Blade Bound (Chicagoland Vampires 13)

“Merit, you look lovely. And it was a lovely wedding. I hope your husband proves himself worthy.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” I said with a smile. I glanced around, didn’t see Tanya. “Where’s your lovely wife?”

He gestured across the room, where Tanya—slender and delicate, with brown hair and blue eyes—sat at a table with my grandfather. He was talking animatedly while she scribbled something on a small pad of paper, smiling as she wrote.

He smiled. “She’s borrowing your grandmother’s meat-loaf recipe.”

“Excellent choice,” I said with a nod. My grandmother had been a fantastic cook.

He pulled a hip flask from his coat pocket, offered it as Ethan joined us. “May I offer you a congratulatory drink, Kitten?”

Ethan’s smile looked pleasant, but there was steel behind it. “I’ll thank you not to call my wife ‘Kitten.’”

Gabriel grinned. “Wondered when you’d get around to saying that.”

“And now you know.”

“So I do.”

“Drink,” I requested, and took the flask from Gabe’s hand, sipped it suspiciously, and was pleasantly surprised. It was Scotch, or so I thought. Dark and oaky, but still as smooth as honey, and with the same citrusy sweetness.

I handed the flask to Ethan. He lifted his eyebrows but took a drink, and surprise crossed his face, too.

“Well,” he said, and took another. “It’s like . . . drinking sunshine.”

Gabe took back the flask, capped it. “This is a little something we’ve been working on.” His smile went sly. “We’re happy with the first results.”

Ethan slipped his hands into his pockets. “Are you looking for investors?”

That sly smile went positively wolfish. “Shifters in bed with vampires? That’s a dangerous game.”

“Too dangerous for the Apex of the North American Central Pack?”

“Didn’t you once say we were family?” I teased.

At the word “family,” a shadow crossed his face, and the dread in his eyes chilled my blood. I didn’t like seeing that emotion on Gabriel Keene, who was as fearless as they came.

“What is it?” Ethan asked.

Gabriel shook his head. “It’s your wedding.” He uncapped the flask he hadn’t yet put away, took a drink of his own before tucking it away.

“It’s our life,” Ethan said. “And our city. If you know something . . .”

Gabriel had prophesied Ethan and I would have a child—the first among vampires. Historically, three vampires had been conceived, but none were carried to term.

There’d been a caveat to our possible miracle: We’d have to face some unspecified test before it happened, and even the drama of the last year hadn’t filled that horrible quota.

Gabriel turned and looked at me, seemed nearly to look through me in that shifter way of his. “You need to be on your game.” He looked at Ethan. “Both of you.”

“Meaning?” Ethan asked, a thread of concern in his voice.

“Meaning . . .” He paused, seemed to grapple for words. “There’s something in the air. Something I don’t like. Something uncomfortable.”

The chill grew stronger, lifting goose bumps on my arms as I thought of my conversation with Mallory . . .

“What kind of something?” Ethan asked.

Gabriel just shook his head. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”