“Wait—I nearly forgot,” he sleepily said. He walked to the bureau and picked up a blue velvet box I didn’t recognize and hadn’t realized was there.
“What’s that?”
“The payment for dinner with your parents tomorrow.”
“Dinner with my . . . Oh crap.”
I’d totally forgotten about that, although in fairness the riots had provided a pretty good excuse.
“Are you sure leaving the House is a good idea? We all agree Cadogan’s on the list.”
“And we’re having dinner with one of the most important men in the city,” he said. “I’m not thrilled about the timing, but we agreed to go. Your father is clearly trying to mend fences. I’m not taking any position on that—it’s between you and him—but we need friends, and we can’t afford to be picky.”
He sat down on the bed beside me, cradling the box in his hands. The opening of a velvet box usually led to something interesting, even if Ethan was going to have to make this “interesting” relatively quick. I could already feel the slow, flaming rise of the sun pulling on my eyelids like brass weights.
“Are you proposing?” I drowsily asked.
“When I propose, you’ll know it.”
My heart stuttered, pushing me awake again. “When? What do you mean ‘when’?”
“I stand by my statement,” Ethan said, opening the box and handing it over.
Inside sat a gleaming silver pendant shaped like a droplet, draped on a silver chain. Pressed into the back, like a jeweler’s mark, was an elegant “C” surrounded by tiny but neat script: “Cadogan House, Chicago.”
An immortal drop of blood, marked by our Cadogan membership. It was a perfect reminder of our origins, and our loyalties.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, wishing I could trace a finger across its curve, but loathe to mar the surface. “The House will like this very much.”
“I hope so,” Ethan said, closing the box and putting it on the nightstand. “Because they’re going to have to wear them for a really long time.”
Ah, vampire humor. Thank God it never got old, said no one ever.
“Bedtime?” I said, but I was already tucking into the sheets and flipping off the nightstand light.
Wordlessly, Ethan turned off the lights, and I shifted to make room. He climbed in beside me, and we spooned together to conserve precious space. Even so, Ethan’s feet hung off the edge of the bed.
It was a small consolation that the sun would knock us unconscious, and we wouldn’t much care how comfortable we were . . . or weren’t. I moved closer into his arms and the warmth of his body, my eyes growing heavier as the sun began to rise, the stars faded, and daylight came again.
Chapter Eleven
MEET THE PARENTS
Eleven hours later, the sun fell, and I awoke sweaty in a tangle of arms and legs.
Not the good kind of tangle.
The two-adults-sleeping-in-a-twin-sized-bed kind of tangle.
I peeled myself from Ethan’s grasp, but I lost my balance in the process and tumbled to the floor in a heap.
It was going to be one of those kinds of evenings.
Ethan peered over the edge of the bed. “Trouble, Sentinel?”
I growled at him. “I’m fine. At the risk of sounding insensitive, how long will the Grey House vampires be here?”
“Long enough for you to incur at least two or three more moderate injuries, probably.” He sat up and flipped his legs over the bed, then offered me a hand.
“In all seriousness,” I said, when I was upright again, “do they have any leads on a place to stay? It’s going to take a while to get the roof fixed. The mechanical gizmo was complicated.” It sensed the rising and falling of the sun, and provided light or shade to the atrium accordingly.
“And it’s February,” I added. February was not a productive construction month in Chicago. It was simply too cold for it.
Ethan plucked up his phone from the nightstand. “I’m not certain. They’ll probably have to look for something intermediate—a hotel—until they can find semipermanent housing while the construction’s under way. They’ve not even been here twenty-four hours, Sentinel. Let’s try to be gracious, shall we?”
I muttered a few choice words.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Answer it,” I directed. “You’re mostly dressed.”
“You’re already out of bed. Besides, it’s for you.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m psychic.”
“No, you’re arrogant. That’s a different thing.”
Since Ethan made no move to get up, and the visitor knocked insistently again, I walked to the door, smoothing back my hair before pulling it open.