“Oh, it counts,” I said with a nod. “That pie was sublime. I’ve got solid culinary chops.”
“My culinarily chopped vampire missed a spot of powdered sugar,” Ethan said, leaning forward, swiping his thumb across my lips just slowly enough to heat my blood.
“Get a room,” Catcher groused. He was grouchy but loyal, and had followed Mallory through her stint as a Maleficent wannabe and on to the other side. He was also unfailingly dedicated to my much-beloved grandfather, which gave him points in my book.
But I still gave him the much-deserved stink eye. “Do you know how many times I’ve seen you naked? You and Mallory considered the entire house your personal love shack.” Mallory and I had been roommates once upon a time, before Catcher had moved into the town house we’d shared, and I’d moved into Cadogan House to escape the nudity.
“Your”—I waved my hand at his body—“rod and tackle touched pretty much everything in the place.”
“My body is a wonderland” was his only response.
“Be that as it may,” Ethan said, “Merit is not your Alice. I’ll thank you to keep your rod and tackle away from her.”
“Nowhere near my agenda,” Catcher assured him.
Ethan’s phone beeped, and he pulled it out quickly, checked the screen.
“Just a media inquiry,” he said, tucking it away again.
Every phone call put us on high alert, because a ghost—or someone pretending to be one—had staked a claim on our lives. That ghost was Balthasar, the vampire who, on a battlefield nearly four hundred years ago, had made Ethan immortal and nearly turned him into a monster in his own image. Ethan had escaped his maker, made a new life for himself, and believed Balthasar had died shortly after he had escaped. Ethan hadn’t yet told me the details, but he hadn’t indicated any doubts about Balthasar’s death.
And yet, three weeks ago, a note had been left in our top-floor apartments in Cadogan House. A note purporting to be from Balthasar, who was alive and excited to see Ethan again.
A note . . . and then nothing.
He’d made no contact since then, and we’d found no evidence he was alive, much less in Chicago and waiting for an opportunity to wreak havoc, to wage war, to exert control over Ethan once again.
So we waited. Every phone call could be the call, the one that would change the life we’d begun to make together. And there were so many more calls these days. The AAM was still working out the operational details, but that hadn’t kept vampires from lining up outside Cadogan House like vassals, seeking protection, requesting Ethan’s intervention in some city dispute, or offering fealty.
And vampires weren’t the only ones interested. Chicago was home to twenty-five percent of the country’s AAM members, and humans’ fascination with Ethan, Scott Grey, and Morgan Greer, who headed Grey House and Navarre House, had ballooned again.
It was a strange new world.
“So, not to interrupt the mirth making,” Mallory said, “but there’s actually a reason we asked you guys to come out tonight.”
“Who says ‘mirth making’?” Catcher asked.
“I do, Sarcastasaurus.” She elbowed him, with a grin. “And we’re here for a reason?”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “But I’m going to need that on a T-shirt.”
“I was just thinking that,” I said. “And you’re making me nervous. What’s going on?”
Catcher nodded. “Well, as it turns out—”
As it turned out, Catcher was interrupted by an explosion of noise, our phones beeping wildly in obvious warning.
I got to mine first, saw Luc’s number, switched it to speaker. “Merit.”
Luc’s nose loomed on the screen. “Sorry to interrupt date night.”
I grimaced at the image. “Step back from the camera. We don’t need to see your sinuses.”
“Sorry,” he said, leaning back so his nose moved back into proper perspective, right in the middle of his very charming face, which was surrounded by tousled blond-brown curls. “You’re alone?”
“We’re with Catcher and Mallory,” I said, then glanced around to ensure that no curious humans were eavesdropping. “We can talk. What’s going on?”
“Media vans at the House. Four of them. Mess of reporters, all gathered at the gate, ready and waiting.” Luc’s pause, matched with his drawn expression, made me nervous. “They’re asking questions about Balthasar.”
We went quiet enough to hear the strains of a lone saxophone being played near the pier, probably a song being sold for tourists’ cash.
“What questions?” Ethan asked.
“They’re asking about a supposed reunion,” Luc said. The answer made T. S. Eliot echo alarmingly in my head. This is the way the world ends.
Ethan’s reaction was as hot and fast as Luc’s had been cautious.
“Double the guards on the gate,” Ethan said. “We’re on our way.”
I wanted to argue with him, to tell him he’d be safer staying put than running toward whatever reunion this Balthasar had planned. But Ethan was a stubborn and careful man. He wouldn’t leave the House to face danger without him, and certainly not when the danger was a monster from Ethan’s own past. Ethan still hadn’t forgotten the things he’d done when he was with Balthasar, or forgiven himself for his own complicity. He was still looking for redemption. And he’d meet that opportunity head-on.
We said our good-byes, and I tucked the phone into my pocket again, tried to mentally prepare myself for what we might face—what Ethan might have to face, and the emotional storm that might rip through both of us.
And then I looked at Mallory and Catcher, remembering they’d been on the verge of making their own announcement.
“Go,” Catcher said, even as Mallory began stuffing food back into the picnic basket. She was playing the trouper, but I could see the frustration in her eyes. “You want us with you?”
Ethan shook his head. “There’s no point in dragging you into this debacle. Balthasar is dead; this is someone else’s ploy for attention.”
Catcher nodded. “I’ll tell Chuck, put him on alert just in case.”
“Be careful,” Mallory said, and squeezed me into a hug.
“I will,” I said, searching her gaze for answers, and finding none. “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine. We can talk about this later. Take care of your House first. Go,” she said when I hadn’t moved, and turned me toward the street.