I’m trying to get motivated to get in my 1.5K words of TWICE BITTEN … but while I’m procrastinating, here’s a little somethin’ somethin’ from FRIDAY NIGHT BITES . . .\u00a0<\/p>\n
I could feel her now, a tiger beginning to pace. I could feel her moving, shifting beneath my bones, my muscles beginning to vibrate with it. She wanted my eyes fully silver, my fangs fully descended, my magic spilling through the room. She wanted to take Ethan\u2019s words and throw them back, to challenge him with steel.<\/p>\n
Or she wanted to throw him down and have her way with him.<\/p>\n
Either act would have been violent, primal, incredibly satisfying. And a truly bad idea.<\/p>\n
I gripped the handle of the katana, pressing my nails into the cording around the grip to maintain my control. After my failed attempt at warning Catcher, I\u2019d decided to keep the problem to myself. That meant Ethan didn\u2019t know, and I wasn\u2019t about to announce to a Master vampire who already had trust issues that I thought I was broken.<\/p>\n
That she was waiting.<\/p>\n
It took seconds for me to push her down, to breathe through her again, seconds during which the magic rose in eddies through the room.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Cadogan House, I thought, and with some burst of strength, I willed her back down, lifted my chin and stared back at him. His eyes were wide crystal pools of green.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am Sentinel of this House,\u201d I said, my voice sultrier than usual, \u201cand I recognize as well as you the responsibility that entails. I have agreed to get you into the places where you need access. I have agreed to help you investigate the raves, and you\u2019ll be the first person on my contact list if I learn that Celina is in town. But my love life is off limits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember who<\/a>\u00a0you\u2019re talking to, Sentinel.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never forget, Sullivan.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly a minute passed, during which neither of us moved, even as the weight of our collective stubbornness thickened the air.<\/p>\n But then, miracle of miracles, he relented. The tension and magic diffused. A single stiff nod was all he gave me, but I relished it, savored it, resolved to commit the moment to memory\u2014the moment he\u2019d tapped out. I managed not to scream, \u201cI won!\u201d but couldn\u2019t help the grin that lifted a corner of my mouth.<\/p>\n I should have known the celebration was premature.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless, you\u2019ll check in with me if you bring Morgan to Cadogan House,\u201d Ethan said, his tone self-satisfied enough to deflate my smile.<\/p>\n Of course he wanted me to tell him. He wanted to savor the victory of my delivering the new head of Navarre House\u2014and the possibility of a Cadogan-Navarre alliance\u2014to his\u00a0<\/a>doorstep. Given his previous doubts about my loyalties\u2014spurred by my controversial change from human to vampire\u2014what better way for Ethan to ensure that I wasn\u2019t leaking information in the halls of Navarre House than to keep me safe and secure in Cadogan, Morgan in tow?<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t sure how much I cared about Morgan. It was early; the relationship was young. But in comparison with the man Mallory had aptly nicknamed \u201cDarth Sullivan,\u201d Morgan was Prince Charming in Diesel jeans. I took the comment, inflammatory as it was, as my cue to exit. There was no point in pretending we were going to just laugh this off, and the longer I stayed in the room with him, the more I risked my vampire surfacing. And if she gained control, God only knew what she\u2019d do. That was a risk I couldn\u2019t take\u2014not without risking my own death by aspen stake. So, without meeting the glare I could feel boring into my skin, I rose from my chair and moved toward the door, reaching for the handle.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd lest you forget,\u201d he added, \u201cmy interest in your personal life is wholly Cadogan-motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, right in the numbers with that one.<\/p>\n \u201cMy concern is about alliances,\u201d he said, \u201cabout the potential of putting Navarre alliance insignia over our door. Don\u2019t mistake it for anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t dare make that mistake, Sullivan.\u201d Hard to mistake it when he\u2019d admitted that he was attracted to me, but only begrudgingly. When he\u2019d practically handed me to Morgan. Of course, that was right after he\u2019d offered to make me his newest consort. His live-in, go-to girl. (Needless to say, I\u2019d declined.)<\/p>\n But here he was, raising the issue. Maybe Ethan Sullivan, despite his crystalline facade of control, didn\u2019t really know what he wanted after all.<\/p>\n \u201cWatch your tone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWatch your implication.\u201d I was toeing the line of insubordination, but couldn\u2019t let him get in the last word. Not on this.<\/p>\n His jaw clenched. \u201cJust do your job.\u201d<\/p>\n I nearly growled at him. I\u2019d done my job. I\u2019d done my job when there were a million reasons why I shouldn\u2019t risk my life to defend his. I\u2019d done my job, despite his lack of faith, despite my better judgment, because there\u2019d been nothing else to do but to do my job. I\u2019d accepted my life as a vampire, I\u2019d defended him before Morgan, and I\u2019d defended him before Celina.<\/p>\n My frustration rose again, and with it the threat of her breaking through. I could have let her loose, could have allowed her to test her mettle against Ethan\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. but I\u2019d sworn two oaths to him, one to defend him against all enemies, dead or alive.<\/p>\n My vampire probably counted as one or the other.<\/p>\n So instead, calling up the willpower of a saint, I forced my lips into a smile and gazed at him beneath half-hooded lashes. \u201cLiege<\/span><\/span>,<\/i>\u201d I said crisply, an allowance of his authority, and a reminder of exactly what our respective positions were. If he could put me in my place, I could remind him of his.<\/span><\/p>\n Ethan watched me for a moment, nostrils flaring, but if he was angry, he resisted the urge to push back. Instead he bobbed his head and looked down at the spread of papers on his desk. I walked out and with a decisive click<\/span>, shut the door behind me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I’m trying to get motivated to get in my 1.5K words of TWICE BITTEN … but while I’m procrastinating, here’s a little somethin’ somethin’ from FRIDAY NIGHT BITES . . .\u00a0 * * *\u00a0 I could feel her now, a tiger beginning to pace. I could feel her moving, shifting beneath my bones, my muscles[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[8,65],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-friday-night-bites","tag-sneak-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chloeneill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}