Keiji looked back, nodded once, his eyes sharpening with interest in the task. “On it, boss.”
Luc nodded, looked back at me. “The video wasn’t great, but should be clear enough to get a rough image.”
“Send the image to the Chicago Houses,” Ethan said. “Put them on alert.”
Luc nodded.
“Thank you for the help,” I said. “I need to know his name. I’d feel better somehow if I knew his name.”
Juliet smiled, serious hard blue eyes a contrast to her delicate features. “Knowing the name of your enemy is important. Names define us as individuals, and in relation to each other. They”—she paused, looking for the right phrase—“set the boundaries of who we are. If you can give this guy a name, you give him a boundary. It gives him less power, and gives you more.”
Since “Merit” was actually my last name, and I didn’t use my first name for personal and family reasons, I understood the notion of names defining us.
“We’ll put the pictures in your box,” Luc said. “Did the child’s mother say if she wanted to press charges?”
“She told the CPD she didn’t want to,” I said. “He didn’t know her or her child, and she didn’t want to give him any more information by pursuing it. I told them I didn’t want to pursue it, either.”
“At least not officially,” Luc suggested, and I nodded.
“And Reed?” he asked.
“If the vampire was telling the truth,” Ethan said, “and we have no reason to believe he wasn’t, this isn’t inconsistent with what Reed’s done before.”
“He uses the personal,” I agreed. “He used Balthasar against Ethan, he used money against Celina, and he’s used the Rogue for me, which is another hit at Ethan. He’ll try again,” I added.
“Then we’ll stop him before he does,” Luc said. “And if we don’t, he’s yours.”
“Although you may have to battle Gabriel for him,” Ethan said lightly. “This vampire has a long list of very powerful enemies.”
“The way my luck with him is going, Gabe might have a better shot,” I muttered, in a moment of self-pity.
“You should tell her about Calamity Jane,” Lindsey said to Luc.
I glanced from her to Luc. “Who’s Calamity Jane?”
“Long story very short,” he said, “she was a woman from my dry and dusty and tumbleweed-ridden past.” Luc had been a cowboy in his human life.
“She was a thief, an assassin, and a general ne’er-do-well,” Lindsey said with a smile. “Accused of fourteen murders that the county was aware of. And she escaped from him four separate times.”
Four was definitely larger than three. If not by a lot.
“‘Escaped’ is a tough word,” Luc said. “I prefer to say she ‘evaded incarceration.’ But yeah, four times.”
“How’d you finally get her?”
He smiled. “With help from the dirt and dust and tumbleweeds. She rolled into Dodge City wanting, of all things, a hot bath. I caught her while she was performing her ablutions,” he said, eyebrows winging up.
“Is the moral of that story that it’s safest to avoid good hygiene?” Ethan asked.
“Har-har, Sire. Har-har. The moral of the story is to always keep going! Ever forward! Forward progress! You can do it! And all that other motivational shit.” Luc looked at me, a gleam in his eye. “And if you can catch ’em with their pants down, they tend to be a little more amenable.”
Words of wisdom.
• • •
Following Lindsey’s suggestion, I e-mailed Jonah, asked for a meeting with Noah the next evening at the RG headquarters to talk about the Rogue vampire.
When this evening drew to a close and we were secure in our Hyde Park tower, Ethan carefully removed my clothes, used hands and words to soothe and seduce.
This was about need as much as the library had been, but of a different variety. This was about partnership as much as touch. About tenderness as much as passion. And about comfort as much as satisfaction. Every movement was slow and languid, every word tender. His mouth was soft against mine, then against the rest of my body, and pleasure rose and crested in waves that cleared violence from my mind.
We rode those waves together, bodies linked and hearts finally reunited. Love wasn’t a battle, and it wasn’t a war. It was a partnership, with missteps and miracles and all the rest of it.
When we were both sated and languid, Ethan lay naked beside me, his head on my abdomen. I ran my fingers through his hair as he traced a fingertip across my still-heated skin.
“Do you remember, Sentinel, the first words you ever said to me?”
I grimaced. “No. But I bet they were rude.” I hadn’t been a fan of Ethan Sullivan the first time I walked into Cadogan House.
“Oh, it was.” His eyes glinted like shards of green glass. “Your life had changed, and you were furious at me. You said you hadn’t given me permission to change you.”
“Which, in fairness to me, was accurate.” I paused, remembering my seething dislike for the Master of my new House. “I didn’t like you very much.”
“No, you didn’t. But then you came to your senses, realized you were wrong.”
I tugged on a lock of his hair. “Don’t push your luck. It took some pretty good campaigning on your part.”