by Chloe Neill
We walked out of what remained of Towerline’s lobby to screams and applause. In the madness and chaos, humans had encroached on the CPD’s barricades. They’d been kept off the plaza, but they filled Michigan Avenue and celebrated as if the Cubs had won another pennant.
I could understand the enthusiasm.
They probably didn’t understand what they’d seen, or what we’d done. That we’d been protecting ourselves as much as them. But they understood victory, and that we’d been victorious against the magic that had threatened to tear their city apart.
The plaza looked miserable, scattered with steel and glass and broken granite. Reed and Sorcha screamed obscenities as officers escorted them from the building to the car. Logan’s tranq must have worn off, as he shot me nasty looks, so I waved back pleasantly. I wouldn’t be afraid of him anymore.
“You know,” my grandfather said as he joined us, “I don’t think the Reeds are going to enjoy prison. I don’t think they’ll find it up to their standards.”
“No,” Ethan said with a grin, “I suspect you’re right.”
“Robert?” I asked.
“Hospital,” my grandfather said. “He stabilized when the Reeds went down.”
Relief rushed me. “Thank God.”
My grandfather nodded. “Morgan saw him out, fought back a few monsters to keep him safe.”
“He’s got good instincts,” Ethan said. “Only gets into trouble when he ignores them.”
My grandfather looked around at the destruction. “And isn’t that true of all of us?”
Then he shifted his gaze back to us, smiled. “You did good tonight, kids. Good by Chicago, good by your family, good by your House. I’m proud of both of you.”
The weight of disappointing him dissipated, replaced by the warm glow of approval. “Thanks, Grandpa,” I said, and, when he pointed to his cheek, leaned forward to press a kiss there.
“I’m going to get the paperwork started,” he said, then glanced back at the building and whistled. “And attempt to mollify your father.”
“Actually, Chuck, you might want to wait for a moment.”
I looked back at Ethan, surprised at the comment, and found him staring at me, his gaze utterly serious.
“Are you all right?”
“I am,” he said. “More right than I’ve been in many, many years.” He put his hands on my face. “You are the bravest person I have ever known.”
“You aren’t so bad yourself,” I said with a grin, but Ethan’s expression stayed serious.
“What?” I asked, afraid for a moment that he’d been hurt or someone else had. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, his thumb tracing a line across my cheek as he stared down at me. “I am precisely where I should be.”
And there, in the middle of the broken plaza, Ethan Sullivan went down on one knee. He stared up at me with eyes wide with love and pride and masculine satisfaction. He held out a hand, and I put my fingers in his palm.
The crowd of humans—thousands strong—who realized what he was doing roared with excitement. Cameras and cell phones began to flash around us.
“Holy shit!” I heard Mallory cry out somewhere behind us, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the warrior in front of me.
I put my free hand against my chest as if that would stop my throbbing heart from bursting through it. That didn’t stop the shaking of my fingers.
“You’re all right?” Ethan asked, glancing up at me with obvious amusement at my reaction. “I can stop if you’d like.”
I grinned at him. “No, you go ahead. I mean, you’re already down there.”
“Very well,” he said, and the crowd went silent as they strained to hear him.
“Caroline Evelyn Merit, you have changed my life completely. You’ve made it large and happier, and you have given me love and laughter. Perhaps most of all, you have reminded me what it means to be human. I’ve looked for four centuries to find you. I cannot fathom a world without you in it. Without your heart, and without your honor. Merit, my Sentinel and my love, will you marry me?”
He was stubborn and arrogant, domineering and imperious. He was brave and honorable, and he was mine. There was no one else. Had never really been anyone else, even before I knew he’d been waiting for me. And if I said yes, there would never be.
“Of course I will.”
The crowd erupted again with screams and hoots and applause as Ethan Sullivan, my former enemy, jumped to his feet and kissed me deeply, winding his hands into my hair.
“I love you,” he said, pulling back to gaze down at me. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I cleared my throat. “At the risk of asking an ungracious question . . . ,” I began, when he smiled down at me, and I smiled back.
“Don’t worry, Sentinel. There’s a ring. I just hadn’t anticipated there’d be a moment quite this perfect.” He let his gaze slip across the crowd that watched and cheered around us. “Or a location.”
Forever, he said silently, just for me. And for an eternity after that.
Forever, I agreed.
EPILOGUE
TROMPE L’OEIL
Green had been her signature color. Orange most definitely was not. But it was oh so satisfying to see Sorcha and Adrien Reed stripped of expensive clothes and jewelry.
Sorcha was now known as the “Chicago Witch,” and her treatment only slightly warmer than her ancestors’ treatment in Salem likely had been.
The raid of Reed’s office had been accidentally successful, at least after the fact. While there, a very nervous admin confessed to the CPD that Reed had moved computers and files into the Community Safety Center—the very outpost he’d created to coordinate public safety—only the week before. He’d probably thought no one would question files stored in a facility dedicated to the public welfare.
Once again, he’d underestimated us.
Nick Breckenridge had broken the story of Reed’s criminal involvement. The Reeds had been stripped of their friends, their positions, and the sycophantic devotion they believed they were entitled to. I’d grinned hugely at the photograph of the two of them in their ill-fitting jumpsuits, hair uncoiffed and Botox (or magic) fading, shuffling along with legs and hands chained together. Logan Hill had been behind them, looking decidedly unhappy about the turn of events.
The trio was now in the same prison that held Regan and Seth Tate and a handful of shifters. And since Seth was technically on our side, he promised they wouldn’t have access to magic for a very long time.
Robert was healing physically but had a long way to go emotionally. Rather than admitting he’d been played by the Reeds, he’d decided the story, the charges, the magic were part of a conspiracy. He was an intelligent man, and I had to hope he’d come around. But my father’s prejudices—which, ironically, he’d mostly grown out of—had infected Robert.
He’d refused to see me, had even declined to attend the dinner Ethan and I had had with my parents to celebrate my birthday. It hadn’t been the most relaxing evening—they were still my parents, after all—and Robert’s absence had been obvious. Elizabeth had come, made apologies, but the stiffness in her smile showed she also wasn’t quite sure of me, or of us.
Ethan said he had another surprise, so when we’d climbed back into his car after an evening with more “foams” and “mousses” than should ever have been together on a single plate, he demanded I wear a blindfold “so as not to spoil the surprise.”
The request was odd enough in itself, but the fact that he’d had one was rather intriguing. I was learning all sorts of things about my Masterly fiancé.
And I was still getting used to calling him that.
Ethan drove the car north; I could tell the direction from the scent of the lake to our right and the quiet of the dark water. The sounds of the city on our left exte
nded only so far. But when we left Lake Shore and headed into the city, I lost my sense of direction. He turned enough times that I thought we might be going in circles, which seemed more surreptitious than necessary considering the fact that I couldn’t see at all.
“Could I at least get a hint?”
As if sensing he had me on the hook, he took a moment to answer. “I need to return something.”
I chuckled. “I hope you’re not thinking about returning me.”
“No,” he said with a smile I could hear. “I’ve long since ripped your tags off.”
“Har-har.”
After a few more quiet minutes, the car slowed and pulled to a stop. “A moment, Sentinel.”
The weight in the car shifted, and the door shut. A moment later, my door opened and he touched my arm. “I’m here, Sentinel. Let me help you out.”
I put my hand in his, turned to put my feet on the ground, and stood. I took in a breath, trying to scent out where I was, but got nothing unusual. “Time to take this off?”
“Not yet,” he said, closing the car door, and situating himself on my right-hand side, tucking my arm into his. “A bit farther to go first. Just hold on to me.”
Not having a better choice—I’d long ago decided to trust him—I took careful steps, one hand wrapped around his biceps, the other out and feeling for any obstacles in my way. That was how I knew we’d passed through a door and traveled down a hallway before emerging into a larger room. A few more steps, and he came to a stop.
“I’m going to take the blindfold off now.”
I nodded while he unknotted the silk, then blinked when he revealed only darkness.
There was a buzz of sound . . . and then the lights came on.
“Dear God,” I said, eyes wide and staring. We weren’t in a room, big or otherwise.
We were in the middle of Wrigley Field.
I turned in a long, slow circle.
Because my last try had gone so horribly wrong, I hadn’t actually been inside Wrigley since becoming a vampire. I hadn’t seen the bleachers, the scoreboard, the Wrigley rooftops where fans outside the stadium watched the games. None of it since I’d gotten fangs, which didn’t explain why I was here now.
I looked back at Ethan, found his gaze on me, his expression indecipherable. “What are we doing here?”
“Last week, Logan took this from you—this experience at Wrigley. But I took this from you more generally one year ago when I made you a vampire. I took from you things that you won’t get back, including afternoon baseball.” Ethan took my hand. “So I mean to give you back what I can.”
Realization struck me. “The night we went to Wrigley,” I said. “You’d meant to propose.”
“Yes.”
I thought back to that night. “That’s why everyone was gathered in your office. It wasn’t a ‘feel better’ celebration. It was supposed to have been an engagement party.”
“You should have gotten a ring; instead you were shot. Unexpected metal, either way, but I thought you still deserved a gathering.”
I smiled at him. “Or you didn’t want to waste the champagne.”
“I’m not a troglodyte; it was very good champagne.”
I didn’t try to rein in my adoring grin. “You were going to propose to me at a Cubs game, and you had an engagement party planned. Ethan Sullivan, that nearly makes up for your centuries of imperiousness.”
“It’s neither the first time nor the last time I’ve been romantic, Sentinel. Much like Liam Neeson, I have certain . . . skills.”
He even got the pause right; Luc would have been proud.
“Color me convinced. Ahem. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, what, exactly, did you have planned?”
“A proposal on the big screen.”
“No!” I whined, dropping my forehead to his chest. I loved big-screen sports proposals. And it would have been even better now; the new Cubs screen was enormous.
“You’ll note that even though I was not able to reschedule the screen, I did, in fact, give you Wrigley Field. And then there’s this.” Ethan Sullivan pulled a small burgundy box from his pocket.
I probably looked like a kid on Christmas staring down at it.
Ethan chuckled. “I assume from the awestruck expression on your face that you’d like to see what’s inside?”
“I mean, you went to all the trouble, so . . .”
Ethan flicked it open.
Nestled on a bed of burgundy satin sat a glorious double-diamond ring. The band, so delicate it looked like diamonds had been threaded together on silver string, spiraled around two round diamonds.
It was a toi-et-moi ring. The phrase meant “you and me”—symbolized by the gemstones. Napoleon had given Josephine one. I knew, because I’d researched it for my dissertation before I was made a vampire.
“Damn, Sullivan.”
“I do my research,” Ethan said, sliding the ring from its box. He took my left hand in his free one, slid the ring onto the fourth finger. “Now it’s official.”
He drew me toward him, kissed me good and hard.
“And now,” he said, pulling back and glancing behind me, “we celebrate.”
He turned me around.
Ethan had given me diamonds, Wrigley Field . . . and my family. My grandfather. Mallory and Catcher. Jeff and Fallon. Luc and Lindsey. Margot and Malik. They rushed forward with bottles of Veuve Clicquot and glasses, and threw glittering handfuls of silver confetti that danced in the light. There was a small table in the grass covered with a Cubs cloth and dotted with snacks.
A man who’d already given me immortality, who’d sacrificed his life to save mine, who’d stood for me and challenged me . . . and on occasion made me utterly and completely crazy, had thrown me a party in Wrigley Field.
Sentinel? Are you all right? You look a bit wan.
I looked back at him, drank in the golden hair and gemlike eyes. He was my recent past, and my eternal future. I’ve never been better. Unless you also happened to grab me one of those Cubs flashlights?
He rolled his eyes.
Mallory flat-out ran toward us and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re getting married! You’re getting married!” She squeezed me tight, her voice a squeak of excitement. She pulled back, her arms on mine. “And not just married. You’re getting married to Darth Sullivan!”
“I am,” I said, most of the air squeezed from my lungs by her exuberance, but I managed to hug her back nonetheless.
“I knew from the moment you two met, you’d either kill each other or get married. I guess you chose the latter.”
I glanced at Ethan, who was chatting with Catcher, golden hair framing his face like a beautiful, young god. And, more important, who’d understood me when I faced the kind of decision that changes you. “I’m not sure I had a choice,” I said.
“All right,” Catcher said, after a moment, gently turning her away. “Let’s let the rest of them get in here.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Congratulations, Merit.”
“Thank you,” I said with a smile as my grandfather moved toward me, wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m so happy for you, baby girl.”
“Thank you, Grandpa. I’m happy for me, too.”
My grandfather offered Ethan a handshake. “I’m not just losing a granddaughter,” he said. “I’m gaining a grandvampire.”
“That’s a very positive outlook,” Ethan said. “And it’s appreciated.”
“I’m very happy for both of you,” he said with a smile, then held out a hand.
Jeff walked over, enveloped me in an enormous hug. “Congrats, Merit.”
I squeezed back. “Thank you, Jeff.” When he pulled back, I grinned at him. “When do I get to start harassing you about proposing to Fallon?”
He just smiled. “A man
has his secrets, Merit. Oh, hey, look who’s here!”
We looked back, found Gabriel and his wife, Tanya, walking onto the field. She was delicately pretty compared to his rugged maleness, with brown hair and blue eyes, her cheeks flushed pink, her lips generous and smiling.
Gabe’s son, Connor, was in his arms, chewing on a plastic giraffe I’d seen before. He was a beautiful little boy, nearly a year old now, with his mother’s dark hair and blue eyes. He was the prince of the North American Central Pack, and even as a child, he seemed to glow with potential.
“Very interesting,” I said as Gabriel scanned the crowd, walked toward us. Ethan stepped beside me, which I didn’t think was a coincidence.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” he said, offering Ethan a hand. The other vampires in the hall had gone quiet as they watched the interaction, just in case there was still bad blood. Ethan took it, and they shook heartily.
Gabe turned to me, pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Congratulations, Kitten. Berna sends her warmest regards.”
“You sure about that?” I asked.
Tanya offered a tall, cylindrical paper bag that smelled like yeast and sugar. “Korovai,” she said. “It’s a traditional Ukrainian wedding bread. She’s happy you’re engaged, but she’s irritated about something to do with ballet.”
“Berna enjoys her opinions,” Gabriel said with a grin. “It’s like a hobby for her.”
“Well, it smells amazing,” Ethan said, accepting the bread. “Please thank her for us. And please, help yourself to some champagne.”
“Can’t say no to that,” Gabriel said with a grin, and escorted Tanya toward the snack table.
And as I glanced around, I realized my grandfather had stepped away, had his ear to his phone. Ethan, catching the direction of my gaze, looked, too. And soon enough, everyone was watching him, expressions tense.
When my grandfather put the phone away, he glanced at us. “At the risk of ruining the party—” he began, but Ethan shook his head.
