“Mine,” he said, kissing me with such ferocity I tasted blood, the magic rising between us as he thrust fiercely and groaned like an animal as pleasure swamped him.
“Mine,” he said, softly now, and pulled my body into his. The sun rose, and there in the darkness of a borrowed room, we slept.
• • •
We awoke to riotous noise—pounding on the front door that had both of us shooting upright. The sun had only just dipped below the horizon again, but not quite far enough along to pull us from sleep.
“What in God’s name?” Ethan asked, his voice still slumber slurred, his hair more surfer than moderately pretentious Master vampire.
The pounding sounded again. Someone was in a hurry.
Ethan moved to climb off the bed, but I stopped him with a hand. “Get dressed. I’ll see who’s there first. Luc will kick my ass if I let yours get kicked.” I had a bad feeling this was going to be one of those nights on which I really, really wished I could sleep in and defer being an adult for a few more hours.
I pulled on Ethan’s shirt from the night before and buttoned it up. It wouldn’t do as protective armor, but there weren’t enemies at the door, at least not of the CPD variety. I’d tempered my own katana with blood and magic, which left me sensitive to the presence of steel and guns. I didn’t sense any outside.
Now draped in tailored and expensive menswear—only the best for our Master—I trundled back into the living room. Ethan’s katana was propped beside the door; I’d taken mine to bed, just in case. I picked it up and took a cautionary peek through the peephole . . . and found a shifter on our stoop.
“Open up, Kitten. I know you’re there.”
I opened the door; a cold breeze lifted goose bumps on my bare legs.
He stood in the doorway, six feet and some-odd inches, all muscle and wolfish energy. His hair was tawny and gold tipped, and it reached his shoulders in shaggy waves. His eyes were amber colored and, at the moment, swirled with amusement.
“Kitten,” said Gabriel Keene, the Apex of the North American Pack. He gave me an up-and-down perusal. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything?”
“Sleeping,” I managed, crossing my arms over my chest. “We were sleeping.”
Ethan stepped behind me, chest bare, buttoning jeans. “I’m fairly certain you know precisely what you were interrupting.”
Gabe smiled broadly, revealing straight, white teeth. “Doesn’t matter now, since you’re both awake. Get your asses dressed. We’ve got business to attend to.”
Ethan arched an eyebrow, his favorite move. “What business? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for the Pack, just as you are.”
Ethan grunted. “We’re here because Papa Breck made us pay for the privilege.”
I slid Ethan a glance. He hadn’t mentioned a payment to the Brecks. And that information would have been good to know before we put our fate—before I put his fate—in their hands.
“He made you pay,” Gabriel said, “but not for the privilege you think. That money was an admission fee.”
“For what?” Ethan asked.
“For the Greatest Show on Earth,” Gabriel said with a smile that could only be described as wolfish. “It’s the first night of Lupercalia.”
“What’s Lupercalia?” I asked, in spite of myself. I should have been ducking back inside, but I found the name—and Gabe’s appearance at our door—intriguing.
“Our annual NAC festival,” Gabe said, “and has been since Rome’s founding. Three nights in late winter to call spring to rise, to celebrate our animals, our connections to the woods, to the world.”
That explains Michael’s animus, Ethan silently said. He wouldn’t want us here for that.
Part of it, maybe. But I’d bet Michael hadn’t cared for vampires before we’d arrived, and wouldn’t like us any more when the festival was over.
“Tonight,” Gabe said, “you’re our guests. Among others.” He stepped aside, revealing two sorcerers and a shifter behind him. The sorcerers were my best friend, Mallory Carmichael, and Catcher, her boyfriend. Mallory had been disgraced by bad deeds, but Gabe had adopted her for rehabilitation.
Mallory and Catcher were bundled against the cold in jeans and boots. Hers were fawn colored and knee high over skinny jeans. Her blue hair, darker at the tips, lay straight on her shoulders.
Catcher stood beside her, wearing his typically dour expression. His hair was shaved, his eyes sparkling green, his mouth lush. He was partial to snarky T-shirts, but I couldn’t tell if he wore one beneath his coat.
Jeff was the final member of the trio, my grandfather’s employee and favorite white-hat hacker. Granted, he was the only computer hacker I actually knew in person, but I’m pretty sure he’d have been my favorite anyway. Tonight he’d traded in his usual uniform—khakis and a button-down shirt—for jeans, boots, and a rugged outdoor jacket. His light brown hair was tucked behind his ears, and he wore his usual smile—friendly, with touches of bashful and goofball.
“Sullivan,” Catcher said with a bob of the head, then answered Ethan’s unspoken question. “We’re here for Lupercalia.”
“I’m here to participate,” Jeff said, a blush in his cheeks as he dutifully managed not to stare at my legs.It was great to see them, but if they were here, my grandfather was down two guardians.
They must have seen the worry in my eyes. “Your mother and father limited your grandfather’s visitors today,” Catcher said. “They want him to rest. So we’re out of a job there.”
Jeff wiggled his phone. “Although we did manage to sneak in a panic button, just in case. He can reach us immediately if there’s any problem.”
“Good idea,” I said with a smile, relieved that they’d thought of it.
Of course, I was still standing half naked in the doorway of a shifter’s carriage house, my hair undoubtedly ruffled by sleep and sex. Throw in a college math class I’d somehow forgotten to attend, and I was revisiting my recurring nightmare.
“And what are you doing here?” I asked Mallory, smoothing a hand down the front of Ethan’s shirt to ensure no important parts were leaked to the public.
“I’m here to practice,” Mallory said.
Part of Mal’s rehab was figuring out how she could use magic productively. A little more Luke, a little less Anakin. She’d made progress during our anti-McKetrick brigade, and it looked like the Pack was giving her another opportunity to try.
“She’s expanding her understanding of magic,” Gabriel added. “What it is, what it isn’t, what it can be.”
Mallory smiled prettily and held up two bottles of Blood4You, the bottled blood that most vampires drank for convenience, and a bag from Dirigible Donuts, one of my favorite Chicago foodstuffs. (To be fair, it was a long and distinguished list.) “I have a consolation prize for your humiliation.” She gave me an up-and-down look. “I’d say two to three raspberry-filled donuts should do it.”
I stood there for a moment, cheeks flushed in embarrassment, toes freezing from exposure to the cold, my friends confident I’d be mollified with nothing more than a bag of jelly donuts.
“Just give me the damn thing,” I said, bowing to their expectations and snatching breakfast. But I gave them all a deadly look before stalking back to the bedroom.
“And now that we’ve satisfied your bodyguard,” Gabe said to Ethan behind me, “we’ll just come in and make ourselves comfortable.”
• • •
As it turned out, raspberry-filled donuts were an exceptional way to soothe humiliation.
I’d emptied a bottle of blood and devoured two of the donuts before Ethan came back inside, a bundle of red fabric in hand.
“I don’t suppose you saved one of those for me?” he asked.
“I better have,” I said. “She bought a dozen.”
“I stand by what I said.”
“You won’t get any with that attitude. What’s that?” I asked, gesturing toward the fabric.
“Apparently someone in the Pack decided they wanted swag,” Ethan said, unrolling two T-shirts, cardinal red with what looked like a retro ad for a bar called Lupercalia, the name in old-fashioned letters above two wolves toasting with beer steins at a pub table.
“They actually made T-shirts,” I said. “Gabriel okayed that? It seems very . . . public.” The public knew shape-shifters existed, but the Packs still tended to keep to themselves.
“I’d guess this was a do-it-and-apologize-after-the-fact scenario,” Ethan said. “These are for us to wear. Gifts from the Pack.”
“Chilly for February.”
“I’m sure they’ll allow you to layer, Sentinel.” He held out a hand for the bag of donuts, but I didn’t budge.
“Were you going to tell me we had to pay the Brecks?”
His gaze flattened. “I’m perfectly capable of managing the House’s financial affairs, Sentinel.”
“I didn’t suggest you weren’t. But I also don’t like being blindsided.”
“It was a business transaction.”
“It was protection money,” I insisted, and from the flash in his eyes, he knew it, too.
“And I don’t care to advertise that fact, Sentinel. But I’d have told you.”
He must have seen the doubt in my eyes, because he stepped forward. “I’d have told you,” he said again. “When we had a moment to discuss it. As you’ll recall”—he tugged gently at the first button on the shirt I wore—“you were very distracting last night.”
Ethan was still shirtless, and he stood at the edge of the bed, washboard abs and a trail of blond fuzz peeking above his jeans’ top button. Heat rushed me as he moved in for a kiss, and my eyes drifted shut.
But he sidestepped me, grabbed the bag, and pulled out a donut.