by Chloe Neill
No vampire child had ever been carried to term, but Gabriel believed Ethan and I would change that, but only after we suffered some kind of unspoken “testing.”
Ethan’s expression went hot with protectiveness. “When the time comes, he or she will want for nothing, will know no fear, and will be protected by both of us.”
There was a ferocity in his eyes that surprised me. Not because I doubted he’d be a good father; to the contrary, it was easy to imagine him holding a child, protecting a child. But he’d been as surprised as I was when I told him about Gabriel’s prophecy. He’d come around.
And speaking of the prophecy, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. “We’ve got an hour before dawn. What would you like to do?”
My seduction game was on point.
“Fantasy football?”
Before I could even blink at the suggestion, which was bizarre coming from him, he pounced, covering my body with his and pinning me onto the mattress. The weight of him, of his sculpted and toned body, felt like a miracle.
“I don’t actually plan to immerse you in fantasy football,” he whispered, his lips tracing a line across my neck, his long and skilled fingers becoming acquainted with the knot in my robe.
“No,” I said, while I could still form words. “I don’t imagine you did.”
“Although the fantasy part—” he began, but before he could finish, his mouth was on mine again, teasing and inciting, igniting the slow burn that sent magic trickling across my skin and seemed to electrify the air.
“The fantasy part is well within my wheelhouse,” he finished, and set out to prove it.
CHAPTER FIVE
TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS
We’d developed a dusk routine. Ethan would wake first and get ready for his day; I’d wake groggily to find him in an immaculate suit, already groomed and golden and ready to take on the night. We were both vampires and should have had the same reaction to the sun’s setting, but he always managed to wake before I did.
Tonight, the bathroom door was closed, the shower running. Maybe he hadn’t completely beaten me this evening.
I stretched and sat up, reached out to check my phone, and found a waiting message from my grandfather: DNA CHECK OF FRANKLIN WOUNDS—NO MATCH IN SYSTEM.
So our bearded vampire wasn’t a known criminal, or at least not one who’d ended up with his biological bar code in the CPD’s databases.
There was also a message from Luc confirming that Jeff had sent the photographs of the alchemical symbols, and one from Mallory confirming that she and Catcher had enjoyed a night of raucous monkey sex. So no backsliding there, however unlikely that might have been. Good for them.
The final message was directly from Jeff—a grainy image of the vampire who’d killed Caleb Franklin. You couldn’t see his face, but his approximate height, weight, color, and build were clear enough, as was the beard that covered the lower half of his face. Again, I had the sense of vague familiarity but still couldn’t place him. I’d run into hundreds of vampires in the year I’d been one; it could have been anyone.
As much as I wanted to avoid it, because I had responsibilities, I sent the photograph to Jonah. It was the first communication I’d had with him in a couple of weeks, since the party at Cadogan House we’d used to trap the vampire pretending to be Balthasar, the monster who’d made Ethan. He’d been edgy then, so I hadn’t followed up. As far as I was concerned, he and the RG were the ones with the issues. If they wanted to talk to me, they knew where to find me.
But in the meantime, a mystery was a mystery. PHOTO OF VAMPIRE THAT KILLED CALEB FRANKLIN, I explained. KNOW HIM? OR DOES NOAH?
He’d respond even if he was pissed at me, because that was the kind of guy he was. Or the kind of guy I thought he was. We’d see either way.
With that done, I stretched, climbed out of bed, and shuffled to the apartment door, where Margot left our dusk tray.
Ethan wasn’t the only perk to life in the Master’s suite. On a tray lined with linen, the smell of coffee wafted from a silver carafe. There were croissants in a basket, cubes of fruit in a bowl, and a folded copy of the day’s Tribune.
I brought the tray and unfolded the paper, even as dread settled in my belly. The headline above the fold read, in enormous black letters: SUPERNATURAL CHAOS AT WRIGLEY. There were color photographs of cops, of shifters on their bikes, and of the line of cops and supernaturals who’d protected them while they sang for Caleb. I was in the center of that photograph, my eyes closed and my skin paler than usual. I’d bet money they’d Photoshopped the picture to make me look more supernatural. Tricksy of them, but a good bet financially. Vampires had been a hot commodity since Celina dragged us out of the dark.
I sighed and folded the paper again, realizing we weren’t the only ones to have made it onto the front page in color. Beneath the fold was a photograph of Adrien Reed and his wife, Sorcha, standing in the large, granite plaza in front of the Towerline construction site. A white banner behind them bore the Reed Industries logo in dark green, the dark, pointed spire of a building spearing up between the words. They’d stripped an existing skyscraper nearly down to its steel frame, and had begun to rebuild the new facade around it, layering new steel and glass in alternating stripes up its sides.
Towerline had been spearheaded by my father, Joshua Merit, one of the most powerful real estate developers in Chicago. He’d given Towerline to Reed to cancel a debt owed by Navarre House; Reed apparently planned to take full advantage of the windfall.
Reed cut a fine form—if you ignored the ego, manipulation, and misanthropy. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his dark, waving hair perfectly cut. His tailored suit was deep gray, his tie bottle green. His features were strong—square jaw, straight mouth, gray eyes. He was in his forties, and wore his age and experience well, his salt-and-pepper goatee giving an edge of danger.
His wife, Sorcha, was equally arresting. Tall, thick blond hair, green eyes. She was perfectly slender—and I meant that literally. I wasn’t sure if her body had been created by good genes, hard work, excellent surgery, or some combination of the three. Either way, it was remarkable. Each muscle was defined just enough, her skin smoothly golden. Her fitted green dress, which fell to just below the knee, had an asymmetrical neckline that dipped sideways toward her left arm before rising again to form a cap sleeve. The fit was immaculate. Nary a wrinkle. If I hadn’t seen her in the flesh, I might have guessed her a cyborg with perfectly plasticized skin.
She smiled at the camera, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She had the same slightly vacant expression she’d worn the night I met her. I still wasn’t sure if she wasn’t interested in what was going on around her, or just didn’t understand it.
MOGUL BREAKS CEREMONIAL GROUND ON MONUMENTAL DEVELOPMENT, read this headline.
My father and I weren’t close, but I still felt a stab of anger at Reed’s self-righteous smile. He hadn’t worked for Towerline; he’d stolen it with violence and manipulation, just like the gangster he was.
I looked at Sorcha again and wondered what she and her gangster talked about at the end of the day. Did she meet him at the door of their mansion with a Manhattan in hand and ask about work? And was she oblivious of the crime that had paid for the luxury in which she lived, or did she just not care?
Frustration giving me a headache, I put the paper back on the tray. A small white card fluttered to the floor.
For a moment, I thought Margot had left a note with the tray to say good evening or make a snarky comment about the headline. I should have known better.
I crouched, picked it up, and went deathly still, the thick cardstock in my hand.
The note wasn’t from Margot or anyone else in the House. There was no name on the paper, but we’d seen the thick cardstock before, the familiar handwriting. It was from Adrien Reed.
I return to Chicago to find you in the new
s again, Caroline. An interesting tactic in our continuing game, but rest assured—I will have the victory.
I am curious—will he weep when he loses everything?
Will he weep when he loses you? I look forward to finding out.
Frustration boiled into anger, so fierce that my hand shook with it. That would have been Reed’s plan. He loved these notes, these intrusions, these reminders that he could get to us anywhere.
How had he gotten the card into the House?
I glanced at the tray. The paper. It was the only thing that wouldn’t have come directly from the House’s kitchen, and it probably would have been easy to convince the delivery person to slip the note inside. He couldn’t have been sure I’d see it before Ethan, but that hardly mattered. Directing the card to me, implicitly threatening me, was exactly the kind of thing that would get Ethan’s goat.
The shower shut off.
It was easy to see exactly what Adrien Reed had wanted to do—manipulate, irritate, inflame.
“Sentinel?”
Instinct had me crumpling the card into the palm of my hand.
Ethan stood in the doorway, one towel wrapped low around his lean hips, his muscles gleaming with water. “Are you all right? I felt”—he looked around the room, searching for a threat—“magic.”
Thinking fast, I picked up the rest of the paper while tossing the note into the trash can beneath the desk, slick as a Vegas illusionist.
My heart pounding at the deception, I showed him the headline and photographs. Ethan walked forward, took the paper from me, flipped it open. His eyes tracked our story, then the one on the Reeds.
“Reed’s put in a ‘community safety center’ in a building across the street from Towerline.”
“What?”
Ethan glanced at me. “Too irate to read the article?”
“Towerline belongs to my father.”
“You’ll get no argument from me, Sentinel.” His eyes scanned the story. “Reed has also rehabbed a building across the street from Towerline that will serve as the headquarters for the renovation activities. He’s also announced it’s home to an enterprise dedicated to bringing law enforcement and business interests together to reduce crime in Chicago.”
“Reduce crime, my ass,” I muttered. “That will give Reed access to every law enforcement plan in the city. It won’t help reduce crime; he’ll just be able to plan around it.”
“Perhaps,” Ethan said, refolding the paper. “But then again, he is meticulous in keeping those aspects of his life separate.”
Instead of putting the paper back on the tray, Ethan tossed it into the trash beside the note that had accompanied it. Which was fine by me.
“As to the article about Wrigley, supernaturals are fodder for the press. There’s little reporters love more than seeding dissent: Are supernaturals really your friends? Are you sure? Did you see what they did this time? They love to paint us with the same broad strokes.”
“We are nothing like the vampire who murdered Caleb Franklin,” I said with a huff. “He had no honor.”
“No, he didn’t,” Ethan said. “Because if he’d had an excuse for the murder, some reason for it beyond self-interest or greed, he needn’t have run from us.”
“Yeah. Although that doesn’t really make me feel better.”
“I know something that would make you feel much better,” he said, his tone all wickedness.
I poked him on the arm, which did make me feel a little better.
He grabbed his arm, doubled over in mock pain. “It seems your arm is in working order.”
“Good enough to punch a vampire with a bad attitude.”
He slapped my butt. “Get dressed, Sentinel. Let us show the Tribune, and our doubters, what vampires have to offer the world.”
• • •
Thinking the night might call for action, I skipped the Cadogan uniform and pulled on my leathers. The black motorcycle-style jacket and pants were segmented just enough that I could fight if necessary. I wore a pale blue tank beneath the jacket, and black high-heeled boots beneath the pants. I added my Cadogan necklace, an inscribed silver teardrop, then pulled my long, dark hair into a high pony, straightening the bangs that fell across my forehead.
“Exactly what I had in mind, Sentinel.”
I met Ethan’s gaze in the mirror as I straightened out the ponytail. “I suspect there will be tension tonight. Seemed best to be prepared.”
“I don’t disagree,” he said. And he certainly looked his best. He wore the Cadogan uniform: a fitted black suit jacket over an immaculate white button-down, the top button open to reveal his own Cadogan medal. Fitted black suit pants, and he’d left his hair down, and it shone around his beautiful face like a gilded frame.
I sighed. “You are just too handsome.”
He arched a single eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
I turned around to face him, leaned back against the bathroom’s marble counter. “It’s part compliment, and part jealousy,” I said with a smile. “Were your sisters as beautiful as you?”
Ethan had had three sisters, Elisa, Annika, and Berit, in Sweden before he nearly died in battle and was made a vampire. His expression softened as he remembered. “They were lovely. Elisa and Annika were twins. Both blond, with blue eyes and pale skin. Rosy cheeks. Berit was shorter and more playful. They’d all been of an age to discuss weddings when I was killed. But, of course, I didn’t go back.”
Because he’d imagined himself a monster. “You miss them.”
He glanced at me. “It is a curse and blessing of immortality that you remember those who are gone even long after they are gone.”
I took his hand, squeezed it. “They would have been so happy, Ethan, to know that you’re alive. That you weren’t killed in battle and are thriving centuries later and keeping their memories alive. Leading your vampires with honor, working for peace.”
He tugged my ponytail, pulling me toward him, then pressed his lips to mine. “Thank you for that, Merit.”
“It’s the truth. They’d probably also be pleased that you’re famous and rich and have a smokin’ girlfriend.”
He snorted. “And there, you’ve taken it just one step too far. I’m hardly rich,” he added with a wink. “I’ve got some business to address tonight, supplicants who’ve been waiting, and I’d like to get you to help Paige with the translation.”
I nodded. “I’d planned that after grabbing a bite. Oh, and my grandfather sent a message—said the vampire’s DNA isn’t in the system. So he’s an unknown.”
“Then we’ll need to get to work.” He held out a hand. “Let’s get you fed and watered and into the library.”
• • •
Cadogan House was a lovely dame, with beautiful art, antiques, and vampires. But there was one room that outclassed them all.
The library—two stories of books, all meticulously organized and cataloged. The first floor featured dozens of shelves and tables for studying. The second was a balcony of more shelves ringed by red iron railings and accessible by an equally red spiral staircase.
One of the oak tables in the middle of the first floor had been piled with books. An Encyclopedia of Modern Alchemy, Alchemy and Hermeticism: A Primer, and Transmutations and Distillations for the Common Sorcerer were atop the stacks.
“Don’t get those out of order.”
I yanked back my hand, glanced behind me. A man on the shorter side, pale skin, dark hair, was rolling toward us a brass cart filled with a dozen more books. Also an exception to the Cadogan uniform rule, he wore jeans and a black Polo shirt with a small Cadogan seal embroidered on the chest.
“Sire,” he said. “Merit.”
“Librarian,” Ethan said. His name was Arthur, but everyone except Paige used his title. The Librarian was the master of this two-story kingdom withi
n a kingdom and the books within it, including the Canon, the laws that governed vampires, at least for now. The AAM was still working out the legal situation.
“I found one more,” said the startlingly beautiful woman who emerged from between two rows of shelves. She was tall and slender, with pale skin, green eyes, and a wavy head of red curls. She wore jeans, leopard-print flats, and a simple white T-shirt that still managed to look elegant and refined.
This was Paige Martin, a sorcerer and former Order Archivist. We’d brought her back from Nebraska after Mallory absconded with a book of evil magic. Paige and the Librarian had hit it off immediately.
She stood beside him, a good four inches taller, and passed him the books. “Merit, Ethan. I was just about to get started.”
“Jeff sent you the pictures?” Ethan asked.
“He did,” she said, and there was no denying the excitement in her eyes. She put a hand on her chest. “I don’t want to make light of what happened to Caleb. It’s just—I’ve never actually seen alchemy in practice. It’s such a rare specialty. I’m—I guess ‘intellectually intrigued’ would be the best phrase.”
She walked around the table, picked up a large poster that had been mounted to a sheet of foam board. It was at least four feet long and covered in rows of symbols.
“I just need to grab an easel from the storage room. Jeff figured out a way to blow up the symbols so they’re clearer and easier for us to read. And he’s divided them into two sets—one for me and one for Mallory.”
“How can I help?” I asked, not entirely sure that I could.
“Alchemical equations typically have their own architecture. I’m hoping this one does, too. If that’s right, and I can break the equations into their subparts, I’m going to give you some of the subparts for translation using these.” She tapped a finger on the books.
“Do you have any idea what the alchemy might be used for?” Ethan asked.
“Not without translating,” she said. “But I can tell you this—whatever it is, it’s big. Most alchemical equations are pretty simple; that’s the nature of alchemy. Right or wrong, alchemists believed you could change matter—change one thing into another, realize the true ‘essence’ of something—if you applied the right kind of solvent at the correct time of year, under the influence of the right heavenly bodies. It can get more complicated, sure.” She gestured to the board. “But this? This is a lot of symbols, plus pictographs—the hand-drawn elements. And there’s no explanatory text whatsoever. I think that’s the point of the pictographs—concealing the instructions. As far as I’m aware, they’re unique to the sorcerer, in which case the puzzle will be even harder to solve.”
