by Chloe Neill
“Well,” he said, and took another. “It’s like . . . drinking sunshine.”
Gabe took back the flask, capped it. “This is a little something we’ve been working on.” His smile went sly. “We’re happy with the first results.”
Ethan slipped his hands into his pockets. “Are you looking for investors?”
That sly smile went positively wolfish. “Shifters in bed with vampires? That’s a dangerous game.”
“Too dangerous for the Apex of the North American Central Pack?”
“Didn’t you once say we were family?” I teased.
At the word “family,” a shadow crossed his face, and the dread in his eyes chilled my blood. I didn’t like seeing that emotion on Gabriel Keene, who was as fearless as they came.
“What is it?” Ethan asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “It’s your wedding.” He uncapped the flask he hadn’t yet put away, took a drink of his own before tucking it away.
“It’s our life,” Ethan said. “And our city. If you know something . . .”
Gabriel had prophesied Ethan and I would have a child—the first among vampires. Historically, three vampires had been conceived, but none were carried to term.
There’d been a caveat to our possible miracle: We’d have to face some unspecified test before it happened, and even the drama of the last year hadn’t filled that horrible quota.
Gabriel turned and looked at me, seemed nearly to look through me in that shifter way of his. “You need to be on your game.” He looked at Ethan. “Both of you.”
“Meaning?” Ethan asked, a thread of concern in his voice.
“Meaning . . .” He paused, seemed to grapple for words. “There’s something in the air. Something I don’t like. Something uncomfortable.”
The chill grew stronger, lifting goose bumps on my arms as I thought of my conversation with Mallory . . .
“What kind of something?” Ethan asked.
Gabriel just shook his head. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”
“Is it a general unease?” I quietly asked. “A malaise?”
He looked surprised, then suspicious.
“Mallory said the same thing,” I explained. “That she had a sense of dread and didn’t know why. Couldn’t identify a reason for it. Catcher didn’t sense anything, and she didn’t want to talk to you because she was afraid she was just being paranoid.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t like this.”
“Why do you think it’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and looked back at us. “You know prophecy isn’t exact. I get senses, images, but I don’t know details.”
“But?” I said.
“But it feels like the world is shifting. And with it, the future. Your future.” He glanced down at my abdomen. “His or her future.”
I hadn’t taken the idea of a child for granted, or hadn’t meant to. I knew the future was uncertain. But that didn’t ease the fear that clutched at me, that made me feel preternaturally protective of someone who didn’t even exist yet.
Ethan moved a step closer, as if to bring me within the sphere of his protection. “You’ve already said we’d be tested.”
“And you will be.” Gabe lifted his gaze again, and the sympathy in his eyes nearly brought me to tears. “But that may not be enough.”
“Meaning?” I said, but the word sounded hollow, far away. As if I wasn’t actually part of the conversation, but hearing it. Trying to live through it.
“Meaning there is no guarantee,” Ethan said.
Gabriel pushed a hand through his hair, his frustration obvious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to talk about this here. It’s not the time or the place.”
“If there’s danger out there, it’s exactly the time and place.”
Gabriel grunted, an acknowledgment of Ethan’s protectiveness.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Don’t live in fear,” Gabriel said. “Just live. Keep your people close; keep your eyes open. That’s all any of us can do.”
A few feet away, Tanya turned back, beckoned Gabriel to her. His attention shifted, narrowed on his wife, like a man too accustomed to the possibilities of danger and loss.
He pressed a hard kiss to my forehead. “Be careful, Kitten,” he said, then strode to his wife.
Ethan and I stood quietly together for a moment.
“I told him not to call you Kitten,” he muttered, probably just to make me smile. Which worked.
“Yeah, well, we can’t always get what we want.”
The words were out before I’d thought about them, and I reached out, squeezed Ethan’s hand, made myself lean into the uncertainty.
“I don’t want him to be right. I don’t want Mallory to be right. I want the world to spin like it has for these last few months, when my toughest decision was picking out a bridesmaid dress for Charlotte.”
“And perhaps dealing with the ghost.”
“And the ghost,” I said with a nod as our friendly neighborhood necromancer, Annabelle, swirled on the dance floor with her husband, looking radiant in her signature pale pink.
Ethan put an arm around my waist, pressed his lips to my temple. “We take each night as it comes, just as we have before. That is all we can do, and the best we can do.”
I nodded, let myself have a moment to lean against him, be still beside him, at least until my stomach grumbled.
“Let’s also take in some food.”
I would not argue with that.
• • •
By the time the early hours of the new day approached, just as Mallory had predicted, my face hurt from smiling, I’d ditched my shoes, and curls were slipping loose from the updo Lindsey had worked so carefully to achieve.
Supernaturals, used to the late hour, still danced to the band, which had been playing for hours. A few hearty humans danced, but the rest sat droopy-eyed at tables, yawning as they waited for an opportunity to leave.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Lindsey said from the stage, microphone in hand. The crowd quieted. “We’ve reached the end of our evening—literally, because the sun will be up in a few hours, and we still have to get Ethan and Merit to their very special bridal suite.”
The crowd hooted.
“But before we go, it’s time for one last tradition. Merit, if you’ll join me onstage, it’s time for you to throw the bouquet!”
Good luck, Sentinel.
I glanced back at Ethan, who winked rakishly. This was the last moment of our wedding, and therefore the last moment before our wedding night began. Uncertain future or not, there was no mistaking the desire in his eyes.
I stepped onto the stage, accepted the bouquet Lindsey offered me. And a good thing, too, as I’d lost track of it hours ago.
A number of women and a handful of men gathered in front of the stage, laughing as they prepared for the ritual. “Everyone ready?”
The screams were high-pitched and energetic. I glanced at Lindsey. “You want to get down there, too?”
“Oh, hell no. My cowboy and I are not contract people.”
“You do you,” I said, and turned around, took the bouquet in both hands, and launched it.
There were shrieks as the bouquet went airborne and the sound of scrambling behind me as high heels and taffeta and manicures battled.
And then a gasp . . . and silence.
I turned around.
A girl with the same tawny hair as Gabriel’s but who was dressed in edgy head-to-toe black stared down at the ribbon-wrapped flowers in her hands, her gaze wide and a little bit horrified.
I’d thrown the bouquet a little too hard, pitching it over the crowd of writhing brides- and grooms-to-be, and landing it in the hands of a woman behind them.
I bit my lip to keep from lau
ghing at her expression. However much she loved Jeff Christopher, marriage did not look to be in Fallon Keene’s immediate plans.
“Oh, now, that is ironic,” Lindsey said behind me. “Congratulations, Fallon!”
The ladies who’d missed gave good-natured applause, but you could tell their hearts weren’t in it. For his part, Jeff walked to Fallon with a wide grin on his face. Suspicion in her eyes, he pulled the bouquet from her hands and kissed her hard. And whatever he whispered to her after that had a smile curving one corner of her mouth.
Yes, there was something about weddings.
• • •
“Before the wedding party disperses and you two head off to Paris,” Shay said, “let’s go outside and get some city shots with the bride, groom, maid of honor, and best man.”
“Is that necessary?” I whispered. “She’s taken seven thousand pictures already.”
Mallory feigned shock. “Seven whole thousand?”
I poked her. “Smart-ass.”
Ethan reached out, took my hand. “Outside is fine,” he said, making the decision for both of us. “I’m thrilled to have more time with my beautiful wife.”
That was a powerful word, and on his lips, nearly seductive.
Just you wait, Ethan silently said, echoing the implicit promise I’d made to him earlier.
Eagerly, I promised him. I have plans for you, Sullivan.
The bright flash of his answering magic lifted goose bumps across my skin.
“We’d better get this done as soon as possible,” Mallory said, grinning at us. “Before they start vamping each other among the stacks.”
Ethan’s smile left little doubt that we’d already explored that particular activity, albeit in the House’s library, rather than this one. “We’ll manage,” he assured her.
• • •
I squeezed my feet into my shoes again, let Lindsey stuff rebel tendrils of hair back into my updo. Catcher came out with Mallory, and when Lindsey was done, Amit offered her a gentlemanly arm.
“You’re becoming an expert escort,” I told him as the elevator whisked us back down to the first floor.
“One of my many skills,” he said, leveling his deep brown eyes at Shay’s camera when she tried to snap a shot.
We walked out of the library’s big brass doors, went down the street to the El train trestle that rose above Van Buren.
“Here,” Shay said, pointing to either side of the steel trestle supports, lit from above so light pooled on the sidewalk. “Ethan on that side, Merit on the other.”
“And we’re doing this,” he said, and stepped on one side, leaned a hand against the steel structure.
“Give me a pose, Merit,” Shay said.
I curled my hands into claws and bared my teeth, heard the responsive click of a camera shutter. I guess she liked it.
“Ahem,” Ethan said, and I glanced at him. He gestured toward the trestle. “Waiting for you, wife.”
“Don’t get huffy, husband,” I said, and mirrored his pose.
Shay took pictures, then gestured to the stairs that rose to the El station. “Go up to the tracks,” she said. “Then look down over the railing.”
We did as she requested. Shay walked into the middle of the street, aimed her camera up at us.
“Do something romantic!” Lindsey called out, and before I could respond, Ethan’s hands were on my face, and his lips were planted on mine. He snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me against the solid length of his body, and the arousal that hardened between us as he deepened the kiss.
Soon, he said to me, the word echoing around my head like a marble in an empty box.
“I believe it’s time to get the honeymoon started,” he said when he finally pulled back again. Since my body was molded to his, my mouth swollen, I wasn’t really in a position to argue.
“Sure,” was all I managed to say. And weakly, at that.
“Let’s switch positions!” Shay called out.
“Not in this lifetime, sister,” I murmured, and kept a grip on Ethan’s hand.
Ethan chuckled with masculine satisfaction. “No worries, Sentinel. You’re the only woman for me.”
Damn straight.
• • •
We did more El shots, a few shots in Pritzker Park, a few shots in front of brick walls, and then the same shots with a variety of people. Shay offered to walk us down to Buckingham Fountain, but Ethan’s looks were becoming increasingly incendiary, and I was losing my immunity to their heat.
“We could take—,” Shay began, but I cut her off with a hand.
She’d been taking pictures for hours. And my mother had long since departed the wedding, so she’d forfeited her right to complain.
“I believe we have adequately captured the moment,” I said, and glanced at Ethan. “Unless you disagree?”
“There is one I’d like to get,” he said with a smile so sly I was afraid he’d suggest she follow us back to the hotel. But instead, he took my hand, and we walked back to the library and the entrance on Van Buren. We reached the arched brass doors, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY etched into the glass in the arch.
“Here,” he said, and, without bothering to explain, picked me up. I squealed, wrapped my arms around his neck as he centered our bodies beneath the sign.
His smile held cool confidence. “Proof that I managed to get her out of the library.”
I rolled my eyes during the first shot, smiled during the second, and pressed my lips to his cheek during the third. “Thank you for indulging me,” he said, when he put me down again. He pressed his lips to my forehead. But even that chaste act sent frissons of excitement and anticipation through me.
“Thanks, guys,” Shay said. “It was a great event. I’ll be in touch.” But her gaze was on the display on the back of her camera, fingers busily working the controls.
“I bet she says that to all the girls.”
“She probably does,” Ethan said. “But we’re done, so let’s take our leave.”
“Your limo is around the corner,” Amit said with a grin that told me he and Malik had done some decorating.
Hand in hand, we walked around the building to South Plymouth, where the library’s red brick gave way to dark glass and sleek steel. The limo sat at the curb, JUST MARRIED in white block letters across the back window, white balloons affixed to the fender and trunk, blue and white ribbons and streamers spilling out from beneath the back bumper.
“And I guess that’s our ride,” Ethan said dryly.
My first thought was that Amit had been offended by the comment, had made the sound that speared the air in front of us. Ethan realized the truth faster, threw a protective hand in front of me as he stared into the shadowed street.
The sound hadn’t been an objection.
It had been a scream.
A dozen humans filled Plymouth between Congress and Van Buren, and they were beating the shit out of one another, the sound of flesh hitting flesh echoing through the near darkness. The crowd was a mix of people in street clothes, pajamas, suits, and an assortment of ages, genders, races.
Cars were stopped in the middle of the dark street where people had simply abandoned them, climbed out, and begun pummeling one another, engines running and radios still blasting. Doors to apartment buildings were open, and a paper bag of fast food—someone’s late-night snack forgotten—lay tipped over on the sidewalk.
This wasn’t a party, wedding or otherwise. It was a fight.
I couldn’t tell what had started it. It didn’t look like a turf war or victory riot. This was a brawl that had brought people out of cars, out of homes when they should have been sleeping. And there was no obvious cause. But something had driven these people to violence.
“What the hell is this?” Catcher asked.
A man ran toward us, yanking at tufts of
his hair. “The voice! Get the goddamned screaming out of my head!”
This man wasn’t the only one screaming those words—the same words I’d heard Winston mutter. And he wasn’t the only one with panic practically itching across his skin.
I swore, and could feel the blood drain from my face. There’s something in the air, Gabriel had said. It feels like the world is shifting.
Was this what he’d meant?
“Winston,” Ethan said quietly, as if raising his voice might have drawn them closer.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, but the word felt thick on my tongue. And in the back of my throat, the sharp tang of chemicals, just like I’d sensed in the House.
He was only ten feet from us when he suddenly pitched over, and the scent of blood filled the air, adding copper to that sharp tang of magic.
Behind him stood a man in a business suit, tie unknotted and top button undone, dark circles beneath his eyes and five-o’clock shadow across his face. And in his hand, a bloody tire iron. He looked at us, raised his weapon.
“Is this your fault? Are you doing this to me?” The words were demands, his eyes flitting back and forth between us, looking for someone to blame. And since we were the only ones unaffected by the magic—whatever magic it was—he’d picked us.
“Get inside.”
Ethan and I gave the orders to each other simultaneously. But when we looked at each other, we nodded acceptance. We’d just taken a vow to stand beside each other. Might as well get started now.
Catcher looked back at Shay. “Get inside and call the cops. Go. Now.”
She wasn’t a war correspondent. She was a wedding photographer, and horror had her freezing in place, eyes wide and dazed.
“Shay!” Catcher said again, a sharp and decisive order.
She blinked, looked at him.
“Inside. Call the cops. Go.”
He must have gotten through, as she turned on her heel and ran for the door.
Unfortunately, Catcher’s voice, that protective order, had traveled. More of the brawling crowd realized we were there, and turned back to look at us, their immediate conflicts forgotten.
