Blood Games (Chicagoland Vampires 10)

But I was as stubborn as him, and I tried to follow him until Malik’s hand clamped around my arm. I threw my gaze to his. “You cannot be serious.”

“This isn’t about you. It’s about him. It’s his battle, and he needs to fight it.”

“To the death? Over her? She tried to kill him.”

“He is a better vampire than she is, but he isn’t sure of it. Let him prove it to himself. You know that he needs that, Merit. To know that he is who he believes—and not the monster others would try to make of him.”

I moistened my lips, looking at Malik, then the building into which Ethan and Bennett raced headlong. I didn’t want him moving back into danger . . . but Malik was absolutely right. We knew who Ethan was. But Ethan needed to prove it to himself.

“He will survive this,” Malik said. “Trust him.”

“I do trust him.” It was Nicole I didn’t trust. “And you’d better hope he’ll be okay,” I said, training my gaze on Malik. “If anything happens to him, I will gut you like a trout and not feel bad about it.”

He managed a small smile. “I’d look forward to the challenge, Sentinel.”

And speaking of which, I had unfinished business. I walked to Lakshmi, planted myself in front of her, forcing her gaze to mine.

With obvious reluctance, she shifted her gaze from the building to me. “Yes?”

“You are responsible for him,” I told her. “And I don’t care about your excuses, or your justifications, or whether you think you’re serving all vampires by sacrificing the few. I don’t care who you are, or what position you’re in. This is complete, unmitigated bullshit.”

Her eyes flattened with insult, and she opened her mouth to respond. But I had no interest in whatever she might say. With fire in my eyes, I walked away before she could respond and before I made good on my promise to punch her. I was so angry, so afraid, that the risk I’d do it just to feel some other emotion was too high.

I walked back to Malik, whose eyes shined with curiosity.

“Everything all right?”

I fixed my gaze on the warehouse. “Just setting the record straight.”

His fingers found mine, squeezed.

The windows on the first floor burst after two minutes had passed. I knew the time, because I counted each second in the cadence I’d learned as a child—one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand—waiting for him to appear again.

We ducked as glass flew, but I still felt the prick of shards that touched skin not covered by my leathers.

The second-floor windows burst at three minutes, flames shooting through the building’s husk like they were reaching for us, trying to draw us back in.

“He has thirty seconds,” I said, without bothering to look back at Malik. “He can have his pride, but I’m not going to let him kill himself.”

Malik kept his eyes on the building, casting back and forth across the facade as he searched for Ethan. “I was only going to give him fifteen.”

Timbers creaked and lurched ominously, the same sounds I imagined passengers might hear on a ship before it split and disappeared beneath the water.

“Fuck it,” I said, and started forward. More windows burst, and I covered my head with my arms as glass fell to the ground around me like snow.

Several figures emerged.

I’d seen Ethan walk through smoke and ash before, emerge through a cloud of magic and fire. We’d been lovers then, when I’d thought him dead. But we hadn’t loved. Not like this. Not like we did now. I’d grieved when he was gone, but this would have killed me. Because now he was my eternity.

My smoky, sooty boyfriend had never looked so good.

He carried Sarah in his arms. Nicole limped along behind them with Bennett’s help, holding one arm stiffly at her side.

We all flinched as an enormous crack lit the air, and the building’s roof crumpled from the middle, falling inside and bringing down half the building with it. Smoke, dust, and debris poured around us. Supernaturals had destroyed yet another building. But everyone was alive.

Ethan was alive.

He placed Sarah carefully on the ground. “Smoke inhalation,” he said, stepping away again so Bennett and Nicole could attend to her.

I strode to him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him fiercely.

“That was the dumbest and bravest and most amazing thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. And if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

Lakshmi moved toward us and didn’t mince words. “Your score will be reduced for interfering. Hers will be reduced for failing to finish.”

Ethan looked unconcerned by the pronouncement. “We all must act according to the dictates of our consciences. I have done so. You must do so as well.”

Lakshmi walked away, pulled out her phone. When she was gone, Nicole walked closer, and there was no mistaking the befuddlement on her face.

“You helped me.”

“I believed you could use a hand.”

Her clothes were singed, her face sooty, her hair coated with ash. And she just kept staring at him, as if she was reevaluating hundreds of years of history.

“We’re competitors.”

“We are,” Ethan agreed. “But we’re also colleagues. And at one time, Nicola, we were friends. I won’t take your immortality in order to prove a point.”

My love for him—my respect for him—blossomed like a spring rose, filling my chest with love and utter pride that he was mine.

“So I see.” Nicole swallowed hard but held out a hand.

He shook her hand, nodded, and when that was done, Nicole and Bennett helped Heart House’s Sentinel into the waiting car.

I walked back to Lakshmi, called out her name.

“Yes?” she asked, when she glanced back.

“When you knocked me out and brought me here, you interrupted me. I had information for you: Some of the money stolen from the American Houses was transferred to a Swiss account registered to Ronald Weatherby. I believe you’ll find he’s a British herbalist who worked on the obelisk but probably wasn’t told what it would be used for. Find him, interview him, ask him who paid him for his services. That will be the vampire who magicked and manipulated Darius. Now,” I said, flicking a bit of ash from the sleeve of her jacket, then smiling at her again. “Figure that into your score.”

Her mouth opened, closed. I gave her a jaunty salute, and walked back toward Ethan.