YOU CAN'T TRUST A MAN WHO

EATS A HOT DOG WITH A FORK.

I clasped a hand over my mouth, stifling the gasp that rose in my throat.

But after glancing surreptitiously around the sitting room, I leaned in again and took another peek.

I saw him in profile. He was completely naked, blond hair tucked behind his ears. Amber was in front of him, crouched on her knees on his giant four-poster bed, her back to his front. Even in profile, it was easy to see that she was ecstatic - the part of her lips, her half-closed lids, the clench of her fingers told the story. Her hands were fisted in the khaki bedclothes, and but for the joggle of her breasts, she was otherwise still, apparently content to let Ethan do the work.

And work, he did. His legs were braced slightly more than shoulder length apart, the dimpled hollows at the sides of his buttocks clenching as he swiveled and pumped his hips against her body. His skin was golden, his body long, lean, and sculpted. I noted a script tattoo on the back of his right calf, but the rest of his form was pristine, his smooth golden skin gleaming with perspiration. One of his hands was at her right hip, the other splayed across her damp lower back, his gaze - intense, carnal, needy - on the rhythmic union of their bodies. He smoothed a hand along the valley at the small of her back, his tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip as he moved.

I stared at the pair of them, completely enthralled by the sight. I felt the wisp of arousal spark in my abdomen, a sensation as unwelcome as it was familiar.

He was magnificent.

Absently, I raised fingers to my lips, then froze at the realization that I was hiding in his sitting room, peeking through an open door, watching a man that a week ago I'd decided was my mortal enemy have sex. I was completely disturbed.

And I would have left, would have walked away with nothing more than a little mortification, had Ethan not chosen that moment to lean forward, to lower his body to hers, and to bite.

His teeth grazed the spot between her neck and shoulder, then pierced. His throat began to move convulsively, his hips still pumping - more fiercely, if that was possible -  now that he'd breached her throat. Two lines of red, of her blood, traced down the pale column of her neck.

Instinctively, I lifted a hand, touching the spot where I'd been bitten, the place where scars should have marred my throat. I'd experienced the bite, the self-interested violence of it, but this was different. This was vampire, being vampire. Truly vampire. The sex notwithstanding, this was feeding the way it was meant to be. Him and her, sharing the act, not just sipping from the plastic of a medical bag. I knew that, understood it on a genetic level. And that knowledge, witnessing the act of it, scenting it, so close - even when I wasn't hungry, certainly not for Amber's blood - woke the vampire. I quickly drew in breath, tried to force her down again, to keep myself calm.

But not fast enough.

Ethan suddenly raised his eyes, our gazes locking through the three-inch gap in the doors. His breath caught, his eyes flashing silver.

He must have seen the look of mortification that crossed my face, and his irises faded to green fast enough. But he didn't look away. Instead, he steadied himself with a hand at her hip and drank, his eyes on me.

I jumped away, put my back to the wall, but the move was pointless. He'd already seen me, and in that second before the silver faded, I'd seen the look in his eyes. There was a kind of hope there, that I'd had a different reason for appearing at his door, that I'd come to offer myself to him the way Amber had. But he hadn't seen offering in my eyes. And he hadn't planned on my embarrassment.

That was when his eyes had turned back to green, his hope replaced by something far, far colder. Tempered humiliation maybe, because I'd said no to him two days ago, because I hadn't sought him out tonight. Because I'd rejected a four-hundred-year-old Master vampire to whom most bowed, cowed, acquiesced. If he was disgruntled about wanting me in the first place, he was downright pissed about being rejected. That was what had flattened his eyes, pulled his pupils into tiny angry pricks of black. Who was I to say no to Ethan Sullivan?

Before I could comprise an answer to my own question, my head began to spin, and I was swamped with the sensation of being hurled down a tunnel. Then he was in my head.

To have rejected me so handily, you seem oddly curious now.

I cringed, and opted for acquiescence. Now was not the time to fight. I was coming by to talk to you, as you asked. I knocked. I didn't mean to intrude.

The room quieted, and Amber suddenly cried out, made a pouty moue of disappointment, maybe that he'd stopped thrusting.

Downstairs. An obvious order. When he said it, when that single word echoed through my head, I'd swear I heard it again, that tiny twinge of disappointment.

And suddenly I wanted to fix that. I wanted to heal that disappointment, to ease it. To comfort. That thought was as dangerous as any other I'd had, so I pushed away from the wall and crept back through the room. As I neared the door to the hallway, the rhythmic creak of the bed began again. I left Ethan's apartments and closed the door behind me.

I was in the foyer when he arrived. I'd taken a seat next to the fireplace - a larger version of the one in his apartments - and curled up with the copy of the Canon I'd stowed in my messenger bag. I flipped absently through its pages, working to wipe the images of him, the sound of him, from my mind.

At least, that was what I was trying to do.

He was back in black, skipping the suit coat for trousers and a white button-up, the top button undone to reveal the Cadogan medal around his neck. The front of his hair was pulled back in a tight band, the rest just hitting the top of his shoulders.

I dropped my gaze back to my book.

"Found something . . . productive to do?" His tone was unmistakably haughty.

"As you might have noticed," I said lightly, turning a page in the Canon despite the fact that I hadn't read the one before it, "my plans to talk to the boss didn't quite pan out."

I forced myself to look up at him, to offer him a smile, to play off what could easily become a profoundly embarrassing moment. Ethan didn't return the smile, but he seemed to incrementally relax. Maybe he'd expected a spectacle, a jealous rant. And maybe that wasn't so far-fetched as I might want to admit.

Beneath hooded lashes, he offered, "I believe I'm sated for the day, if you'd care to chat now."

I nodded.

"Good. Shall we discuss this upstairs?"

My head snapped up.

He smiled tightly. "A joke, Merit. I do have a sense of humor." But it hadn't sounded like a joke, still didn't sound like he was kidding.

Ethan offered his office, so I unfolded my legs and stood. We made it as far as the stairs, but stopped short when Catcher and Mallory walked through the front door. He held paper bags and what looked like a newspaper under one arm; she held a foam tray of paper cups.

I sniffed the air. Food. Meat, if my vampire instincts were correct.

"If you think that's true," Catcher was telling her, "then I've been giving you more credit than you deserve."

"Magic or no magic, you're a dillhole."

The handful of Cadogan vamps in the foyer, to a one, stopped to stare at the blue- haired woman who was swearing in their House. Catcher put his free hand at the small of her back.

"She's adjusting to her magic, folks. Just ignore her."

They chuckled and returned to their business, which I assumed was looking posh and very, very busy.

Catcher and Mallory walked toward us. "Vamps," he said in greeting.

I checked my watch, noted it was nearly four in the morning, and wondered why Mallory wasn't tucked into bed, presumably with her escort. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm taking a couple weeks off work. McGettrick owes me fourteen weeks of accumulated vacation. I figured I was due."

I looked at Catcher. "And you. Don't you have work to do?"

He gave me a sardonic glance and pushed the bags of food against my chest. "I am working," he said, then looked at Ethan. "I brought food. Let's chat."

Ethan looked dubiously at the paper bags. "Food?"

"Hot dogs." When Ethan didn't respond, Catcher cupped his hands together. "Frankfurters. Sausages. Meat tube, surrounded by a baked mass of carbohydrates. Stop me if this sounds familiar, Sullivan. You live in Chicago for Christ's sake."

"I'm familiar," Ethan said drily. "My office."

The bags were filled with Chicagoland's finest - foil-wrapped hot dogs in poppy seed buns, coated in relish and onions and hot peppers. I took a seat on the leather couch and bit in, closing my eyes in rapture. "If you weren't taken, I'd date you myself."

Mallory chuckled. "Which one of us were you talking to, hon?"

"I think she meant the dog," Catcher said, munching on a curly fry. "It's amazing she's as small as she is when she eats like that."

"Sick, isn't it? It's her metabolism. It has to be. She eats like a horse, and she never exercises. Well, she never used to exercise, but that was before she became Ninja Jane."

"You two are dating?" Across the room, where Ethan was pulling a plate from his bar cabinet, he froze and stared back at us, his face a little paler than usual.

I grinned down at my frank. "Don't choke on it, Sullivan. She's dating Catcher, not you."

"Yes, well . . . congratulations." He joined us on the couch, deposited a hot dog on a dinner plate of fine platinum-banded china. Frowning, he began sawing at it with a knife and fork, then carefully ate a chunk.

"Sullivan, just pick it up."

He glanced at me, spearing a chunk of hot dog with his fork. "My way is more genteel."

I took another gigantic bite, and told him between chews, "Your way is more tight ass."

"Your respect for me, Sentinel, is astounding."

I grinned at him. "I'd respect you more if you took a bite of that dog."

"You don't respect me any."

Not entirely true, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a correction. "Like I said, I'd respect you more. More than none."

I smiled and turned back to Mallory and Catcher, who, heads cocked, stared at both of us. "What?"

"Nothing," they simultaneously said.

Ethan finally acquiesced, picking up the dog and taking a bite, managing not to spill condiments on his fancy pants. He chewed contemplatively, then took another bite, then another.

"Better?"

He grunted, which I took as a sound of hedonistic fulfillment.

Without raising his gaze from the dog in his hands, Ethan asked, "I assume you have some reason for showing up on my doorstep two hours before dawn?"

Catcher dusted crumbs from his hands, picked up the newspaper he'd laid beside him, and unfolded it. The headline of the Sun-Times read: Second Girl Dead; Vamp Killer?

Beside me, Ethan muttered a curse.

"Question of the hour, Sullivan - why haven't you called the Houses together?"

I didn't have to see Ethan's expression to know how he'd react to the less-than-subtle challenge to his strategy. But he played along. "For what purpose?"

Catcher rolled his eyes and shifted back into the couch, looping his arms over the back of it. "Information, to start."

"Isn't that your job? Investigating?"

"My job is to ease tensions, and that's what I'm talking about - calming nerves." He tapped the newspaper. "Celina in a busty suit isn't enough to get past murder. People are nervous. The Mayor's nervous. Hell, even Scott's nervous. I went by Grey House earlier. Scott's up in arms. Pissed, and you know how much it takes to get him riled up. The boy's Teflon to politics, usually. But someone comes at his people, and he's ready to battle. Mark of a good leader," he allowed.

Ethan wiped his mouth with a napkin, then crumpled it and let it fall to the table. "I'm not in a position to take steps, preventive or otherwise. I don't have the political capital."

Catcher shook his head. "I'm not talking about your directing the show. I'm talking about getting the communities together - or at least the Houses. Everyone's talking, and we're hearing a lot of it. Questions are being asked, fingers being pointed. You need to step out there. You could gain some capital if you do." He shrugged, scratched at the arm that lay behind Mallory's shoulders. "I know it's not my decision, and you're probably using that handy little mental link to explain to our mutual vampire friend here" - he bobbed his head at me - "how I'm meddling into affairs that aren't my own. But you also know that I wouldn't come to you with this if I didn't think it was important."

The room was quiet, mentally and otherwise, Catcher having been a little overenthusiastic about Ethan's willingness to confide in me.

Then he nodded. "I know. I take it you don't have any information other than this?"

Catcher swallowed a drink of soda, shook his head. "As far as facts go, you know what I know. As far as feelings go. . . ." He trailed off, but held out his right hand, palm up, and slowly uncurled his fingers. There was a sudden pulse through the air, that sudden vibrating thickness that, I was beginning to learn, indicated magic. And in the space above Catcher's hand, the air seemed to wave, like rising heat.

Ethan shifted beside me. "What do you know?" His voice was low, earnest, cautious.

Catcher, head cocked, eyes on his palm, was quiet for a long, heavy moment. "War is coming, Ethan Sullivan, House of Cadogan. The temporary peace, born of human neglect, is at an end. She is strong. She will come, she will rise, and she will break the bonds that have held the Night together."

I swallowed, kept my gaze on Catcher. This was Mallory's boyfriend in full fourth-grade sorcerer mode, offering a creepily formal prophecy about the state of the Houses. But creepy as it was, I kept my eyes on Catcher, and ignored the urge to shift my head and look at Ethan, whose weighty stare I could feel.

"War will come. She will bring it. They will join her. Prepare to fight."

Catcher shuddered, curled his fingers back into a fist. The magic dissipated in a warm breeze, leaving the four of us blinking at each other.

A knock sounded at the door. "Liege? Everything okay? We felt magic."

"It's fine," Ethan called out. "We're fine." But when I looked over, his gaze was on me, penetrating in its intensity, and I knew - even without his voice in my head - what he was thinking: I was an unknown threat, and I might be the "she" in Catcher's prophecy. It was another mark against me, the possibility that I was the woman who would bring war to the vampires, risk the possibility of another Clearing.

I sighed and looked away. Things had become so complicated.

Catcher shook his head like a dog shaking off water, then ran a hand over his head. "That was vaguely nauseating, but at least I didn't do iambic pentameter this time."

"And no rhyming," Mallory put in, "which is an improvement."

I lifted a brow at that revelation, wondering how and when Mallory'd had a chance to see Catcher prophesizing. On the other hand, God only knew went on behind that bedroom door.

As if still recovering from the intensity of the experience, Catcher picked up a cup of soda, stripped off the plastic lid and straw, and drank deeply, his throat swallowing convulsively until he'd drained it. Magic looked to be tough work, and I was glad - even if being a vampire was still an emotional and physical ordeal - that I wasn't dealing with the weight of some kind of unseen universal power.

When he'd finished drinking, he sat back, then put a hand on Mallory's knee. He slid a glance to me, then looked at Ethan. "By the way, she's not the one."

"I know," he said, not even pausing to reflect. That drew a look from me, which he didn't meet. I opened my mouth to ask questions - How do you know? Why don't you think I'm the one? - but Catcher jumped in first.

"And speaking of prophesying, I hear Gabe's heading back, and sooner than we thought."

Ethan's head snapped up, so I could guess the import of that little revelation. "How reliable?"

"Reliable enough." Catcher looked at me. "You remember, this is the head of the North American Central - Jeff's pack." I nodded my understanding. "He's got people in Chicago, and he's got the convention coming up. He wants to assure himself that things are safe and secure before he brings in the pack. And I've heard Tonya's pregnant, so he'll want her and the kid safe."

"If things aren't safe," Ethan clipped out, "it's none of my doing."

Catcher's tone softened. "I realize that. But things are coming to a head. And if he wants assurances, he'll get them, or he'll skip Chicago altogether and order the pack to Aurora."

"Aurora?" I asked.

"Alaska," Catcher said. "Home base for the North American packs. They'll disappear into the wilderness and leave the vamps to fight it out alone. Again."

Ethan sat back, seemed to consider the threat, then slid me a glance. "Thoughts?"

I opened my mouth, closed it again. The master of strategy apparently wanted another bit of "canny analysis." I wasn't sure I could produce brilliant supernatural strategy off the top of my head. But I gave it a try, opting to stick with common sense, which seemed to be in notoriously short supply in the supernatural communities.

"There's little to be lost in getting people together, talking things out," I said. "Humans already know about us. If we can't work together, if we fight one another, it sets the stage for problems down the road. If worse comes to worst, and the tide turns, we'll want friends to turn to. We'll at least want honest conversation, open communication."

Ethan nodded.

"Why would it take capital for you to call the Houses together?" I asked. "What did you do to make them not trust you?"

Ethan and Catcher shared a look. "History," Catcher finally said, tearing his eyes from Ethan and leveling that green-eyed gaze on me. "It's always history."

The answer was unsatisfying, but I nodded, guessing it was the best I was going to get today.

Catcher leaned forward again, grabbed a handful of curly fries. "Well, something to think about. You'll call if you need support." The last wasn't a question, or a suggestion, more a prediction of how Ethan would act. They were definitely friends of a sort, Ethan and Catcher, although God only knew what weird history had brought these two - rebellious magical bad boy and neurotic, obsessively political vampire - together. Probably a good story, I decided.

"How was the Commendation?" Catcher asked, then leveled an amused glance at me. "Any surprises?"

"I did nothing," I said, grabbing an uneaten pickle from the flat of fries in front of Ethan.

"She wreaked havoc." A smile tipped one corner of Ethan's mouth.

I grinned at Mallory. "He's just jealous that I can withstand his call."

"I have no idea what that means," she said, grinning back, "but I'm thrilled to hear it."

"Can she?" Catcher asked Ethan.

"She can."

"And you named her Sentinel."

Ethan nodded. "On the expectation that you'll continue to work with her, to prepare her for that duty. You do have the expertise, after all. Your . . . unique brand of instruction would be invaluable."

Catcher paused for a moment, then nodded. "I'll work with her. Teach her. For now." He shifted his gaze to Ethan. "And that instruction will fulfill the debt I owe."

The debt he owed? There was definitely a good story there.

Another pause while Ethan considered Catcher's offer. "Agreed." He folded his arms over his chest, and slid me a dubious glance. "We'll see if she can rise to the occasion, do what needs to be done."

I gave Mallory a pointed look. "We'll see if she can manage not to kill her Liege and Master, especially if he continues talking about her like she's not in the room."

She snickered.

"Yes," Ethan drily said. "Forget the Merit money. Clearly, her worth is in her superb sense of humor."

The room went silent, Mallory's brow knitting with obvious concern. Catcher nervously cleared his throat, balled up the foil from his hot dog. It was up to me, I guessed, to ease the tension that bringing my family into the mix had fostered.

I looked over at him, saw the sudden tightness around Ethan's eyes, realized he regretted saying what he probably, on first blush, thought was a compliment. And in a way, in a twisted, completely Sullivan-esque way, it was.

"That's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me," I told him, realizing when the words were out that I was only barely lying.

For a second, I got no reaction.

And then he smiled, kind of a quirky half smile that tipped up only the right corner of his mouth. Because of that smile, that goddamn human smile, I had to swallow down a burst of affection that nearly brought tears to my eyes. Instead, I looked away, and hated myself - for my inability to hate him despite the things he said, the things he did, the things he expected.

I wanted to beat my fists against the floor like a child in tantrum. Why couldn't I hate him? Why, in spite of the fact that I knew, as readily as I knew that I was sitting on the sofa in his office with my best friend and her boyfriend nearby, that my inability to hate him was going to bite me right on the ass one day?

That was going to be a very, very bad day, and I wasn't sure if I was better off for knowing that it was coming.

"Well," Catcher said, suddenly rising, his voice cutting through the strain that still thickened the air in the room, "we should get back to the house." He looked at me. "It'll be dawn soon. You need a ride?"

I rose and began stuffing empty food wrappers back into the paper bags. "I drove over. But I should get back, too. I'll walk you out." I looked at Ethan. "Assuming we're done?"

He bobbed his head. "I had wanted to touch base with you about the murder investigations, their impact on the House, but I suppose this discussion has negated the need for that." His voice softened. "It's late. You're dismissed."

"I'll ride with you," Mallory lightly said, her tone making clear that she had words planned.

"Well, then," Ethan said, standing with the rest of us. "Thank you for the meal." He reached out and offered Catcher his hand, and they shook over the table and the crumpled remains of our dinner.

"Sure," Catcher said. "A word with you before we head out?"

Ethan nodded, and Catcher pressed his lips to Mallory's forehead. "I'll see you at home."

"Sure thing," she said, her hand brushing his abdomen as she reached up to press her lips to his. The goodbyes complete, she turned to me, smiled, and offered her hand. "Let's let the boys clean up the rest of this mess, shall we?"

We did, leaving them on either side of the coffee table, napkins and paper cups and bags of trash between them. Her arm linked in mine, we left Cadogan House, walked quietly down the block to my car, and stayed quiet until we'd driven a block away.

"Merit, you've got a bad track record with guys."

"Don't start on me." I gripped the steering wheel a little harder. "I don't have a thing for Ethan."

"You've got a thing that's written all over your face. I thought this was just physical." She shook her head. "But whatever went on in there, that was more than physical, more than chemistry. He pushes some kind of button for you, and although he's doing a little better job of fighting it, I'd say you do the same for him."

"I don't like him."

"I understand that." She reached out, tapped a fingertip lightly against my temple. "But that's up here. That's logical. He's pulled you in. And it's not that I don't want to support you in whoever you've found. I'm a Buffy fan girl, I'm apparently a sorcerer, and I'm dating a former sorcerer . . . or whatever the hell he is. Regardless, I'm the last person who should give a lecture on weird relationships. But there's something. . . ."

"Inhuman about him?"

She clapped a hand against the dashboard. "Yes. Exactly. It's like he's not playing by the same rules at the rest of us."

"He's a vampire. I'm a vampire." Jesus, was I defending this? I was in a bad way.

"Yes, Mer, but you've been a vampire for, what, a week? He's been a vamp for nearly four hundred years. That's a freakin' plethora of weeks. You have to think it, I don't know, bleeds some of the human out of him."

I gnawed on my bottom lip, staring blankly at the passing houses, the side streets. "I'm not in love with him. I'm not that stupid." I scratched absently at my head. "I don't know what it is."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, so fiercely that I thought for a second we were under attack. "I've got it."

Once I was sure she was fine, that there weren't bat-winged beasts descending on the car, I slapped her arm. "Damn, girl. Don't do that when I'm driving."

"Sorry," she said, swiveling in her seat, her face alight. "But I've got an idea - maybe it's the vampire thing - the fact that he made you? They say that's supposed to create a bond."

I considered that, decided to embrace it, and felt some of the tension leave my shoulders. "Yeah. Yeah. That could be it." It did explain the connection between us, and was much more emotionally satisfying than imagining I was falling for someone so utterly, completely wrong for me. Someone so embarrassed by his interest in me.

As we pulled into the drive, I gave the thought a final hearty nod. "Yeah," I told her. "That's it."

She looked at me, waited a beat, then nodded. "Okay."

"Okay."

"Good."

She grinned at me. "Good."

I grinned back at her. "Great."

"Great, fine, wonderful, Jesus, let's just get out of the car."

We did.