The open front room was huge, two staircases meeting at a second-floor balcony. The entire atrium was open to the roof, the room topped by a greenhouselike cage of Victorian skylights. Although those things seemed pretty European to me, the decor looked as if it had been taken from a modern-art museum. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture or knickknacks, and the few pieces there were had a sculptural quality. There was a white tufted leather sofa, a coffee table that consisted of a giant, curvaceous core of lacquered wood, and recessed lights shining onto giant canvases of black-and-white photography and pop art. All of it was set amongst gleaming, white marble floors and equally white walls.
“This is—,” I began, my gaze on a painting that looked to represent those rubbery grips that fit on number two pencils, but I found no words to describe it.
“Yes,” Ethan said. “It most definitely is.” He shifted beside me, probably not accustomed to waiting for service, then glanced down at the girls again. “We are expected.”
Without looking up, the girl in the middle pointed a long-nailed finger behind us. We both turned. A bench sat in an alcove beside the front door, three boredlooking, supernaturally attractive vampires filling it—two women and a man in between them. They all wore suits and had briefcases across their laps. They were all perfectly polished, but there was a weariness in their eyes and in the slump of their shoulders. They looked as if they’d been here a while.
“Fabulous,” I muttered.
Ethan blew out a breath, but his smile was back when he turned to face the Fates again. “At your convenience,” he grandly said.
As it turned out, their convenience was seven minutes later. “Merit,” the girl on the right finally said. I looked down at her extended hand, which held a translucent plastic badge the size of a credit card. It had VISITOR stamped across one side, and bore a hologram of a wide-winged bee—a symbol of the House’s French roots, I thought, but rendered in twenty-first-century technology.
“Fancy,” I said, then clipped the badge onto the bottom hem of my shirt.
“We have visitors’ passes, as well,” Ethan muttered, as if offended by the possibility that Navarre House was more organized—or more exclusive—than we were. He accepted a clip and added it to his suit, then looked at the women expectantly.
Silence.
He gestured toward the staircase. “Should we just—”
“Nadia will be down to retrieve you,” said the one in the middle.
“We appreciate your assistance,” Ethan said, then moved into the room’s main space.
“We need a four-story atrium,” I told him.
“Cadogan House is perfect as it is. We’re not changing it to fit the fancies of an architecturally jealous Sentinel. Ah,” he added brightly, “here she is.”
I glanced up.
A woman was trotting down the stairway, one delicate hand on the marble banister as she glided toward us.
No—not just a woman. A supermodel. She was all effortless beauty. Her eyes were wide and green, her nose thin and straight, her cheekbones high. Her body was long and lean, and she wore leggings, knee-high boots, and a long, belted knit top. It was the kind of outfit I might have worn while traipsing through the streets of Manhattan during my college days. Her hair was long and medium brown, and it spilled across her shoulders like silk.
I leaned toward Ethan. “You might have filled me in on the fact that Morgan’s new Second was practically a cover girl.”
“Jealous again?”
“Not even slightly,” I crisply answered, then elbowed him in the ribs. “But you’re panting, Sullivan.”
He offered a fake oof at the elbowing, then, hand outstretched, walked toward Nadia.
“Ethan,” Nadia said with a beatific smile, taking his hand. They exchanged cheek-to-cheek kisses and whispers that made something turn in my belly.
That would be the jealousy kicking in, I silently thought.
“Nadia, this is Merit, my Sentinel,” he said, gesturing at me. Nadia beamed at me, then held out both hands.
“Merit,” she intoned, leaning in to kiss my cheek, as well.
“It is lovely to meet you.” Her voice carried the faintest French accent, and her perfume was exotic. Equally complex and old-fashioned, like something you’d pick up in a boutique in a forgotten Parisian arrondissement. It sang of flowers and lemon and rich spice and sunlight, all bottled together.
“My liege is in his office, if you’ll follow me?”
Ethan nodded and fell in line behind Nadia, who trotted back up the stairs, her hair bouncing on her shoulders as she moved. Really—it was like watching a shampoo commercial. At the top of the staircase, we turned to the left, then took a wide marble hallway another twenty or thirty feet. The door was open. I blew out a breath and readied myself for drama.
CHAPTER TEN MY (EX-)BOYFRIEND’S BACK Morgan’s office was a wide rectangular room that overlooked Navarre House’s back courtyard, a small but well-tended space that must have been wedged into the notch between the buildings on the block. The entire back wall was a sheet of glass, the garden below well lit to provide the Master a view of the space—and to provide any Navarre vampires in the space a view of their Master. It was definitely Celina’s kind of architecture, her office a stage for the audience of vampires in the garden below.
Tall panels of crimson silk hung at each end of the window, probably to be drawn forward during the daylight hours. The rest of the office was sleek and modern and much less feminine. At one end of the room sat a glass desk, upon which perched a white computer and an array of white desk accessories. Two ultramodern black and steel chairs sat in front of it, and a seating area of modern furniture my parents would probably have liked—good lines, but not very comfortable looking—sat at the other end of the room. The office was virtually empty of knickknacks, books, and collectibles. I wasn’t sure if that was in deference to the modern design, or simply because Morgan, who was only about seventy years old, hadn’t had time to collect much.
The Master vampire himself stood with his back to the door, facing the glass. Nadia said softly, respectfully, “Liege. The entourage from Cadogan House.” He glanced back over his shoulder.
His dark hair seemed to have grown inches since I’d last seen him, even though that had been only a week ago. It waved around his deep-set, dark blue eyes and the long, dark brows that topped them. There were plenty of handsome men in the world, and plenty of men with lovely eyes. But Morgan’s were different.
Bedroomy, I’d called them, because his gaze seemed to sink into you, inviting you, tempting you, with its depth.
That gaze skimmed Nadia, then darkened when he saw Ethan and clouded completely when he saw me. Morgan had a dramatic personality, but he shuttered the expressions in his face—anger, betrayal, sadness—fast enough. Maybe he was taking to Masterdom after all.
He turned around. “Thank you, Nadia,” he said, and Nadia nodded and left the room. From her deferential reactions, I was getting the sense that Navarre’s Master occupied a different kind of position than Cadogan’s Master. Or maybe the deference was just part of being second to a Master vampire—being acquiescent until the crown was handed to you. Malik, after all, generally seemed to defer to Ethan.
And speaking of, Ethan, crown firmly in hand, offered his opening gambit. “Merit has had no contact with Nicholas Breckenridge regarding the story. No contact at all, in fact, since the incident.”
Morgan looked at me. “True?”
I nodded.
He walked toward his desk, then took a seat. Ethan gestured toward the bank of windows. “May I?”
“Be my guest,” Morgan said crisply. They switched places, which still left me standing between them. Poetic, I thought.
“You know that Gabriel visited us after the blackmail was cleared up?” Ethan asked, his gaze on the courtyard below.
“I do now. I also know, thanks to the Sun-Times, that you and Merit apparently paid a visit to a bar in Ukrainian Village. Would you care to enlighten me?”
Ethan turned around, arms crossed over his chest. I guessed he hadn’t been keeping Morgan up-to-date on our shifter interactions. Not that that was a surprise; he tended to keep details to himself.
“Gabriel asked that we be present at a pre-meeting of the alphas. We obliged.”
Morgan sat back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “Why did he want you there?”
“Security, most fundamentally. He also wanted vampires to be present, individuals who could remind the shifters of the purpose of the convocation.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Morgan said, then lifted up a folded copy of the Sun-Times. “It appears you didn’t make the best security.”
Ethan’s jaw clenched. “The attack was external. One of the Pack leaders walked out. Shots were fired at the bar a few minutes later. It’s possible those two things are connected, but Gabriel seems to have doubts. They’re investigating.” Ethan paused and looked down, as if contemplating how much to tell Morgan.