Free Howling For You: A Chicagoland Vampires Novella (A Penguin Special from New American Library) by Chloe Neill Page A

first-floor hallway, I hadn’t been the only one who’d taken that particular quality to heart.
    Dozens of Cadogan’s vampires stood in the hallway outside the office of our Master, Ethan Sullivan, waiting for a call, for a word, for a plan. We stood in our requisite Cadogan black with our katanas at our sides because Ethan—our Liege and my lover—was preparing to run.
    “Out of one fire and right into another,” said the attractive blond vampire beside me. Lindsey was a member of Cadogan’s guard corps and a skilled and capable fighter, but tonight she looked, as usual, more like a fashionista than a century-old vampire guard. She’d left her suit jacket downstairs and had matched her satin-striped black tuxedo pants with a white button-down and four-inch stiletto heels.
    “Do they actually think we’d just let them take him?” she asked. “That we’d let them arrest him—our
Master
—right there in front of the House?”
    An hour ago, a Chicago Police Department detective—fortunately, one of our allies—had come calling, advising us that the city’s prosecutor had obtained a warrant for Ethan’s arrest.
    Ethan had killed Harold Monmonth, a powerful vampire from Europe who’d murdered two human guards before turning his sword on us. Ethan had acted in obvious self-defense, but violence had recently rocked the Windy City. Its citizens were afraid, and its mayor, Diane Kowalcyzk, was looking for someone to blame. She’d apparently managed to bring the prosecutor to her side.
    That’s why Ethan was sequestered in his office with Luc, the captain of Cadogan’s guards, and Malik, the House’s second in command, making a plan.
    Detective Jacobs suggested Ethan seek refuge with the Breckenridges, a family of shape-shifters who lived in Loring Park, a suburb outside Chicago. That meant he’d also be outside the mayor’s jurisdiction. The Brecks were über-wealthy, well connected, and politically powerful. That was a powerful combination and enough, we hoped, to keep the mayor from using him as a sacrificial lamb.
    Papa Breck, the family patriarch, was a friend of my father, Chicago real estate mogul Joshua Merit. I’d gone to school with some of the Breckenridge boys and had even dated one of them. But the Brecks had no love for vampires, which was part of the reason for the closed-door negotiations.
    Ethan was the other reason. He was nearly four centuries old, and he had the stubbornness to match his age. Going gently into that good night wasn’t his style, but Luc and Malik wanted him safely away. It had been a long winter for the House—including Ethan’s premature demise and resurrection—and we didn’t need any more drama. We certainly didn’t trust Kowalcyzk and feared turning him over to a justice system that seemed to be rigged against us.
    The door had been closed for an hour. Voices had been raised, and the disagreement between Ethan and his soldiers spilled tense magic into the hallway. That was my particular point of contention. I was Cadogan’s Sentinel, but I hadn’t been allowed in the office. The words “plausible deniability” had been thrown around—right before the door had been shut in my face.
    “The mayor knew there’d be trouble,” I said. “The CPD already said Ethan acted in self-defense. And we just handed McKetrick to them on a silver platter. The city has absolutely nothing to complain about where we’re concerned.”
    The detective’s warning had come only hours after we’d managed to prove McKetrick, the city’s now former supernatural liaison, was the source of the riots that had spread violence, destruction, and fire around the city. You’d think that would have put us in the mayor’s good graces. Alas, no.
    “They won’t stay away forever,” I said. “Jacobs wouldn’t have warned us if he didn’t think they were serious. And that doesn’t give us many options. Ethan flees, or we have to fight.”
    “Whatever their next move, the House will be