Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [95]
Not that that was surprising. He couldn’t have honestly thought this was a good time to test the only remaining three-and-a-half guards in Cadogan House. The House was peaceful only because we’d paid Claudia’s minions to protect us, and it was a waste of time trying to prove a point he was never going to accept. Whether we passed or we failed . . . we still failed.
But while the workout was exhausting, it was still just a workout. Painful, sure. Tiring, yes. But just as in a normal workout, you reached a point where you zoned into the rhythm. We were vampires, and strong ones, and that meant something. We were strong, fast and flexible, whatever Frank’s criticisms.
And we weren’t the only ones who thought so. Word of the test spread through the House. Slowly but surely, a trickle of Cadogan vampires began to spill into the yard. They formed a protective circle around us as we worked, occasionally handing over blood boxes and bottles of water like marathon volunteers.
We were belly-crawling across the grass for the second time when Margot and Katherine popped through the edge of the crowd.
“We have something for you,” Margot said, glancing around sneakily to locate Frank.
Lindsey, her hair still wet and stringy from the pool and her face streaked with dirt and sweat, looked up from the ground. “He’s taking a call from Darius,” she said, “so if it’s against any of his numerous rules, get to it.”
“We can do that,” Katherine said, and a semicircle of vampires surrounded her to face us as we wormed our way across the ground. “We thought a little night music might do the trick.”
Katherine sang a note to test her pitch, which was as perfect as a well-tuned grand piano. She winked, and with no more ado than that, Katherine and the rest of her vampire glee club began to sing the Beatles’ “Black Bird.”
The grounds fell completely silent, every vampire quiet as her voice rang, clear and strong, across the night.
Weeks and weeks of Frank’s abusive behavior had taken its toll on the House. When Ethan had been Master, Cadogan House had been more than a structure; it had been a home. I hoped Malik could make it that way again, but as Frank had made clear, his goal was to break Cadogan House down, brick by brick, vampire by vampire.
But as I lay on my stomach on cold, dewy grass, I couldn’t have felt any closer to those vampires. Tears began to stream down my face, and I wasn’t the only one moved. There were tear tracks on Lindsey’s face, and Kelley was biting her lip to hold them back.
When the ensemble reached the bridge, the rest of the hundred vampires on the lawn joined her, their voices a chorus against idiocy. Their voices a chorus for the House, and for us, and for all that Ethan had tried to create.
For the family he’d wanted to make of us.
Magic lifted and rose, peppering my arms with goose bumps, and I sent a silent prayer of “thanks” into the universe. Frank may be an asshole, but he’d managed to bring us together even after Ethan’s death had pulled us apart.
The chorus had only just finished the song when Frank emerged through the crowd again. The vampires rustled nervously while he pushed his hands into his pockets and surveyed us with obvious disdain.
“I’m not sure concerts are within the spirit of the rules. This is a testing procedure, not a block party.”
Malik, who also stood at the edge of the crowd, his hands behind his back, turned to regard him. “It may not be within the spirit of your rules,” he said, “but neither is it against their letter. And that, as you have reminded us, is what’s important. The rules.”
Frank stared at Malik for a moment . . . but he didn’t argue. Maybe he could learn to pick his battles after all.
Alas, I was wrong again. Having tested our agility, strength, and stamina, Frank decided to test them all again.
He led us to the far back corner of the House grounds, where four wooden posts the width of telephone poles had been pounded into the ground. They were four feet tall and maybe ten inches in diameter.
“Juliet, Kelley, Lindsey, Merit,” he said, pointing