I wiped away tears and hurried to the side of the bed beside Keley. "Are you al right?"
"I'm fine. Tired." He swal owed. "I need blood, I think."
I looked back at Keley. "Is that an effect of the . . . whatever this is?"
"Possibly. Luc, can you check the second-floor kitchen? Grab some blood?"
Luc immediately went to the door of Ethan's apartments, but came back two minutes later empty-handed, muttering a few choice words about Frank. The second-floor refrigerator was apparently empty of blood. As were the first- and third-floor fridges.
"Long story short, hoss, we're out of blood at the moment."
Ethan sat up a little. "I'm sorry? The House is out of blood? Why would Malik let that happen?"
"I'm going to re-stress the 'long story' bit. It also happens drinking from vampires is currently against the rules of Cadogan House, but I'm pretty sure we'l go to bat for you on this one." He winged up his eyebrows. "Although you may need to impose upon a Novitiate for nourishment."
Now my cheeks were flaming red, but the suggested intimacy - the possibility that my Master needed to take blood from me - didn't seem to faze Ethan.
Luc and Keley silently slipped out the door.
Suddenly as anxious as a girl on a first date, I sat down on the edge of the bed. This was so strange. He'd been gone. And now he was back. I was so glad to see him I thought my chest might burst with it, but it was stil surreal.
"Nervous, Sentinel?"
I nodded.
Ethan tilted his head, splaying his golden hair against the pil ow behind him. "Don't be. It is the most natural thing a vampire can do." He took my hand and gazed down at my wrist, then rubbed his thumb over the pulse that throbbed just beneath my skin. The sensation sent flutters of warmth through me, but not just of desire. He gazed beyond my wrist as if staring at the blood and life that ran beneath it, his emerald eyes silvering as the hunger for blood hit him.
I'd never given blood to anyone before. I'd taken it from Ethan, but that was the extent of it. Eight months ago, could I possibly have imagined this would be my first experience?
That I would be sitting here, with Ethan, in his apartment, ready to offer up a wrist?
He pressed his lips to my pulse, and my eyes drifted shut, my body now humming with predatory interest, my own fangs descendinangindg. "Ethan."
He made a faint sound of masculine satisfaction, and I shivered when he kissed my wrist again.
"Be stil ," he said, his lips against my skin. "Be stil ."
It had been a night for tears. For losing a friend, hopeful y only temporarily, to magical addiction. For my own reunion with Ethan. But whatever those emotions, they paled in comparison to the reunion shared by Ethan and Malik.
When Ethan was fed and I'd advised Luc, Malik made his trip upstairs, his eyes as wide as saucers. He looked between me and a stronger-looking Ethan - stil resting on the bed - trying to figure out the magic or trick at work. It took him a few minutes to even attempt words.
They'd known each other for a century. It stood to reason the reunion would be meaningful.
And when the reunion was done, as if nothing had passed between them, it didn't take them long to get down to politics.
"The GP sent a receiver," Malik said.
"They didn't waste much time," Ethan muttered. "Who did they select?"
"Franklin Cabot."
"From Cabot House? Good lord." Ethan grimaced. "That man is a worm. Victor would be better off if he met a stake of his own. How bad has it been?"
Malik glanced at me, as if checking in before burdening Ethan with too much bad news. But I knew Ethan wel enough to presume he wouldn't want to be coddled. I gave Malik a nod.
"I'l give you the short list," Malik said. "He put the House on blood rations. He revoked the right to drink in the House.
He has limited their right of assembly. He revoked Merit's status as Sentinel and sent her to see Claudia. He subjected the guards to a sunlight endurance test."
Ethan's eyes widened in disbelief. "I am at a loss."
"He is incompetent," Malik said. "Out of respect for the House and the GP I gave him room to conduct his investigation. But he has gone too far." Malik cleared his throat. "I heard him on the telephone a few hours ago advising Darius that Cadogan vampires had been in league with a sorceress to destroy the city. I had planned to address the issues with him before the Midway occurred, but now that you're back . . ."
Silence, as Ethan considered. My shoulders tense, I waited for a response, expecting a blowup of temper or careful y modulated fury.
"Screw them," Ethan final y said.
After a moment of utter shock, I enjoyed my second biggest smile al night. Malik's wasn't much smal er.
"I'm sorry," I said, "did you just say 'screw them'?"
Ethan smiled grimly. "It's a new dawn, so to speak. I don't give the GP a lot of credit, but they're smart enough to recognize incompetence when they see it." He looked fixedly at Malik. "And if they don't, they defeat their very purpose for existence."
He hadn't exactly used the word "revolution," but it lurked there - the possibility that Cadogan House could exist without the GP.
Maybe my RG membership wouldn't freak him out as much as I'd thought.
Not that I had any plans to tel him.
"I'm on my third life," Ethan said. "And in this one, I may be at the beck and cal of a sorceress with an addiction to black magic. It tends to put the GP's irrationality into perspective."
"And control of the House?" Malik wondered.
"The GP wil never al ow me to retake the House until they're assured Mal ory doesn't have control. And while I understand the House isn't exactly fond of the GP right now, I couldn't disagree with that position. It's too risky. The House should remain in your very apt Mastery until you're confident I'm acting of my own free wil ."
My beeper buzzed with an alert: There was a meeting in the bal room. Clearly the Master(s) of the House hadn't scheduled it, because they were both here. Curiosity piqued - and since they'd moved right into discussing historical applications of the vampiric line of succession - I politely excused myself and walked downstairs to the second-floor bal room.
One of the doors was propped open, so I fol owed the crowd of vampires inside and sidled up beside Lindsey and Keley, whom I found in the back of the room.
Frank stood on the platform in the front of the bal room, waxing poetic about the evils of Cadogan House and the lack of restraint of its vampires. "Cadogan House is on an unsustainable course," he said. "Taking too much interest in human affairs. Attempting to solve problems that are outside its purview and authority. That course cannot continue, and I cannot in good faith recommend to the Presidium the continuation of the status quo."