This time, I was the one sniffing back a sudden errant tear.
The clack of a car door opening pulled my gaze to the street. Jonah stood beside a black and white cab, door open. "Let's get you home."
Sarah nodded. She still wobbled on her feet, but we made it the dozen or so feet to the cab. At the door, she turned back and smiled at me.
"Will you be okay?" I asked.
She nodded. "I will. Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me. I'm sorry about what happened. I'm sorry they made you feel uncomfortable."
"It's forgotten. But I won't forget this," she said, "not what you did tonight."
When the door closed, we watched the cab pull away.
Jonah glanced back at me, and then at the eastern sky. "Dawn will be here soon," he said.
"We should get home." He gestured down the street. "I actually parked pretty close. You want a ride back to your car?"
"That would be great," I agreed, the adrenaline giving way to exhaustion.
We walked in silence a few blocks, then stopped at a hybrid sedan.
"Thinking about the environment?"
He smiled ruefully. "If the climate goes bad, we're going to be here for it. Might as well plan ahead."
When he unlocked the doors and we climbed inside, I gave him directions to my own parking spot, then closed my eyes and dropped my head back to the seat.
I was out in seconds.
Chapter Nine
BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE . . . UNLESS YOU'RE IMMORTAL AND UNDERSTAND COMPOUND INTEREST
I shuddered awake, blinking in the glow of unfamiliar lights. I was curled into a ball atop a giant sleigh bed that smelled like woodsy cologne and cinnamon. I sat up and took in unfamiliar surroundings. A massive bed, topped by a pile of taupe bedclothes. An equally large flat-screen television at the end on a facing bureau. And leaning against the bureau, arms crossed over his chest, was Jonah. He was dressed more casually today in a V-neck T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.
"Good evening, Sentinel."
"Where are we?"
"Grey House. My room."
"Grey - ," I began to repeat, but the night began to replay. I fell asleep in his car, and he must have brought me here. No, not just brought me - carried me - into Grey House while I was out.
"I wasn't comfortable dropping you off at your car. You were completely out, and your being here was easier to explain than my showing up with you at Cadogan House. Dawn was moving in; I had to make a call."
That made sense, although I wasn't thrilled that I'd been carried around like a hapless girl in one of my favorite bodice rippers.
"Thanks. Did anyone else see me come in?" If so, since I'd spent the night in Jonah's room, I could imagine well enough myself what they'd been thinking. I felt the rising blush on my cheeks.
"Nope. Everyone else was bunked in by then."
I swung my feet over the bed and buried my toes in expensive, thickly piled carpet. "Where did you sleep?"
He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "Sitting room. I'm a gentleman, and there's nothing about seducing an unconscious vampire that appeals to me." He shrugged. "Besides, the sun was nearly up. We were out. I could have slept right beside you, and no one would have been the wiser. We'd both have been angels."
I was on enough of a boy hiatus to agree, but appreciated that he'd given me space. It was a gentlemanly thing to do, and not something I'd take for granted.
"Thank you."
He shrugged. "I borrowed your phone. Sent a message to Ethan to let him know you were okay. I thought you'd probably have checked in when you returned, and a call from me would have been really suspicious."
I nodded my agreement. Of course, just because he hadn't outed himself to Ethan didn't mean there weren't going to be questions. Ethan was still going to wonder where I'd spent the day.
I glanced into the sitting room where he'd slept. A plush couch and love seat were poised near another enormous flat-screen television mounted to the wall. The rest of the room was equally nice. Luxe carpet, rich colors, crown molding, and wainscoting. An arcade video game stood against one wall, and a framed Ryne Sandberg jersey hung on the other.
This place could have been featured on vampire Cribs.
"This is a pretty sweet place."
"New House, new digs. Well, relatively new House, anyway. Only eight years old, which isn't much when immortality is the context." He walked to a mini-fridge built into a cabinet on the far wall and opened it, revealing tidy rows of longneck bottles. He plucked one out and walked my way.
"I don't think hair of the dog is going to do it for me today."
"It's not beer." When he held it out, I looked it over. It was blood. Traditional beer bottle, but definitely not the traditional brew. It was another Blood4You product - the unfortunately named LongBeer. They really could use Mallory's marketing expertise.
"You looked like you could use it."
I nodded my agreement and twisted off the cap, my fingers shaking with the sudden hunger.
The blood was cold and had a peppery zing to it, like it had been doctored with a dash or two of Tabasco.
As blood went, it was delicious. But, more important, it satiated the need. I finished the bottle in seconds flat, then lowered it again, chest heaving.
"Guess you needed that?"
I nodded, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "Sorry. Sometimes the hunger takes me."
Jonah reached out and took the bottle from my hand. "It can do that. And you had a big night last night."
"Not as big as it might have been, but big enough. I got hungry at the party, and I was lucky not to flip out like everyone else there."
He dropped the bottle into a bin beside the refrigerator. "Speaking of, you certainly got the vamps fired up."
"It wasn't me," I assured him. "A female vamp bumped me, and I ended up with two vamps in my face trying to take me out."
Jonah frowned. "There did seem to be a lot of aggression in the air."
"And did you notice their eyes?" I asked.
"Totally silver, barely any pupil. They were seriously vamped out."
"There was also a lot of magic in the room.You put those two things together and you get vamps itching for a fight."
I shook my head. "This couldn't just be volume - all the vampires in a room together.
The Houses couldn't exist if just being near other vampires made them predatory enough to fight for no reason. Maybe it's a mob-mentality thing? One vamp sanctions violence and the rest of them fall into line?"
Jonah shook his head. "I've got another theory. What if the magic wasn't just leaked by the vamps - what if it was directing them?"