Blood Games (Chicagoland Vampires 10)

It was the smile of a shark.

“This isn’t over,” she said, then cast a glance to me. “Until the testing is complete, until the next king or queen is sworn in, we are challengers, and enemies. I will not allow you to stand in my way.”

Ethan nodded graciously, and without a further word, Nicole and Sarah strode defiantly from the room.

A heavy silence descended. Ethan looked back at me, still behind the couch, and I kept my expression carefully neutral. I had no idea what to say or do, no idea what might trigger some instinctive response in him, prickle him into anger.

“She’s not going to stop,” I finally said.

“I know.”

I nodded. “It’s worse when someone you know betrays you. Someone you trusted.”

He looked surprised.

“Mallory,” I explained. “I’ve been there.”

“Ah,” he said.

More silence.

“Well, you should probably get ready for testing.”

Ethan sighed heavily, looked back at me again. “I know that you love me, appreciate that you love me regardless this misery. Am awed by it. Unfortunately, love doesn’t change who I am, or who she is. That’s what I have to come to terms with right now. I’ll see you downstairs.”

He walked out of the room without another word.

Without a single touch, he’d pushed me away again.

* * *

Lakshmi confirmed that the training room was the best place for the testing, and we offered her the anteroom to catch up on her own business. Nicole and her entourage set up camp in the front parlor, a security camera carefully trained on their activities. Ethan, Malik, Luc, Lindsey, and I camped in Ethan’s office, waiting for the clock to strike five.

It was ten minutes ’til when Lindsey rose from a chair in the sitting area of Ethan’s office, moved to him on the couch. Magic followed in her wake, waves of nervousness and fear.

“Do you know how to compartmentalize?” she asked him, searching his eyes, clearly nervous for her Master. She was a very strong psych, had the ability to ferret out others’ emotions. And from the look in her eyes, I guessed Ethan’s were concerning her.

“Compartmentalize?” I asked.

Lindsey kept her eyes on him. “It’s a way of ‘double thinking.’”

I frowned, and Ethan glanced at me. “You already do it, Sentinel. When you unlock your senses, you maintain the ability to think rationally.”

“Double think,” Lindsey agreed.

“Oh,” I brightly said, feeling better about my vampiric capabilities. I hadn’t come by them smoothly—trauma in the first instance and biological separation in the second—so it was comforting to know I was doing it right, at least by vampire standards.

“I can do it,” Ethan agreed. “At least somewhat.”

Lindsey nodded. “They’ll test your strength, your resolve, your emotional stability. Try to compartmentalize it—let it happen, but keep part of yourself reserved just for yourself, just for you.” She put a hand over his heart. “Keep part of yourself there, and she won’t be able to touch you.”

She meant to comfort him, and he seemed grateful, but the offer of help, the nature of it, made me increasingly nervous.

The clock’s minute hand moved forward again, the click ominously loud in the silence of the room, and Malik rose. “Liege, we should go downstairs so you can change.”

Ethan blew out a breath, nodded.

* * *

At five o’clock, Luc and I walked into the training room.

Four wooden chairs had been placed in the middle of the room—two rows of two chairs, the rows facing each other, each chair about four feet away from the others.

Lakshmi stood beside them, her hands linked behind her, an air of absolute certainty and authority in her posture. Malik and Bennett stood at her sides.

Ethan and Nicole walked in, both wearing gis. They acknowledged Lakshmi, walked to the chairs, and sat down like rigid dolls. Both of them looked nervous.

Two more vampires walked in, a blond woman and a man with graying hair. They took the chairs opposite Nicole and Ethan.

It looked so harmless, so simple—four vampires sitting in a small cluster as if they meant to talk, to share. I’d have much preferred if that was the agenda for the evening.

Lakshmi looked at the group of us. “You’re satisfied?”

“We are,” Malik said.

Bennett nodded. “We are.”

They walked to the far end of the room, sat down in two more chairs, their postures as rigid and uncomfortable as those of the rest of them. Nerves fluttered in my chest like nervous birds, and I stared at Ethan, afraid to activate our telepathic connection but willing him to look at me, to make eye contact, to reassure me or tell me to be still, as was his way.

But his eyes were trained on the woman across from him, just as Nicole’s were trained on the man in front of her. The game had begun, and their focus was sharp.

“One hour,” Lakshmi said, and Malik checked his watch. “Clear the room.”

We filed out. At the door, I looked back, cast one last glance at Ethan. This time, I found him looking back at me, and I saw something I’d seen only rarely in Ethan Sullivan’s eyes.

Fear.

It had my belly going cold.

The doors closed with an ominous sound, leaving us bathed in silence.

Chapter Seventeen

BRONX TALE

For a moment I simply stared at the closed door, at the wood grain, as if my staring at it would endow him with whatever strength he’d need to safely make it through this.

“Sentinel?”

I looked back, found Luc in the doorway.

“They won’t start for a few more minutes,” he said. “They’ll discuss ground rules, and the psychics will need to calibrate their thoughts to Ethan’s and Nicole’s. In the meantime, I need you to do something.”

I nodded, glad for anything that might take my mind off what would happen in that room. I walked toward the Ops Room, but when he gestured me back toward the stairs, I stopped, shook my head.

“I’m not leaving him.”

He walked back to me. “I just need you to go upstairs.”

I shook my head again. “What if something happens and I’m not here? What if something happens? What if he needs me?”

“I’ll be here, Merit, right next door, where I have to be. Where I have to be,” he repeated, “which means I can’t take care of Lindsey.”

And the fear was in his eyes, too.

* * *