Of course, I was still standing half-naked in the doorway of a shifter’s carriage house, my hair undoubtedly ruffled by sleep and sex. Throw in a college math class I’d somehow forgotten to attend, and I was revisiting my recurring nightmare.
“And what are you doing here?” I asked, smoothing a hand down the front of Ethan’s shirt to ensure no important parts were leaked to the public.
“I’m here to practice,” Mallory said.
Part of Mal’s rehab was figuring out how she could use magic productively. A little more Luke, a little less Anakin. She’d made progress during our anti-McKetrick brigade, and it looked like the Pack was giving her another opportunity to try.
“She’s expanding her understanding of magic,” Gabriel added. “What it is, what it isn’t, what it can be.”
Mallory smiled prettily and held up two bottles of Blood4You, the bottled blood that most vampires drank for convenience, and a bag from Dirigible Donuts, one of my favorite Chicago foodstuffs. (To be fair, it was a long and distinguished list.) “I have a consolation prize for your humiliation.” She gave me an up-and-down look. “I’d say two to three raspberry-filled donuts should do it.”
I stood there for a moment, cheeks flushed in embarrassment, toes freezing from exposure to the cold, my friends confident I’d be mollified with nothing more than a bag of jelly donuts.
“Just give me the damn thing,” I said, bowing to their expectations and snatching breakfast. But I gave them all a deadly look before stalking back to the bedroom.
“And now that we’ve mollified your bodyguard,” Gabe said to Ethan behind me, “we’ll just come in and make ourselves comfortable.”
As it turned out, raspberry-filled donuts were an exceptional way to soothe humiliation.
I’d emptied a bottle of blood and devoured two of the donuts before Ethan came back inside, a bundle of red fabric in hand.
“I don’t suppose you saved one of those for me?” he asked.
“I better have,” I said. “She bought a dozen.”
“I stand by what I said.”
“You won’t get any with that attitude. What’s that?” I asked, gesturing toward the fabric.
“Apparently someone in the Pack decided they wanted swag,” Ethan said, unrolling two T-shirts, cardinal red with what looked like a retro ad for a bar called Lupercalia, the name in old-fashioned letters above two wolves toasting with beer steins at a pub table.
“They actually made T-shirts,” I said. “Gabriel okayed that? It seems very . . . public.” The public knew shape-shifters existed, but the Packs still tended to keep to themselves.
“I’d guess this was a do-it-and-apologize-after-the-fact scenario,” Ethan said. “These are for us to wear. Gifts from the Pack.”
“Chilly for February.”
“I’m sure they’ll allow you to layer, Sentinel.” He held out a hand for the bag of donuts, but I didn’t budge.
“Were you going to tell me we had to pay the Brecks?”
His gaze flattened. “I’m perfectly capable of managing the House’s financial affairs, Sentinel.”
“I didn’t suggest you weren’t. But I also don’t like being blindsided.”
“It was a business transaction.”
“It was protection money,” I insisted, and from the flash in his eyes, he knew it, too.
“And I don’t care to advertise that fact, Sentinel. But I’d have told you.”
He must have seen the doubt in my eyes, because he stepped forward. “I’d have told you,” he said again. “When we had a moment to discuss it. As you’ll recall”—he tugged gently at the first button on the shirt I wore—“you were very distracting last night.”
Ethan was still shirtless, and he stood at the edge of the bed, washboard abs and a trail of blond fuzz peeking above his jeans’ top button. Heat rushed me as he moved in for a kiss, and my eyes drifted shut.
But he sidestepped me, grabbed the bag, and pulled out a donut.
“Distracting?” I asked him, offering a dubious look.
“All’s fair in love and pastry,” he said, swiping a drop of raspberry jam from the edge of his mouth. The urge to lick it away nearly silvered my eyes.
He rolled down the top of the bag and placed it on a side table, then pulled on his Lupercalia T-shirt. The flat plane of his abdomen rippled as he moved, and I didn’t even bother to pretend not to look.
When he was done dressing, he cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying the show.”
He snorted, snatched up the second T-shirt, and swatted me with it. “Go get dressed, or Catcher, Jeff, Mallory, and Gabe are going to suspect more than dressing is going on in here. Again.” He put his hands on the bed on each side of my body and leaned in. “And although I have definitive plans for you, Sentinel, they do not involve the lascivious imaginations of the sorcerers and shifters presently outside that door.”
He touched his mouth to mine—soft and promising, his lips berry sweet.
Ten minutes later, I was dressed in my Lupercalia T-shirt, a long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it for warmth. I wore two pair of socks against the cold, boots, and jeans, and put my long, dark hair into a high ponytail. I pulled on my leather jacket, a gift from Ethan to replace the one torched in the fire that injured my grandfather, and tucked a small and sleek dagger into my boot. The Pack wasn’t likely to appreciate my bringing a katana to a shifter festival, so I’d have to rely on the dagger if anything went amiss. And since I was heading out with a refugee vampire, two rogue sorcerers, and a family of shifters who hated vampires, I presumed “amiss” was pretty likely.
I was dressed and ready for action. But before I turned my attention to the Pack, I had one final bit of business. I’d missed checking in on my grandfather yesterday, so I dialed the hospital and requested his room.
“This is Chuck,” he answered.
I smiled just from the sound of his voice. “Hey, Grandpa.”
“Baby girl! It’s good to hear your voice. I understand you’re in a bit of a pinch.”
Relief swamped me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to talk to him—or how much guilt had settled in when I hadn’t been able to make it happen.
“A misunderstanding. I’m sure Mayor Kowalcyzk will come around eventually.” And if she didn’t, hopefully Malik could convince the governor to intervene. “How are you feeling?”
“Broken. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“I don’t believe that,” I cheerily said, but I had to push back the memory of my grandfather huddled beneath debris. I made sure my voice was steady before I spoke again. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.”
“You know, I always thought you’d be a teacher. You love books and knowledge. Always did. And then your life changed, and you became part of something bigger. That’s your job, Merit. That something bigger. And it’s okay that you have to do it.”
“I love you, Grandpa.”
“I love you, baby girl.”
There was mumbling in the background. “It’s time for what they generously refer to as ‘dinner’ around here,” he said after a moment. “Call me when you’ve got things in hand. Because I know you’ll get there eventually.”
I found the crew in the living room, chatting collegially.
“Merit,” Catcher said, sitting beside Mallory on the couch, an arm around her shoulders. Their relationship had hit the rocks when Mallory turned to the dark side, so the casual affection was a pleasant development. “It’s nice to see you clothed again.”
“And now that she is,” Gabriel said, standing, “we should get moving.”
“Where are we going, exactly?” Catcher asked.
“To a land beyond space and time,” Jeff said drawing an arc in the air. “Where the rules of mortals have no meaning.”