"So," I said, folding down the burger's paper wrapping.
"Blood rationing?"
Luc and Malik growled simultaneously.
"The man is a stone-cold idiot," Luc said, taking an impressive bite of his triple-layer burger.
"Unfortunately," Malik said, moving his chess piece and sitting back in his chair, "he is an idiot with the ful authority of the GP."
"Which means we have to wait until he royal y screws the pooch before we can act," Luc said, hunched over the board again. "Al due respect, Liege, the guy is a douche."
"I have no official position with respect to his douchery,"
Malik said, pul ing a box of fries out of the bag, applying a prodigious amount of ketchup, and digging in. I appreciated that Malik, unlike Ethan, didn't need to be schooled on Chicago's best and greasiest cuisine. He knew the difference between a red hot and a hot beef, had a favorite pizza joint, and had been known to take a late-night trip with Aaliyah to a roadside dinerme adside outside Milwaukee to get Wisconsin's "best cheese curds."
More power to them.
"But we wil al ow him to hang himself with his own rope,"
Malik added. "And in the meantime, we wil monitor the vampires and intervene when the time is appropriate."
The tone was al Master vampire, something Malik had gotten better at using over the last few weeks. I took the hint, dropped the subject and dug into my burger while Luc used a fry to point to various chess pieces he was again deciding between.
"Deliberative, isn't he?" I whispered to Lindsey.
She smiled too knowingly for comfort. "You have no idea how deliberative he can be. How . . . thorough." She leaned toward me, nibbling on a bit of bacon from her burger.
"Have I ever waxed poetic about the glory that is the fuzzy-chested vampire wearing nothing but cowboy boots?"
Midbite, I squeezed my eyes closed, but it was too late to block the image of Luc wearing nothing but his birthday suit and sassy, red boots. "That's my former boss you're talking about," I whispered. "And I'm trying to eat."
"You're thinking about him naked, aren't you?"
"Unfortunately."
She patted my arm. "And to think - I was actual y hesitant about dating him. Oh, and speaking of which. Chaps.
Enough said."
"Enough most definitely said." Lindsey was becoming my new, in-House Mal ory, complete with conquest details.
Sigh.
"In that case, I'l leave you to your imagination. But I strongly recommend the therapeutic application of fuzzy-chested vampire to grief. It works miracles."
"I am sincerely glad to hear that. But if you keep talking, I wil poke your eyes out with a toothpick." I shoved a handful of napkins in her general direction. "Shut up and eat your burger.
Sometimes a girl had to lay down the law.
CHAPTER TWO
BITTERSWEET DREAMS
I stood on a high plain in my modern-style black leather -
my long hair whipping in the chil ing wind that rol ed past, swirling the mist that curled at my feet.
The clothing might have been modern, but the setting was ancient. The landscape was bleak and empty, and the air smel ed of sulfur and dampness.
I felt the footsteps before I heard them, the ground rumbling just slightly beneath my feet.
And then he appeared.
Like a warrior returning from battle, Ethan emerged through the mist in garb out of time and place for twenty-first century Chicago. Knee-high leather boots, rough-hewn pants, and a long leather tunic belted at the waist. There was a rust-red gash in the middle of his chest. His hair was long and wavy and golden-blond, and his eyes were vibrantly green.
I walked toward him, fear circling my heart, making a vise around it, squeezing my lungs until I was barely able to sip at air. I was glad to see him alive - but I knew he was a harbinger of death.
When I reached him, he put his hands on my arms, leaned forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. Such a simple act, but so intimate. A precious affection that made my chest ache wn with sentiment. I closed my eyes and savored the moment as thunder rumbled across the plateau, shaking the ground again.
Suddenly, Ethan raised his head and glanced warily around. When he looked at me again, he began to speak, the words flowing in a lilting language that sounded like it came from a time and place far away.
I shook my head. "I can't understand you."
His expression tightened, a line of worry furrowing his forehead, the words coming more quickly as he tried to get his point across. But the speed didn't help.
"Ethan, I don't know what you're saying. Can you speak English?"
Panic in his eyes, he glanced back over his shoulder, then grabbed my arm and pointed behind him. A low, thick storm front was rol ing toward us, the wind beginning to pick up as the temperature dropped.
"I see the storm," I told him over the rising wind. "But I can't stop it."
Ethan yel ed something out, but the words were lost in the howling wind. He started walking toward the thundercloud, pul ing my arm in an attempt to drag me with him.
But I resisted, pul ing back. "That's the wrong way. We can't walk into the storm!"
He was insistent, but so was I. Positive we'd be swept off the plateau and into the sea if we didn't seek shelter, I began running away from the wal of clouds . . . and him. But began running away from the wal of clouds . . . and him. But I couldn't resist a final glance back. He stood frozen on the plain, his hair whipping in the gale.
Before I could reach out to him, the storm reached us and broke, the wind knocking me off my feet, the pressure sucking the air from my lungs. The rain came as I hit my knees, blowing sideways and turning the landscape gray, the wind howling in my ears. Ethan disappeared in the onslaught, leaving only the echo of his voice on the wind.
"Merit! "
I jolted awake, bathed in sweat, gasping for breath, the sound of his voice in my ears.
Tears slipped from my eyes as I pushed drenched bangs from my forehead, and scrubbed my hands across my face, trying to slow the feverish race of my heart.
My first dream of Ethan had been miraculous; we'd bathed in the sun - a taboo to vampires. I'd savored that last memory of him.
But this was the sixth nightmare in the two months since he'd been gone. Each was louder and more vivid than the last, and waking up was like emerging from a tunnel of panic, my chest squeezed into a knot. In each nightmare we were pushed to some crisis, but the end was always the same - he was always torn away from me. Each time I woke with his voice in my ears, screaming out my name in panic.
I dropped my forehead to my knees, grief pounding at my heart like a kettledrum. The helplessness of loss overwhelmed me. Not just from the loss of Ethan, but from the frustration - the exhaustion - of being visited again by a ghost who wouldn't let me go. Tears fel , and I let them, wishing the sting of salt would wash away the hurt.