House Rules - Chloe Neill Page 0,90

I’d already asked him for more than he was able to give. He offered up a good-bye, then headed downstairs for another meeting with his team.

Which I was apparently no longer a part of.

* * *

I showered and donned leathers in case the transition was messier than we’d expected, and made the usual beauty arrangements—bangs brushed, hair ponytailed, lips glossed.

I walked downstairs, a couple hundred suitcases for the ninety-ish vampires who lived in Cadogan House still staring back at me like a reminder of my failure: If you’d found a way out of this, convinced Lakshmi to help, we wouldn’t have to leave.

I glanced into Ethan’s office, saw that it was full of vampires. Ethan, Malik, Lacey, the librarian, Michael Donovan, but empty of mementos. Despite the crisis—or because of it—someone had packed away Ethan’s knickknacks: trophies, photographs, physical reminders of his time in the House.

That was utterly depressing.

I’d be in and among vampires for the rest of the night, most likely. But for now, I wanted a moment with the House, with my home, to say good-bye, so I bypassed the office and headed through the hallway to the back door, and then outside.

The cold was jarring, but refreshing, as if the cold had cleansing power of its own. I walked down the path to the garden in which Ethan and I had shared moments, and where the fountain had finally been turned off for the winter.

I glanced back, the House glowing gold in the darkness of Hyde Park, three stories of stone and blood and memories.

A GP issue we hadn’t been able to fix.

Four murders we hadn’t been able to solve.

A relationship I’d broken.

What if I’d been wrong? What if joining the RG had been a violation of my obligations to the House and his trust in me? What if I’d managed to take everything that was good in my life—my place in the House, my vampire family, and Ethan—and tossed it in the trash on a whim? Out of some misguided belief that joining the RG had been the right thing to do? What if I’d played my hand incorrectly, made the wrong decision, and because of that I’d lost everything?

Why was everything so complicated? The politics. My friendships. My family.

My love.

But as good as a pity party sounded, this wasn’t the time for regrets. It was the time to savor memories I’d soon be giving away. I took a seat on a nearby bench and recalled the things I wanted to remember about Cadogan House. Dinner with Mallory and Catcher in Ethan’s office. The first time I’d walked into the library. The night I’d been Commended into the House, when Ethan had named me Sentinel.

The flap of wings overhead drew my attention upward. A dark bird—a crow or a raven, maybe—flew across the lawn and over the fence again. Wouldn’t that be nice? To be able to disappear from our drama and bad decisions so easily?

I dropped my gaze to the garden around me. It was winter, so most of the beds were brown and bare of flowers. Someone, probably Helen, had installed a gazing globe on the other side of the bench. It was a perfect sphere of blue glass. Surrounded by inground lights, its convex surface warped the image of the garden.

I scooted across the bench and stared into it, wishing for enlightenment and wisdom. My face was warped in the glass, my nose hawkish, my cheeks pink. It was a different perspective on who I was . . . and what I’d become. A soldier, perhaps, if not always a successful one.

I stood up and straightened my jacket. If I was going to be a soldier, and if we were all going down with this particular ship, I’d much rather do it with the rest of my team in the House in which I’d built so many memories, rather than here, in the dark and cold, alone.

* * *

My phone signaled a new message just as I walked back into the House.

It was from Jonah. MESSAGE FROM LAKSHMI, it said.

My heart began to pound. AND? I asked him.

SHE SAYS, “MERIT OWES ME A BOON.”

I stopped still, staring at that message. I’d offered her a favor last night in exchange for the location of the egg. She thought I owed her a boon . . . because she’d already told me the location?

SHE ISN’T RESPONDING TO MESSAGES, Jonah added, which I presumed meant we’d gotten out of her what we were going to get.

My