House Rules - Chloe Neill Page 0,62

before the fairies like a carrot on a stick,” Luc said.

“The fairies want it back?” I asked.

“They must,” Ethan said, “to be willing to raise arms against us.”

“Why now?” Luc asked. “We’ve had the egg for more than a century, and they’ve been guarding the House for years. Why didn’t they simply ask for it back?”

“Perhaps they didn’t know where it was,” I said. “Claudia mentioned it in her tower. Her guards were there; maybe that’s when they learned it was here.”

“And when Darius sought their help,” Malik said, “they knew exactly what they wanted.”

“Possibly,” Ethan said. “Or it’s possible they waited because they didn’t want to risk the income they receive from the House. Once they believe our stability is questionable, they decide the income is no longer a given, and they’re willing to take a chance to get the egg.”

Malik nodded. “And perhaps they hoped Cadogan House’s new ‘tenants’ would continue to pay them a fair wage for guarding it. They get both things they want.”

Looking suddenly exhausted, Ethan sat down in an armchair and dropped his head back, loosening the tie around his neck. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a haggard breath while Luc, Malik, and I waited for direction.

I took the opportunity to message my grandfather and Jonah about events, and the possibility that I’d be heading to my grandfather’s house for an extended stay in the guest room.

“There were days,” Ethan said, “when I considered a minor dip in the House’s investments a tragedy. Oh, how times have changed.”

“Same issues,” Lacey said. “Only the scale is different.”

“Hoss, you want some blood?” Luc asked Ethan. “Or maybe a drink?”

“Two fingers of whiskey, please. No, fuck it. Just bring me the bottle.”

I was closest to the apartment’s small bar area, so I made the drink. I wasn’t sure even a fifth of fine Scottish whiskey would soothe the sting of Darius’s betrayal. I poured the amber liquid into a short glass, the potent smell tickling my nose. When the bottle was recapped, I offered it to Ethan, and sat down in the armchair near his.

“The fairies are gone,” Luc said, looking at his phone again, “and we’ve got the backup firm on the line. They’ll have a full contingent of guards here within the hour, and Michael Donovan’s agreed to rendezvous with them.”

“Who’ll guard us now?” I asked.

Luc leaned against a console table nearby. “Humans. We’ve had a security firm on retainer for years as a backup, but we don’t reveal the firm’s name even to guards. Or Sentinels,” he apologetically added.

“It’s a sabotage prevention mechanism,” Lacey said, eyes narrowed at me.

Okay, so she clearly wasn’t going to let us focus on one crisis at a time.

“Ya,” Luc agreed, oblivious to the undercurrent. “We’d preferred fairies, since they’re stronger and generally less fickle.” His eyes narrowed. “Generally.”

Ethan sipped his whiskey, then put the glass heavily on the cocktail table beside him. “Who, in God’s name, could have predicted this? That the GP would force us to fight? That they’d prefer to leave us homeless instead of simply accepting our graceful departure? Goddamned bastards.”

“They can’t really take the House, can they?” I asked, looking from vampire to vampire, but no one offered a response.

My heart sank low in my chest.

I felt for the apartment key in my jacket pocket and looked around the space I’d only so recently moved into. This House had become my home; I didn’t want to give it up, especially not to Darius West and his ilk. Talk about adding insult to injury.

“Darius has made his gambit,” Lacey said. “For better or worse, he’ll follow it through if he believes it’s in his vampires’ best long-term interest.”

“The key phrase being ‘his vampires,’” Luc said. “And we’ve just defined ourselves as falling outside that group.”

“We knew he’d label us as the enemy,” Ethan said. “I’d merely hoped for more of a ‘live and let live’ approach. And the irony? Michael broached the possibility the fairies were dangerous last night.”

He’d mentioned it to me, too. Not that we hadn’t known of the risks before. But we’d weighed the benefits against the costs, and we’d kept them around because the math didn’t seem so bad.

“And so it begins,” Ethan said. “More strife between vampire and fae. And I’d thought we’d made significant inroads.”

“We did,” I assured him. I hated to see him so defeated. “We were actually communicating with Claudia. We can’t just let them get away with this.”

I looked around the room, but