“Distracting?” I asked him, offering a dubious look.
“All’s fair in love and pastry,” he said, swiping a drop of raspberry jam from the edge of his mouth. The urge to lick it away nearly silvered my eyes.
He rolled down the top of the bag and placed it on a side table, then pulled on his Lupercalia T-shirt. The flat plane of his abdomen rippled as he moved, and I didn’t even bother to pretend not to look.
When he was done dressing, he cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying the show.”
He snorted, snatched up the second T-shirt, and swatted me with it. “Go get dressed, or Catcher, Jeff, Mallory, and Gabe are going to suspect more than dressing is going on in here. Again.” He put his hands on the bed on each side of my body and leaned in. “And although I have definitive plans for you, Sentinel, they do not involve the lascivious imaginations of the sorcerers and shifters presently outside that door.”
He touched his mouth to mine—soft and promising, his lips berry sweet.
• • •
Ten minutes later, I was dressed in my Lupercalia T-shirt, a long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it for warmth. I wore two pair of socks against the cold, boots, and jeans, and put my long, dark hair into a high ponytail. I pulled on my leather jacket, a gift from Ethan to replace the one torched in the fire that injured my grandfather, and tucked a small and sleek dagger into my boot. The Pack wasn’t likely to appreciate my bringing a katana to a shifter festival, so I’d have to rely on the dagger if anything went amiss. And since I was heading out with a refugee vampire, two rogue sorcerers, and a family of shifters who hated vampires, I presumed “amiss” was pretty likely.
I was dressed and ready for action. But before I turned my attention to the Pack, I had one final bit of business. I’d missed checking in on my grandfather yesterday, so I dialed the hospital and requested his room.
“This is Chuck,” he answered.
I smiled just from the sound of his voice. “Hey, Grandpa.”
“Baby girl! It’s good to hear your voice. I understand you’re in a bit of a pinch.”
Relief swamped me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to talk to him—or how much guilt had settled in when I hadn’t been able to make it happen.
“A misunderstanding. I’m sure Mayor Kowalcyzk will come around eventually.” And if she didn’t, hopefully Malik could convince the governor to intervene. “How are you feeling?”
“Broken. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“I don’t believe that,” I cheerily said, but I had to push back the memory of my grandfather huddled beneath debris. I made sure my voice was steady before I spoke again. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.”
“You know, I always thought you’d be a teacher. You love books and knowledge. Always did. And then your life changed, and you became part of something bigger. That’s your job, Merit. That something bigger. And it’s okay that you have to do it.”
“I love you, Grandpa.”
“I love you, baby girl.”
There was mumbling in the background. “It’s time for what they generously refer to as ‘dinner’ around here,” he said after a moment. “Call me when you’ve got things in hand. Because I know you’ll get there eventually.”
• • •
I found the crew in the living room, chatting collegially.
“Merit,” Catcher said, sitting beside Mallory on the couch, an arm around her shoulders. Their relationship had hit the rocks when Mallory turned to the dark side, so the casual affection was a pleasant development. “It’s nice to see you clothed again.”
“And now that she is,” Gabriel said, standing, “we should get moving.”
“Where are we going, exactly?” Catcher asked.
“To a land beyond space and time,” Jeff said drawing an arc in the air. “Where the rules of mortals have no meaning.”
Gabriel looked up at the ceiling as if he might find patience there. “We’re going to the Brecks’ backyard. Into the woods, right here in Illinois, where most of us are quite mortal.”
“Illi-noise,” Jeff said with cheeky enthusiasm. “Because the wolves will howl.”
Gabriel shook his head but clapped Jeff on the back good-naturedly. “Settle yourself, whelp. We haven’t even gotten started yet.”
I had a sense they weren’t going to settle themselves anytime soon. And since I was playing bodyguard, I took it upon myself to act like one. If we’d be staying on the Brecks’ property, we’d be as safe (as we’d ever been) from Mayor Kowalcyzk’s troops. But that didn’t necessarily mean we’d be safe around the Pack. Not if they shared the Brecks’ attitude.
“Does the Brecks’ protection extend to the woods? And the rest of the shifters?”
Gabriel smiled at me. Keenly. “If you’re here, Kitten, you’re safe. That goes for both of you. Frankly, most Pack members don’t give a rat’s ass about politics in Chicago. And even if they did, they aren’t going to choose a bullying politician over friends of the Pack.”
“And I’ve got your back, Mer,” Jeff said with a wink, earning a dark look from Ethan.
The shifters and sorcerers filed into the night, but Ethan stopped me with a hand. “Dagger?” he quietly asked.“In my boot,” I said. Vampires usually preferred not to employ hidden weapons, but these were special circumstances. “You don’t share Gabe’s confidence?”
“Gabe knows what he has planned. I do not. We have allies, certainly. Him, Jeff, Nick. A Pack member would have to be, as you might say, wicked ballsy to commit treachery under Gabriel’s nose.” We’d seen it before, and with unpleasant consequences. “But clearly many of the shifters aren’t fans of vampires, and like Michael, they won’t be glad to see us here.”
“I would never say ‘wicked ballsy.’ But I take your point.” And I hoped we hadn’t escaped Diane Kowalcyzk only to fall into a new kind of drama. But in case we did: “You’re armed, too?”
Ethan nodded. “A blade, like yours. A matched set,” he added with a smile, tugging on the end of my ponytail. “And we’ll see what we’ll see.”
He slipped his hand into mine but, when we started toward the door, glanced down at my booted feet.
“Color me surprised, Sentinel. Your shoes appear to be appropriate.”
I rolled my eyes. “It was icy that night, so I wore galoshes.”
“With couture. Very expensive couture.”
“It was Chicago in February. I made a practical decision. And I pulled it off.”
Only to have him carry me to my parents’ threshold and fake a marriage proposal on one knee. So I’d managed to avoid falling in stilettos—but had still nearly had a heart attack.
“Children,” Mallory said, peeking into the doorway. “I believe we’re waiting on you.”
“Sorry,” I said, stepping outside as Ethan followed behind me. “Just debating the finer points of fashion.”
“Only vampires,” Gabriel muttered, and moved forward into the darkness.
Chapter Three
LONE WOLF
The night was cold but uncommonly still. No wind at all, which was a blessing in Chicago in February.
With Gabriel in front, the frozen ground crunching beneath our feet, we played follow the leader around the house and toward the estate’s back lawn. It dipped down to the woods, which made a dark curtain at the edge of the visible world, a black sea beneath a blanket of stars. They twinkled above us, cold and unfeeling, and a sudden ominous shiver went through me.
Sentinel? Ethan silently asked, taking my hand.
I squeezed in response and dismissed my fear. I wasn’t a child; I was a vampire. A predator, and with allies around.
“Dark out here,” Mallory said with a nervous laugh ahead of us, hand in hand with Catcher.
“Could be worse,” Catcher said. “You could be a vampire on the lam.”
“Yeah, I don’t recommend it,” I said. “Although it certainly does make for interesting bedfellows.”
“I’d better be your only bedfellow, Sentinel.”
“Who could possibly replace you?” I asked, grinning when Mallory looked back and winked. A twinge of nostalgia went through me. That was the camaraderie I’d missed, something we’d begun to lose when the supernatural drama had grown between us.
As we descended the hill toward the tree line, a breeze blew toward us, and there was magic in it. Fresh and peppery and hinting of animals.
We stepped onto the dirt path that led into the woods, ground that I’d trod many times before. The trail where Nick and I had played as children had been cleared and widened, allowing access for adults.
There was movement to the left. Nick Breckenridge emerged from a side trail in front of Mallory and Catcher, a woman behind him, their hands linked together. He was dark and tall, with closely cropped hair and rugged features. With his snug shirt, cargo pants, and strong jaw, he looked every bit the journalist, albeit one more used to war zones and exotic locations than tramping through the woods of a multimillion-dollar estate.
The woman didn’t look familiar. I knew Nick was dating someone—or at least that a woman had answered his phone a few nights ago—but I didn’t know if she was the one. She had the self-assured bearing of a shifter, but if she had magic, she hid it well.
“Merit,” he said.
“Nick.”
“I don’t think you’ve met Yvette.”
Yvette nodded.
“Merit and I went to high school together,” Nick said.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, and they disappeared into the darkness ahead of us.
Mallory moved back to me and linked an arm in mine, displacing Ethan as my hiking partner.
“I think you just got jealous,” she whispered.