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"I agree completely," I said. "Which is why I've made dinner reservations on Friday at Tuscan Terrace, Chicago's finest Italian bistro. Homemade pasta. Fine champagne. Truffles. These little dessert cakes that are nearly better than Mallocakes. We'll celebrate in style."
Tuscan Terrace was an old-school Chicago restaurant, where waiters spoke mostly Italian, the rooms were dark, and privacy was guaranteed. It was delicious and expensive, the type of place you saved for a special occasion.
Ethan furrowed his brow. "To celebrate what?"
"You don't remember what Friday is?"
His stare went blank, and his expression had a decidedly deer-in-headlights look about it. I'd stumped him.
"Friday is February fourteenth," I said. "It's Valentine's Day."
I'd been single for so much of my adult life that Valentine's Day hadn't, in context, meant much. Sure, I'd occasionally been given tired roses in a green vase, or a heart-shaped box of mediocre chocolates. But those gifts had been few and far between.
This relationship was real, which meant I could - for the first time - experience a meaningful Valentine's Day. Not because of pink roses or nougat-filled chocolates, but because of us. Because I'd found someone who made me better, stronger, and because, at least I liked to think, I did the same for him. That was worth celebrating, treasuring, being grateful for.
It was worth tuxedoed waiters and delicate champagne flutes.
"Saint Valentine's Day, you mean," Ethan said with a chuckle. "I'm surprised you want to celebrate such a bloody day in Chicago's history."
He meant the massacre on Valentine's Day in 1929, when Al Capone took out several men from a rival gang in a Lincoln Park garage.
"You know that's not what I mean." I picked a bit of lint from one of his lapels. "Like you said, we deserve some quality time together, just the two of us. A few minutes of peace and quiet away from the House, where it won't matter if we're vampires."
"That does sound inviting," Ethan admitted. "A bit tempting of fate, perhaps, but inviting all the same. I look forward to it."
He smiled at me wickedly, suggesting it wasn't so much the dinner he looked forward to, but what he hoped might happen afterward.
Since imagining that scenario wasn't going to help us meet our obligations for the evening, I pressed a kiss to his lips. "I need to run."
Ethan's expression fell. Putting a hand on his chest, I could feel his heart thumping - steady and sound - beneath.
"I'll be careful," I promised. "I'll have my sword and my phone. And besides, I'll be dining with one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world."
His eyes flattened. "I know," he said. "That's precisely what worries me."
Chapter Two
THE EVENING STAR
The night air was cold, crisp, and fresh, but the streets and sidewalks were coated in a layer of dirty, frozen-solid snow that wouldn't fully melt for months. I headed to my car, parked on the sidewalk in a spot I'd circled the block three times to obtain, waving at the humans who guarded the fence surrounding the House.
Tonight, the gate was closed, a rare sight in my ten months as a vampire. But we'd seen enough violence lately - from supernaturals hired by the GP, from the assassin hired by McKetrick - that we'd tightened security all the way around.
When they saw me approach, one of the humans, a gun at his side, pushed open one of the slatted steel doors just wide enough to allow my exit.
The guard tipped her black ball cap as I walked through, acknowledging me, then closed the gate again when I was through, shutting off Cadogan House from Hyde Park - and the rest of the world - once again.
I climbed into my car, immediately turning the heat to full blast, not that it helped. My new coat was warm, but this was still February in Chicago. When the vent began to knock like a card in a bicycle spoke, I turned down the heat, deciding an insufficient but functioning heater was better than a broken one.
Now that I was out of the House, I also decided it was safe to call Jonah to get an update on the latest in GP-affiliated House news. Since Ethan was the only Cadogan vampire who knew about my RG affiliation, and our training hadn't exactly been private, I'd kept our in-House discussions to a minimum.
I put my shiny new phone - a replacement for the beepers we'd once carried - on speakerphone and dialed him up.
He answered on the first ring, the buzz of noise behind him. "Jonah."
"It's Merit. What's new?"
"Since I last saw you an hour ago? Nothing. You're bored and driving, aren't you?"
"Not bored. Just interested in your thoughts and wisdom. And a training room full of vampires wasn't exactly conducive to conversation."
"I do have a life, you know."
"Do you?" I teased. "I find that surprising."
"Actually, I have a date tonight."
I blinked. The news, admittedly, hit me a little weird. I was very much in love with Ethan, but as partners, Jonah and I had a separate, unique relationship, one that required a different kind of trust and intimacy. I just found odd the possibility that another woman was going to figure into it.
But I could suck it up. "Who's the lucky girl?"
"A Rogue," he said. "Noah introduced us. I'm not sure if it will go anywhere, but I like her style. And her figure."
"And I'd like it if you kept the details to yourself."
"Merit," he teased, "are you jealous?"
I wasn't, not really. Just a bit weirded out. But I wasn't going to admit that aloud. "Not in the slightest. I just don't need the gory details. Be careful out there."
"I intend to. And I'd say the same to you."
"Nothing weird should happen, but in case it does . . ."
"You want me to come save you so Ethan doesn't drop a sizable 'I told you so' into your lap?"
"I don't need saving. But yes, please."
He chuckled. "Maybe we'll get lucky, and you'll see McKetrick breaking into a car or something. It wouldn't be the most satisfying tag, but at least we could put him away."
I could hardly agree more. McKetrick had been playing the desk-bound bureaucrat, but in reality, he had a nasty hatred of vampires and the willingness to act on it. Four murders later, we still had no evidence to pin on him, and no idea what he might do next.
"We've found nothing," I said. "Maybe Michael Donovan was lying about McKetrick hiring him." Michael Donovan was the vampire assassin who'd been hired by McKetrick.
"That we haven't caught him doesn't mean he isn't doing anything," Jonah noted. "If he's smart, he's lying low right now."
