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He grabbed his arm, doubled over in mock pain. “It seems your arm is in working order.”
“Good enough to punch a vampire with a bad attitude.”
He slapped my butt. “Get dressed, Sentinel. Let us show the Tribune, and our doubters, what vampires have to offer the world.”
• • •
Thinking the night might call for action, I skipped the Cadogan uniform and pulled on my leathers. The black motorcycle-style jacket and pants were segmented just enough that I could fight if necessary. I wore a pale blue tank beneath the jacket, and black high-heeled boots beneath the pants. I added my Cadogan necklace, an inscribed silver teardrop, then pulled my long, dark hair into a high pony, straightening the bangs that fell across my forehead.
“Exactly what I had in mind, Sentinel.”
I met Ethan’s gaze in the mirror as I straightened out the ponytail. “I suspect there will be tension tonight. Seemed best to be prepared.”
“I don’t disagree,” he said. And he certainly looked his best. He wore the Cadogan uniform: a fitted black suit jacket over an immaculate white button-down, the top button open to reveal his own Cadogan medal. Fitted black suit pants, and he’d left his hair down, and it shone around his beautiful face like a gilded frame.
I sighed. “You are just too handsome.”
He arched a single eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
I turned around to face him, leaned back against the bathroom’s marble counter. “It’s part compliment, and part jealousy,” I said with a smile. “Were your sisters as beautiful as you?”
Ethan had had three sisters, Elisa, Annika, and Berit, in Sweden before he nearly died in battle and was made a vampire. His expression softened as he remembered. “They were lovely. Elisa and Annika were twins. Both blond, with blue eyes and pale skin. Rosy cheeks. Berit was shorter and more playful. They’d all been of an age to discuss weddings when I was killed. But, of course, I didn’t go back.”
Because he’d imagined himself a monster. “You miss them.”
He glanced at me. “It is a curse and blessing of immortality that you remember those who are gone even long after they are gone.”
I took his hand, squeezed it. “They would have been so happy, Ethan, to know that you’re alive. That you weren’t killed in battle and are thriving centuries later and keeping their memories alive. Leading your vampires with honor, working for peace.”
He tugged my ponytail, pulling me toward him, then pressed his lips to mine. “Thank you for that, Merit.”
“It’s the truth. They’d probably also be pleased that you’re famous and rich and have a smokin’ girlfriend.”
He snorted. “And there, you’ve taken it just one step too far. I’m hardly rich,” he added with a wink. “I’ve got some business to address tonight, supplicants who’ve been waiting, and I’d like to get you to help Paige with the translation.”
I nodded. “I’d planned that after grabbing a bite. Oh, and my grandfather sent a message—said the vampire’s DNA isn’t in the system. So he’s an unknown.”
“Then we’ll need to get to work.” He held out a hand. “Let’s get you fed and watered and into the library.”
• • •
Cadogan House was a lovely dame, with beautiful art, antiques, and vampires. But there was one room that outclassed them all.
The library—two stories of books, all meticulously organized and cataloged. The first floor featured dozens of shelves and tables for studying. The second was a balcony of more shelves ringed by red iron railings and accessible by an equally red spiral staircase.
One of the oak tables in the middle of the first floor had been piled with books. An Encyclopedia of Modern Alchemy, Alchemy and Hermeticism: A Primer, and Transmutations and Distillations for the Common Sorcerer were atop the stacks.
“Don’t get those out of order.”
I yanked back my hand, glanced behind me. A man on the shorter side, pale skin, dark hair, was rolling toward us a brass cart filled with a dozen more books. Also an exception to the Cadogan uniform rule, he wore jeans and a black Polo shirt with a small Cadogan seal embroidered on the chest.
“Sire,” he said. “Merit.”
“Librarian,” Ethan said. His name was Arthur, but everyone except Paige used his title. The Librarian was the master of this two-story kingdom within a kingdom and the books within it, including the Canon, the laws that governed vampires, at least for now. The AAM was still working out the legal situation.
“I found one more,” said the startlingly beautiful woman who emerged from between two rows of shelves. She was tall and slender, with pale skin, green eyes, and a wavy head of red curls. She wore jeans, leopard-print flats, and a simple white T-shirt that still managed to look elegant and refined.
This was Paige Martin, a sorcerer and former Order Archivist. We’d brought her back from Nebraska after Mallory absconded with a book of evil magic. Paige and the Librarian had hit it off immediately.
