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“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.
“I’m not jealous. But I am more than ‘a girl he went to high school with.’”
She snorted. “What did you want him to say? That you’re the girl he’s pined over since he made the regretful decision to break up with you in high school? Which was ten years ago, I’ll point out.”
“No,” I said, drawing out the word to emphasize just how silly that thought was. “But maybe something along the lines of, ‘This is Merit, sentinel of Cadogan House, protector of the weak, defender of the innocent’?”
“Yeah. Let me know when the Avengers come calling. In the meantime, while he does have a very curvy Yvette, you have an Ethan Sullivan.”
“I hate it when you have a point.”
“I’m wise beyond my years.”
The trail narrowed, and we fell into a silent, single-file line, the skeleton trees standing sentinel around us. The woods were draped in winter silence, the native creatures sleeping, hibernating, or deliberately avoiding the train of predators. The woods were deep, and I’d been back as far as a hedge maze that I thought was somewhere to my right. But it was dark and the trail was pitched, and I wasn’t entirely sure of my direction.
We followed the trail for ten or fifteen more minutes, until the woods opened, revealing a large meadow surrounded by glowing torches.
The clearing was at least the size of a football field, and in the middle stood a twenty-foot-tall totem, animals carved in a trunk at least four feet thick. Tents, campfires, and folding chairs were sprinkled here and there. And everywhere, shifters milled, most in the official black leather jackets of the North American Central.
Scents filled the air. The fur and musk of animals, charcoal, roasting meat, earth. There was life here. Renewal and rebirth, even though spring was still weeks away.
I guessed that was why the Brecks hadn’t wanted us here. Shifters could take care of themselves, certainly, but there were a lot of families in the open space, and tents wouldn’t be easy to defend. On the other hand, they were, like us, on private property held by one of the most powerful families in Chicago. That was a point in their favor.
Gabriel left us at the edge of the wood, walking to his wife, Tanya, who stood in the clearing with their infant son in her arms. Tanya was a lovely brunette, a woman with smiling eyes and pink cheeks, her softness a contrast to Gabe’s tawny ferocity. Gabe put a paternal hand on Connor’s head and pressed a kiss to Tanya’s lips. She beamed up at him, the love between them comfortable and obvious.
