Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 5)

I'd suggested it was wrong of him to even consider picking the House over me. Maybe I hadn't given him enough credit  - not because I would have agreed with the decision, but because the decision had been harder than I'd thought.

"Where are you right now?"

I looked over at Jonah. "Just thinking."

"About?"

I looked away again, and he must have understood the embarrassment in my expression.

"Ah," he said.

"Ah," I repeated with a nod.

"Can I tel you something?"

"Sure."

Whatever he was going to say, it took a few seconds for him to work up to it. "I know we didn't exactly hit it off in the beginning, mostly because of my admittedly preconceived notions about who you were."

"And because I'd forgotten you'd masqueraded as a human to date my twenty-two-year-old sister."

"Also that," he quickly agreed. "But that doesn't change the obvious."

"Which is?"

"Which is, you're rather intriguing, Merit, Sentinel of Cadogan House."

"Thanks," I said, but couldn't manage to make eye contact.

Jonah put a finger beneath my chin, turning my head so I had to face him. The touch of his finger sent a warming zing of power straight down my spine.

"What the hel was that?"

Surprise in his eyes, he pul ed back his fingers and stared down at them before lifting his gaze to mine.

"Complementary magic," he whispered. "I've heard it was possible, but I've never actual y seen it. Vamps aren't magical per se, you know. We feel it. We sense it. We know it's around us. We disrupt the balance of it when we're upset."

That wasn't exactly how I'd learned it. "I thought we leaked magic when we were upset?"

Jonah shook his head. "The magic doesn't come from us. It flows around us. Strong emotions - fear, anger, lust -

change the way we interact with it, sending ripples through it. We aren't making the magic or leaking it. We're altering the currents."

"I see," I said.

"But this," he began, picking up my hand and tracing a finger across my palm - and sending frissons of magic down my body. "This is unexpected. The theory is that some vampires affect magic in complementary ways - as if on the same frequency. It looks like we might have some of that."

Magical novelty or not, this sounded like a complication I didn't need. And yet, every movement of his fingers sent shivers down my spine and shut off the part of my brain that should have been thinking better.

"Al right," he suddenly said, jumping up from his seat.

"Let's get back to work."

The abrupt change in conversation surprised me again.

He must have caught the shock in my face, as he smiled.

"This city is bigger than a magical novelty. Bigger than three Houses or two vampires or a pain in the ass council.

I'm not going to sweat the smal stuff."

Relief at his casual tone coursed through me. "I'm now 'smal stuff'?"

He grinned. "And you've got yourself a nickname. I'm thinking 'Shorty.' "

"I'm five eight without heels."

"It's not a description. It's a nickname. Get used to it, Shorty."

We stood there for a moment, waiting for the tension to evaporate. When it did, we smiled at each other. "Don't cal me Shorty," I told him.

"Okay, Shorty."

"Seriously. That's very immature."

"Whatever you say, Shorty. Let's cal it a night."

"Fine by me."

I'd worry about the humiliation in the morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

I dreamed in darkness. I stood atop Chicago's John Hancock

Center, the wind swirling around me. A yel ow moon hung low in the sky, huge as it balanced just above the horizon, as if too heavy to make its way higher.

Ethan stoo fousizas d beside me in his black Armani, his golden hair tied at the nape of his neck, his green eyes glowing. "Look," he said. "It's disappearing."

I fol owed the line of his outstretched hand and looked into the sky. The moon was higher now - smal and white in the midsky - and a fingernail crescent of it had turned dark.

"A lunar eclipse," I said, watching the earth's shadow crawl across the face of the moon. "What does it mean?"

"Darkness," Ethan said. "Chaos. Destruction." He looked back at me and squeezed my hand until it ached. "The world is changing. I don't know how. I don't know why. I'm stil . . . stretched thin. You have to find the cause."

I blew him off, offering him a smile. "It's nothing. Just an eclipse. They happen al the time." But when I looked again, the moon was no longer disappearing behind a round disk of shadow. The circle had morphed, the edges blurring into shapes that more closely resembled tentacles than the smooth curve of the earth. They undulated across the moon like a ravenous monster intent on devouring it.

My chest clenched with panic, and I squeezed Ethan's hand as tightly as he'd squeezed mine. "Is this the end of the world?" I asked him, unable to look away from the dancing shadows.

That he didn't answer didn't comfort me at al .

Together, fingers tangled, we watched the moon disappear behind the monster's shadow. And as it happened, a cold wind began to blow, the temperature dropping precipitously.

"You have to stop this," he said into the silence.

"I don't know how."

"Then you must find someone who does."

I looked over at him, there beside me, hair whipping in the wind. And as the wind rose, each gust stronger than the last, I watched him disappear behind the monster's shadow, until there was nothing left of him.

Until I stood alone in the chil ing wind beneath an empty sky.

There was no sound except the howling of the wind in my ears, and his screaming of my name.

"Merit! "

My eyes flashed open. I was stil in bed, warm beneath the blankets in my chil y room.

I pul ed a pil ow over my face and screamed into it, frustration pul ing my nerves so taut I felt ready to snap.

These dreams were kil ing me.

I'd always been a fan of ripping off the bandage - dealing with the pain al at once rather than suffering death by a thousand stings. These dreams were torture by a thousand memories: Seeing his green eyes, his face, al the while knowing the Ethan in my dreams was a weak facsimile of the man I'd known.

Maybe I needed more sleep. More vegetables. More exercise. Maybe I needed more Mal ory and less vampire, more Wicker Park and less Hyde Park.

Whatever the reason, I needed a change. I threw off the blankets and hopped out of bed, then pul ed on a long-sleeved T-shirt and yoga pants. My hair went up, and I headed downstairs for a workout session as long and brutal as I could make it. For a workout, I hoped, that would push the grief right out of me.