Hard Bitten

“Scott,” Darius called out, “What the fuck was that?”

Before Scott could answer, I filled in the blank. “With all due respect, Sire—those are your errant vampires.”

Scott’s guards, including Jonah’s friends Jeremy and Danny, stormed the room not a moment later, pulling out the unconscious users. But they left the katana in the column—a visible sign to others in the House who might be stupid enough to try V.

We said goodbye to Gabriel and Tonya, who, understandably, left the House as soon as the coast was clear. Scott escorted the rest of us into the atrium while the remains of dinner were cleaned up. Charlie and Darius stood quietly together; Morgan stood alone. I was standing near Ethan when Scott and Jonah moved our way.

Scott looked between us. “Thanks for the assist.”

Ethan nodded graciously. “It happens to the best of us, unfortunately.”

“How are the vamps doing?” I asked.

“They’re still out. They’re in the infirmary under guard for the moment. When they’re awake again, we’ll have a lengthy conversation about drugs and responsibility.”

“Did you know them well?” I asked.

“Only as applicants to the House,” Scott said.

“They’re relative newcomers. Members of your Initiate class.”

“What’s a ‘newcomer’ in immortal terms?” I asked.

A smile perked at one corner of Scott’s mouth.

“Anything less than a decade.”

Which made me a baby vamp.

Ethan slid a glance to where Darius stood, now offering up some sort of instructions while Charlie tapped at a tablet computer. “Do you think he’ll consider the threat any more real now?”

“The GP has an odd attitude about things like this. I’m still not sure he sees us as anything other than troublemakers at this point. Squeaky wheels taking him away from real business in the UK.”

“Are you going to investigate?”

Scott blew out a breath. “That’s a tough one.

This is a problem in my House. It has to be addressed.”

“And if you discover Celina had anything to do with it?”

“Then we didn’t have this conversation, but the Chicago Houses agreed to quietly deal with the problem as it exists.”

Scott and Ethan looked at each other until Scott extended a hand. Ethan shook it, the deal struck.

Scott gestured toward his office. “I’m going to have a chat with my guards for a moment. I assume Darius will want to speak with us before you leave.”

“We’ll wait here,” Ethan agreed.

“I think Luc was right,” he added when they were out of earshot. “I can hardly take you out anymore.”

“I just took out a vamp twice my weight while wearing a cocktail dress and three-inch heels. I think I deserve some credit for that.”

“Is that so?” he asked.

That’s when I first felt it—that rumble of warning from somewhere deep in my bones, telling me something wasn’t right. But I ignored it and challenged him anyway.

“Yes,” I baldly said. “You’re fortunate I was there to help.”

“Fortunate? I believe I bested my own foe, Merit. Perhaps you should thank me for my assistance.” He raked his gaze up and down my body. “I’m sure I can suggest some small measure of gratitude.”

The blood began to pound in my ears, my skin prickling with sudden heat. I had no doubt my eyes were silver, but I didn’t care. I slipped a finger into one of the belt loops on his trousers and tugged him closer. “What did you have in mind?”

His eyes changed, his pupils mere pinpricks of black against the swirling quicksilver of his irises.

He began moving forward, pushing me backward, and he didn’t stop until my back was literally against the brick wall of the atrium.

Before I could object, his hands were on my face, his mouth against mine. His lips pulled at my mouth, kissing me hungrily, greedily.

In some satellite part of my brain, it occurred to me that it was odd that Ethan was kissing me in someone else’s House. And yet, even as I thought it was weird, my blood began to warm and boil with a heat I’d never experienced before. It itched beneath my skin, adrenaline pushing through my veins as if I were still midbattle with the Grey House vampires.

“Ethan,” I managed, calling his name in warning, even while I let him kiss me there in the middle of Grey House. He changed tactics and kissed me slowly, languorously, before finally opening his eyes and looking at me. There was an apology in his eyes.

“Something is . . . wrong.”

I nodded my head, knowing that he’d meant this wasn’t just love or lust, but a different kind of force, but the thought was distant, and the burning need was here and now.

It was immediate.

Intense.

I rolled my head to the side, my eyelids fluttering, the invitation overt.

“Do you need something from me?” His voice was low, more like the warning growl of a tiger than the question of a vampire.

I swallowed . . . and nodded. I felt like a teenager at a first dance. I didn’t know the music, wasn’t savvy to the steps, but the emotions were so basic, so fundamental, that it wasn’t possible to dance them incorrectly.

Ethan lifted a hand to my neck, the bare touch of his fingertips nearly buckling my knees. And before I could ask why he was apologizing, he kissed me. His kiss was firm, insistent, and questing. He moved closer, wrapping his arms around my back and deepening the kiss. His tongue explored as he pressed harder against me, the sudden length of his unmistakable erection pressing against my stomach.

I should have been shocked. Should have reminded him that this was neither the time nor the place, that we’d seen how bad things could get.

But with each possessive rumble in his throat, our own magics twined together. I was drawn in—by the magic, by the kiss, by the possessive bite of his fingers. I pulled him toward me, my fingers slipping into the belt loops on his trousers, and leaned up to deepen the kiss. I was as hungry for him as I’d ever been for blood, but this hunger was now. It was immediate, and it demanded to be sated.

Love was a dangerous drug.

Oh, God. That was it. Ethan wasn’t overpowered by love or lust or the sudden, romance-novel-esque realization that He Had to Have Me Now. This was unprompted aggression, albeit of a slightly different variety than we’d seen before. . . .

“Ethan, I think we’ve been drugged.”

He ignored me, instead growling and tangling his fingers into my hair. My heart tripped, not out of lust this time, but out of fear, because the growl had changed, become meaner.

I switched tactics, giving him a telepathic order that I hoped would push through the haze of drugs to the part of his brain that was still functioning. Ethan, stop.

He lifted his head, and I saw the conflict in his eyes. His brain ordered him to stop, but his body was propelling him forward—evidenced by his eyes. They were nearly all silver.

“What?” he asked.

“I think we’ve been drugged. Someone slipped us V. Maybe in the food?”

A wave of hot, itchy anger rushed through me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and my fingers into fists, pressing until the pain in my palms helped slow the spinning of my mind.

“The anger found a different outlet,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Perhaps a different dose.