Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires 6)

Without hesitation, Ethan dropped his bag by the bed, then grabbed the glasses of blood from the tray. He handed me a glass, and we drank them dry in seconds, thirsty from hunger and our bodies' healing the scrapes and bruises we'd gotten in the crash.

The necessities addressed, Ethan closed the bedroom door and locked it. When he turned around to face me again, his eyes had silvered - the sign of vampire arousal, emotional or otherwise.

Desire spiled into the room, rising above the scents of blood and leather and the wel-oiled steel of our swords.

"We have unfinished business, you and I."

My lips parted. "Unfinished business?" I asked, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes - or the earnest intent.

An eyebrow popped up, chalenging me to argue, but I wasn't about to do that. He'd been gone for two months, and I figured the universe owed me one...even when his phone rang audibly from the pocket of his pants.

Ethan's lip curled, but he managed not to look at it.

For a moment, we stood there in silence, staring at each other, desire curling between us like the forks of an invisible fire.

"It could be Catcher," I said, not thriled about the interruption  - but equaly unthriled at the proposition that Malory was floating around outside the farmhouse and we were ignoring the warning.

With obvious resignation, he puled the phone from his pocket and checked the screen. "It's Malik. I apparently missed some cals."

I did a quick calculation. "It's nearly sunrise here, which means it's already dawn there. He stayed up - past sunrise - to get you the message. You should take it."

He frowned, clearly torn by duty and desire. Since he'd normaly have answered the phone immediately, I took that as a compliment.

At least I could ease the agony of the choice. "Take the cal," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

He pointed at me. "This isn't over," he said, and answered the phone. This time, he didn't switch it over to speakerphone. As a vampire - and a predator with keen senses - it wouldn't have been difficult for me to ferret out their conversation. But I respected his decision and didn't pry. Besides, as soon as the cal was over, he'd probably tel me everything anyway.

I grabbed pajamas and a toothbrush from my bag and disappeared into the smal bathroom adjacent to the bedroom.

I probably should have checked a mirror sooner. My dark bangs were matted together, and my high ponytail barely contained a mess of tangles. Dried blood dotted a now-healed scrape above my eyebrow, and dirt stil streaked my cheeks. I looked worse for wear, and certainly not like the object of anyone's desire.

Towels and washcloths were folded on a smal table on the other side of the room. I wet a cloth and scrubbed my face clean, then puled the elastic from my hair and brushed it until it gleamed. The bathroom's claw-foot tub had been fitted with a showerhead and wraparound curtain, and I quickly scoured away the rest of the grime from our trip into the Ditch That Ate Ethan's Mercedes.

When I was clean and pajama clad, I walked back into the bedroom, eager for another try at the reunion we'd begun before.

But the second I stepped into the room, I knew it wasn't meant to be. Ethan was stil on the phone, and the needle sting of magic in the air foretold that Malik's news hadn't been good. He murmured quietly for a few more minutes, then put the phone away again.

"Give me the bad news first," I requested.

"It seems Malik's 'fuck you' to the receiver did not go over wel."

Concerned that Cadogan House was causing problems in Chicago and beyond, the Greenwich Presidium had assigned a receiver, a piece of work named Franklin Cabot, to temporarily take over the House after Ethan's death. He'd implemented awful rules during his blessedly brief tenure, including limits on our ability to meet together and drink blood. Not exactly popular restrictions for vampires who were basicaly living in a fraternity house.

When Ethan had returned, he and Malik unceremoniously kicked Cabot to the curb.

"How unwel did it go?"

"No decisions have been made yet, but Darius has caled a shofet. It's an emergency meeting where the GP discusses matters of urgency."

Darius West was head of the Greenwich Presidium. His rank was so high that even Ethan referred to him as "sire."

"Like a rebelious American House that doesn't seem to respect their authority?" I asked.

"Like that," Ethan said, but didn't elaborate. I began to work over mental scenarios about Cadogan's vampires being cast out into the night. Along with the more dire problems, I'd have to find an apartment. In Chicago, in winter. That would not make me happy.

"Exactly how serious is this?"

"Serious enough." Ethan frowned and rubbed his temples.

"Are you okay?"

He smiled a little. "Just a bit of a headache. It wil pass."

The atmosphere in the room had changed, from unfulfiled desire to political and magical anticipation. The sun chose that moment to breach the horizon; I couldn't see it through the draperies, but the sudden weight on my eyelids was teling enough.

"It seems certain things are not meant to be," Ethan said.

I nodded, unable to do much more. Vampires slept during the day, not just because direct exposure to sunlight would kil us, but because the rising of the sun puled us into unconsciousness.

We could fight the exhaustion, but it was a hard and losing battle.

We'd succumb eventualy.

He seemed to understand my hesitation.

"We both have other things, other people, on our minds," he said. "There wil be plenty of time for the remainder when we have addressed this particular crisis."

"And if we can't?"

"We wil," he said. "Because I wil goddamned see you naked under much more auspicious circumstances before the year is up."

I couldn't help but laugh at that.

Ethan took his turn to freshen up, then emerged from the bathroom in pajama bottoms that didn't leave much of his body to the imagination. His Cadogan medal hung just above the scar that puckered his chest - the mark he bore from taking Celina's stake.

Too soon for my preference, he flipped off the light, and we climbed onto the hard, creaky mattress. Ethan wasted no time in puling my body against his.

I relished the feeling, the glory, of having him there. Of his warmth, his scent, his energy, his everything.

"We can do nothing to stop the rising of the sun," he said. "So let us rest, and we wil fight the good fight tomorrow." He pressed me back tighter against him, and his arm snaked around my waist.

Reflexively, I shivered.

"Are you cold?"