House Rules - Chloe Neill Page 0,112

over. The distance gave me momentary vertigo—I really hated heights—but it passed quickly enough for me to see him strike the ground with force enough to buckle the sidewalk in a six-foot radius. The ground shook with it, but he straightened up as if he’d barely felt the shock.

“Catcher? Jeff?” I called into the receiver. “Are you here? Michael Donovan just jumped down to the street. He’s working for McKetrick and he’s been hoarding information about the House’s security. We cannot let him get that back to McKetrick. Can you get someone to him?

“Hello? Jeff?” I said again after a couple of seconds, but there was no answer.

Michael Donovan looked up, pausing to straighten his jacket and spare a glance—and a disturbing smile—for me.

I could jump, but I’d never jumped that far before. Not even close. Unlike Michael, I wasn’t sure I could survive the fall. Vampires were certainly strong, but we weren’t guaranteed to stick the landing.

On the other hand, didn’t I have to do it? I couldn’t just let him walk away.

My hands shaking violently, my stomach a mess, I gripped the edge of the concrete and began to hoist myself up. What was the point of being here, of promising to face my fears and help my vampires, if I wasn’t willing to put my money where my mouth was . . . or my feet in the air?

But before I could move, a blur of white blew through the darkness toward Michael. Long, pale, and furry.

I had to blink to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating: a massive tiger, ten feet long from nose to tail, white with dark stripes, pounding the pavement in the middle of Chicago.

“What the hell?” I murmured, staring down as the scene unfolded.

Michael ran, but his speed was no match for the tiger’s. Front feet, back feet, front feet, back feet, and then it pounced.

It knocked Michael to the ground with a single blow, but Michael was a vampire, and he wasn’t going down without a fight. He kicked the tiger backward, and it rolled before standing again.

The tiger unbalanced, Michael rose to his feet. Before he could grab his sword, the tiger attacked again, rearing up and hitting Michael Donovan across the nose. I was too high up to scent blood, but there seemed little doubt the tiger would have drawn it.

Michael didn’t delay. He pulled the sword from its scabbard and struck out at the tiger, slicing the animal across the back of its shoulders. The tiger roared but didn’t cease its attack.

They parried back and forth—the tiger slapping out with a paw, Michael slicing back when he could, but his opponent was enormous, and Michael was tiring. He raised his sword again, and the tiger knocked it out of his hand. Panicked, without a weapon, Michael stumbled, and the tiger took its turn. It pounced—all four feet in the air—and made for him.

Michael took the tiger’s full weight, falling backward onto a pile of lumber—sharp planks and sticks that had probably been pulled from the building. There must have been aspen in the mix of wood; Michael screamed, and then he was gone, only a cone of ash in his place.

The tiger stepped back, panting. Ears flat against its head, its teeth bared, it roared into the night, the sound deep and loud enough to shake the foundations of the building and rattle my bones.

Goose bumps lifted on my arms.

And then, in only a moment, the tiger shape-shifted. I’d seen it happen before, but that didn’t make the visual any less amazing. A flash lit the night as magic swirled around him, changing the massive predator . . . into Jeff Christopher.

He shook out his arms and legs, then popped his head back and forth as if stretching his neck. He looked up and met my gaze, and in the eyes of this young man—often silly, sometimes costumed, always flirty—I saw a world of understanding and experience and maturity.

Not that I’d had any doubts, but Jeff Christopher was a marvel.

“Three minutes until detonation.”

Not that there was time to be impressed.

“Merit? Are you there?” A voice sounded over the constant beeping of the alarm. “Get the hell out of here.”

I pressed a finger to the earpiece, trying to improve the reception. “Ethan? Is that you?”

“It’s me. I’m on sixteen. Get your ass out of the building.”

I’d be damned if I was leaving without my crew. I ran back across the roof and found Jonah walking toward the door, Darius in