myself. And you need a beer and some brisket and to put your feet up.”
“I like all of those things,” he said and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Gentle and sweet this time. One in the spectrum of ways he showed that he cared. “I’ll stay. But you have to do me a favor, lover.”
“Yes to the favor. No to the nickname.”
But I knew I was doomed.
THIRTEEN
The favor was in the front seat of an SUV, looking handsome in a white button-down and black suit.
“Mr. Liu,” I said, belting myself in.
“Ms. Sullivan.”
He was quiet beyond that greeting, and didn’t speak another word until we pulled up in front of Cadogan House and he stretched to peer out the windshield. “No sign of the AAM, or anyone else.”
“No,” I agreed, opening the door. “And no unfamiliar magic.”
Though there was plenty of the familiar version. The latent power of a century and a half’s worth of vampires in residence seemed to have seeped into grass and iron and stone, a marker of the power of this very tight family. A family that had welcomed me warmly, but I’d never really felt part of, through no fault of theirs.
“What was it like?” he asked. “Growing up in there.”
“Probably not a lot different from growing up somewhere else,” I said. “Good times, bad times, blood orgies, the whole thing.”
Now his grin was wide, a spark in those dark brown eyes. “You paint an interesting picture, Elisa.”
“Lulu’s the painter,” I said and climbed out, katana in hand. “I call it like I see it.”
* * *
* * *
Cadogan House. Several graceful stories of white stone in the middle of grounds large enough to be a park, albeit one surrounded by a tall iron fence.
The House was accessible only through the narrow gate where guards stood duty twenty-four hours a day. Humans when the sun was high, vampires when the world was dark. Two guards, katanas belted at their sides, watched warily as I approached. And relaxed a little when they realized who I was.
“Elisa Sullivan,” I said, when I reached them. “I’m here to see my parents.”
“Of course,” the guard said, and the gates whirred open.
I walked down the familiar sidewalk, where I’d once attempted to draw princesses fighting dragons with chalk. Inside, I found a second guard beaming at the small reception desk tucked into the grand foyer.
“Ms. Sullivan,” said the vampire, a female I didn’t recognize. “Welcome back to Cadogan House. Your parents arrived a short time ago, and they’re in your father’s office. You’re welcome to join them.”
“Thanks,” I said, with a smile I tried to make pleasant.
Below me, down several feet and through layers of wood and concrete and tile, my mother’s sword—steel and leather and gleaming scabbard—beckoned to the monster. And it seemed louder than the last time I’d been here.
It was the sword used to bring down the Egregore. The sword that now held some portion of its essence, and called to my monster with a power that scared me, that tugged at some thread deep inside my body. And threatened my control.
No, I told the monster. Don’t even think about it. And sent a clear image of what would happen if it tried to take control while we were in Cadogan House. It would be identified and rooted out, and we’d see which of us survived.
That must have done the trick, because it settled down.
I walked down the hallway, thickly carpeted and painted in pretty pale colors, to my father’s office. He sat at his desk in his usual business attire while my mother, her long dark hair flowing down her back, stared through the windows that took up the opposite side of the room.
At the sound of my footsteps, or their sensing me, they both lifted their heads, met my gaze.
“Parental units,” I said with a smile, and was surrounded by embracing arms when I’d barely crossed the threshold.
“Okay,” I said after I’d judged they’d gotten their fill of reassurance, “now you’re being suffocating.”
I pulled back, and still my mother touched my hair, my father squeezed my hand, ensuring themselves that I was safe and whole.
“It’s good to see you,” my father said. “We’ve been worried.”
“You didn’t have to worry,” I said.
His stare was bland. “Let’s go sit,” he said and gestured toward the seating area across from his desk. Leather couches and chairs that surrounded a glass coffee table and had been the site of innumerable meetings with Sups and mildly rebellious daughters—me and