“Hardly a formidable exertion for a vampire.”
“Exertion enough.” I plucked up a plate, bottle, and silverware and carried them to the sitting area, where I took a seat and began to nosh.
The tortilla was delicate; the pork, as expected, was delicious. Margot was an amazing cook.
But then my smile faded, and mortification colored my cheeks. “Margot brought this in while we were having sex.”
Ethan smirked. “Probably.”
I closed my eyes. I was not an exhibitionist and had no interest in other Novitiates hearing anything of my intimate moments with Ethan.
“Sentinel, the vampires of this House are not naive. I strongly suspect they know what goes on behind these doors.”
Since we’d shaken the House’s foundation with sex and magic, that was undoubtedly true. “Still,” I said, but managed another bite of dinner, my appetite unburdened by embarrassment.
Ethan sat down beside me, plate and bottle in hand, then flicked something beneath the coffee table. With a low hum, a portion of the table lifted smoothly up on hinges to meet the plate he held out. He sat it down, then whipped the napkin into his lap.
I stared in amazement. “How long has it done that?”
“For the entirety of its existence.”
I gave him a dry look that he ignored, but he flipped the notch on my side of the coffee table. Like magic, the table on my side lifted as well.
“Magic,” I said, inordinately happy that the fancy piece of European furniture turned into a TV tray.
“I am a man of many talents.”
I grinned, arranged my plate on the raised surface. “And apparently some of them don’t require nudity.”
“Har-har.”
A peaceful silence fell, and we ate quietly for a few minutes. But there was still a thread of tension in the air.
“You’ll have to talk to Luc,” I said.
“He’ll be sullen.”
I smiled, speared a chunk of pineapple. “He’s already sullen. It will only get worse if you treat him like he’s not equipped to handle this. He’s captain of your guards, after all. Just go down there and talk to him.”
He looked up, staring blankly into the room, and sighed.
I pierced a grape, held it up for him. “Fruit?”
“Somehow that makes me uncomfortable.”
I bit it toothily.
“As does that,” he said. “Perhaps we should change the subject.”
“All right,” I said. “What’s new in Masterdom?”
“Masterdom?”
“You know,” I said, gesturing with a fork. “All of this.”
He smiled lightly. “Well, our portfolio is underperforming. I’d prefer a return much higher than we’re getting right now. But I can move things around a bit, remedy that.”
“The House will appreciate it.”
“Not the House’s portfolio,” he said. “Ours.”
I stiffened.
Ethan chuckled. “It hasn’t escaped my attention, Sentinel, that you cringe every time I mention our future.”
“I don’t cringe. I only cringe when you pretend-propose.” He had a penchant for going down on bended knee—and straightening a hem or helping me with a shoe. “Nobody finds that amusing.”
“I find it excessively amusing. You do realize, don’t you, that the proposal won’t always be fake?”
I looked up at him, found there was no mistaking the earnestness in his eyes. We’d been Master and Sentinel for nearly a year, but we’d been a couple for only a handful of months. It didn’t seem to matter to Ethan; he was utterly sure of me even after so little time.
Ethan sipped from his Blood4You. “I love you, Merit. You are my future, and I intend to make certain you—and the rest of the world—know that, when the time is right. Why does it surprise you so much?”
I struggled to put the emotion into words. “It’s not surprise at you. It’s not doubt. It’s just—it’s just blossomed so fast. Four hundred years of dating, and you’ve made up your mind about me so quickly.” That didn’t even touch on the fact we’d been prophesied to have a child together—the first vampire child in history.
Something in Ethan’s eyes darkened, shifted. Not for very long—but for a split second, there was a cloud across his eyes. Because I’d mentioned his past? I knew there’d been women before, just as he’d known I’d dated. Once upon a time, I’d walked in on him with one of them, his former Consort, which had once been an official position in the House . . . a position he’d offered to me.
As if a breeze had blown it away, the shadow passed, and his eyes flamed green again.
“I made up my mind because we fit,” he said, reaching out to take my hand, to squeeze it. “You make me better, and I like to think I do the same for you.”
I thought of the awkward human, then vampire, I’d been, and the slightly less awkward vampire I was becoming. “It’s just—you were very unexpected.”
“That’s because you’d only explored one half of yourself, Sentinel. I merely gave you the chance to blossom. To be the person you were always meant to become.”
Tears rushed into my eyes, and I knuckled them away. “Damn it, Ethan. How do you come up with things like that?”
“I keep a notebook. I intend to make you mine, Sentinel. Not just for tonight, or for tomorrow, or for the decade. For eternity. And I’ll have my ring on your finger. I’ll have the world know that you’re mine. I suggest you get used to the idea.”
With a frisson of excitement speeding my heart, I decided I’d find a way to adapt.
* * *
We’d just finished the meal when my phone began to ring. I pulled it out, found my grandfather’s name on the screen.
“You made it home okay,” he said with obvious relief.
“We did. Anything new on the attack?”
“Not yet. They’ve gone through the car, sent what they found to the lab, but we don’t have the results yet. Although that’s not why I’m calling. I’m afraid I’ll have to interrupt your night again. We could use your help.”
“With what?”
“There’s been a murder.”
My heart nearly stuttered, as if unsure whether to stop or start wildly racing. I put a hand on my chest. “A murder?”
Ethan’s gaze flashed toward me.
My grandfather cleared his throat. “The victim was Arthur’s son.”