They’d been cohorts, companions, vampires who’d survived trauma. He’d believed they were on the same side. Not friends, perhaps, but certainly not enemies. And then, in order to support her claim to the GP, she’d tried by violent means to dissuade him from taking up the gauntlet. She’d betrayed him doubly.

But if that was all there was to it, why not tell me? Why not explain his feelings to me? There was nothing about that I could possibly object to.

“A woman comes to understand things across the centuries of her existence,” Nicole said. “She gains perspective. Balthasar, yes, was a monster. But he gave me immortality for a purpose. I intend to make the most of it.”

“By threatening me? By challenging me?”

“By taking what is mine, and what you have no right to claim.” Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she leaned forward, the bubble of magic moving with her like needle pricks on skin.

“I have bided my time, Ethan. Worked to build my own kingdom. I have dealt with monsters—vampire and human alike—and humans who treated me as if I were a dog because I had the unfortunate luck to be born with skin a shade darker than theirs. I stood Second, waited for my turn. I followed the rules.”

Ethan’s brows lifted. “And I haven’t?”

“You quit the GP. Your House has killed two members of the GP. Darius was fine until his fateful trip to Chicago, where you let a mass murderer run him to ground. And then you have the temerity to challenge him? To demand that he give up his position for you?”

She’d missed several details—the fact that those GP members were killed in self-defense, that they’d put the House in receivership, that Darius had come to Chicago to close us down and strip us bare of assets, and that we’d left the GP because of their bad acts. She left out the facts that we saved Darius from Michael Donovan, that we’d just uncovered a plot to control him and steal money from the GP.

But when you lined up the bare facts against us—as the vampires who didn’t know, or didn’t want to know, the context were likely to do—it was hard to argue her point.

“As you’re well aware, your story is incomplete,” Ethan pointed out. “It also reeks of your own cowardice. Where were you when Darius was being manipulated? What attention were you paying?”

“I was minding the business of me and my House.”

“Precisely,” Ethan said. “And that’s the kind of myopic attitude that has put us in the very situation we’re in now.” He tilted his head at her, donned his analytical expression, considered her. “All that aside, I’m curious, Nicole. What, precisely, would you have me do?”

Her eyes glowed with purpose. “Resign your candidacy. If we run against each other, we’ll split the American vote. That weakens our chances of an American regent. Yes, there are three Houses in Chicago. But there are more Houses outside it—Houses that do not appreciate the chaos of this city, of your politics.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “And if I don’t resign?”

They kept their eyes on each other, one predator scoping out the other.

“I am a practical woman,” Nicole finally said. “And I know very well how to adapt to shifting currents. I’m not interested in letting your, shall we say, past dalliances reflect negatively on me. But I am a player, Ethan. I am a contender. I will play this game as Darius wishes us to play it. And I will win.”

Ethan had been right; she wouldn’t go through with the blackmail, at least not now. But she felt free to torture him with the vaguely referenced “dalliances.” And since she’d so carefully hinted at it, I wondered if she meant to torture me, as well.

Regardless, Ethan’s response was clear and unequivocal, as was the grin that crossed his face. “There’s not a chance in hell that I will step down from my challenge.”

“Because your ego demands it?”

“Because my honor demands it. The GP, in large part, consists of monsters and bullies, and it is time for a change. You play the game, Nicole, and you always have. You play it skillfully. But it is time to dismantle the game, to rewrite the rules.”

“Careful, Ethan. You sound like a rebel.”

“We’ve already rejected the GP,” he pointed out. “We are rebels.”

Nicole rolled her eyes, rose from the couch. “You’re naive. The system is in place for a reason, Ethan, and has been for centuries. You don’t just pretend it doesn’t exist.”

He didn’t comment, perhaps because it was as obvious to him as it was to me that talking wasn’t going to change her mind. Whatever their relationship in the past—and regardless their history—Nicole Heart intended to challenge Ethan and win the throne from him if she could.

“Then I wish you the best of luck,” Ethan said, rising as well. “And should you claim the victory, I hope you rule the GP with wisdom and honor.”

But Nicole smiled, and it wasn’t the smile of a good-natured contender.

It was the smile of a shark.

“This isn’t over,” she said, then cast a glance to me. “Until the testing is complete, until the next king or queen is sworn in, we are challengers, and enemies. I will not allow you to stand in my way.”

Ethan nodded graciously, and without a further word, Nicole and Sarah strode defiantly from the room.

A heavy silence descended. Ethan looked back at me, still behind the couch, and I kept my expression carefully neutral. I had no idea what to say or do, no idea what might trigger some instinctive response in him, prickle him into anger.

“She’s not going to stop,” I finally said.

“I know.”

I nodded. “It’s worse when someone you know betrays you. Someone you trusted.”

He looked surprised.

“Mallory,” I explained. “I’ve been there.”

“Ah,” he said.

More silence.

“Well, you should probably get ready for testing.”

Ethan sighed heavily, looked back at me again. “I know that you love me, appreciate that you love me regardless this misery. Am awed by it. Unfortunately, love doesn’t change who I am, or who she is. That’s what I have to come to terms with right now. I’ll see you downstairs.”

He walked out of the room without another word.

Without a single touch, he’d pushed me away again.

* * *

Lakshmi confirmed that the training room was the best place for the testing, and we offered her the anteroom to catch up on her own business. Nicole and her entourage set up camp in the front parlor, a security camera carefully trained on their activities. Ethan, Malik, Luc, Lindsey, and I camped in Ethan’s office, waiting for the clock to strike five.

It was ten minutes ’til when Lindsey rose from a chair in the sitting area of Ethan’s office, moved to him on the couch. Magic followed in her wake, waves of nervousness and fear.

“Do you know how to compartmentalize?” she asked him, searching his eyes, clearly nervous for her Master. She was a very strong psych, had the ability to ferret out others’ emotions. And from the look in her eyes, I guessed Ethan’s were concerning her.

“Compartmentalize?” I asked.

Lindsey kept her eyes on him. “It’s a way of ‘double thinking.’”

I frowned, and Ethan glanced at me. “You already do it, Sentinel. When you unlock your senses, you maintain the ability to think rationally.”

“Double think,” Lindsey agreed.

“Oh,” I brightly said, feeling better about my vampiric capabilities. I hadn’t come by them smoothly—trauma in the first instance and biological separation in the second—so it was comforting to know I was doing it right, at least by vampire standards.

“I can do it,” Ethan agreed. “At least somewhat.”

Lindsey nodded. “They’ll test your strength, your resolve, your emotional stability. Try to compartmentalize it—let it happen, but keep part of yourself reserved just for yourself, just for you.” She put a hand over his heart. “Keep part of yourself there, and she won’t be able to touch you.”

She meant to comfort him, and he seemed grateful, but the offer of help, the nature of it, made me increasingly nervous.

The clock’s minute hand moved forward again, the click ominously loud in the silence of the room, and Malik rose. “Liege, we should go downstairs so you can change.”

Ethan blew out a breath, nodded.

* * *

At five o’clock, Luc and I walked into the training room.

Four wooden chairs had been placed in the middle of the room—two rows of two chairs, the rows facing each other, each chair about four feet away from the others.

Lakshmi stood beside them, her hands linked behind her, an air of absolute certainty and authority in her posture. Malik and Bennett stood at her sides.

Ethan and Nicole walked in, both wearing gis. They acknowledged Lakshmi, walked to the chairs, and sat down like rigid dolls. Both of them looked nervous.

Two more vampires walked in, a blond woman and a man with graying hair. They took the chairs opposite Nicole and Ethan.

It looked so harmless, so simple—four vampires sitting in a small cluster as if they meant to talk, to share. I’d have much preferred if that was the agenda for the evening.

Lakshmi looked at the group of us. “You’re satisfied?”

“We are,” Malik said.

Bennett nodded. “We are.”

They walked to the far end of the room, sat down in two more chairs, their postures as rigid and uncomfortable as those of the rest of them. Nerves fluttered in my chest like nervous birds, and I stared at Ethan, afraid to activate our telepathic connection but willing him to look at me, to make eye contact, to reassure me or tell me to be still, as was his way.

But his eyes were trained on the woman across from him, just as Nicole’s were trained on the man in front of her. The game had begun, and their focus was sharp.

“One hour,” Lakshmi said, and Malik checked his watch. “Clear the room.”

We filed out. At the door, I looked back, cast one last glance at Ethan. This time, I found him looking back at me, and I saw something I’d seen only rarely in Ethan Sullivan’s eyes.

Fear.

It had my belly going cold.

The doors closed with an ominous sound, leaving us bathed in silence.

Chapter Seventeen

BRONX TALE

For a moment I simply stared at the closed door, at the wood grain, as if my staring at it would endow him with whatever strength he’d need to safely make it through this.

“Sentinel?”

I looked back, found Luc in the doorway.

“They won’t start for a few more minutes,” he said. “They’ll discuss ground rules, and the psychics will need to calibrate their thoughts to Ethan’s and Nicole’s. In the meantime, I need you to do something.”

I nodded, glad for anything that might take my mind off what would happen in that room. I walked toward the Ops Room, but when he gestured me back toward the stairs, I stopped, shook my head.

“I’m not leaving him.”

He walked back to me. “I just need you to go upstairs.”

I shook my head again. “What if something happens and I’m not here? What if something happens? What if he needs me?”

“I’ll be here, Merit, right next door, where I have to be. Where I have to be,” he repeated, “which means I can’t take care of Lindsey.”

And the fear was in his eyes, too.

* * *

We walked silently to the third-floor room they shared, and Luc opened the door.

Lindsey sat on the small bed in the wildly colored room they shared. Novitiate quarters—like the ones I’d first had in Cadogan House—were much smaller than ours. A single room with attached bath and closet. Bed, bookshelf, bureau, nightstand. One or two windows, depending on the location.

She wore long pajamas and had wrapped herself in a fringed fleece Yankees blanket. There was no accounting for taste, I supposed.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking between them. Because something was definitely going on; I could tell by the nervous magic.

“They’ll be testing Ethan and Nicole,” Luc said. “But they’ll use magic and their psychic connection to do it. It will bleed over.”

Lindsey was psychic; Luc meant the trauma they put Ethan through would bleed over to her. It hadn’t even occurred to me that would happen. I looked at Lindsey. She wasn’t one to look worried, but she definitely looked worried now.

“How much will bleed over?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “It could be bad.” She also wasn’t one for showing fear, but it was clear in the set of her jaw and the pale cast to her skin. “We’re connected since he’s my Master, and I’m the most sensitive person in the House.”

It could be bad, and she’d be getting only the overflow of Ethan’s emotions—not the raw bulk of them. That increased my worry exponentially.

“We put her up here,” Luc said, “hoping the physical distance from Ethan would help. It’s as high as you can get in the building, other than the widow’s walk.”

And you didn’t want to be in the middle of a psychic crisis while perched on the edge of Cadogan’s roof.

I took a seat beside her on the bed, brushed her hair over her shoulder. “What can I do?”

“Just be here,” he said. “Malik’s in the room with Ethan. I’ll be right next door. He’ll come through this.” He eyed Lindsey, the love between them obvious. They’d danced at the edges of love for a very long time. But something had happened to solidify their connection—something neither had shared with me, but which I suspected involved a visit to the House from one of Lindsey’s living human relatives. They’d gone away for a few days and come back practically inseparable.