“I am working,” I replied, my tone all business. “Who told you we’d be here?”
Morgan ignored the question. Instead he arched his eyebrows, and with a look that would have melted a lesser woman, raked his gaze across my body. Had waves of angry magic not radiated from him as he did it, I’d have called the move an invitation. But this was different. A verdict, I think, of my guilt.
He crossed arms over his chest. “Is that what he’s dressing you in these days while you’re . . . working?”
He made it sound like I was less a Sentinel than a call girl.
My voice was tight, words clipped, when I finally spoke. “I thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be here, in my father’s house, if there weren’t a phenomenally good reason for it.”
Morgan gave a strangled, mirthless half laugh. “I imagine I can guess what the phenomenally good reason is. Or maybe I should say, who the reason is.”
“Cadogan House is the reason. I’m here because I’m working. I can’t explain why, but suffice it to say that if you knew, you’d be sufficiently concerned and more supportive than you’re being now.”
“Right, Merit. You blow me off, avoid me, and then turn it around, blame me for being suspicious, for wanting some answers. You haven’t returned my phone calls and yet”—he crossed his hands behind his head—“you’re the victim here. You should take Mallory’s place at McGettrick, great as that spin is.” He nodded his head, then looked down at me. “Yeah, I think that would really work out well for you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you. Things have been a little crazy.”
“Oh, have they?” He released his hands, walked toward me. He reached out a finger and traced his fingertip across the top edge of my bodice. “I notice you aren’t wearing your sword, Sentinel.” His voice was soft. Lush.
I wasn’t buying it. “I’m armed, Morgan.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He lifted his eyes from my chest and met my gaze. I could see the hurt in his face, but that hurt was tempered by anger. Predatory anger. I’d seen him in the same mode before, when he’d challenged Ethan at Cadogan House, wrongly believing that Ethan had threatened Celina. That Ethan had made a move after his own Master. Apparently this was a theme for Morgan—the anger of a man who believed another vamp was sniffing around his girl.
“If you have something to say,” I told him, “maybe you should just put it out there.”
He stared at me for a long, long time, neither of us moving, but when he spoke, the words were softer, sadder, than I’d expected. “Are you fucking him?”
A kiss in Mallory’s hallway or not, we were hardly dating, Morgan and me. He had no right to this kind of jealousy, and certainly no basis for it. I was just about reaching the limit of my tolerance for ignorant men today. My anger rose, peppering my arms with goose bumps. I let it flow around me, working to keep the emotions off my face, the silver out of my eyes, the vampire asleep.
“You,” I began, my voice low and on the edge of fury, “are being incredibly presumptuous. Ethan and I are not together, and you and I don’t exactly have a commitment. You have no right to accuse me of being unfaithful, much less any basis.”
“Ah,” he said. “I see.” He looked down at me, his expression flat. “So you two aren’t together. Is that why you danced with him?”
I could have confessed that it was part of a plan to build relationships, to build connections. That it had been intended to get close to a reporter who had the power to make things very, very difficult for vampires, however unlikely that story seemed now.
But Morgan had a point. I’d had a choice. I could have walked away.
I could have set boundaries with Ethan, could have reminded him that we were at the party for information, not entertainment. I could have reminded him that I’d given up time with friends to do my job, and asked for a pass on the dance.
I hadn’t done any of those things.
Maybe because he was my Master. Because I was duty-bound to accept his orders.
Or maybe because in some secret way, I wanted to say yes, as much as I’d wanted to tell him no, in spite of the discomfort that I felt around him. Despite the fact that he didn’t trust me as much as I deserved.
But how could I admit that to Morgan, who’d gate-crashed my parents’ party in order to catch me in the act of infidelity?
I couldn’t, either to me or to him.
So I did the only other thing I could think of.
I took my exit.
“I don’t need this,” I told Morgan, sweeping up my skirt. I turned on my heel and headed for the door.
“Great,” he called after me. “Walk away. That’s mature, Merit. I appreciate that.”
“I’m sure you can find your way out.”
“Yeah, sorry to have interrupted your party. You and your boss have a great evening, Sentinel.”
He spit it out like a curse. Maybe it was, but what right did he have to criticize? Ethan was my obligation. My duty. My burden. My Liege.
I knew it was immature. I knew it was childish and wrong, but I was pissed, and I couldn’t help myself. I knew it was the one thing that as a Navarre vamp Morgan couldn’t do. But it was the perfect line, the perfect exit, and I couldn’t resist.
I glanced back at him, silk swirling around my legs, and, single eyebrow raised, gave him the haughtiest look I could muster.
“Bite me,” I said, and walked away.
Ethan was outside, waiting beside the car in the gravel drive. His face was tilted up, eyes on the full moon that cast shadows against the house. He lowered his gaze as I began to cross the gravel.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded and followed him to the car.
The mood during the ride back to Hyde Park was even more somber than it had been on the ride to my parents’. I stared silently out the car window, replaying events. That was three times tonight that I’d managed to alienate people. Mallory. Catcher. Morgan. And for what? Or better yet, for whom? Was I pushing everyone else away in order to get closer to Ethan?
I glanced over at him, his gaze on the road, hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. His hair was tucked behind his ears, brow furrowed in concentration as he drove. I’d given up my life as a human for this man; not willingly, of course, but still. Was I giving up everything else? The things I’d brought with me across the transition—my home in Wicker Park? My best friend?
I sighed and turned back toward the window. Those questions, I guessed, weren’t going to be answered tonight. I was hardly two months into my life as a vampire—and I still had an eternity of Ethan to go.
When we reached the House, Ethan parked the car, and we walked up from the basement together.
“What can I do?” I asked when we reached the first floor, not that I hadn’t done enough already on behalf of Cadogan and its Master.
He frowned, then shook his head. “Keep me up to date about Jeff’s progress with the e-mail. The Masters are investigating on their ends; I’m going to make some calls on my own until they arrive. In the meantime—” He paused, as if he was debating my skills, then finished, “Try the library. See what you can find.”
I arched my eyebrows. “The library? What am I looking for?”
“You’re the researcher, Sentinel. Figure that out.”
Experienced enough to know that a ball gown wasn’t appropriate research attire, I returned to my room to change, trading the silk for jeans and a short-sleeved black top. (A fusty suit wasn’t, to my mind, research attire, either.) I was relieved, physically relieved, to hang the dress back in the closet, don jeans and pick up my katana. It felt right in my hand—comforting, as if I’d stepped out of a costume and back into my own skin. I stood in my room for a moment, left hand on the scabbard, right hand on the handle, just breathing.
When I was calmer and ready to face the world again, I grabbed a pen and a couple of notebooks, ready to begin my own brand of investigation.
The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Ethan that Celina had a role in this. We didn’t have much in the way of evidence, but this was totally her style—to sow discord, put the players in motion, and let the battle proceed on its own. I wasn’t sure where Kelley fit in, or if she fit in at all, and I didn’t exactly have the skills of a private investigator.