Читать онлайн «Hard Bitten»
Автор Хлоя Нейл
Annotation
Times are hard for newly minted vampire Merit. Ever since shapeshifters announced their presence to the world, humans have been rallying against supernaturals--and they're camping outside of Cadogan House with protest signs that could turn to pitchforks at any moment. Inside its doors, things between Merit and her Master, green-eyed heartbreaker Ethan Sullivan are ... tense. But then the mayor of Chicago calls Merit and Ethan to a clandestine meeting and tells them about a violent vamp attack that has left three women missing. His message is simple: get your House in order. Or else. Merit needs to get to the bottom of this crime, but it doesn't help that she can't tell who's on her side. So she secretly calls in a favor from someone who's tall, dark, and part of underground vamp group that may have some deep intel on the attack. Merit soon finds herself in the heady, dark heart of Chicago's supernatural society--a world full of vampires who seem too ready to fulfill the protesting human's worst fears, and a place where she'll learn that you can't be a vampire without getting a little blood on your hands...
To Jeremy, Baxter, and Scout, my three favorite boys, with much thanks to Sara, the mistress of Meritverse conformity.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
We worked beneath the shine of floodlights that punched holes in the darkness of Hyde Park—nearly one hundred vampires airing rugs, painting cabinet doors, and sanding trim.
A handful of severe-looking men in black—extra mercenary fairies we’d hired for protection—stood outside the fence that formed a barrier between the blocks-wide grounds of Cadogan House and the rest of the city.
In part, they were protecting us from a second attack by shape-shifters. That seemed unlikely, but so had the first onslaught, led by the youngest brother of the leader of the North American Central Pack. Unfortunately, that hadn’t stopped Adam Keene.
They were also protecting us from a new threat.
Humans.
I glanced up from the elegant curve of wooden trim I was swabbing with stain. It was nearly midnight, but the golden glow of the protesters’ candles was visible through the gap in the fence.
Their flames flickered in the sticky summer breeze, three or four dozen humans making known their quiet objections to the vampires in their city.
Popularity was a fickle thing.
Chicagoans had rioted when we’d come out of the closet nearly a year ago. Fear had eventually given way to awe, complete with paparazzi and glossy magazine spreads, but the violence of the attack on the House—and the fact that we’d fought back and in doing so had thrown shifters out into the open—had turned the tides again.
Humans hadn’t been thrilled to learn we’d existed, and if werewolves were out there, too, what else lurked in the shadows? For the past couple of months we’d seen raw, ugly prejudice from humans who didn’t want us in their neighborhood and camped outside the House to make sure we were aware of it.
