Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes by Mark Henwick Page A

never—”
    “You handled binding with Jen just fine, Round-eye, and no, I have to stay here and coordinate security—Skylur’s orders.”
    “My eukori isn’t working,” I pointed out. “And I don’t want more kin. I have Alex and Jen, and that’s already a mess. If I can’t even rely on my eukori to feel my way around fixing that, the last thing I want is to upset them by adding another kin to the mix.”
    Bian frowned. “Jen and Alex are a problem how?”
    I couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed. “They don’t have a problem with me. They still have a problem with each other.”
    “That’ll pass.” Bian dismissed it. “And one human kin isn’t enough.”
    “Alex is—”
    “I know you think Alex’s Blood sustains you, and maybe it has, a bit,” Bian said. “It’s not enough. Why do you think Jen’s looking so pale? You’re taking too much from her.”
    I shut up. I’d gotten so self-involved I hadn’t really thought about it. Yes, Jen was paler. And there were the dizzy spells she’d gotten once or twice after I’d bitten her.
    I didn’t want sixteen kin like Bian, but I needed more Blood.
    What about my eukori problem? Surely I couldn’t bind a person while that wasn’t working.
    Yelena cleared her throat. “There’s a Carpathian alternative,” she said.
    Bian looked skeptical. Her attitude toward Yelena had eased a little, but she was still that Carpathian spy who’d tricked her way into House Farrell.
    Yelena paid it no mind.
    “Carpathians don’t use the word kin like Panethus, or toru like Basilikos,” she said. “Kin who are part of a Carpathian House are katikia . This means they are bound to the House, not to an individual Athanate who is part of that House. They can also then be bound to an individual, like Panethus kin.”
    “Interesting bit of culture,” Bian said neutrally.
    “Amber is Carpathian, in her Blood and potential abilities,” Yelena replied. “I am Carpathian, in my Blood and abilities.”
    Bian waited. She didn’t say anything. Yelena’s slate-gray eyes checked with me before she went on. There were Carpathian abilities she didn’t want to discuss with Altau until they were less suspicious of her, but we had to start somewhere.
    “I believe I can help bind through Amber,” Yelena said. “This is something Carpathians do in training with eukori. I can share eukori, if you want to think of it that way. Amber bites this woman Dominé and then, working together with eukori, we can bind her as katikia.”
    Yelena was just full of surprises.
    Would it be that easy? I doubted it, but I needed any help I could get.
    Bian’s cell beeped and she spoke rapidly in Athanate to someone before turning back to us.
    “All clear,” she said. “We’ve tied up every Empire delegate with security and protocols. We know where they all are and where they’re going. That’s your cue. Go start fixing problems.”
     

Chapter 14
     
    “Nice place,” Yelena said.
    We were on the Pacific Coast Highway, in Torrance, standing in front of the LA version of Club Vasana, Dominé’s newest sex club.
    It was in a little enclave off the highway, tucked away behind a screen of restaurants, shops and gyms, all surrounding a large parking lot. The building had once been an architects’ office, and intended as an advertisement for their services. It had tall, smooth, honey-colored stone walls, scored with pale horizontal lines and glowing in the late afternoon light. The monumental look was softened by rows of old Spanish-style arched windows with darkened glass, and the lobby, which emerged from the middle of the building like the triangular prow of a ship.
    It suited Dominé’s style—it looked open, yet the inside was hidden.
    “I hate the idea of just walking in there and biting her,” I said, not for the first time.
    I felt sick. Dominé was a friend. She’d risked a lot to help me in New Mexico. But I had orders from Skylur, and already too much of a history of