appeared at my side and gestured across the lawn to a broad-shouldered man who chatted with Kelley, who’d served as the captain of Cadogan’s guards when Luc was promoted. I guess now she was a cocaptain, since Luc had essentially reassumed the position. Seriously, our leadership structure was a mess.
“Noah’s just arrived,” Ethan said. “Let’s say hello.”
I hadn’t seen Noah since he’d offered me a spot in the Red Guard, a clandestine organization of vampires whose mission was to keep an eye on the Greenwich Presidium and the Houses’ Masters to ensure vampires were treated fairly.
I’d accepted Noah’s offer, and Jonah, the captain of the Grey House guards, had been appointed as my partner.
Ethan didn’t know about the RG or Jonah, or that Noah was affiliated with the organization. Seeing Noah again made my stomach clutch with nerves. I wasn’t much of a poker player, but I was going to have to bluff my way to nonchalance on this one.
I followed Ethan across wet grass and toward Noah. He stood in a clutch of black-clad vampires who looked like the type of Rogues I was familiar with. Noah looked up as we moved closer, giving both of us slight nods of recognition.
“Ethan, Merit,” Noah said, then looked at his crew. “I’ll find you later,” he told them, and they disappeared into the crowd.
“Everything okay?” I wondered.
“Personal matters,” he said without elaborating, then smiled. “You two look happy and healthy. I was glad to hear you successfully managed Mallory and the Tate twins.”
Seth Tate, the former mayor of Chicago, was also an angel who’d been magically linked to his demonic twin brother, Dominic. He’d slain Dominic and left Chicago to seek redemption for the crimes they’d committed while sharing a psyche. We hadn’t heard from Seth since.
“So were we,” Ethan said, “although it was touch-and-go for a while.”
“Well, you put an end to the crisis, and that means something.” He took in the sweeping height of Cadogan House, our home in Hyde Park. The mansion was three stories tall, made of pale stone and iron ornamentation. It was built around Chicago’s Gilded Age, when cattle and manufacturing made the wealthiest citizens flush and they built stately homes to prove it. Some of those homes were gone, and some had been split into apartments. A few still existed as single-family homes . . . but only one was home to a pride of vampires.
“Are you ready to say good-bye to the GP?” Noah asked, dropping his gaze to us again.
“Only time will tell what it’s like on the other side,” Ethan said. “Although given the venom the GP’s been spewing in our direction lately, I don’t anticipate a significant change. If they’re going to hate us, they might as well do it without our tithe. You and yours have managed well enough.”
“With care and technique,” Noah said. “We keep our ears to the ground and our bodies out of the GP’s line of sight.”
“Is it that bad?” I wondered aloud. Ethan had told me the GP took an all-or-nothing approach to its membership—the vampires within its purview were members, or they were enemies. But I’d never seen the GP take aim against a Rogue vampire. They seemed more interested in harassing the Houses and punishing those within the system who didn’t adhere to their standards of behavior.
“Most of our drama lately has been internal,” Noah said. “Issues among Rogues, not Housed vampires. But there was a time when the GP kept the lines between the Houses and the Rogues clearly marked and enforced those lines at sword point.”
“So many things in the world to worry about,” I mused, “and they decide to create animosity for no particular reason.”
“Oh, there’s a reason,” Ethan said. “If they convince the Houses that those outside the Houses are bad, the GP is good by default. They offer constructive criticism and protection from all that’s bad.”
“So the GP is a protection racket,” I said.
“A year ago,” Ethan said, “I’d have said that proposition is ridiculous. Now I fear it’s not far off the mark. But they aren’t here, and we haven’t been Decertified yet. So for now, let us eat, drink, and be merry.”
“For tomorrow we . . . ?” Noah asked.
Ethan smiled slyly. “We’ll see.” He glanced across the crowd at someone I couldn’t see, and nodded before looking back at us. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m being paged from afar. Be nice to our new allies, Sentinel.”
“Har, har,” I muttered, enjoying the view as he