"Keep it to yourselves," Ethan good-naturedly said, putting a hand at my back and steering me gently down the hallway. "And you don't give me that look," he said with a chuckle. "They're your friends."
"They're your guards."
"I didn't hire them for their senses of humor. That's why you're better positioned as Sentinel. Guards are expected to be obedient."
That was quite an opening. "And Sentinels aren't?" I asked with a smile. "Because if you're willing to concede that I don't fall beneath the umbrella of your authority, I can work with that."
He tucked his hand into mine. "Don't push your luck."
This hadn't been the most pleasant of evenings; thank God for the little things that reminded us we were home.
I used my key, now sharing the ring with keys to my Volvo and my grandfather's house, to unlock the door. Ethan obviously had a key of his own, but he allowed me the ceremony.
His posture changed the moment he walked into his apartment. His shoulders relaxed, as if he'd dropped the mantle of power and authority that usually weighed him down.
His apartment consisted of three rooms - a sitting room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Like the rest of the House, all three were decorated with a kind of European-chic flair: tall ceilings, crown molding, and expensive paintings.
The sitting room was bathed in the warm glow of lamps and candles that had already been prepared for our arrival. Circles of light contrasted with the deep shadows that covered the corners of the room. The furniture was oversized and built of dark wood. I could easily imagine Marie Antoinette returning to a similar room at the end of a night of French carousing.
A portion of the sitting room had been dedicated to mementos of Ethan's centuries as a vampire. A table held runes and weapons, and a tall glass case held an egg made of gold, enamel, and precious stones. The egg was wrapped in a ruby-eyed dragon, and it was displayed under glass and a beam of light that made its gems sparkle magically.
The egg had been a gift to Peter Cadogan, the House's eponymous Master, from a member of the Russian aristocracy, who also happened to be a fairy. I wasn't sure of the reason for the gift, other than a vague "favor" done by Peter, but the egg's beauty was undeniable.
Since I lived in the apartment, too, Margot had left a snack with the drink that was waiting for Ethan on a tray on a side table. I got a chocolate truffle; he got a bottle of seltzer water. Finding a bedtime snack at the end of the night did not suck.
Still, the most remarkable things about our evenings weren't those little luxuries. It was the simple fact that we were here together. I'd challenged Ethan after I'd learned he made me a vampire; our relationship had a tense, stop-and-start history, and his brief period of mortality hadn't helped. I was still in awe that we'd come together in a relationship that seemed to be working. He was stubborn and political and an utter control freak, and there were certainly times when his bossiness chafed. But he loved his vampires, and he undoubtedly loved me, and I tried to be thankful for all the little moments we had together, even those as simple as our bedtime rituals - of the teeth-brushing, pajama-donning, prepping-for-the-day-ahead variety.
He disappeared into his closet, which was as large as my former dorm-sized bedroom and furnished as well as the rest of the apartment.
I kicked off my boots and threw my jacket on the bed - it was also nice to have someone who cleaned up after me every night - and flopped down onto my back. The linens were lush and fluffy, and I sank into the middle of the bed and closed my eyes.
"So, your first outing as social chair wasn't entirely successful," Ethan called out.
"I can't keep an eye on every Rogue vampire."
"True. You can barely keep an eye on yourself."
I rolled my eyes, but got up and walked toward the closet, which I could have counted as another room. The floor was covered in thick carpet, and the walls were shelved in cherrywood. Clothes were divided into sections - jackets, pants, shoes, ties, and coats, and long, flat drawers for folded items. Ethan had graciously offered room in each of those sections to me, although my simple wardrobe didn't take up much space.
The middle of the closet held a storage unit that looked like an expensive piece of European furniture, and a leather bench for changing clothes or putting on shoes. Mirrors filled empty bays, and track lighting illuminated the whole room like a perfectly prepped Vogue set.
Ethan wore a suit nearly every night, and the closet was filled with well-fitting black jackets and pants. But even the value of the fabric and tailoring was second to the artifact that hung in an alcove on the opposite end of the closet: In an ornate gilded frame was a moody painting by Van Gogh. It was a landscape at dusk, a golden field of wheat topped by a dark indigo sky, Van Gogh's telltale swirls of clouds hovering above it.
I leaned against the doorway and crossed my arms as I admired it. It was a simple painting, and a small one, only a few inches across. But there was depth in the scene that appealed to me . . . not unlike the vampire disrobing a few feet away from it.
Ethan wore only boxer briefs, his long and lean body exposed to my salacious glance. It was easy to appreciate him in a purely aesthetic way - his body was like a perfectly honed sculpture: curves and flat planes of muscle, golden skin that should have given way to vampiric paleness some time ago. And on the back of one calf, a mysterious tattoo he wouldn't explain, even to me.
Thank God he had no idea how much control was required of me just to be near him. Although given the knowing glance he offered when our eyes met, maybe he did.
I closed my eyes to reset the visual. As intriguing as he was, we had more pressing issues.
"Oliver and Eve," I said. "What do you think?"
"There are too many possibilities for us to even theorize at this point. This could be a simple miscommunication. Or perhaps Oliver and Eve were reacting to a slight and chose not to contact Noah and the others for a time."
"Maybe Oliver and Eve fought with others about the fact that they decided to register. That couldn't have thrilled everyone."
"And Eve's phone in the alley?" Ethan asked.
"Maybe she threw it in anger? Like an 'I'm furious they're furious at me for no reason'" - I mimicked hurling something at him - "kind of reaction."
Ethan flipped off the closet light and walked toward me, an eyebrow arched. "I certainly hope that's not your best pitch. Because it was pathetic."
I smiled at his attempt at humor, at ending our night on something other than a note of fear and despair. The sun was rising and there was nothing we could do for Oliver and Eve while it was up. But we could be ourselves, and for those few moments of peace and solitude in the home we'd made together, we could find joy.