Dare, I would.

I pushed him backward, steering him toward the low French chair in the corner of the room. He sat down, his hand still busy, his eyes on my breasts.

I straddled him, and his lips found my breasts, toying and nipping until my blood burned with need.

He offered no more preliminaries, which would have been wasted. I was ready, my body eager for him. With a grunt and a brutal curse, he plunged upward, filling me, bowing my body and leaving no boundaries, tangible or otherwise, between us. His hands found my waist and he held me against him, forcing me down with each plundering stroke.

He put his hand on my face, holding my chin, forcing my gaze to his as he pumped. I wasn’t sure if he was committing my face to memory or ensuring that I committed his face to mine. The act was brutally intimate, allowing neither of us to hide behind closed eyes.

“Merit,” he said, his voice ragged. “I need you. I love you.”

“I love you.”

Forever, he silently said. Regardless.

Forever, I said to him.

He lifted me, rose with me in his arms, and stalked toward the bedroom like a pirate with his treasure. He placed me on the bed like I was delicate, fine boned or porcelain, and immediately covered my body with his. With the force of a man long denied, he plunged between my thighs, his strokes as hard and fast as they’d been before.

Before, he’d sought to relieve his own ache, to find his own release. This time, his demands were all for me. Every muscle in his toned body worked for my pleasure, to send me over the edge, to send my mind and body and soul reeling. He found my mouth and plundered it as well, his tongue hot and welcoming, teeth at my lips as ferocious as his body.

And then he flipped my body over, and I moaned with pleasure, fistfuls of sheets in hand as he thrust without hesitation, filling me, devouring me. Ethan took without quarter, gave without pretension. He moved with a harsh rhythm, demanding, insistent, daring me to take my own pleasure, and doing his damnedest to send me there.

I screamed out his name, felt the building shudder from the release of magic, pushed any embarrassment that might have caused to the back of my mind.

I paused for breath, wet my parched lips, then rolled over and looked at him. His eyes quicksilver, his body hard, quivering with want.

I cupped my breasts, offered myself to him again.

His lips curled in animal pleasure and he pushed between my thighs again, my body offering no resistance.

“Teeth,” he demanded when he was inside me. “I want your teeth on me.”

Drunk with passion, I obeyed the command, sinking my teeth into the skin at his neck, the rush of blood—hot and powerful—sending my body into immediate overdrive. Ethan growled out my name as my body shook with the force of the pleasure, and he gripped the headboard with white knuckles, straining to hold back as pleasure rocked him, too.

Now, I demanded, forcing him to drop his own barriers, to hold back nothing from me, not the man, not the soldier, not the vampire, not the Master.

“Merit,” Ethan groaned out, pushing upward with a final thrust, emptying himself with a cry that sounded equally anguished and fulfilled at the same time my body arched with pulsing pleasure.

• • •

Minutes later, we stood together beneath the spray in the room-sized shower in the carriage house bathroom, his body behind mine.

It was such a simple thing for him to massage shampoo into my hair, to slick soap across my back. And it was probably the most intimate thing we’d ever done.

“Switch,” I told him when my hair was squeaky clean. He dunked his head beneath the spray, pushed his fingers through it while water slipped down the arch of his back and across his very bitable ass.

I felt my body stir to life again but ignored it. I’d had my fun for the evening. We were getting clean, and then we were getting back to work.

I squeezed shampoo into my hand, rolled it in my palms, and reached up to run it through the golden locks of his hair. He dropped his head back, braced his arms on the sides of the shower, and let me care for him.

And when the shower was done, when we pulled on the thick white robes that hung in the bathroom, I sent the message that, I hoped, satisfied my favor to Lakshmi:

I’VE TOLD HIM. THE DECISION IS IN HIS HANDS.

I hoped it would be enough and, when our phones began to simultaneously ring, thought she was so pissed by the response that she’d called me and Ethan both. But the communications weren’t from Lakshmi.

I grabbed mine first, scanned the screen, found a message from Luc: NAVARRE 911. RAID. MAYOR’S THUGS. INJURIES.

“Merit,” Ethan said, and I glanced back, found his phone in hand, as well.

“Domestic terrorism?”

He nodded and called Luc, got an answer on the first ring.

“I’m outside Navarre with Lindsey,” Luc said, the wind howling behind him. It was Chicago, after all. “We’re out of sight but keeping an eye on things. Jonah’s got a few Grey House folks around, too.”

Probably not just Grey House, I thought, but members of the RG keeping an eye on things, ready to step in if the need arose. I wasn’t taking all their work.

“What happened?”

“We aren’t entirely sure. We only got a little from Will.” Will was Navarre House’s very green guard captain. “Apparently the mayor’s thugs showed up to take Morgan in to interview, and he refused. They surrounded the House, went inside. They’re still in there. The vampires are all outside.”

“Considering where we are, and the fact that we ran, I can’t exactly blame Morgan for refusing the interview. How’s Malik?”

“On full alert,” Luc said. “We pulled all the temps onto duty, have them outside. We’ve also offered asylum to any Navarre vamps who need a place to go.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “Good. Keep an eye on things, and make contact with Jonah. Offer whatever assistance you can provide. And in the meantime, call the lawyers. We’re coming home.”

Fear bloomed cold in my chest. Ethan hung up the phone, tossed it on the bed.

“You want to go back so you can be Kowalcyzk’s next victim?”

“Better me than them in my place,” Ethan said. “I can’t let any more vampires take my punishment. I’ve stood by too long.”

“She’s baiting you. Escalating to scare you back to Chicago.”

Ethan began to get dressed, pulling a shirt over his head, his hair still damp and tucked behind his ears. “Quite possibly.” He zipped up his jeans. “And I did as everyone asked. I waited her out. But no more.”

I hadn’t made Kowalcyzk’s decisions, but I still felt like I’d failed. If Harold Monmonth hadn’t made it so far into Cadogan House, if I’d taken him out first, if the GP had been more afraid of the House’s Sentinel, Ethan might be out of danger.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry for this.”

Ethan looked at me, danger in his eyes. “Are you under the impression this has something to do with you, Sentinel?”

“I was supposed to protect you, protect the House. And look where that’s gotten us. The mayor thinks we’re enemies of the state, and she’s not above beating a Master vampire. I should have killed Harold Monmonth when I’d had the chance.”

He strode to me, took my chin in hand, forced my gaze to his.

“That woman’s personal failures are not your responsibility. Nor would the death of Harold Monmonth by your hand have changed anything. Except that it would be you heading to prison, rather than me.”

“My father could have kept me out.”

Ethan’s eyes cooled. “Perhaps. Perhaps he would have. Perhaps he’d have bribed Kowalcyzk to keep you out. And if he had? And assuming she’d actually accept it, he’d consider the bribe a loan, and he’d exact payback, come hell or high water. You’ve owed a favor to a very powerful individual, Merit. You know how oppressive that feels.”

He was right, but that only made it worse. There was no knight in shining armor who could rescue him, no trick of Chicago politics—and there were a lot of tricks in that particular bag—that would keep him out of prison. We’d already used the chit in our possession, the fact that Detective Jacobs didn’t blindly follow the mayor’s dictates, and the reprieve had been only temporary.

I nodded. “I know you’re right. I just want things to be different.”

He put his forehead against mine. “We cannot change the world, Merit. We do what we can in our small corner, and we act with honor. We rise to the occasion, and we do our best.”

He kissed me. “That is what we will do for now. Our best. Get dressed. Message Catcher and make sure he knows what’s going on. Message Jonah and let him know we’re coming back. I’ll talk to Gabriel. This is going to require some finessing.”

I nodded. “I’ll pack, get our stuff together.”

He looked at me, considered. “Actually, I think I’d prefer you go with me. You are his kitten, after all.”

I humphed. I was nobody’s kitten.

• • •

We found him in the kitchen with Tanya and Connor, who sat in a high chair with bright orange goo smeared across his face. He gargled happily when we walked in.

“Vampires,” Gabe said, offering Connor another spoonful of orange goo. “What brings you by?”

“Are you hungry?” Tanya asked, gesturing toward the kitchen. “The staff’s asleep, but we could find you something.”

“We’re good, thank you. We actually wanted to talk to you about leaving. Things have come to a head in Chicago—and we believe the carnival is headed there anyway. We’d like to return, as well.”

“A head?” Gabe asked.

“The mayor had roughed up Scott Grey. Tonight, they raided Navarre House.”

“She’s not playing around to get you back.”

“No, she is not. And others have taken the brunt of this particular experiment long enough.”