at Gabriel. “Isn’t that sweet? Your little boy toy is sticking up for you.”
Gabriel’s eyes turned to slits. He stood up to face Ethan head-on. “If you so much as look at him that way again, I’ll end you.”
“End me? Don’t flatter yourself, brother, you would only hurt yourself trying.”
Finn, who stood casually on the other side of the room, interjected with smooth confidence, “Oh, he’d have help.”
As Ethan prepared to make some other smart comment to Finn, I jumped up and put my hand over his mouth. “Enough. That’s enough from all of you. We’re supposed to be allies, not enemies. I know it’s going to take some getting used to, but everybody is going to have to put their prejudices aside and make a concerted effort to get along.”
“Here, here,” Lucas cheered in mockingly. I silenced him with a sharp look.
Ethan’s eyes were levelled on mine. He grabbed hold of my wrist and swiftly removed my hand from his mouth. “Very well then,” he said, holding onto my wrist a moment longer than necessary, staring at me coldly. When he let go, my hand fell limply to my side.
Unexpectedly, Dru was the one to speak up next. “Who do you think you are to tell everyone how they should behave? You’re nothing but a traitor.”
“Dru,” Ethan warned. “That’s enough.”
Dru shook her head. “Oh, come on, she played you for a fool, and now we’re all paying the price, cast out by our people and having to live on enemy territory. We should be allowed to express our anger at that.”
“Um, can I remind everyone that I was saving a little girl’s life? I hardly betrayed Ethan for selfish reasons.”
“Yeah, you’re a modern-day Mother Theresa,” Lucas deadpanned before looking around the room. “Can someone remind me who thought it would be a good idea for everyone to be in one room together like this?”
“Look,” Finn cut in. “I’m probably the least happy person about this alliance we’ve built, but there’s no use fighting. This is my house, so I’m going to call the shots for now. If the riots in the city today were Theodore’s doing, then we need to find out where he is and put a stop to it. The vampires can search at night and the humans and dhampirs during the day.”
Ethan turned his focus to Finn. “It might surprise you, slayer, but I agree with you. We vampires will begin our searches tonight.” He stepped forward and surprised the hell out of me when he shook Finn’s hand. I’d officially entered the Twilight Zone.
Finn gave a stiff nod while Ethan motioned for Lucas, Dru, and Delilah to follow him out of the house, leaving me a little disappointed that he didn’t look at me before leaving.
Delilah hovered by the door, shooting Gabriel an apologetic glance, perhaps for how Ethan spoke to him. Those two had grown substantially closer over the last few weeks, and I wondered what Ethan made of their budding friendship. Gabriel silently nodded to her, and she left the room.
Once all the vampires were gone, I sat down beside Rita, taking a moment to study her. She still seemed jittery after what happened, and she tensed up as I stared at her.
“What?” she asked. “Why are you gawking at me?”
“What aren’t you telling us, Rita?”
“Nothing,” she replied, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as though to rid herself of a chill.
“Tegan’s right. You’re hiding something. Out with it,” Alvie encouraged.
Rita remained silent but looked to each person in the room in turn. First me, then Finn, Gabriel, Alvie, and finally, her mother.
“I don’t mind working with the vampires, but you all have to promise to keep your mouths shut about who my dad is. If it got out, they’d probably end up trying to use me to blackmail Theodore in some way.”
“Of course,” I reassured her. “We won’t tell a soul.”
“You know we’d never reveal your secret,” Gabriel added while everyone else nodded in agreement.
“I’m just scared,” Rita said in a small voice. “Theodore went out of his way to visit my mind. His message was clear; he wants me to join him. He might not think much of me in terms of paternal love, but he certainly knows I inherited some of his power, and he wants me close by. If the vamps did try to use me as leverage to get to him, it could very well work. Only I’m not sure they’d ever let him have me