the time to have lascivious thoughts about my boss, but if not now, when? The world was not perfect, and the timing probably would never be.
I walked in, made sure we were alone, and shut the door. He looked up at the sound and watched me stride toward him, then rose from his seat with alarm in his expression.
“What is it?”
I didn’t waste time with explanations or pretensions. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face into the slick warm cotton of his shirt.
He stroked my hair. “You’re all right?”
I nodded. “I’m just really glad to be home.”
He pulled back and looked down at me, and the comfort turned into a kiss, inviting and full of promise. He splayed his hands against my back, his fingers hot to the touch, and used teeth and tongue to remind me that I’d come home into his arms again.
He slid his hands down my arms…and I instinctively flinched as his fingers made contact with the bruise he’d made.
Ethan pulled back and stared down at me, a new anxiety in his eyes.
Without another word, he returned to his seat, leaving me standing there awkwardly, my stomach doing somersaults.
“What just happened?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He looked down at the papers on his desk and kept his eyes there, shuffling through them like they held the world’s precious secrets.
“Ethan.”
“Merit, I have work to do.”
“Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
He didn’t answer, but his gaze shifted to my arm, the one he’d grabbed. The one he’d bruised. “I hurt you.”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
“Did I leave a mark?”
I let my silence answer, and he swore under his breath. After a moment of twisting nerves, he looked up at me again.
“You didn’t hurt me,” I insisted.
“I bruised you. You flinched.”
“You’re a vampire and you’re strong. It happens.”
“Not to me it doesn’t.” He wet his lips and looked away. “Paige is settled?”
I had no idea what to say, so I answered the question. “She’s in the guest suite.”
He nodded. Just a single nod before focusing on his papers again.
“Ethan,” I began, but I wasn’t sure how to finish.
He looked up. “Merit, Darius is on his way. I really need to prepare.”
He seemed earnest, and I didn’t have any reason to doubt that he wanted to be ready for his meeting with Darius…but that didn’t ease the low ache in my stomach.
I’d just made it back to the main staircase when Catcher texted me: GABRIEL IS READY.
Stunned, I checked my watch. We’d been home for only a few hours. I guess shifters weren’t keen on speed limits, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn he’d used a little of his own magic to speed up the trip, particularly given his cargo.
Catcher provided an address, so I assumed I was supposed to meet him there. Well, we were supposed to meet him there. Paige actually seemed like she had a level head on her shoulders, and she surpassed Simon in common sense by a large margin. That made her the better of the two potential Order representatives who undoubtedly wanted to check in on Mallory. The choice was clear.
I grabbed my sword and dropped by the guest suite to let Paige know we were ready to go. She was in trendy clothes this time: skinny jeans, a long cardigan, and furry boots.
“Helen did good,” I said. “With the clothes, I mean.”
She looked down at her ensemble. “I was pleasantly surprised. Vamps seem to wear a lot of black. I was afraid she’d put me in head-to-toe waiter wear.” She seemed to remember I was wearing black, too, and winced a little. “No offense.”
“None taken. Black is the House uniform.” I gestured toward the stairs. Paige fell into step beside me and we headed back down to the second floor.
“Color is the new black.”
“Not according to Ethan Sullivan.”
“So where are we going exactly?”
I glanced down at the address Catcher had given me…and smiled a little. If we were going where I thought, Gabriel had been right about my knowing Mallory’s caretaker.
“Someplace familiar” was all I said.
We drove into a neighborhood in the western part of the city known as Ukrainian Village. It was a working-class neighborhood with churches and food and people from the old country, and it was home to the unofficial Chicago headquarters of the North American Central Pack, a bar called Little Red.
That’s precisely where we were headed.
The bar was on the corner of a strip of run-down buildings. Shifters tended to favor substance