Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires 12)

“Sorry to interrupt your dinner,” Jonah said as we walked down the hall toward the front of the House. I wasn’t in the mood for another session of Confessions in the Garden, so I opted for the smaller of the House’s two front parlors. It was a cozy room, with a wall of bookshelves, a couch, and a few chairs. It was also empty of vampires, since most of the Novitiates who lived in the House were in the cafeteria chowing down.

I took a seat in an armchair. He took the one across from me.

“No problem. I’m surprised you’re here, after . . .”

He nodded, looked at his hands, rubbed them together. Was he nervous? “To tell you the truth, I am, too,” he said. “Listen, about the lighthouse—”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

He gazed up at me, eyes bright. “Don’t be sorry. You were absolutely right. And you said something that people have been thinking for a while now. The world is different than it was when the RG was created, and we haven’t really adapted.” He paused, seeming to consider. “Historically, the good vampires were the ones who didn’t make trouble. Who kept their heads down. The bad vampires didn’t. They drew attention to themselves.”

“That’s a very pre-Celina attitude,” I said, since she’d been the one to out our existence to the rest of the world.

“Exactly. And it’s where they still are. For a long time, it worked. When our focus was staying quiet and safe, it totally worked. But you’re right. It doesn’t work anymore. It’s time we change.”

He looked up at me. “It’s going to be hard for some to adapt. Some will be afraid, and some will probably leave the RG. But I don’t think we have a choice.”

“We?” I asked, very deliberately.

The question must have made him antsy, because he rose, walked to the bookshelves, putting space between us.

“You still think I’m a traitor to the cause,” I said. “Because I won’t spy on him.”

He ran a hand through his auburn locks. “No. It’s more complicated than that. And not really complicated at all.”

Silence descended while he looked everywhere but at me. And I just stared at him, baffled. Finally, after a good two minutes had passed, Jonah cleared his throat again and looked at me with stormy blue eyes. “I handled the request poorly—asking you to watch Ethan, to report on Ethan—because I still have feelings for you.”

I stared at him. “You . . . what?”

“Yeah,” he said with a sad little shrug. “I haven’t been able to shake it.”

I was staggered. Flattered, absolutely—who wouldn’t be?—but also staggered. I’d been with Ethan for virtually our entire partnership, and Jonah knew how I’d felt. I hadn’t done anything to encourage him, at least as far as I was aware, but that didn’t really make me feel any better.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That really sucks.”

He threw his head back and laughed until he was wiping tears from his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “Cathartic laugh.” And then he shook it off. “Yeah. Unrequited feelings are never fun. I guess that’s why your refusal to report about the House felt like a betrayal. Not because you picked Ethan, or not just anyway. But because I lost out on the piece of you that should have been mine—our RG partnership. He won that, too. And it pissed me off.”

He looked back at me, smiled sadly. “I just, I don’t know, feel a connection. Which you don’t share.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by that.”

Another half laugh. “I’m not sure ‘hurt’ captures the real poetic desperation of unrequited love. Which, if I’m honest with myself, is part of the draw. Oh, the poignancy of wanting someone you can’t have.”

This time, I smiled, too. “Maybe you could find someone a little more emotionally available?”

Jonah snorted. “I can’t even ask if you have a sister, since I took her to prom.”

“Oh my God, I forgot about that. Small world. And, I mean, her husband wouldn’t appreciate me trying to get you together again.”

On the other hand, that didn’t mean I didn’t have ideas. And if fixing Jonah up would ease the tension between us, I was more than happy to help. In fact, hadn’t someone just told me she was ready to date again?

“How do you feel about food?”

He glanced at me, eyebrows lifted. “Is that a trick question?”

“Nope. Completely earnest.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I mean, I like food.”