House Rules (Chicagoland Vampires #7)(39)
Author: Chloe Neill

"Yeah. So I have to be careful. Really careful."

"The Lake Michigan – sized fit and all. Yeah. That’s part of the RG cost. The benefit, of course, is that the world is a better, safer place."

"Of course."

"While we’re here, any developments regarding Oliver and Eve?"

"There are, as it turns out," I said, and quickly filled him in.

"What’s your next step?" he asked.

"Honestly, I’m not really sure. I think we’re at a dead end unless Jeff comes up with something else."

He nodded and climbed into his car. "He’ll come up with something. Keep me posted."

I gave him a little wave as he drove away, then climbed into my car and let it warm up for a moment before pulling out of the parking lot and back into my life.

* * *

By the time I arrived at the House, we were minutes away from the GP ceremony. Bag in hand, I climbed out of the car, but then stopped to think.

Taking a bag of RG swag into the House might not be the best idea; the House was chaotic enough without adding more drama. I unlocked the trunk of my car and stuffed the bag into it, somewhere between the padded gloves I’d used twice for a kickboxing class, the blanket I kept for winter emergencies, and the emergency road kit that hadn’t been opened in all the years I’d had the car.

A car squealed to a stop in front of me, parking parallel.

I put a hand on my sword, but it was Lacey who got out of the car. Still tall, still blond, still effortlessly attractive. She slammed her door shut, and then began walking toward my Volvo.

And she looked very, very happy.

"Well, well, well," she said as she approached. "I guess we all have our secrets, don’t we?"

My heart fell into my stomach. Oh, God, was the only coherent thought I could manage. What had she seen?

"Our secrets?" I asked, slamming the trunk shut before she came around the car.

She walked around and leaned against the car, a hip against the metal, then crossed her arms and leaned forward just a smidge.

"I know where you were," she said. "I know where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing."

I felt sick with panic. She’d seen me and Jonah, and she knew about the RG. But there was no turning back. I could only hope against hope that she didn’t yet know why I’d been there.

Keep bluffing. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You know damn well. I saw you in the parking lot. I saw you with him."

My anger sprouted quickly. "Did you follow me?"

"I’m keeping an eye out for my Master and his House."

"Your Master does just fine on his own, and his House is in good hands."

"That’s not how it looked to me. And I can’t decide which betrayal I find more disturbing – that you’re betraying him for Jonah, or that you’re doing it tonight, one of the most important of his very long life."

I swallowed down a burst of guilt and fear that she was correct. But I bluffed just as I’d been taught to do.

"I’m betraying no one," I said. "You have no idea what you’re talking about."

"Really?" she said with a cunning smile. "Great. Then let’s go talk to him about it right now and clear the air, right before the GP ceremony. You truly have excellent timing."

"Maybe you could mind your own business."

"Maybe you could stop screwing around with things you don’t understand." Her voice was suddenly fierce, suddenly ferocious, and I stared back at her. I knew she had feelings for Ethan, but even if she was jealous, this seemed like a lot of emotion to be mere jealousy.

"I understand everything, and very well, thank you. He took a stake for me. I mourned for him."

She barked out a laugh. "Ha! You mourned for him? You, who’d known him for a matter of months before he died? You think you have any idea what grief is like?" She pointed at me. "You failed to protect him. You were his Sentinel, and you failed, and he died. It’s only by a freak magical accident that he’s alive again, no thanks to you."

"Is that what you think happened? You think I was standing around, shooting the shit with the mayor, and I let Ethan get staked?"

"You were there," she said. "That’s all I know."

God, she sounded just like Seth Tate, blaming me for what had gone on in that room, even though I’d been an innocent bystander.

Was this grief? The pent-up emotions she’d had to face when Ethan had died? Anger that he hadn’t come crawling to her when he’d been resurrected? Whatever the cause, it was deeply felt, and strong enough to drive her to spy on me.

"He took a stake for me," I said. "Celina threw a stake at me, and he stepped in front of it. He saved me from that. How dare you minimize what he did."

She pointed at me, her eyes hot with anger. "You are a damned liar."

"I am not a liar."

She must have caught the truth in my face, because her expression fell, and for a moment she looked like a sad human being, a girl who’d been dumped. She looked vulnerable and a little pathetic, and my heart ached for her. Not a lot, but still.

She’d had feelings for Ethan, and had assumed facts about their relationship and what she meant to him – and more important, what I meant to him. And if I was right, I’d proven her seriously wrong. Lacey didn’t seem like the type who liked being wrong.

She sniffed delicately, and then, like she’d flipped a switch – and as if she hadn’t lost her composure in front of me – she was back to cool, calm, and collected again.

Well, I could play calm and collected, too. If she really thought she had something, she’d take it to Ethan right now, the GP be damned. But she didn’t know what she’d seen, not exactly. She knew only that I’d met Jonah in a parking lot. She didn’t know that I’d met him because of the RG and because I’d just been initiated as a member.

"You’ll tell him," she said.

"There’s nothing to tell."

"You’ll tell him, or I will." She took a step closer. "How dare you preach to me about the sacrifices he’s willing to make for you when you won’t give him the truth."

Unfortunately, she had a point there, one that made my stomach curl.

"Tell him," she reiterated, her lips curving into a slow and eerie smile. "Tell him, or give me the satisfaction of proving what I’ve known all along. Just how common you really, truly are," she whispered, her words falling like poison. "You have twenty-four hours."

And then she turned and walked away, her heels clicking as she strode down the sidewalk again and toward the House.

I stood there, my stomach in knots, trying to think what to do.