Dark Debt Read Online Free Page A

fist was up. With a sickening crunch of cartilage, he slammed it into Balthasar’s face, and the scent of blood filled theair.
    The crowd erupted again, magic flaring from the Cadogan vampires. I stepped closer to Ethan, and Luc did the same, both of us ready to move should Balthasar attempt a response.
    Slowly, he shifted his gaze back to Ethan, pressed the back of a hand to his nose. His eyes sparked with obvious shock that someone would dare to challenge him, much less a vampire to whom he’d gifted immortality.
    “Comme tu as changé, mon ami
.
”
    “Oui, c’est vrai. La vie m’a changé,”
Ethan said, in perfect French I hadn’t known he spoke. His voice was low and threatening, and utterly Masterly.
    Balthasar pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed genteelly at the cut.
“Ça va
.
Je comprends.”
    “And let us be clear,” Ethan continued in English. “I am no longer a human, nor a boy, nor the childyou once knew. Don’t
ever
call me again.”
    Luc stepped forward, put a hand on Ethan’s arm. “Perhaps we should take this inside, away from the paparazzi? I think we’ve given them enough for one night.”
    Is it safe to let him in the House?
I asked Ethan silently.
    And where else would we put him, Sentinel? I’d rather have him under watch than roaming the city.
    “Get everyone inside,”Ethan said as camera shutters winked open and closed around us. “Take him to my office.”
    I knew Ethan was right, but couldn’t help thinking of the fox in our proverbial henhouse.
    Luc nodded, gestured Balthasar toward the House. Balthasar nodded regally, as if he were being shown to the king’s own chambers, and stepped forward as the guards opened the gate.
    I slid my katana back inits scabbard and stood quietly with Ethan in the rain of flashes.
    He sighed, ran his hands through his hair. “Of all the gin joints in all the world.”
    “And he walks into yours,” I finished for him.
    Ethan glanced back at me, and I saw the dread in his eyes. He’d confessed to me some of the things he’d done, the way he and Balthasar had worked their way across Europe, the women and bloodthey’d taken, until Balthasar had finally gone too far. But it had taken time for him to tell me. He’d been concerned my feelings would change if I knew who he’d been and what he’d done.
    But didn’t that make him
more
? The fact that he could have continued to follow Balthasar, to debauch his way across Europe, and hadn’t. That he’d worked to free himself from a vampire whose psychic powerswere undeniably strong. That he’d become a different kind of vampire, a true Master.
    I couldn’t change the fact that Balthasar waited inside the House. But I could give him comfort. A reminder. So as cameras flashed around us, I took his hand.
    He is your past,
I said silently, and nodded toward the House that glowed warmly beyond the gate.
We are your present and future. Face him on yourterritory, and let the reckoning take place there.
And if he gets out of line, use that right cross and lay him out.
    Ethan smiled with obvious reluctance. “It may get ugly. Likely will before all is said and done.”
    I squeezed his hand. “Unfortunately, I think that’s guaranteed. But if things get too ugly, I’ll lay you both out.”
    *   *   *
    Ethan’s office was spacious and as beautifullydecorated as the rest of the House. There was a desk on one side, a sitting area across from it, and a conference table that spanned the back wall.
    Balthasar stood in the middle of the room, taking in the furniture, décor, mementos of Ethan’s life. Was he evaluating what he’d lost in Ethan’s revolution, or what he stood to gain if he could bring Ethan into the fold once again?
    Luc stoodin the sitting area, arms crossed and expression suspicious, beside Malik, Ethan’s second-in-command.
    Malik was tall and lean, with thoughtful pale green eyes that set off dark skin. His stance mirrored Luc’s, and he was the only one in the