Hard Bitten - Chloe Neill [91]
He chuckled. “Very true. Hey, speaking of Ethan, a headsup—my story is that we met for the first time outside Temple Bar after the incident.”
“Fine by me. Have you talked to Darius this trip?”
“Not yet. I’ve been with the guards today. We were training. Why?”
“Just a heads-up, he’s kind of an ass.” I regretted the words the instant they were out of my mouth. Sure, Jonah had done me a solid, but did I really know anything about him? Other than his pretty-boy looks and ridiculous overabundance of graduate degrees?
“Well aware,” Jonah said. “He and Scott went a round about the jerseys, actually. Darius found them unbecoming of Housed vampires.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “That does sound like something he would say. I guess Scott won the battle eventually?”
“I wouldn’t say he won it per se. More like he wouldn’t give in and Darius eventually lost interest in the argument.”
“That’s a risky strategy with an immortal,” I said. “They’ve got all the time in the world to argue.”
“Speaking on your own behalf?”
“Me? Of course not. I’m not at all stubborn and completely flexible.”
“Liar,” he slyly said. “Well, I’ll stop harassing you and let you get back to it. Call me if you need me.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
I tucked the phone away again, a little weirded out by the phone call. It was nice of Jonah to check in—to work from the assumption V was a problem vamps needed to face together. All hands on deck, as it were, instead of the Sentinel going it solo.
On the other hand, the conversation had sounded a little . . . datey. He was checking in, asking what I was doing later. Maybe he hadn’t meant anything by it. Maybe he really was warming up to me and my various charms. But there was a flirty, friendly edge to his voice that I hadn’t heard before . . . and I wasn’t entirely thrilled to hear now. Flattered? Yes. But I didn’t need the complication.
I also wasn’t thrilled that I’d just given Jonah an update I hadn’t yet provided to Ethan. I didn’t like deception, especially not when it came to deceiving someone who’d saved my life once upon a time. I knew why I was withholding information from him, but that didn’t make it any more comfortable.
The irony? I’d railed against Ethan for withholding information from me. Not that it had stopped him, but it still drove me crazy. And here I was, doing the same thing. Were my reasons any better? Had his been any worse?
And although we weren’t a couple, the dishonesty felt wrong. Like a breach of the trust we’d earned, a kind of trust that went beyond Sentinel and Master. I was also missing out on using Ethan as a sounding board about Jonah and the RG. If there was any possibility he could be neutral, a second opinion would have been helpful.
But as a Master, he couldn’t be neutral. So as much as I didn’t like it, there was no clear path to the truth right now.
I nibbled on that conclusion for a while, working it over and over in my mind. I lost myself in my thoughts and the drive.
It wasn’t that vampires were antithetical to mansions. The vampire design aesthetic was far from chains, skull candles, and black lace, and it wasn’t as if Cadogan House was a hovel. It had been elegant before the attack, and it was becoming elegant again.
But Navarre House set a new standard for vampire opulence. First, it was tucked into the Gold Coast neighborhood, one of Chicago’s ritziest areas, full of Gilded Era mansions and celebrity retreats. Second, the interior was awe inspiring. Giant spaces, weird art, and the kind of furniture you saw in design magazines. (The kind of furniture you thought was neat in a museum kind of way, but wouldn’t actually want to sit on when watching a game on the flat screen on a Saturday afternoon.)
Did I mention Navarre had a reception desk?
Having parked the Volvo and freshened up as much as possible in the rearview mirror, I went inside and prepared to face the three dark-haired women who controlled access to Navarre and its Master.
Ethan and I had dubbed them the three Fates, à la Greek myth, because they exercised