Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires, #12)(108)

The crowd of humans—thousands strong—who realized what he was doing roared with excitement. Cameras and cell phones began to flash around us.

“Holy shit!” I heard Mallory cry out somewhere behind us, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the warrior in front of me.

I put my free hand against my chest as if that would stop my throbbing heart from bursting through it. That didn’t stop the shaking of my fingers.

“You’re all right?” Ethan asked, glancing up at me with obvious amusement at my reaction. “I can stop if you’d like.”

I grinned at him. “No, you go ahead. I mean, you’re already down there.”

“Very well,” he said, and the crowd went silent as they strained to hear him.

“Caroline Evelyn Merit, you have changed my life completely. You’ve made it large and happier, and you have given me love and laughter. Perhaps most of all, you have reminded me what it means to be human. I’ve looked for four centuries to find you. I cannot fathom a world without you in it. Without your heart, and without your honor. Merit, my Sentinel and my love, will you marry me?”

He was stubborn and arrogant, domineering and imperious. He was brave and honorable, and he was mine. There was no one else. Had never really been anyone else, even before I knew he’d been waiting for me. And if I said yes, there would never be.

“Of course I will.”

The crowd erupted again with screams and hoots and applause as Ethan Sullivan, my former enemy, jumped to his feet and kissed me deeply, winding his hands into my hair.

“I love you,” he said, pulling back to gaze down at me. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I cleared my throat. “At the risk of asking an ungracious question . . . ,” I began, when he smiled down at me, and I smiled back.

“Don’t worry, Sentinel. There’s a ring. I just hadn’t anticipated there’d be a moment quite this perfect.” He let his gaze slip across the crowd that watched and cheered around us. “Or a location.”

Forever, he said silently, just for me. And for an eternity after that.

Forever, I agreed.





EPILOGUE




TROMPE L’OEIL


Green had been her signature color. Orange most definitely was not. But it was oh so satisfying to see Sorcha and Adrien Reed stripped of expensive clothes and jewelry.

Sorcha was now known as the “Chicago Witch,” and her treatment only slightly warmer than her ancestors’ treatment in Salem likely had been.

The raid of Reed’s office had been accidentally successful, at least after the fact. While there, a very nervous admin confessed to the CPD that Reed had moved computers and files into the Community Safety Center—the very outpost he’d created to coordinate public safety—only the week before. He’d probably thought no one would question files stored in a facility dedicated to the public welfare.

Once again, he’d underestimated us.

Nick Breckenridge had broken the story of Reed’s criminal involvement. The Reeds had been stripped of their friends, their positions, and the sycophantic devotion they believed they were entitled to. I’d grinned hugely at the photograph of the two of them in their ill-fitting jumpsuits, hair uncoiffed and Botox (or magic) fading, shuffling along with legs and hands chained together. Logan Hill had been behind them, looking decidedly unhappy about the turn of events.

The trio was now in the same prison that held Regan and Seth Tate and a handful of shifters. And since Seth was technically on our side, he promised they wouldn’t have access to magic for a very long time.

Robert was healing physically but had a long way to go emotionally. Rather than admitting he’d been played by the Reeds, he’d decided the story, the charges, the magic were part of a conspiracy. He was an intelligent man, and I had to hope he’d come around. But my father’s prejudices—which, ironically, he’d mostly grown out of—had infected Robert.

He’d refused to see me, had even declined to attend the dinner Ethan and I had had with my parents to celebrate my birthday. It hadn’t been the most relaxing evening—they were still my parents, after all—and Robert’s absence had been obvious. Elizabeth had come, made apologies, but the stiffness in her smile showed she also wasn’t quite sure of me, or of us.

Ethan said he had another surprise, so when we’d climbed back into his car after an evening with more “foams” and “mousses” than should ever have been together on a single plate, he demanded I wear a blindfold “so as not to spoil the surprise.”

The request was odd enough in itself, but the fact that he’d had one was rather intriguing. I was learning all sorts of things about my Masterly fiancé.

And I was still getting used to calling him that.

Ethan drove the car north; I could tell the direction from the scent of the lake to our right and the quiet of the dark water. The sounds of the city on our left extended only so far. But when we left Lake Shore and headed into the city, I lost my sense of direction. He turned enough times that I thought we might be going in circles, which seemed more surreptitious than necessary considering the fact that I couldn’t see at all.

“Could I at least get a hint?”

As if sensing he had me on the hook, he took a moment to answer. “I need to return something.”