Biting Cold: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES)

might as well bunk up and save her the trouble.”
    Ethan rolled his eyes. “That isn’t exactly the reasoning I had in mind.”
    “Oh, I know,” I said, walking back to the first bedroom. “But if I don’t keep a check on your ego, you’ll become insufferable.”
    He made a sarcastic, but pleased, grunt.
    Figuring it made sense to pick the easy exit, I opted for the bedroom closest to the stairs and dropped my bag on the side of the bed closest to the door. I was the Sentinel, after all, and still responsible for my Master’s safety.
    Without hesitation, Ethan dropped his bag by the bed, then grabbed the glasses of blood from the tray. He handed me a glass, and we drank them dry in seconds, thirsty from hunger and our bodies’ healing the scrapes and bruises we’d gotten in the crash.
    The necessities addressed, Ethan closed the bedroom door and locked it. When he turned around to face me again, his eyes had silvered—the sign of vampire arousal, emotional or otherwise.
    Desire spilled into the room, rising above the scents of blood and leather and the well-oiled steel of our swords.
    “We have unfinished business, you and I.”
    My lips parted. “Unfinished business?” I asked, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes—or the earnest intent.
    An eyebrow popped up, challenging me to argue, but I wasn’t about to do that. He’d been gone for two months, and I figured the universe owed me one . . . even when his phone rang audibly from the pocket of his pants.
    Ethan’s lip curled, but he managed not to look at it.
    For a moment, we stood there in silence, staring at each other, desire curling between us like the forks of an invisible fire.
    “It could be Catcher,” I said, not thrilled about the interruption—but equally unthrilled at the proposition that Mallory was floating around outside the farmhouse and we were ignoring the warning.
    With obvious resignation, he pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the screen. “It’s Malik. I apparently missed some calls.”
    I did a quick calculation. “It’s nearly sunrise here, which means it’s already dawn there. He stayed up—past sunrise—to get you the message. You should take it.”
    He frowned, clearly torn by duty and desire. Since he’d normally have answered the phone immediately, I took that as a compliment.
    At least I could ease the agony of the choice. “Take the call,” I told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    He pointed at me. “This isn’t over,” he said, and answered the phone. This time, he didn’t switch it over to speakerphone. As a vampire—and a predator with keen senses—it wouldn’t have been difficult for me to ferret out their conversation. But I respected his decision and didn’t pry. Besides, as soon as the call was over, he’d probably tell me everything anyway.
    I grabbed pajamas and a toothbrush from my bag and disappeared into the small bathroom adjacent to the bedroom.
    I probably should have checked a mirror sooner. My dark bangs were matted together, and my high ponytail barely contained a mess of tangles. Dried blood dotted a now-healed scrape above my eyebrow, and dirt still streaked my cheeks. I looked worse for wear, and certainly not like the object of anyone’s desire.
    Towels and washcloths were folded on a small table on the other side of the room. I wet a cloth and scrubbed my face clean, then pulled the elastic from my hair and brushed it until it gleamed. The bathroom’s claw-foot tub had been fitted with a showerhead and wraparound curtain, and I quickly scoured away the rest of the grime from our trip into the Ditch That Ate Ethan’s Mercedes.
    When I was clean and pajama clad, I walked back into the bedroom, eager for another try at the reunion we’d begun before.
    But the second I stepped into the room, I knew it wasn’t meant to be. Ethan was still on the phone, and the needle sting of magic in the air foretold that Malik’s news hadn’t been good. He murmured quietly for a few more minutes, then put the phone away again.
    “Give me the bad news first,” I requested.
    “It seems Malik’s ‘fuck you’ to the receiver did not go over well.”
    Concerned that Cadogan House was causing problems in Chicago and beyond, the Greenwich Presidium had assigned a receiver, a piece of work named Franklin Cabot, to temporarily take over the House after Ethan’s death. He’d implemented awful rules during his blessedly brief tenure, including limits on our ability