"There's no time for like tonight, Luc," Ethan said. "We're going to intercept the stragglers, try to lead them on a nice little goose chase."

"In that direction," I said, pointing to a cruiser parked a couple of blocks to the southwest.

"Agreed," Ethan said. "Help as you can, Luc, but keep a low profile. The GP could have spies about."

"Will do, hoss. For what it's worth, please be careful. Malik will have my ass if you go down in combat again."

Ethan's eyes shimmered with green fire. "I have every intention of staying alive."

He put away the phone and looked at me, and I'd have sworn there was a hint of a smile in his expression.

"Sentinel, I believe this dance is ours."

-

We decided to split up, giving us double the chance to redirect rioters away from Grey House.

Once on the street again, wearing my relatively tame leathers, I decided I needed to look a bit more dramatic. I flipped over my head and shook out my hair, giving it enough volume to add a Bride of Frankenstein vibe, then smudged some of the pink lip gloss in my coat pocket beneath my cheekbones. For the big finale, I let my eyes silver and my fangs descend. I was hoping for a "vamp on the prowl" look, with just enough ferocity to spark the rioters' interest.

A man wielding a very large, and very pointy, chef's knife picked that moment to dash around the corner. He stuttered when he saw me, trying to figure out if I was a full-on threat or a momentary obstacle.

His eyes stilled when his gaze reached my mouth and needle-sharp fangs; his eyes widened, the air filling with the heady scent of fear.

Of frightened prey.

"Going somewhere?" I asked.

It took only a moment for his fear to transmute into anger. He adjusted the grip on his knife, fingers flexing around the handle.

"Bitch," he said, and ran forward.

That was my cue. I turned and took off, running down the sidewalk. After a moment, footfalls and copious swearing sounded behind me. He'd taken the bait.

"I don't answer to 'bitch,'" I called out, jumping over a bench to cross the empty street, leading the rioter southwest toward the CPD cruiser we'd spied earlier.

I dodged around a parked car, and, pretending the bumper tripped me up, slowed just enough to let the rioter gain ground.

"You are mine now, bitch."

"Seriously, with the language," I muttered, moving with a faux hobble down the block, looking back and showing my fangs until he reached out with both hands to nab me, nearly grabbing the back of my jacket.

I skipped forward, feeling victorious, when karma bit me back.

He stuck out the knife and caught the back of my jacket. The leather split, freeing me, but the stutter broke my stride . . . and I hit a patch of ice on the sidewalk.

I slipped and fell forward, hitting both knees. Before I could rise again, the rioter was against my back, smelling of tinny sweat, his arm around my body, his knife cutting through leather and fabric and opening a line of hot blood across my belly.

I screamed in pain, elbowing him in the stomach to free myself as tears filled my eyes. He grunted and tried to draw the knife again, but I bent his wrist backward until he dropped the knife. I grabbed it up, wriggled away, and held it out at him, hand shaking with fear and pain and adrenaline, and from the crimson that bloomed across my stomach. He'd cut me, and deep.

The rioter's eyes, round and deep set, didn't waver. They were flat, devoid of emotion, as if I were less than human, an animal he'd trapped and nearly managed to kill.

My brain clouded. Think, I told myself, a hand pressed against my stomach to slow the blood loss until my body began to heal, trying to slow the crazy beating of my heart.

I had been running this way . . . because there was a cop around the corner.

Without looking back, I ran. It was a slow, ugly run, an arm against my stomach, the man's knife in my hand. I stumbled around the next corner, nearly running into the uniformed officer who stood beside his cruiser.

He looked up at the sound of the chase, caught sight of the blood on my abdomen, and put a hand on his gun. "Ma'am?"

Before I could answer, the rioter rounded the corner behind me. He saw me, and smiled - but then saw the cop and prepared to bolt again.

I stuck out a foot, and he hit the ground. The cop was on him before he could crawl away.

He put a booted foot on his back and glanced at me with concern. "Ma'am, you're bleeding. Did he cut you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I said, handing over the knife. For some reason, it seemed important to get rid of it. "I don't think this is mine."

Stars appeared at the edges of my vision, and I managed a final thought before the world went dark.

Ethan.

Chapter Nine

REAL HOUSEWIVES OF WRIGLEYVILLE

I awoke hungry, greedy for blood. I knew nothing, remembered nothing, felt nothing except for the craving that clenched my stomach into knots.

"Drink," he said, his wrist coming into focus in front of me, two lines of crimson across pale skin. I wrapped my hands around it and pressed my lips to the cuts he'd opened, and I drank.

"Be still, Merit." He stroked my hair.

I drank until the gnawing hunger in my belly receded, until rationality returned, until I could feel the chill in the air again. I drank until my vision cleared, until the fire across my belly was slaked. And then I pulled back from Ethan's wrist and sucked air into my lungs. As if by magic, the wound on Ethan's arm closed.

"I'm all right," I assured him, trying to take in my bearings.

I was sitting on his lap in a small bus-stop shelter only a few feet away from the police car. The rioter was in the backseat, and the cop stood on the sidewalk. The shelter gave us a bit of privacy, but he still watched us like a hawk as Ethan returned me to the land of the living.

He wrapped his arms around me. "Thank God. I thought I'd lost you."

I nodded but didn't attempt to climb off his lap. I breathed in the scent of him, the crisp scent of his cologne a relief among the smells of smoke and blood and battle.

"You passed out," he said. "I heard you call my name, but I couldn't find you. Luc traced your phone."

I rested my head against Ethan's chest, my body sated and suddenly lethargic, like a gourmand after a Thanksgiving meal. "New phone, new way to track vampires?"

"Precisely." He rubbed my hair again. "It was the perp?"

I nodded. "I tripped and he jumped me. He had a chef's knife."

"Odd choice of weapon."

I nodded again, still woozy and using words sparingly. "How long was I out?"

Tags: Chloe Neill Chicagoland Vampires Vampires
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