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.

Helen stood in the hallway, a black dress bag in her hands. She was already dressed in her signature tweed suit, pearls in her ears and around her neck.

"Good evening, Merit," she said, extending the bag. "For dinner with your parents."

I took the bag, and Helen turned and walked down the hall again, her pace efficient and businesslike.

I shut the door and found Ethan smiling at me with obvious amusement.

"I am not currently accepting commentary."

"Buck up, Sentinel," he said, rising and wrapping his arms around me. "You're about to don a ridiculously expensive dress that any number of Hollywood celebutantes would love to wear."

"Oh?" I said, glancing down at the bag with interest.

"As it turns out, a number of designers were thrilled at the possibility of being the first couturier of vampire fashion. You're quite the trendsetter."

"I think you have me confused with someone else," I joked, but couldn't help frowning.

"What's going on in that head of yours?" he asked.

"It's just - I worry about leaving the House when there could be an attack."

He tipped up my chin with a finger. "We are allowed to be ourselves. Ethan Sullivan and Caroline Evelyn Merit, without the obligations of our House between us."

"I know. But I feel bad gallivanting off in a party dress" - I jiggled the dress bag for effect - "when there are things to worry about here."

"We aren't leaving it alone," he reminded me. "The House is currently guarded by a full cadre of humans and two Houses of vampires, including Scott, Luc, Jonah, and both guard corps. If you and I are the two vampires that make a difference in any battle, then Scott and I have truly commended the wrong people."

I had to give him that, and not just because I'd seen Jonah wield two katanas. "And how does Luc feel about our leaving?"

"If you must know, Luc and Malik think it's a good idea."

"A good idea? Because of my parents?" I asked.

"No," Ethan said shortly.

It took me a moment to understand why they felt that way - and why it irritated him.

"They want you away from the House in case there's an attack," I said. "They want you safely on the other side of town instead of going down with the ship."

Ethan did not look thrilled at that possibility. "I would not go down with my ship. I would fight for it, as is my right. I am the Master of this House."

"I know." My guilt could hang around if it wanted, but Luc had a point. "They're your subjects, and you're their liege. You gave them immortality, and for that, they want you to keep yours. If I must take you away from danger," I said grandly, "then I must."

Ethan checked his watch. "As much as I love it when you talk duty to me, you're procrastinating again. Get ready. I want to check in with the guards before we leave, and you don't want to be late to dinner."

I definitely did not. The quickest way to exacerbate a dinner with my parents was being late for dinner with my parents.

Well, other than bringing zombies to dinner. Because who kept brains in the fridge?

"I'll shower," I said. "You find caffeine. I'm going to need it."

-

While Ethan was downstairs, I showered and brushed out my hair, then donned the necessary undergarments, and put on mascara and lip gloss.

The basics accomplished, I unzipped the bag and took a look.

Ethan, not surprisingly, had done it again. The dress fit the event perfectly. It was a tailored sheath made of layered silk, with a belted waist and capped sleeves. It fell to just below the knee, and the bodice was dotted with birdlike whispers of white across a black background.

I slipped the dress from the hanger, unzipped it, and stepped inside, carefully raising the silk inch by inch to avoid ripping the delicate fabric.

I managed to get the zipper together, but only halfway up my back before the sleeves fought back.

Ethan picked that moment to walk back inside, a steaming cup of what smelled like Earl Grey in hand. He found me standing in the middle of the room, the dress still hanging from my shoulders, my arm across my breasts.

"Well," he said, putting the drink on a table and his hands on his hips. "Sentinel, you are a sight."

"Can you please zip me up?"

"I'd rather stand here and enjoy this particular view." I nearly rolled my eyes, until I realized what he was wearing.

While I'd been in the shower, Ethan had dressed in a sleek black suit, with a low, five-button vest beneath his jacket. I'd said before he'd have made a delectable model, but this look cinched it. With his green eyes and golden hair, he looked like he'd stepped from an ad for a dark and smoky whiskey.

As I held up my hair, he turned around and fastened the dress, then stood behind me for a moment, his eyes on my image in the mirror that hung on the back of the closet door.

"Leave your hair down," he said, his eyes seeming to turn greener as we watched each other in the mirror.

"Down?" I asked, piling it atop my head. "I was thinking a topknot."

"Down," he insisted.

I dropped the faux bun, and he ruffled my hair so that it fell across my shoulders, a dark curtain around my face and pale blue eyes.

He was right.

In this just-snug-enough sheath, with my hair down and the pale cast of vampire to my skin, I looked like a blue-blooded heiress. A vampiric aristocrat with an agenda and the will to see it through.

"Not bad," I said.

"Indeed," Ethan agreed, before nudging me aside and opening the shirt box he'd brought inside, revealing a half-dozen pocket squares that ranged in color from white to just slightly off-white.

While I looked on, he tucked one, then the other, carefully into his jacket pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"Selecting a square," he said, gazing at his reflection.

"For my parents?"

"For your parents, your siblings, your nieces and nephews," he said. "For you. Because I want to make a good impression."

"You've met my parents before."

"I have," he said, and met my eyes in the mirror. "But not like this."

There was a different kind of gravity in his voice. Not, I thought, from the weight of being a Master vampire, of caring for others and ensuring their safety, but from the weight of being us. Of having, for the first time in a long time, someone whose safety and happiness you put above all others. Even if that meant impressing her particularly stuffy family.

"Sometimes you make me swoon."

"If it's only sometimes, I'm not doing my job adequately." He made a final silken selection, put the square into the pocket on his jacket and adjusted it, and checked himself out in the mirror. "Not bad, Sentinel."

"Not bad indeed. I think we're ready."

"Shoes?" he said, glancing down at my feet.

"Ah," I said. I looked in the closet and found several pairs awaiting me. Helen must have brought them down from the apartments. I climbed into an appropriate pair, and turned around for Ethan's final review.

"And away we go," I said.

Ethan looked at my shoes with an expression of abject horror. Stilettos were definitely the right choice for the dress . . . but not for February in Chicago.

That's why I'd pulled on a pair of ugly, puce green galoshes to wear in and out of the car, and Ethan did not look impressed.

I put on an expression of pure, unmitigated innocent. "You don't like these?"

"You aren't serious."

"About what? The shoes?" I glanced down, stifling a grin. "It's February, Ethan. There's snow on the ground."

He watched me for a minute. "You're kidding."

"I was." I held up the pair of black lace stilettos I'd been holding behind my back. "Do you prefer these?"

He looked relieved. "All that drama for a bit?"

"It was a good bit." I did a little soft-shoe in the galoshes to punctuate the joke.

"Let's go, Ginger Rogers," Ethan said, pointing dictatorially toward the door. But he was grinning when he said it.

-

Dressed in our finest, we headed downstairs to the Ops Room to ensure the House was prepared and we could still make a getaway.

Luc, Lindsey, and Juliet were in residence, but the Grey House vampires hadn't yet descended. Margot had clearly prepared for them, as a giant tray of pastries sat in the middle of the conference table. My stomach growled - a few sips of tea hadn't done much for my hunger - but I resisted the urge to nosh, knowing I'd inevitably drip pastry cream or sugared fruit down the front of my expensive frock.

Luc whistled when she caught sight of us. "Merit, you are a sight."

"What's the occasion?" Lindsey asked. I guess she hadn't yet read Luc's reports for the night.

"We're having dinner with my parents," I said with a grimace.

"You are kidding," Lindsey said.

Ethan and I took seats at the conference table. "Not a bit," he said. "They sent a paper invitation and everything."

"I'm surprised you're going," Lindsey said, her gaze narrowing suspiciously.

"Ethan thought it was a good idea."

"So you're blaming me for this?"

"Whenever possible," I said with a smile. But that smile faded quickly. "Oh crap."

"What?" Ethan asked, alarm in his expression.

"Aren't we supposed to take something to dinner?" I asked, looking around the room. "Like a side dish or dessert or something. Don't people usually do that when they're, you know, adults?"

I didn't have a lot of experience with potlucks, as my fusty parents generally relied on Pennebaker, their butler, to make most of their domestic arrangements. But I'd accompanied friends to their parents' homes, and they always seemed to bring along cupcakes or dinner rolls or an extra bag of chips.

"Sometimes," Lindsey said. "But I don't think it's required or anything."

Maybe not, but I still imagined Robert and Charlotte arriving at my parents' doorstep with children and hot dishes in hand, and I'd show up with a beau on my arm, a borrowed car, and a lifestyle my parents undoubtedly found questionable.

"Wine," Ethan said. "We'll ask Margot for a bottle of wine before we leave."

"Good idea," Lindsey said, snapping her fingers. "Make it a red. Humans love red wine."

Luc looked at her askance. "Since when are you an expert on the human palate?"

"Since I was one," she sarcastically said.

Ethan rolled his eyes and tapped his watch. "Since we're down here, maybe we should discuss the protection of the House?"

"Right on," Luc said, looking to Ethan. "We've polled the House. No one claims to know Robin Pope or recognize her picture, so that gives us some hope. But obviously, we're still on high alert, considering the circumstances."

"The riot circumstances?" Jonah asked, appearing at the doorway. "Or the GP ones?"

Jonah took in our ensembles but didn't comment. I bet he had read Luc's daily report.

"Both," Ethan said. "Monmonth called a few minutes after dawn. He said he considers our harboring Grey House to be an act of war."

Jonah looked stunned; I did not. I might have been a newer, greener vampire, but I had a lot more experience with GP shenanigans and egoism. Grey House hadn't much been on the GP's radar; we had. Often. Which was precisely why we'd left, even if our leaving hadn't done much to eliminate the shenanigans. They'd pulled us back in.

"Just like in The Godfather," I muttered.

"What was that?" Jonah asked.

"Nothing," I said, turning to Ethan. "Can't Darius do something to stop him? He's still in charge."

"Technically in charge," Ethan said. "But his political capital is nearly gone. He all but pushed us out of the GP, lost us when we called his bluff, wasn't able to consummate an attack against us, and was injured by a Rogue vampire. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence among the world's most powerful vamps."

"Confidentially," Jonah said, "it appears Darius has become rather agoraphobic since his fight with Michael Donovan."

"Agoraphobic?"

"The encounter freaked him out," Jonah said. "He's not used to being weak, to feeling weak. Donovan got the jump on him, which completely screwed up his sense of self. The others, especially Monmonth, feel that weakness."

"To be fair, he was wielding a gun that shot aspen stakes," I said.

"Certainly," Jonah allowed. "But Darius is centuries old, and he's fought enemies before. And usually doesn't need a pink vampire to rescue him."

"Pink" in vampire terminology didn't refer to my gender, but my age. I'd been a vampire for less than a year, and it stung Darius that his rescuer had been less strong and skilled than he imagined himself to be.

"And the other members of the GP are exploiting it?" Lindsey asked.

Jonah nodded. "They are vampires in the most traditional sense. Old-school monsters. The type Van Helsing hunted. The type villagers killed. They do not let subordination stand in their way."

"Which is why they attacked Cadogan House," Luc said, "even if they stood to gain financially when we left."

We'd been required to pay the GP back for financial gains we'd made during our tenure in the GP, but because their attack breached our contract, we got to keep the money.

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"In the long term, ironically, we do what we can to secure Darius's position. If he remains head of the GP, this conversation is moot."

"How can we make him stronger?" Jonah asked.

"That will require some strategizing," Ethan said.

"And in the short term?" I asked.

"We keep an eye out. I don't think Monmonth has the allies for another full-on attack. The fairies got what they wanted, and our peace remains in place. I can't think he'd strike out against the combined Houses with only half the members of the GP at his side. But as to what he might actually do? I don't know."

"We're putting a guard on the widow's walk," Luc said. "They have a bird's-eye view of the yard. Jonah and I also have created a new schedule for the Cadogan and Grey House guards. You'll find an app ready to download, and you'll get a reminder fifteen minutes before your shift. It's cold as a witch's tit out there, so grab gloves, earmuffs, hot chocolate, whatever you need to stay warm. But get out there, and be alert. Oh, and one spot of good news - Saul offered to donate pizzas to feed the extra-large House tonight. A little thank-you since Merit got him some protection during the Wicker Park riot."

"Of all the nights we have dinner with my parents," I murmured.

Ethan squeezed my hand supportively. "You'll manage, Sentinel."

"If it makes you feel better, Sentinel, we've put you on the patrol roster for later, so you can freeze with the rest of them."

I smiled a little. "It does, actually."

"Saul's gonna deliver the pies directly into the basement," Luc said. "That way the guards only have to approve one truck, instead of keeping an eye on vampires and humans running back and forth into the House."

"Good thought," Jonah said.

"I have them occasionally," Luc said, with honest modesty. "Not often, but occasionally."

"If we're done here," Ethan said, "we do need to get going." He rose, and I did the same.

Jonah stood up as well. "Ethan, Merit, could I talk to you for a moment outside?"

Ethan nodded his agreement but looked suspicious of the request.

We walked out of the Ops Room and toward the basement door, then stopped for the chat.

"Considering the threat by the humans and the GP, Grey House believes it's time to consider an alternative method of protecting the Houses," Jonah said.

Ethan put his hands in his pockets. That was another signature move, a gesture that looked casual but usually signified he was paying very close, very careful attention. "Which is?"

"There are people in this town who are stronger than we are. I think we should consider adding them to the mix."

"You mean the sorcerers?" I asked, referring to Catcher, Mallory, and Paige, a sorceress we'd brought back with us from Nebraska.

"I do."

"No," Ethan said. "We've talked about this. Mallory violated this House."

"You're right," I agreed. "She damaged property and hurt people. But she's also skilled. She's more powerful than Monmonth or McKetrick or anyone else that we know of."

"They aren't supposed to be practicing sorcerers," Ethan pointed out. "Catcher got kicked out of the Order, and Mallory's on house arrest. I don't believe Paige is official, either."

"Catcher's already used magic this week, and Mallory can't be magicless forever. If she's going to use magic again, maybe it's not a bad idea that we harness it for our purposes."

Ethan stood quietly for a moment, staring at the floor, brows knitted as he considered.

Jonah glanced at me, and I shrugged. There was no doubt - Mallory was a risk.

But maybe, if she had the support of her friends and a network of supernaturals, she could figure out a way to do it right this time.

I frowned. Had I really come around to thinking Mallory was the solution? Was I ready for her to use magic again? No. I wasn't ready for it. But it was inevitable. And the only way to keep that inevitability from coming back to haunt us was to control it in the first place.

"I'll consider it," he said.

We both looked over at him.

"You're sure?" I said.

"Definitely not. But, loathe as I am to admit it, Jonah's right. They are stronger than we are, and we are vulnerable now in a new and different kind of way. It would behoove us to consider all possibilities. I've been called a control freak," he said, looking pointedly at me. "Maybe it's time to hand over a bit of that control to our witchy friends."

"Let us know how we can help," Jonah said.

"Rest assured," Ethan said, "We will. I want this House secure, and I want it secure now."

-

After ensuring the House was in good hands and that Luc, Malik, Scott, and Jonah had Ethan's number, my number, my parents' number, and my grandfather's number handy, and after grabbing a bottle of red wine from the kitchen, we proceeded to the parking area, scabbards and shoes in hand.

Ethan opted to drive to Oak Park, which was fine by me. He also opted to take his new, shiny Ferrari. It probably would have been even more fun in the summer than on ice- and snow-packed streets, but we made do. Because, again, it was a Ferrari.

It was clear when we exited the basement that security around the House was tighter than usual. There were double the usual number of guards at the gates, more humans posted along the perimeter, and vampires interspersed with them, keeping a supernatural eye on things.

After two bouts of stop-and-go traffic - the first because of an empty sedan on the shoulder with its hazard lights on; the second because of a piece of cardboard in the road - we made it to Oak Park, the western suburb of Chicago that my parents called home. Ethan pulled the Ferrari in front of my parents' blocky, modern house. It was the only one in the neighborhood built in that style, and that wasn't a compliment.

Ethan helped me out of the car, which was tricky, considering my body-hugging skirt. The wind was bone-chillingly cold, even with a coat, gloves, a scarf, and galoshes.

I stared up at the boxy house, preparing myself for a moment before we went inside. Before my sister, mother, and sister-in-law fell on Ethan like hyenas at a kill.

"Are you okay?" Ethan asked when the doors were closed and the car was locked again.

I glanced back at him, so ridiculously handsome in his three-piece suit, so unlike any other man I'd met. He was as awe-inspiring as he was frustrating.

"I'm fine," I said, glancing over at the luxury minivans in the driveway. Neither Charlotte nor Robert spared the expense for top-of-the-line kid carriers. "Nervous, which seems to be a common theme these days."

Ethan frowned. "I thought you and your father were making progress."

"We were, although with my father, it's two steps forward, twelve steps back. It's more the rest of the crew that I'm worried about."

"I will try to forgo their advances on your behalf, Sentinel."

I rolled my eyes, knowing he was baiting me to help me relax, and loving him more for it. "You're not that irresistible, Sullivan."

He stopped suddenly, one foot on the street and one on the snowy curb. "Now you've done it," he murmured. Before I could object, he scooped me off the ground and into his arms, and carried me down the sidewalk to my parents' front door.

"What are you doing?"

"Being irresistible," he said matter-of-factly, as if there were nothing even remotely unusual about a vampire in a sexy black suit carrying his woman down the snowy sidewalk to her parents' castle.

I guess I hadn't needed the galoshes after all.

My arms around his neck, his mouth pulled into a haughty smirk, I couldn't help but smile.

He walked up the steps as if my weight were negligible - impossible, since I was five foot eight - and placed me carefully on the stoop. But he paused there for a moment, on one knee, grinning up at me.

My heart nearly stopped. Was he . . . ? He couldn't be . . .

As casually as he'd picked me up, Ethan flicked a bit of lint from the knee of his pants.

"Just a spot of dust," he explained, rising again and grinning wickedly at me. "Did you think I was on one knee for some other reason, Sentinel?"

My heart began to beat again. "You are a cruel, cruel man."

"If it's any consolation, I'm your cruel man." He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my palm. "Forever," he added, and I smiled like a smitten teenager. Ethan Sullivan could play me like a Stradivarius.

"Let's go, Casanova," I told him, smoothing out my skirt and raising my fist to knock on the door.

My mother pulled it open before I made a sound, and I blushed, wondering how much of the front porch drama she'd seen. She wore a pale blue sheath dress and a string of pearls, her blond bob of hair perfectly arranged.

"Merit!" she said, her voice tinkling. "We're so glad you're here. You look absolutely gorgeous. So professional." She pressed a kiss to my cheek before immediately dismissing me for bigger and better prey.

"Ethan, you look absolutely dashing. That suit is terribly becoming." She squeezed his hands and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"You look lovely yourself, Mrs. Merit." Slyly, he glanced between us. "I'd have taken you for sisters."

My mother waved him away, crimson rising on her cheeks. "Hush," she said. "And call me Meredith. I insist."

For a moment, my mother looked at us, a mixture of pride and relief in her expression. I wasn't sure which of those to find flattering.

"Where are my manners?" she asked. "Come in, come in." We didn't need the formal invitation - we'd been in the house before - but we nodded politely and stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind us.

My mother reached out a hand for our coats, then deposited them on a wooden coat stand by the door. "We've given Pennebaker the night off since the family's all here, so just make yourselves at home."

I found it remarkable she'd arranged a dinner for so many without him. It either meant she'd cooked, which would be unfortunate, or she'd hired in the food. I crossed my fingers for the latter.

My mother smiled and clapped her hands together as she took in our ensembles, at least until she saw the galoshes on my feet. Her smile faded quickly.

I held up the straps of the heels in my hand. "Don't worry; I brought backups."

"Whew," she said. "I was afraid you were going to ruin that dress with those shoes. If we're calling them that. Plastic mud clompers, more like."

She disappeared into the hallway while Ethan chuckled beside me.

"Plastic mud clompers," he repeated.

I made a vague sound, using his body as a brace while I traded galoshes for pointy-toed stilettos. When the trade was done, I'd gained three inches in height. Still not enough to be at eye level with Ethan, but a good deal closer.

My mother appeared again with champagne flutes in hand and gave one to each of us.

I took a heartening sip before noticing the goofy expression on my mother's face.

Please do not glamour my mother, I silently requested.

I have no need to glamour, Sentinel. I'm naturally this charming.

I kept the commentary to myself.

We followed my mother into the house as five children - three boys and two girls - ran past us, toys in hand.

"My nieces and nephews," I explained.

"And Elizabeth is expecting a third. We're just in the sitting room," she added, and we followed her through the front of the house to the main living area.

As we made the journey, I found a house utterly different from the one I was used to. I knew my mother had planned to redecorate - she'd been moving out the old furniture during my last visit. But the change was remarkable. The architecture was still the same - concrete, like the exterior - but she'd brought in furniture and decor that made it feel warm and inviting, not the cold and clinical shell it had been before. No small feat for a concrete box of a house.

The sitting room, especially, was completely different, now full of rugs and brightly colored furniture, ten-foot plants, and a bevy of family portraits. And on that comfy furniture lounged a bevy of Merits.

"Merit!" squealed the youngest in the family, the nearly two-year-old Olivia, my sister Charlotte's daughter. She was adorably dressed in a green velvet dress that matched her mother's, her hair in pigtails that poked from each side of her head.

She ran haltingly toward me and held up her hands, clenching her fists, demanding that I pick her up.

"Hello, Miss Olivia," I said, putting my flute on a nearby cocktail table and propping her onto my hip. "You are so heavy! How did you get so heavy?"

"I grow," she said simply.

"I think you weigh as much as your mother does."

"I'm taking that as a compliment to me, little sister." Charlotte, wearing a green sheath, her dark hair cut into a short, pixie cut, kissed my cheek. "How are you?"

"I'm good. And it looks like Olivia's good."

"I'm two," Olivia said, holding up the requisite number of fingers.

"That is really old," I said. "You're a big girl now."

Olivia nodded gravely, then took a shy peek at the man who stood beside me. Charlotte was much less subtle.

"Oh my God, you are gorgeous!" Charlotte exclaimed. She had a cocktail in one hand and, suddenly, Ethan's arm in the other. "I told her to nab you while she could."

Ethan beamed at me. "She nabbed," he said, apparently delighted by the familial attention.

"Maybe now she'll finally trust that I'm right about everything," Charlotte said. "She had a very difficult time with that growing up."

"She still has a difficult time with it. I'm nearly always right, and she seems to forget that fact rather often. It's unfortunate, really."

"I bet," Charlotte said.

"Where's Major?" I asked. Major Corkberger was Charlotte's heart-surgeon husband.

"On call, of course, as usual. He's a surgeon," she added to Ethan, as if the news was confidential. Ethan nodded politely.

"Here, Olivia, why don't we let Auntie Merit and Uncle Ethan say hello to everyone else?" Charlotte asked. Olivia held out her hands to be swept away by her mother.

Ethan didn't verbally object to being called Uncle Ethan, although he did look a bit paler than usual - a difficult feat for a vampire.

"Uncle Ethan?" he asked, when Charlotte walked away.

I slipped my arm in his. "Just keep breathing, Sullivan. Isn't that what you've been telling me?"

I introduced him to Elizabeth, Robert's sable-haired wife, who looked nearly ready to pop with child number three. Ethan helped her off the couch when she needed a hand, and he managed not to wince when she wrapped him in a hug.

"We are just so glad Merit's found someone who makes her happy."

"Thank you," he said. "I do my best."

Elizabeth looked back and forth between us, a knowing smile on her face. "Mm-hmm," she said, a hand on her belly. "There's a lot of potential here. I can see it."

I finished my champagne in a single gulp. "Another glass maybe, Mom?"

"Oh hush," Elizabeth said, giving me a playful slap on the arm.

I'd always liked Elizabeth. Where Robert was the spitting image of my father, physically and emotionally, Elizabeth was funny and grounded. She was still a society girl, her father a magnate in his own right, but she'd always seemed comfortable in her own skin, like she didn't need to show off in order to prove her worth to everyone else.

"I assume your intentions are honorable?" she asked Ethan.

"What answer won't get me in trouble?" he asked, and to a one, every human female in the room over the age of ten sighed.

I rolled my eyes, but inwardly, the entire conversation was kind of . . . awesome. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like an outsider in my own family. I had a family of my own, a partner in my escapades. We were here - together - so I didn't feel like the odd duck out.

And then, on the other end of the spectrum, was the man who'd seemed to make it his life's purpose to transform me into something else. From shy teenager to socialite. From human to vampire.

"You're here."

We turned to find my father in the doorway. Joshua Merit walked in, utter confidence in his stride. My older brother, Robert, joined him.

Like me, my father had dark hair and pale blue eyes. Robert had my mother's fair coloring, but he and my father shared the same aristocratic features and square shoulders.

"Ethan," my father said, walking forward with a hand outstretched. They shook hands, but Ethan's posture didn't change.

There was no sense of sycophancy or toadying about him. He might have been a guest in my father's home, but he was a force to be reckoned with in his own right, not a politico eager to hop onto my father's coattails.

"Joshua," Ethan said. They shook on it, and my father turned to me.

"Merit," he said, a bit awkwardly, and without offering a handshake or a hug.

"Dad," I said, then looked at my brother. "Robert."

Robert seemed older than the last time I'd seen him. More mature, or perhaps simply with more weight on his shoulders. He stood in line to take over Merit Properties, so there would have been plenty of weight to go around.

"Hello, Merit," he said, then nodded at Ethan. "Robert Merit."

"Ethan Sullivan."

They looked at each other for a moment. I wouldn't have called my brother the protective type, but there was something vaguely threatening in his eyes. I wasn't na?ve enough to think it had anything to do with me. Robert was protective of my father and the family name, and I imagine he hadn't yet decided whether Ethan was a threat.

After a moment of staring each other down, Robert's posture eased a bit. "You're looking well," he said to me.

I nodded. "Thanks. Congratulations on the baby. Elizabeth seems very happy."

He nodded the same way my father did. Just a bob of the head, as if he were too busy to waste motion on anything more excessive.

"We're very blessed," he said. "It looks like you're having a rough go of it this week."

"Our popularity waxes and wanes," Ethan said, "as it always has. At the moment, there is very clearly a vocal crowd of anti-vampire Chicagoans."

"Unfortunate," my father said, "that they would judge a man based on his physical attributes, rather than his deeds."

"Hear! Hear!" Ethan said.

My father nodded with approval at Ethan's approval of him. "Now that we've all shaken hands, perhaps a drink in the office before dinner? It will give us a chance to chat."

He glanced at my mother questioningly, probably to check there was time enough before dinner was served.

"Yes," she said. "Head that way and leave us to our chatting." She waved at them. "Shoo."

Ethan glanced back at me, and his expression was hard to gauge. Something between "Save me!" and "I am beginning to regret my enthusiasm for this dinner idea."

I gave him a mean-spirited wave. "See you in a bit, darling."

His eyes narrowed as my father and Robert shuffled him down the hallway, but he went willingly, a prisoner with no hope for escape, having accepted the inevitability of his sentence.

As he disappeared, the children ran through the sitting room, dragging wooden pull-toys behind them. Loudly. And with extreme prejudice.

"So," Charlotte said, putting a hand on my knee, "I don't want to get ahead of myself, but have you considered your china patterns yet?"

Called it.

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