CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE CLOSER YOU GET

I fisted my hands so they wouldn’t shake, turned back to face him. He watched me the way a man might watch a caged panther. Cautiously, and with great care.

“Mallory probably told you I saw someone outside the House,” I said.

“A vampire who worked for Adrien Reed,” he bit off.

“The vampire who killed Caleb Franklin. He saw me coming, and he ran.”

“And you followed him. Without backup, without weapon.” Without me, I guessed, he’d left unspoken.

“If I’d waited or delayed, he’d have disappeared. I told Mallory to get inside, to lock the gate, and then I chased him to the train. You saw the rest?”

Ethan nodded, just once. “What there was to see.” He watched me for a moment. “And what aren’t you telling me?”

I gathered up courage, held it tightly. “He’s not just the vampire who killed Caleb Franklin.” I paused. “He’s the vampire who attacked me in the Quad.”

Ethan went very, very still. Fury and possessiveness flared together in his magic, spun together in the room. “He’s the one who attacked you.”

I nodded. “I didn’t recognize him at first. But when we were on the train, and the light was better—when I could see his face and, I don’t know, sense something familiar in his scent or his magic—I knew it was him.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know his name. I still don’t know his damn name.” That seemed so important to me right now, so much that my voice trembled, and I shook my head, swallowed hard, as emotions rose.

The wave of anger crested, followed by a flood of sympathy. “Merit,” he said, voice full of emotion, concern.

I just shook my head, held up a hand. I wasn’t ready for sympathy yet.

“He works for Reed. He’d planned to get to me to throw you off. You’re Reed’s real target. He wants to hurt you. To manipulate you. That’s who he is.”

“Fuck Adrien Reed.”

His voice was so sharp, so forceful, I had to look up at him again. His expression held the ferocity of a warrior, a man intent on destroying his enemies.

“Death cannot come soon enough for Adrien Reed, but beyond that, he is not important to me. The only thing that interests me about Reed is the risk he presents to my people, to you. I care about that very much.”

It was very nearly an apology. Very nearly an acknowledgment that Reed had made him do regrettable things—including calling my father.

“What is Reed’s connection to the Rogue?” he asked, before I could bring up that subject. Which was probably best for both of us. And still, he kept me talking. Kept me reporting on facts, rather than slipping back into fear.

“It has to be Celina.”

“How?” he asked.

“She paid the vampire to kill me. She’s been in debt to Reed for years; he was financing her lifestyle. Maybe she got the money from Reed, and that’s how he found out about the Rogue. Or maybe Reed wasn’t just the source of the money. He’s a kingpin. Maybe he supplied the assassin, too. Although, if that’s the case, why wait so long to throw him back in my face?”

Ethan’s gaze darkened, probably as he thought of Balthasar. “Reed is a man who knows how to bide his time.”

I nodded. “He loves the dramatic. No, it would be more accurate to say he loves an emotional mind-fuck. And he has, by God, succeeded. I feel like it’s happened all over again. Like I’m starting from square one. I feel—like everything is in the wrong place.”

“Oh, Merit,” Ethan said. He reached for my hands, ignored my attempts to shake him off, and drew me up and against him. He embraced me, wrapping his arms around my body as if he might force out the rest of the world, or protect me from the sharper edges of it.

I buried my face in his chest, allowing the tears I’d been holding back for hours to finally begin to stream.

“I let him go,” I said when I reached the ugliest part of the tears. “I fucking let him go. And I hate myself for that.”

“You are entitled to your emotions, but that is undeservedly harsh. You saved a child, Merit.”

“I let him go.” I looked up at him. “Three times, Ethan. Three times he’s hurt me and walked away from it. When is he going to receive justice? When is he forced to pay the price?”

“I don’t know, Merit. I don’t know if you’ll get justice or if he will.” He pulled back enough to look at me. “You are not a child, and you know the world is not fair. You’ve had your share of unfairness, and got a stark reminder of that tonight. But I swear to you, Merit—I swear it on my life, my House, and my soul—he will never touch you again.”

I was suddenly so, so tired. “He’ll try. He will try, and Reed will try. He’ll take a shot at you, or at me, or at my father.”

The remembrance of my father—of my lingering battle with Ethan—made me look away. But Ethan took my chin between two fingers, forced me to meet his gaze.

His eyes were narrowed, his brow furrowed, as he looked down at me. “We’ll have this out, too, while we’re dealing with everything else. Your father has been cruel to you so many times over. Why has a phone call become a wall between us?”

“Because maybe he’s changed.”

The words came out, words I didn’t even know I’d been holding in.

I hadn’t been angry at Ethan. Not really.

I’d been afraid.

I made myself meet Ethan’s gaze. “I guess I hoped Towerline had changed him. That it was a sign that he was accepting me for who I was, understanding that he’d have to deal with me on my terms, not on his. That we could have a different kind of relationship. That something could begin. And if Reed puts a target on him, if Reed takes him out . . .”

“Then I’d have taken away that new family,” Ethan said, and cupped my face in his hands. “I am so sorry, Merit. I didn’t mean to risk him. I meant only to protect you, because you’re the closest thing to family I’ve known in four hundred years. You are my miracle.”

His arms banded around me as I sobbed again.

“In the future,” he said after a time, when my tears had subsided, “I will talk to you before involving—even potentially—your family.”

“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “Thank you for that. You must have been angry and worried tonight, and I’m sorry for that.”

“I was worried,” Ethan agreed. “And I was angry. You inspire both emotions, Merit, and not infrequently.” There was a hint of amusement around his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “But I’d do it again.”

He looked down at me, eyes burning bright. “Oh, would you?”

I could feel the fear seeping away, as if his being near—and our being on the same page again—had siphoned it out of me, wicked it away. And as the fear receded, the bravado came back.

God, I loved the bravado.

“I love you, Ethan, and I love this city. And however much I fought it, I love this goddamn House. It’s part of me, and I’m part of it. I’m not going to stand here and watch a man tear down everything that you’ve built. I’m not. And if that means I have to chase another man who threatens this House, or apologize to you more than I like, so be it. I don’t want that, but I can live with it. Because I can’t live without you.”

Silence fell.

“Well,” he said after a full minute had passed, “you’re not leaving me with much room to yell at you.”

“That was part of the plan,” I said with a watery laugh. “Fear is what Reed uses against us. For Celina, fear that she would be average. For you, fear that you would become a monster like Balthasar, that I’d be hurt. And for me, fear that I will be that vulnerable human all over again.”

“It is his gift,” Ethan agreed ruefully. “To find those tender spots and press into them. Fear, my Sentinel, is inevitable. It is one of our more important instincts. It keeps us alive. Fighting through the fear is a choice. That’s the choice you’ve made since that April night one year ago. That’s the choice you’ll continue to make, because that’s what’s inside you. I love you, and I believe in you, more than I have ever believed in anyone. And it is absolutely terrifying.”

I thought that might have been the nicest thing he’d ever said to me. I put my hands on his cheeks, pulled his head down to mine, and kissed him. “I love you, Ethan.”

“I love you, Merit.” He smiled. “And now it feels like the world is righting. Would this be an opportune time for me to point out that, despite your having berated me yesterday, you did exactly what you scolded me for doing?”

He was right, so I let him get away with it. “You mean I let Reed bait me? I ran headlong into danger probably orchestrated by Reed, even if I ruined his plan a little by forcing his asset into play a little earlier than he’d probably intended? Yeah, I know.” And then I played a card of my own. “I guess you could say I pulled a Darth Sullivan.”

He knew about the nickname but clearly didn’t like it, given the curl of his upper lip.

“If it makes you feel better, you can tell me your nickname for me.”

“That would spoil all the fun.” He sighed, put his arms around me again. “We may fight again, Sentinel. We may rail at each other until the sun breaches the sky. But the truth is this. I love you. And I found you once, that April night. I will always look for you, and I will always find you. And as for your monster, we’ll find him together,” Ethan said, pressing a final kiss to my forehead. “We’ll go downstairs, we’ll talk to Luc, and we’ll find him. And one way or the other, we’ll find Reed, too. And then may God have mercy on his soul.”

•   •   •

I cleaned up and washed tears from my face and blood from my hands, and we walked downstairs to the Ops Room. Luc and Lindsey rose when we darkened the doorway, hurried toward us.

“Is everything all right?” Lindsey asked. “Malik didn’t give us the details, just that you were back and seemed to be in one piece.”

“I believe ‘all right’ is relative,” Ethan said. “Why don’t we sit down and talk about it?”

“My House is your House,” Luc said, and moved back to his seat at the table. “And we’re glad you’re home, Sentinel.”

Right now there was nowhere else I’d rather have been.

When Kelley, Juliet, Lindsey, Luc, and Ethan had gathered at the conference table, I gave them the story of my encounter with the Rogue, such as it was. From contact to chase, to his use of a human as hostage and shield, to the Rogue’s escape into the night.

Luc knew the circumstances of how I’d been attacked, made a vampire, as did other key players in the House—including Malik, since he’d been there. I’d figured word had still spread—vampires liked gossip as much as humans—but from the sympathetic look on Kelley’s face, I guessed I’d been wrong about that.

“As far as I’m aware,” I finished up, “the CPD hasn’t found him.”

“He’d have gone underground,” Kelley said, flicking back a lock of straight, dark hair over her shoulder. “To wherever rats scurry and hide.” She looked at me, and there was strength and solidarity in her gaze.

“Yeah,” I said. “Agreed.”

Luc linked his hands on the table, leaned forward, his gaze solemn. “You think he’ll try again?”

“I know he will. Especially if this is prompted by Reed.”

“Then we’ll find him first,” Kelley said.

“It might be worth talking to Noah again,” Lindsey said. “At least you’ll have a description to give him now.”

“We’ll do you one better,” Luc said. “Keiji,” he called to one of the temps at the bank of computers. “Can you scan the Internet videos of the fight, see if you can get a clear shot of our perp, enhance and distribute the images?”

Keiji looked back, nodded once, his eyes sharpening with interest in the task. “On it, boss.”

Luc nodded, looked back at me. “The video wasn’t great, but should be clear enough to get a rough image.”

“Send the image to the Chicago Houses,” Ethan said. “Put them on alert.”

Luc nodded.

“Thank you for the help,” I said. “I need to know his name. I’d feel better somehow if I knew his name.”

Juliet smiled, serious hard blue eyes a contrast to her delicate features. “Knowing the name of your enemy is important. Names define us as individuals, and in relation to each other. They”—she paused, looking for the right phrase—“set the boundaries of who we are. If you can give this guy a name, you give him a boundary. It gives him less power, and gives you more.”

Since “Merit” was actually my last name, and I didn’t use my first name for personal and family reasons, I understood the notion of names defining us.

“We’ll put the pictures in your box,” Luc said. “Did the child’s mother say if she wanted to press charges?”

“She told the CPD she didn’t want to,” I said. “He didn’t know her or her child, and she didn’t want to give him any more information by pursuing it. I told them I didn’t want to pursue it, either.”

“At least not officially,” Luc suggested, and I nodded.

“And Reed?” he asked.

“If the vampire was telling the truth,” Ethan said, “and we have no reason to believe he wasn’t, this isn’t inconsistent with what Reed’s done before.”

“He uses the personal,” I agreed. “He used Balthasar against Ethan, he used money against Celina, and he’s used the Rogue for me, which is another hit at Ethan. He’ll try again,” I added.

“Then we’ll stop him before he does,” Luc said. “And if we don’t, he’s yours.”

“Although you may have to battle Gabriel for him,” Ethan said lightly. “This vampire has a long list of very powerful enemies.”

“The way my luck with him is going, Gabe might have a better shot,” I muttered, in a moment of self-pity.

“You should tell her about Calamity Jane,” Lindsey said to Luc.

I glanced from her to Luc. “Who’s Calamity Jane?”

“Long story very short,” he said, “she was a woman from my dry and dusty and tumbleweed-ridden past.” Luc had been a cowboy in his human life.

“She was a thief, an assassin, and a general ne’er-do-well,” Lindsey said with a smile. “Accused of fourteen murders that the county was aware of. And she escaped from him four separate times.”

Four was definitely larger than three. If not by a lot.

“‘Escaped’ is a tough word,” Luc said. “I prefer to say she ‘evaded incarceration.’ But yeah, four times.”

“How’d you finally get her?”

He smiled. “With help from the dirt and dust and tumbleweeds. She rolled into Dodge City wanting, of all things, a hot bath. I caught her while she was performing her ablutions,” he said, eyebrows winging up.

“Is the moral of that story that it’s safest to avoid good hygiene?” Ethan asked.

“Har-har, Sire. Har-har. The moral of the story is to always keep going! Ever forward! Forward progress! You can do it! And all that other motivational shit.” Luc looked at me, a gleam in his eye. “And if you can catch ’em with their pants down, they tend to be a little more amenable.”

Words of wisdom.

•   •   •

Following Lindsey’s suggestion, I e-mailed Jonah, asked for a meeting with Noah the next evening at the RG headquarters to talk about the Rogue vampire.

When this evening drew to a close and we were secure in our Hyde Park tower, Ethan carefully removed my clothes, used hands and words to soothe and seduce.

This was about need as much as the library had been, but of a different variety. This was about partnership as much as touch. About tenderness as much as passion. And about comfort as much as satisfaction. Every movement was slow and languid, every word tender. His mouth was soft against mine, then against the rest of my body, and pleasure rose and crested in waves that cleared violence from my mind.

We rode those waves together, bodies linked and hearts finally reunited. Love wasn’t a battle, and it wasn’t a war. It was a partnership, with missteps and miracles and all the rest of it.

When we were both sated and languid, Ethan lay naked beside me, his head on my abdomen. I ran my fingers through his hair as he traced a fingertip across my still-heated skin.

“Do you remember, Sentinel, the first words you ever said to me?”

I grimaced. “No. But I bet they were rude.” I hadn’t been a fan of Ethan Sullivan the first time I walked into Cadogan House.

“Oh, it was.” His eyes glinted like shards of green glass. “Your life had changed, and you were furious at me. You said you hadn’t given me permission to change you.”

“Which, in fairness to me, was accurate.” I paused, remembering my seething dislike for the Master of my new House. “I didn’t like you very much.”

“No, you didn’t. But then you came to your senses, realized you were wrong.”

I tugged on a lock of his hair. “Don’t push your luck. It took some pretty good campaigning on your part.”

“Thank you for not calling it begging.”

I grinned. “I was going to, but changed my mind at the last minute.”

“Because it would have been cruel.”

“But a really good play on my part. I’d have gotten a lot of points for that.”

“Are we keeping score?”

“Yes. Redeemable for Mallocakes.” They were my favorite chocolate snack cake, although I hadn’t had one in a few weeks. Not since the Night of a Thousand Mallocakes. Which was why I was willing to give them to Ethan.

“I have no interest in your Mallocakes.”

“I’m going to hope that’s not a euphemism.”

“It isn’t, obviously.” He lowered his mouth to my stomach, nipped playfully.

“I remember the first words you ever said to me,” I said. “It was the night I was attacked. You had your arm around me, there on the grass, and you told me to be still.”

He rose onto his elbows and stared at me. I’d never told him that I’d remembered that much of it, of what had happened, and what he’d said. But those words—those two small and impossibly huge words—still had the same power.

“You remember that.”

I nodded. “I think that’s important, Ethan. I think that matters. I don’t remember anything he said or did, just the pain he caused, that he ran away like a coward.” Like he always seemed to do. “But I remember what you said to me. Those two words were, I guess, an incantation.”

He balanced his head on his curled fist, reached up to brush hair from my face. “I remember how pale you’d been, and how lovely. I was afraid we’d been too late. But we weren’t. And you grew angry, and then you grew to accept who you were.”

“And you grew to accept who I was. Except for those times you’re still overprotective.”

“I’ll never stop being overprotective. Not because I don’t believe in you, or trust you. But because that’s who I am. That’s what being a Master is all about.”

“And yet you named me Sentinel. The one person whose job is to argue with you.”

“Not just argue,” he said with a grin. “Although it often seems that way.”

Taking a ploy from Mallory, I thumped him on the ear.

“Ow,” he said with a laugh, and pulled his earlobe. “It’s about checks and balances, Merit. The point of all this is that we’ve changed. We’ve grown and evolved since the night I met you, and the night you met me.” He put a hand on my stomach. “And someday, we’ll have a child. A family. That won’t be easy—having a child, having a vampire child, and having the first vampire child. But we’ll manage it.”

“How, exactly, do you think that’s going to happen?”

He shifted into Master vampire. Mouth slightly quirked in a grin, one eyebrow arched imperiously as he looked back at me. “I’m fairly certain you know exactly how it happens, Sentinel.”

What was it with people and the conception jokes? “You know I didn’t mean that. I meant, you know”—I circled a finger toward my lower half—“the unproven mechanics of vampire gestation. To not put too fine a point on it, what’s going to keep him or her in there?”

His face went utterly serious. “Sentinel, I honestly do not know.” He pressed his lips to warm skin. “Shall we try to let nature take its course?”