here. Do I know what?"

"I'm going to tell her," Ethan said. "But we're short on time. I forgot to call Luc - please tell him I want to talk before dawn to review plans for the convocation."

"Aye, aye, Liege," she said, but leaned in to me before she walked away. "Seriously, well done. And I mean that."

I grinned after her and raised a quizzical gaze to Ethan. "What do I need to know? And why are we going to Navarre?"

He gestured for me to follow him, then headed toward the basement stairs. When I fell in line beside him, he pulled the paper out from under his arm. It was a copy of the day's Chicago Sun-Times. He flipped it open, then turned it my way.

"Oh, my God," I murmured, pulling the paper from his hands.

The headline on the front page - the front page - read, PONYTAILED AVENGER SAVES

PATRONS IN SHOOT-OUT. A picture of me helping Berna into the ambulance was set below the headline. And there was one more surprise - the byline. Nick Breckenridge was listed as the author of the article. As I carefully took the basement stairs behind him, I read through the first part of the story, which discussed the shooting and my emergency work. So far, so good. But I had no idea why Nick Breckenridge, of all people, had written it. It wasn't that writing a front-page story wasn't his thing; he was an investigative journalist with an impeccable reputation. He just didn't like me very much.

"How - why?"

"Perhaps you turned the Breckenridge tide - from animosity to a cover story." We stopped beside the basement door. "This can't be hero worship. You know how Nick feels about me."

"You heard Gabriel's hesitation when he mentioned the Breckenridge House. Maybe, like, Nick and Gabriel are still on the outs. Gabriel did apologize, after all. He wasn't exactly thrilled about Nick's pissing off vampires."

"Okay, but convincing a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter to write a story glorifying a vampire - a vampire he isn't particularly happy with - would take a lot of pushing. I'm not sure Gabe would want to waste political capital on me. Besides, I can't imagine he'd put pressure on Nick to put us on the front page of the Sun-Times. Gabe doesn't want that kind of attention. It would raise too many questions about why armed vampires were in the bar, or risk the paparazzi's thinking it was some kind of new vampire hot spot. He definitely doesn't want that. There has to be another reason."

And that mysterious reason made me wonder what price I'd have to pay with Nick. I wasn't sure whether it was better or worse if he wrote the story because he got an unsubtle nudge from his boss.

"Probably about the same way I'd feel if I got a nudge from a Master," I muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. What does this have to do with going to Navarre House?"

"The story gets considerably nastier as it goes along."

"What kind of nasty?"

"It reminds the reader that the vampires of Navarre House weren't nearly as, shall we say, philanthropic as Cadogan vampires."

"It talks about the park murders?" Those were the results of Celina's murderous escapade through Chicago's parks . . . and the U of C campus. I was supposed to have been victim number two, at least before Ethan found me.

He nodded. "That's why Morgan wants to see us. Since you're featured in the story and were friends with Nick, he probably assumes we had something to do with its creation." Calling us friends gave my relationship with Nicholas Breckenridge a lot more credit than it deserved.

Ethan punched in his code, then opened the basement door.

"And how are you feeling about said article?" I asked, following him into the garage.

"Well, evidently I'm dating the Ponytailed Avenger, so I feel pretty good about that." I stopped to offer him a snarky look. When he walked past me to the car, smug grin on his face, I rolled my eyes. But I hardly meant it. He had said "dating," after all.

We were on the road a few minutes later, silence reigning in the Mercedes as I finished reading the story.

The article read like a primer on Cadogan and Navarre, from the Houses' leadership positions to their histories. It also mentioned that a woman named Nadia was Morgan's new Second. I hadn't known he'd promoted someone. On the other hand, I hadn't really thought to ask him about it.

That omission probably said a lot about our lack of potential as a couple.

"Where'd the information come from?" I asked, glancing up to realize that we'd moved from Hyde Park to Lake Shore Drive. Navarre was located in Chicago's Gold Coast, an area of chichi townhouses, condos, and mansions near the Lake and north of downtown Chicago.

"That was my second question," Ethan answered darkly, "right behind wondering what impolitic acts our young Master of Navarre might take upon seeing it." He glanced over at me. "Have you talked to him recently?"

"Not since the fight."

There was a moment of silence in the car, the tension evident by the faint hum of magic. "I see," he said.

There was disapproval in his voice. I tensed, anticipating an argument. "Is there something you'd like to say about that?"

When he looked over, his expression was mild. I couldn't tell if it was forced or not.

"Not at all," he said. "But it might add to his irritation at having seen the story." I thought back to the things Morgan had said in our last two conversations, the accusations he'd thrown, the condescension in his tone. "Yeah, he's probably not going to be in the greatest of moods."

"Any suggestions?"

"Barring a complete attitude adjustment, did you happen to bring along any of those chocolate mousse cake thingies?"

Cadogan House was an historic Hyde Park mansion turned vampire dorm - a restored beauty.

Navarre House, on the other hand, was big and garishly white and took up the corner of one of the city's most expensive chunks of real estate. It was four stories tall and was marked by a giant turret at the corner, the entire facade wrapped in the same white marble.

"I think their turret is bigger than our turret," I said as Ethan pulled up to the curb.

"Celina always had a flair for the dramatic," he agreed.

I put a hand on his arm as we walked to the front door, which was all but hidden from the street by massive, leafy trees. He stopped and glanced down at my hand, then up at me.

"One of our disagreements - Morgan and me . . ." I picked over my words, trying to figure out a way to explain without being too, to use Lindsey's word, anatomical.