UNCHANGING

We barely made it back upstairs without ripping each other's clothes off. As it was, we probably left a trail of teltale energy through the House that made our mutual agenda clear to everyone.

When we made it to his apartments, he slammed and locked the door, then found my mouth again. His hands were possessive, insistent, knotting into my hair and drawing me closer, chalenging me to believe in who he was and what he'd promised.

"I missed you," I confessed, as he pressed me down into the bed.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he murmured. For a moment, he hovered over me, his body scant centimeters away from mine...but stil far away.

"What is it?"

"It seems forever since we've done this."

"It's been at least two months," I said with a smal smile, then placed my hand over the scar above his heart.

His expression went serious, his eyes changing to the green of ancient Celt forests. "You are mine, Merit."

I smiled and put a hand on his face, running my thumb along the soft bow of his lips. "I am yours until you ban bacon, or otherwise as long as I can put up with you."

He grinned wickedly, but his eyes were on my body as he did it. "Let's see just how long you can put up with me."

I should have taken that for the warning it was.

His eyes were molten silver, and there was no mistaking his intent in his gaze. The desire in his gaze. I shivered from the ferocity of it.

"I thought you weren't afraid, Sentinel." His eyes and his body were an invitation...and I wasn't about to refuse.

"Never afraid," I promised, even as I squeezed my hands into fists in nervous anticipation. I'd watched him die, but here he was, lust in his eyes and wickedness in his smile.

He wasted no time stripping me of clothing, but each bit of fabric was slipped off and away with such slow and careful consideration my skin was on fire by the end of it.

And soon enough, as promised, I was wearing only my Cadogan medal and a smile.

Clad only in his pants, revealing those lines of muscle at his hips and the flat of his abdomen, his golden blond hair faling across his face, he stretched beside me and caressed the tips of his fingers across my stomach until my entire body was awash in goose bumps. His long fingers roamed my abdomen, barely touching, trickling across my skin, a promising hint of things to come, until my entire body was tinder, waiting for a spark.

With steady hands and deft fingers, he stripped me of my final barriers; I lay naked before him, a halo of dark hair around my head, my body adorned with the fading scars of battle.

"You are a universe," he reverentialy whispered, and then his game began. A game of pushing me to the brink, of building the anticipation...and leaving me stranded in the midst of it.

His mouth and hands found my breasts, and he tortured me with nips and kisses and quicksilver eyes that never looked away.

I made a sound of pleasure but immediately remembered my surroundings. His fingers splayed and contracted in time with my heartbeat until my body was liquid, but he wouldn't stop...and he wouldn't move closer.

I made a sound of displeasure when he evaded my own searching hands. But he popped up an eyebrow. "You're putting up with me just fine, Sentinel."

I growled and decided I'd been teased enough.

I stood Sentinel of Cadogan House, by God. He was mine, and we knew it, and I would claim what was mine.

With a twist of my leg I reversed our positions, straddling his waist, the evidence of his own arousal undeniable beneath me.

"Satisfied?" he asked, masculine satisfaction in his expression.

"Getting there," I said. I stretched out along his body and kissed him, and switched the tenor of the game. From a duel to a mutual journey of pleasure. From lust to passion.

Ethan wrapped his arms around me and didn't resist when I stripped him of the rest of his clothes. And then we were both naked and bare of al pretentions - except for the Cadogan medals around our necks. Him, the blond Master, four hundred years old, and yet newly born. Me, the dark-haired Sentinel.

New to vampiredom although it felt like I'd aged years in the span of the last two months.

He'd pushed me to the brink, but he wasn't done. In a flash I was on my back again, and the weight of his body was finaly atop mine. I gripped him fiercely, determined not to let him go again. Wiling God that I wouldn't have to let him go again, and tomorrow wouldn't be the end of both of us.

His long, nimble fingers found my core, and he took bare seconds before my body ignited. His name flew from my lips with abandon, as if my body were unable to contain its pleasure.

But we weren't alone in the House, and he muffled the sound with a sudden, fierce, and hungry kiss. I struggled for breath, shocked by the suddenness of my reaction, and - if possible - even needier than I'd been before.

He smiled, eyes stil closed, his expression changing to that thin line between pleasure and pain as I sought out his arousal. I let my hands explore his chest, his thighs, those diagonal muscles at the edges of his hips. I claimed him with hands and mouth, and watched his eyes flutter and body arch as he neared his own pleasure.

But he suddenly stiled me with a hand.

"It's your turn," he groaned, regret obvious in his voice.

"My turn?" Admittedly, my brain was stil fuzzy, but I was pretty sure I'd had my turn.

"You have been bitten," Ethan said. "But never like this."

"Does it matter?"

"You are a vampire," he growled out. "It matters as much as anything else, more than anything else."

Ethan climbed above me again, and I wrapped my legs around him, our bodies intertwined. He looked down at me, his eyes swirling silver, his needle-sharp fangs fuly descended.

His breath hot at my neck, my vampiric instincts kicking into overdrive. Images flashed through my mind. A harvest moon.

Gleaming fangs. The beating of wings. Footsteps in the dense undergrowth of an ancient forest. An animal's cal.

My instincts urged me forward, but this was stil new territory, for me undiscovered. He'd bitten me before, but not like this.

Would there be pain? Pleasure? Consequences? I was vampire, but stil recently human, and I was afraid.

"Ethan?"

But he wouldn't be swayed. He put a hand on my chest, across my heart. "This is for you," he whispered, "as vampire, as woman, and for us, and for me."

With two simultaneous thrusts, he bit - and thrust his body into mine.

I'm sure I screamed; I must have. The pain was immediate and intense, the sharp bite of needles piercing skin. But the pain was gone as quickly as it came, and then there was only pleasure. A euphoric spil unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. It burned like flame had been poured directly into my bloodstream, warming me from the inside out. Desire and heat raced through every artery and vein, forcing the sudden awareness of every molecule in my body.

But he was also there. I was simultaneously aware of every inch of him, and I wondered if he'd had the same experience when I'd bitten him, and how he didn't spend every waking moment of every night with his fangs in someone.

I'd long ago made my oaths to Cadogan House, sworn my fealty and promised my alegiance. But this was vampire. Truly, honestly vampire. Dasein vampire, as he'd once said.

Ethan suckled at my neck, his fingers digging into my hips, his body plunging into mine over and over and over again. Suddenly he puled back his fangs, his lips at my ear, and groaned out his pleasure. The sound was enough to push me over the edge. Fire contracted through my body, and I clawed at him as the sensation overtook me.

And then the world stiled again.

We lay there for a moment panting, my body suddenly heavy as the sun breached the horizon. And before consciousness left me, I smiled a little, thinking it was little wonder he'd wanted me to bite him twice before.

An hour later, the sun on the rise, he stroked a hand down my back.

"You've grown, while I was gone. Into your skin. Into your position. You'l forgive me if I'm not used to it."

"I couldn't be clumsy forever," I agreed. I had grown while he was gone, as much out of necessity as because of my own loyalties to the House. They needed me when he was gone, and I owed them my best. Besides, it was a lot more fun to be the capable vampire than the awkward one. I'd already had my stint as a weird, geeky teenager, thank you very much.

"I'm sorry I had to miss it. Granted, the reason I had to miss it was incredibly daring. Incredibly brave."

"Daring? Realy?"

"I saved your life, Sentinel. Even you said so."

I roled my eyes. "The statute of limitations is quickly expiring, Sulivan."

"The larger point stands." He touched my cheek, green eyes boring into me. "A moment of anger doesn't affect the feelings that I have for you, nor does the unrequested involvement of an immature witch. They are constant. They are immovable. But that's not to say that I don't have fear. That I don't worry I cannot protect that which is mine. My House. My vampires."

I put a hand on his cheek, my heart bursting at the sentiment, but my own emotions in check by the sudden rush of memories...and fear.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"We've had so many stops and starts. For two months, you were gone. I soldiered on, Ethan. I battled Malory back, and McKetrick, and Cabot, and I dreamt of you, and I cried, but I soldiered on." I looked back at him and let show the fear in my heart. "You came back, and you rejected me again. What if you change your mind again?"

"You were right," he said. "You were right and I was wrong. I reacted badly to her presence, and I pushed away the one person who understood, who fought beside me and chalenged me to fight her. I don't know what she can do to me. But one way or the other, we wil find a way to fix it together. I wil not leave you again, Merit. Not now, not ever. Granted, there wil come a time in which you're disappointed in me," he said. "Or angry."

"Or furious?"

He grinned wickedly. "I'm not sure I'm possible of infuriating you, Sentinel."

"Liar," I boldly said.

"The point is, I hardly think your feelings for me wil suddenly evaporate because you're angry." He wrapped his arms around me. "Fear, on occasion, rises up. As does anger. By me and by you. But they are the enemies. And as you might say, love battles them back."

How could a girl not succumb to words like that? So I basked in the warmth of him, in the crisp smel of his cologne.

"Stay the day," he said. "Stay with me today, and let me be stil."

How could I possibly refuse that request?

We prepared for bed. Brushing our teeth side by side in the bathroom seemed strangely intimate, and not just because I was spitting in front of him.

I gave him an update on what I'd learned from Malory and the issues I'd asked Catcher and Jeff to investigate. I also told him that I'd visited Claudia again. He clearly wasn't thriled, but he managed to hold in his irritation that I'd put myself in danger.

"Going alone isn't the best course of action," he gently chastised. I could work with that.

"I know. I should have taken a partner, but time was of the essence. I thought I had a string to pul, so I took a chance. I got lucky, and next time I'l use a partner."

He looked amazed that I'd answered so logicaly.

"I realy do like being alive and in one piece."

"Al evidence to the contrary," he muttered, and I punched him - deservedly - in the arm.

Since we seemed to be on relatively solid footing again, I delved into the other crisis.

"How were your meetings with Darius?"

"Ful of numbers," he said. "Ours is the second-strongest House in the country. Navarre is first, possibly because Celina wasn't entirely conscionable in her selection of investments. Our funds are wel diversified, our debt-to-income ratio is low, and our credit rating is high."

He splashed water on his face, then tamped it dry with a towel. "We are in good financial shape."

I leaned against the doorjamb. "Why do I have a sense Darius couldn't care less about our financial shape?"

Ethan pushed his hair behind his ears and gestured toward the bedroom. He folowed me out, then turned off the light behind us.

"Because the majority of the American Houses are superbly good at managing their finances. If he wishes to rearrange the American system, that's not the best point of contention."

I sat down on the bed and puled a pilow to my chest.

Ethan flipped off the bedroom lights, leaving us in momentary darkness until our eyes adjusted. I slung the pilow behind me and pressed into his body.

"Darius talked to me," I said.

"Did he now? What did he have to say?"

"He's confident any and al crises in Chicago are our fault."

"So par for the course, then."

"In that respect." I hesitated to add more, but Ethan pressed on.

"Tel me the rest, Sentinel."

"He isn't sure who you are. I think his meeting with me was just to get dirt on you. He's not thriled with our relationship, halted or otherwise, but he wanted to know more about you.

About your weaknesses. About whether you'd changed after Malory brought you back."

"What did you tel him?"

"That you are who you are...and you're too stubborn to be anyone different. I think he's afraid of you. Not for who you are, but for what you might do if the House is excommunicated."

"We wil find out soon enough."

"That sounds ominous."

Ethan nodded. "He's caled a House meeting: tomorrow at midnight. If you'd stayed in your room, you'd find a note to that effect on your door tomorrow evening."

"You wouldn't let me stay in my room."

"No, Sentinel, I would not. For now, let us sleep. We wil undoubtedly face new dangers tomorrow."

That seemed undeniable, but for now, I had his body to protect me.

Some hours later, we woke to a pounding on the door.

"That better be breakfast," I said.

"Margot is rarely so loud, and I am hardly dressed. Perhaps you better answer the door."

I flipped off the blankets and sheets and, as the knocking sounded louder, jogged to the door and puled it open.

Juliet stood at the door, a furious expression on her face, and I could hear yeling downstairs. "It's a raid - the cops think Dominic is here."

Dominic wasn't, but I'd have bet his twin brother stil was, and I didn't think Mayor Kowalcyzk or her storm troopers would much care about the difference.

Think fast, I told myself.

"Seth has wings," I said, "and I know he can fly. Get him to the widow's walk. We'l be down in a minute."

When I shut the door, Ethan was already up and behind me.

"What is it?"

"If you had any plans to vote for Mayor Kowalcyzk, you

might want to rethink those."