I shrugged. "I was in the room. I know what went on. She, or he, doesn't. And back to the point, he's my grandfather. Other than Mallory, he's all I've got. He's my only real family tie. I can't cut that tie. I won't, even if you think it's a challenge. Even if you think it's rebellious and goes against your sovereign authority."

"You have other ties now, Initiate. Cadogan House. Me. You're my vampire now. Don't forget that."

I think he meant it as a compliment, but the tone was still too possessive for my taste. "Whatever happened six days ago, I belong to no one but myself, Sullivan, and least of all you."

"You are what I made you."

"I make myself."

Ethan took a step forward, then another, until I was stepping away to avoid him, until he'd backed me against the living room wall, until I felt the cold slickness of painted plaster behind me.

I was caught.

Ethan braced his hands against the wall, one on each side of my head, boxing me in, and stared down at me. "Do you want disciplining, Initiate?"

I stared at him, a flame igniting in my core. "Not especially." Liar.

His eyes searched mine. "Then why do you persist in taunting me?"

The eye contact felt too intimate, so I turned my head away and tried to swallow down the reluctant arousal, uncomfortably aware that I couldn't blame my actions, my interest, on the vampire lurking inside me. On the genetic change. She and I were one and the same - same mind, same genetics, same unwanted, undeniable, attraction to Ethan Sullivan.

But I reached out for that whisper of denial, wrapped hands around it, and held it like a life preserver. In that second, I dreamed of running away, of beginning again with a new name, in a new city, where I didn't long to clench fingers into his hair and push my mouth against his until he capitulated and took me against the cold white wall, pushed his body into mine to alleviate the need, to warm the chill.

Instead, I said, maybe honestly, "I wasn't taunting you."

He didn't move, not until he lowered his head, his lips even closer to mine than before. "You wanted me a moment ago."

This time, his voice was quiet, his words not the challenge of a Master vampire, but the entreaty of a boy, of a man: I am right, aren't I, Merit? That you wanted me?

I forced myself to be honest, but I couldn't force myself to speak. So I stayed silent, and let the silence stand for words that I couldn't bring myself to say: I want you. Despite myself, I want you. In spite of what you are, I want you.

"Merit."

"I can't."

He dropped his head so that his lips hovered just above mine, his breath on my cheeks. "Give in to it."

I flicked my eyes up to meet his, which were the deep, dark green of primeval forests - ancient, unknowable, and hiding monsters in their wooded depths. "You don't even like me."

He smiled a little evilly. "That doesn't seem to matter."

A slap wouldn't have pulled me out of the trance any faster. I twisted beneath his braced arms, then moved away. "I see."

"I'm not happy about this either."

"Yes, I get that you don't want to be attracted to me, that you think I'm beneath you, but thank you for pointing it out anyway. And in case you haven't realized it, I'm not thrilled about it, either. I don't want to like you, and I certainly don't want to be with someone who's appalled by me. I don't want to be . . . desired begrudgingly."

He stepped toward me with the grace of a slinking panther. And just as dangerous.

"Then what do you want me to say?" His voice was low, thick with lambent power. "That I wanted you to taste me? For all that you're stubborn, sarcastic, completely unable to take seriously my authority, and patently disrespectful, that I want you? Do you think this is what I would choose?"