Hard Bitten

There were circles of stones along the trail beside the lake. We gathered at one of them, all wearing the black of mourning. Lindsey and I stood beside each other, holding hands as we stared out at the glassy water. Luc stood at her other side, his fingers and hers intertwined, grief breaking down the walls Lindsey had built between them.

A man I didn’t know spoke of the joys of immortality and the long life Ethan had been fortunate enough to live. Regardless of its length, life never quite seemed long enough. Especially when the end was selected— perpetrated—by someone else.

Malik, wearing a mantle of grief, carried bloodred amaranth to the lakeshore. He dropped the flowers into the water, then looked back at us. “Milton tells us in Paradise Lost that amaranth bloomed by the tree of life. But when man made his mortal mistake, it was removed to heaven, where it continued to grow for eternity.

Ethan ruled his House wisely, and with love. We can only hope that Ethan lives now where amaranth blossoms eternally.”

The words spoken, he returned to his wife, who clutched his hand in hers.

Lindsey sobbed, releasing my hand and moving into Luc’s embrace. His eyes closed in relief, and he wrapped his arms around her.

I stood alone, glad of their affection. Love bloomed like amaranth, I thought, finding a new place to seed even as others were taken away.

A week passed, and the House and its vampires still grieved. But even in grief, life went on.

Malik took up residence in Ethan’s office. He didn’t change the decor, but he did station himself behind Ethan’s desk. I heard rumblings in the halls about the choice, but I didn’t begrudge him the office. After all, the House was a business that he needed to run, at least until the receiver arrived.

Luc was promoted from Guard Captain to Second. He seemed more suited for security and safety than executive officer or would-be vice president, but he handled the promotion with dignity.

Tate’s deputy mayor took over for the city’s fallen playboy, who was facing indictment for his involvement with drugs, raves, and Celina.

Navarre House mourned her loss. The death of Celina, as a former Master and the namesake of the House, was treated with similar pomp and circumstance.

I got no specific rebuke from the GP for being the tool of her demise, but I assumed the receiver would have thoughts on that, as well.

The drama had no apparent end.

Through all of it, I stayed in my room. The House was virtually silent; I hadn’t heard laughter in a week. We were a family without a father. Malik was undoubtedly competent and capable, but Ethan, as Master, had turned most of us. We were biologically tied to him.

Bound to him.

Exhausted by him.

I spent my nights doing little more than bobbing in the sea of conflicting emotions. No appetite for blood or friendship, no appetite for politics or strategy, no interest in anything that went on in the House beyond my own emotions and the memories that stoked them.

My days were even worse.

As the sun rose, my mind ached for oblivion and my body ached for rest. But I couldn’t stop the thoughts that circled, over and over, in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And because I grieved, because I mourned, I didn’t want to. Events and moments replayed in my mind—from my first sight of him on the first floor of Cadogan House to the first time he beat me in a fight; from the expressions on his face when I’d taken blood from him to the fury in his expression when he’d nearly fought a shifter to keep me from presumed harm.

The moments replayed like a filmstrip. A filmstrip I couldn’t, however exhausted, turn off.

I couldn’t face Malik. I don’t know what he’d known before following Ethan onto campus that night, but I couldn’t imagine he didn’t wonder about the strangeness of the task—or its origin. I wouldn’t deny him the right to run the House as he saw fit, but I wasn’t ready to make declarations of his authority over me. Not without more information. Not without some assurance that he hadn’t been part of the team who’d sold me to the highest bidder. My anger became a comfort, because at least it wasn’t grief.

For seven nights, Mallory slept on the floor of my room, loath to leave my side. I was hardly capable of acknowledging her existence, much less anything else. But on the eighth night, she’d apparently had enough.

When the sun slipped below the horizon, she flipped on the lights and ripped the blanket off the bed.

I sat up, blinking back spots. “What the hell?”

“You’ve had your week of lying around. It’s time to get back to your life.”

I lay down again and faced the wall. “I’m not ready.”

The bed dipped beside me, and she put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re ready. You’re grieving, and you’re angry, but you’re ready. Lindsey said the House is down another guard since Luc took over as Second. You should be down there helping out.”

“I’m not ready,” I protested, ignoring her logic. “And I’m not angry.”

She made a sound of incredulity. “You’re not?

You should be. You should be pissed right now.

Pissed that Ethan was in cahoots with your father.”

“You don’t know that.” I said the words by habit. By now, I was too numb and exhausted with grief and rage to care.

“And you do? You were human, Merit. And you gave up that life for what? So some vampire could put a little extra cash into his coffers?”

I looked up as she popped off the bed, holding up her arms. “Does it look like he’s hurting for money?”

“Stop it.”

“No. You stop mourning for the guy who took your humanity. Who worked with your father—your father, Merit—to kill you and remake you in his image.”

Anger began to itch beneath my skin, warming my body from the inside out. I knew what she was doing— trying to bring me back to life—but that didn’t make me any more happy about it.

“He didn’t do it.”

“If you believed that, you’d be out there, not in this musty room stuck in some kind of stasis. If you believed he was innocent, you’d be mourning like a normal person with the rest of your Housemates instead of in here afraid of the possible truth—that your father paid Ethan to make you a vampire.”

I stilled. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know because it might be true.”

“I know, honey. But you can’t live like this forever. This isn’t a life. And Ethan would be pissed if he thought you were spending your life in this room, afraid of something you’re not even sure he did.”

I sighed and scratched at a paint mark on the wall. “So what do I do?”

Mallory sat beside me again. “You find your father, and you ask him.”

The tears began anew. “And if it’s true?”

She shrugged. “Then at least you’ll know.”

It was barely after dusk, so I called ahead to ensure my father was home before I left . . . and then I drove like a bat out of hell to get there.

I didn’t bother to knock, but burst through the front door with the same level of energy I’d applied to my week of denial. I even beat Pennebaker, my father’s butler, to the sliding door of my father’s office.

“He’s occupied,” Pennebaker said, staring dourly down from his skeletal height when I put a hand on the door.

I glanced over at him. “He’ll see me,” I assured him, and pushed the door open.

My mother sat on a leather club chair; my father sat behind his desk. They both stood up when I walked in.

“Merit, darling, is everything okay?”