Hard Bitten - Chloe Neill [102]
Ethan’s concerned voice echoed through my head. Sentinel.
I’m fine, I assured him, then kicked off my shoes. A vamp didn’t need to fight in stilettos, anyway.
When I was upright again, I recentered the dagger in my hand and stared back at the vamp. “You were saying?”
“Bitch,” he called out, swinging his katana in an awkward cross-body slice that would have been better suited for a broadsword than fine Japanese steel. And I cringed on its behalf as I ducked, and felt the echoing shudder of the column as his katana made contact—and stuck there. What a waste.
I spun out from beneath him as he loosened his grip on the handle and began stepping backward, eyes widening as if suddenly aware that the Sentinel from Cadogan House was on his case.
Maybe the drug was beginning to wear off.
“I’m going to do you a solid,” I said, holding my dagger out to the side. “I’m going to toss this away, so we can have a fair fight.”
I saw the relief in his expression as I chucked the steel. And when his eyes shifted to watch it spin across the floor, I made my move. I threw out a roundhouse kick that connected with his head. He went down hard, like a sack of vampire potatoes, then bounced a little before finally rolling to a stop.
Sure, roundhousing someone while wearing a cocktail dress wasn’t exactly ladylike, but it certainly was effective.
With my Rogue out of commission, I glanced over at Ethan. He was in the process of putting his on the floor with a twisting judostyle drop that rattled the floorboards. When he was down, Ethan used an elbow at the neck to knock him out.
When the guy was still, he looked up at me, then noticed my guy was down. Roundhouse? he silently asked.
It is a classic, I said, glancing up. The rest of the party crashers had been bested, as well, all five of them out cold on the floor.
Jonah looked around the room, his gaze stopping when he reached me. “You okay?” he mouthed.
I nodded back. That definitely seemed personal.
“Scott,” Darius called out, “What the fuck was that?”
Before Scott could answer, I filled in the blank. “With all due respect, Sire—those are your errant vampires.”
Scott’s guards, including Jonah’s friends Jeremy and Danny, stormed the room not a moment later, pulling out the unconscious users. But they left the katana in the column—a visible sign to others in the House who might be stupid enough to try V.
We said goodbye to Gabriel and Tonya, who, understandably, left the House as soon as the coast was clear. Scott escorted the rest of us into the atrium while the remains of dinner were cleaned up. Charlie and Darius stood quietly together; Morgan stood alone. I was standing near Ethan when Scott and Jonah moved our way.
Scott looked between us. “Thanks for the assist.”
Ethan nodded graciously. “It happens to the best of us, unfortunately.”
“How are the vamps doing?” I asked.
“They’re still out. They’re in the infirmary under guard for the moment. When they’re awake again, we’ll have a lengthy conversation about drugs and responsibility.”
“Did you know them well?” I asked.
“Only as applicants to the House,” Scott said. “They’re relative newcomers. Members of your Initiate class.”
“What’s a ‘newcomer’ in immortal terms?” I asked.
A smile perked at one corner of Scott’s mouth. “Anything less than a decade.”
Which made me a baby vamp.
Ethan slid a glance to where Darius stood, now offering up some sort of instructions while Charlie tapped at a tablet computer. “Do you think he’ll consider the threat any more real now?”
“The GP has an odd attitude about things like this. I’m still not sure he sees us as anything other than troublemakers at this point. Squeaky wheels taking him away from real business in the UK.”
“Are you going to investigate?”
Scott blew out a breath. “That’s a tough one. This is a problem in my House. It has to be addressed.”
“And if you discover Celina had anything to do with it?”
“Then we didn’t have this conversation, but the Chicago Houses agreed to quietly deal