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"In all seriousness," I said, when I was upright again, "do they have any leads on a place to stay? It's going to take a while to get the roof fixed. The mechanical gizmo was complicated." It sensed the rising and falling of the sun, and provided light or shade to the atrium accordingly.
"And it's February," I added. February was not a productive construction month in Chicago. It was simply too cold for it.
Ethan plucked up his phone from the nightstand. "I'm not certain. They'll probably have to look for something intermediate - a hotel - until they can find semipermanent housing while the construction's under way. They've not even been here twenty-four hours, Sentinel. Let's try to be gracious, shall we?"
I muttered a few choice words.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Answer it," I directed. "You're mostly dressed."
"You're already out of bed. Besides, it's for you."
"How do you know?"
"I'm psychic."
"No, you're arrogant. That's a different thing."
Since Ethan made no move to get up, and the visitor knocked insistently again, I walked to the door, smoothing back my hair before pulling it open.
Helen stood in the hallway, a black dress bag in her hands. She was already dressed in her signature tweed suit, pearls in her ears and around her neck.
"Good evening, Merit," she said, extending the bag. "For dinner with your parents."
I took the bag, and Helen turned and walked down the hall again, her pace efficient and businesslike.
I shut the door and found Ethan smiling at me with obvious amusement.
"I am not currently accepting commentary."
"Buck up, Sentinel," he said, rising and wrapping his arms around me. "You're about to don a ridiculously expensive dress that any number of Hollywood celebutantes would love to wear."
"Oh?" I said, glancing down at the bag with interest.
"As it turns out, a number of designers were thrilled at the possibility of being the first couturier of vampire fashion. You're quite the trendsetter."
"I think you have me confused with someone else," I joked, but couldn't help frowning.
"What's going on in that head of yours?" he asked.
"It's just - I worry about leaving the House when there could be an attack."
He tipped up my chin with a finger. "We are allowed to be ourselves. Ethan Sullivan and Caroline Evelyn Merit, without the obligations of our House between us."
"I know. But I feel bad gallivanting off in a party dress" - I jiggled the dress bag for effect - "when there are things to worry about here."
"We aren't leaving it alone," he reminded me. "The House is currently guarded by a full cadre of humans and two Houses of vampires, including Scott, Luc, Jonah, and both guard corps. If you and I are the two vampires that make a difference in any battle, then Scott and I have truly commended the wrong people."
I had to give him that, and not just because I'd seen Jonah wield two katanas. "And how does Luc feel about our leaving?"
"If you must know, Luc and Malik think it's a good idea."
"A good idea? Because of my parents?" I asked.
"No," Ethan said shortly.
It took me a moment to understand why they felt that way - and why it irritated him.
"They want you away from the House in case there's an attack," I said. "They want you safely on the other side of town instead of going down with the ship."
Ethan did not look thrilled at that possibility. "I would not go down with my ship. I would fight for it, as is my right. I am the Master of this House."
"I know." My guilt could hang around if it wanted, but Luc had a point. "They're your subjects, and you're their liege. You gave them immortality, and for that, they want you to keep yours. If I must take you away from danger," I said grandly, "then I must."
Ethan checked his watch. "As much as I love it when you talk duty to me, you're procrastinating again. Get ready. I want to check in with the guards before we leave, and you don't want to be late to dinner."
I definitely did not. The quickest way to exacerbate a dinner with my parents was being late for dinner with my parents.
Well, other than bringing zombies to dinner. Because who kept brains in the fridge?
"I'll shower," I said. "You find caffeine. I'm going to need it."
-
While Ethan was downstairs, I showered and brushed out my hair, then donned the necessary undergarments, and put on mascara and lip gloss.
The basics accomplished, I unzipped the bag and took a look.
Ethan, not surprisingly, had done it again. The dress fit the event perfectly. It was a tailored sheath made of layered silk, with a belted waist and capped sleeves. It fell to just below the knee, and the bodice was dotted with birdlike whispers of white across a black background.
I slipped the dress from the hanger, unzipped it, and stepped inside, carefully raising the silk inch by inch to avoid ripping the delicate fabric.
I managed to get the zipper together, but only halfway up my back before the sleeves fought back.
Ethan picked that moment to walk back inside, a steaming cup of what smelled like Earl Grey in hand. He found me standing in the middle of the room, the dress still hanging from my shoulders, my arm across my br**sts.
"Well," he said, putting the drink on a table and his hands on his hips. "Sentinel, you are a sight."
"Can you please zip me up?"
"I'd rather stand here and enjoy this particular view." I nearly rolled my eyes, until I realized what he was wearing.
While I'd been in the shower, Ethan had dressed in a sleek black suit, with a low, five-button vest beneath his jacket. I'd said before he'd have made a delectable model, but this look cinched it. With his green eyes and golden hair, he looked like he'd stepped from an ad for a dark and smoky whiskey.
As I held up my hair, he turned around and fastened the dress, then stood behind me for a moment, his eyes on my image in the mirror that hung on the back of the closet door.
"Leave your hair down," he said, his eyes seeming to turn greener as we watched each other in the mirror.
"Down?" I asked, piling it atop my head. "I was thinking a topknot."
"Down," he insisted.
I dropped the faux bun, and he ruffled my hair so that it fell across my shoulders, a dark curtain around my face and pale blue eyes.
He was right.
In this just-snug-enough sheath, with my hair down and the pale cast of vampire to my skin, I looked like a blue-blooded heiress. A vampiric aristocrat with an agenda and the will to see it through.
