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“We?”
“The guards.”
Ethan blinked. “Luc knew?”
“Of course.” I smiled at him. “You hired canny vampires, Ethan, unless you forgot. And to come full circle, you’d have been head of the GP, and I’ve have worried about you more. Instead, I worry about you the usual amount, and I know you’re capable of handling yourself—at least when you aren’t stepping in front of stakes for me.”
“Well worth it,” Ethan said, inching closer and wrapping his arms around me. The tension had left his body, but the magic still prickled. “You are uniquely skilled at diffusing my anger. Malik, as well, but with a very different energy.”
“I should hope so, as your wife and his would likely object.” I leaned up, pressed my lips to his. “I love you, Ethan. And I appreciate that you worry, that you’re concerned enough about me to do so. I won’t tell you to stop—as that wouldn’t be fair. But we have a good team, and you’ve trained me well. The rest of it—life, immortality, safety. None of that is guaranteed, even if I was House Librarian.”
He chuckled. “You’d have grown bored, Sentinel. Books should be your respite, not your prison.”
It had taken time for me to understand that was true, but I understood it now. “You’re right. And kicking bad-guy ass is so much more satisfying. If we’re going to survive, if Chicago’s going to survive, we have to do what scares us.”
“Last night, a lot seemed to scare you.”
“Yeah, it does. But that’s life, right? Isn’t that what you taught me? To be scared, but do the thing anyway?” I paused. “This doesn’t change anything about our conversation last night. If anything, doesn’t it prove I was right? That we’d bring a child into a world that’s not only dangerous for her, but everyone she cares about?”
“I could throttle your father,” he said, teeth bared. “I could throttle him for what he did to you.”
“The fact that you were assassinated in front of me doesn’t help.”
He growled, put a hand on my chin. “I intend to have you both.”
I didn’t mean to smile, didn’t mean to make light of the fire and emotion in his eyes. But the sheer “alphaness” of it tickled me. “The child isn’t even here yet, and you’re already overprotective.”
The mask of anger dropped incrementally.
“Does it matter that I said I wouldn’t hand you over to her?”
I put a hand on his cheek. “I’m not anyone’s to be handed over, or to be accepted. Mallory and I are volunteering for an op that might end Sorcha’s reign tonight. That’s not an opportunity I intend to pass up. And look at it this way: We are inherently more capable than the mayor and her cabal of bureaucrats.”
“So I shouldn’t consider you prey—I should consider you hall monitors?”
I grinned at him. “Exactly. But minus the teacher’s-pet overtones.”
“I believe we’ve just crossed into some personal territory.”
“Possibly.” I smiled at him. “Now that we’ve gotten the ego and bravery parts done with, can we talk about how truly and terribly bad this plan is?”
As expected, Ethan smiled, just a little. “It’s truly and terribly bad.” He leaned down and moved his mouth over mine, a whisper of a kiss. “I love you.”
“I can tell,” I said with a grin. And then yelped when he pinched me.
“I love you, too, you tyrant.”
Ethan snorted, took my hand. “That’s Darth Sullivan to you, Duchess.”
I just shook my head.
• • •
The hotel’s clerk had some questions about why vampires had gathered in her lobby. Because of that, because of the fact that we wanted to be out of downtown, and because we had better snacks at the House—or maybe that was just my reason—we headed back to the House to get into the nitty-gritty.
And because this fell under the banner of actual operational planning, we choose the Ops Room for our HQ.
Jeff came downstairs with bottles of beer in hand. “I’m not sure of the appropriate beverage for a freezing night in August before you mock surrender to a crazy sorceress. IPA? Lager? Red wine?”
