The Well of Truth

Kindred Blood, Book Two

Amber Riley

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Copyright © 2010 by Amber Riley

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-8764-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8766-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8765-4 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 01/11/2011

For Kathy and Mark
The best aunt and uncle a girl could ask for

“Deep is the well of truth and long does it take to know what has fallen into its depths.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 1

No one knows what happens to a vampire when it dies. Maybe it goes to hell, or maybe it gets stuck in purgatory. Maybe it doesn’t go anywhere and that would be the end. Nothingness. I think that would be the worst. The complete and utter lack of existence frightened me the most.

That explained why the armrests on the Vatican’s private jet had permanent dents in the shape of hands. My hands. It was the reason my lungs hurt from holding my breath for the last eight hours while we fought against severe turbulence thousands of feet above ground, and the reason why my eyes were pressed shut so hard that I was giving myself a headache.

It was my first plane ride, and I was 99 percent sure it was my last. The wind had knocked the jet around like a small child’s toy. I was certain that at any moment we were going to go hurdling back to the earth and end up in a fiery explosion. I wasn’t sure if vampires survived plane crashes. The pressure of impact, balls of fire … I, for one, never wanted to find out.

If I had never allowed the Iustitia to talk me into going to Italy in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to worry about it. The Iustitia, the Pope’s army of vampire hunters, were bred and raised for hundreds of years, with the sole purpose of eliminating our existence. They were extremely good at what they did, which made me wonder why they needed our help at all.

Rome was off-limits to vampires. Nothing undead had stepped foot in the city for centuries. Until now. Apparently, they had become so overrun that even the famous Iustitia couldn’t handle the cleanup. I would have liked to have met the idiot who thought seeking help from four of the oldest vampires was a good idea. I may have become a traitor over 150 years ago when I ran from the master vampire, Phoenix, but I didn’t want to stick my nose in problems that weren’t directly mine.

But, I was. I blamed my conscience.

“Kaden, you can open your eyes now,” a low voice whispered.

I pried them open carefully to reveal a blurry figure across from me. Sullivan, my oldest friend, came into focus after a few blinks. He was wearing a ribbed turtleneck, and his shoulder-length brown hair was pulled back with a rubber band. The pupils in his gray eyes were dilated with stress. We had been through a lot together since I was turned over six centuries ago, but nothing quite like what we were getting ourselves into this time. Vampires working with vampire hunters—who worked for the Catholic church—was as bizarre as it sounded.

I turned my head, chancing a look out the window to make sure we had really made it safely onto solid ground. I met my reflection in the Plexiglas. My black hair was falling forward, skimming my pale forehead and tickling my lashes. My light blue eyes were dull with concern, and my nostrils were flared with fear. It wasn’t my most masculine moment.

I blinked, looking past my own face. We were sitting on the runway of the airport in Rome. Large drops of water pounded against the aluminum around us, leaving a cold, wet feeling in the air. I pulled in as much as my lungs could hold and released it slowly, looking about the cabin for the first time. Everything was beige, from the seats to the walls to the small tables. The only color came from the red light strips on the floor.

Max, our own personal Iustitia travel guide, was sitting next to Sullivan. He was holding his stomach with both hands, dark eyes strained, taking shallow breaths through his mouth. He looked completely different in a suit and tie than he did in street clothes. The boyish charm he carried when he was pretending to be a bartender at my club in Manhattan was gone, along with his fake Southern accent. Now he looked like a mature adult with closely buzzed black hair and designer clothes.

“What?” he asked when he caught me staring at him. “I get motion sickness.”

He seemed to have found a voice, and a personality, after we agreed to return to Rome with him. It was much better than the silent version that took off running whenever I appeared. He even came by my house every night for two weeks until the travel plans were set, but I credited that to the notion we might change our minds. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

“I didn’t say a word,” I murmured, brushing the tips of my dark hair from my eyes.

Max stared at me like he wanted to say something more, but thought better of the idea. “We’re here,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

“No kidding. What gave you that idea?” Flo shouted right back. “Stu, I swear if you do that one more time I’m going to cut your hands off myself.”

Stu’s soft chuckle was barely audible above the sound of the jet engines. The two of them had been bickering since we boarded. It wasn’t any different than usual—they were constantly at each other’s throats. They were like a pair of dysfunctional siblings with fangs. Stu had gotten a kick out of instigating fights with her for hundreds of years, but we usually weren’t forced to listen to them.

“Sorry,” he insisted. His brown hair was spiked up tonight, but it suited him. He was adaptable to almost any type of character. I had seen him dressed as everything from a successful entrepreneur to a pimp. With honey eyes and a set of dimples, it was hard for people to resist him, no matter the role he played. “It was a fraudulent slip.”

“Fraudulent slip, my—”

“Okay, kids.” Reece stood up and stretched. He was wearing a bright green Mountain Dew shirt that complimented his light hair. A black microfiber pillow was wrapped around his neck. He used to look like the perfect college kid, but stress had put a strain on his face over the last few weeks. Werewolves weren’t immortal, but they aged at a fraction of the human rate. Even with everything that happened, he still didn’t look anywhere near his nine decades. “You woke me up a hundred times. Cool it,” he warned.

“Whoops.” Stu laughed again, louder this time, and there was a loud slap.

Flo bolted out of her seat and moved back a row to inhabit Reece’s now empty one. Her petite body only took up half of the cushion, and she scowled, looking like an angry doll with blonde hair down to her waist and big blue eyes.

“What?” she snapped at me as I craned my neck around. “I warned him.”

There was a loud grunt from beside her. Alex stood, ducking so his head didn’t hit the overhead compartment. His green eyes were bloodshot, and a ribbed design was imprinted in his tanned cheek from the sleeve of his sweater. He rested one elbow on the headrest and blinked slowly at Reece, his alpha wolf for the trip, who simply shrugged in response.

Sid, the true alpha, had stayed in New York to rebuild the werewolf pack. That left us with just the two of them to make sure we weren’t staked in the middle of the day. I hoped it was enough. Reece knew how to fight. Alex, on the other hand, was young. He wasn’t the most experienced warrior, but he was overly protective of Lyn. I could trust him with her.

How Lyn had managed to talk me into letting her come in the first place was still a mystery. I completely lacked justification for it. As if practically kidnapping her, feeding from her, almost getting her killed, and then making a failed attempt to erase her memory wasn’t enough. No. Now I was dragging her halfway around the world to a foreign country where even the Iustitia were having problems surviving the supernatural infestation. A regular human walking out onto the frontline was suicide. Or murder, and I was the responsible party. It depended on how you wanted to look at it.

She wrestled with the blue and gray book bag that she had shoved beneath her seat. It was caught on something, but she was too frazzled to make her fingers work. They shook and pulled weakly on the fabric. I reached over and grabbed the strap just above her hand.

She sat up, her long, brown hair falling in her face, and gave me a nervous laugh. Her perfect smile and wide brown eyes held me immobile for a moment. Then I remembered myself and unhooked the bag. I pulled it out, handing it to her. She took it from me by the top handle and gathered it into her arms, hugging it to her chest.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, her grip tightening. She wasn’t all right, but we had just spent hours trapped in a giant flying death trap. I would wait and see how she felt in the morning before taking it personally.

I took a deep breath and unhooked my seatbelt. Max was already making his way toward the exit. I knew we had to follow him, and that there was a strict time schedule to stick to, but I hesitated. The jet was the last thing separating us from forbidden territory. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

Reece walked by me, and then Alex, with his hood pulled up over his head. He glared sideways at me as he waited to go down the steps onto the runway, his eyes piercing into mine. He should have been over his issues with me for biting Lyn, and he might have been, if she wasn’t there. But, I would just have to learn to live with the dirty looks and snide remarks for now. He might not have been a forgiving man, but I was putting a lot of faith in him to keep her alive when I couldn’t.

“I think we’re supposed to go with them,” Sullivan said.

We continued to sit there in silence. It seemed like ages before they had the stairs lowered. The rain became louder and more vivid. The smell of wet pavement wafted into the jet, along with a hint of fuel and an irritating stickiness in the air.

“We’re going to bypass customs,” Max said, waiting at the door. “Just get into the limo waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and it will take us to the apartment.”

There was a long pause. He opened his mouth a few times like he wanted to add something else, but finally decided it was best to keep quiet. With a heavy sigh, he stepped aside and held his arm out toward the door. Reece disappeared into the storm first, but Alex lingered.

He tore his gaze from me and, in an instant, was smiling at Lyn like someone had flipped a switch. “Come on.”

Lyn looked to me and I held back a groan. Part of me knew she would prefer to go with Alex. She was still angry with me, and could hold a grudge better than anyone I knew, but one stipulation to her coming was to stay with me whenever she could.

Alex was just trying to play games with me. I had news for him. She wasn’t going out there without me. We didn’t know what was waiting for us. It was my responsibility to keep her alive, even if I sometimes had to temporarily hand that job over to him.

I got out of my seat, stretched my legs, and turned to grab my bag out of the overhead bin. The top of my head skimmed the ceiling. Stepping to the seat in front of us so Lyn had to follow me, I turned and waited for her to get up.

Flo was there, leaving just enough room for her to get out. She had a pink clip hanging out of her mouth while she finished lacing her hair together.

“Looks like you’ve got some competition,” Stu chuckled from behind her. He smiled and waved to Alex, knowing full well that he could hear everything. “Better watch out.”

I scowled at him and took Lyn’s book bag from her. Alex wasn’t competition. Not for me.

I waited until Lyn adjusted her sweater before grabbing her hand and leading her down the aisle. I smiled curtly at Alex. He huffed and stormed out of the exit before we could get to the door. I swung Lyn’s book bag onto my shoulder to free up my hand and pulled her hood over her head, giving the strings a little tug so it tightened around her face.

“Be careful not to slip on the steps,” Max told her.

The headlights of the limo shone through the rain and the wipers were flying across the windshield. The driver stood next to the open door at the rear of the vehicle with a giant umbrella. Lyn hurried down the steps with both hands on the railing. I followed right behind her.

My body was tense as I secretly waited for something to soar through the air and kill me. There was even a fleeting moment when I stepped off the last stair and onto Roman soil that I thought I might combust. It wasn’t until I climbed into the dry limo that I could take another breath. I was relieved to be in one piece, but I still couldn’t relax. From that moment until the moment I left, I would have to be on my toes. Even if the Iustitia were claiming to need us, they could change their minds at any second. Especially after we figured out their problem and we weren’t needed anymore. Or maybe the whole thing was a ruse to begin with.

I wiped the rain off my face with the sleeve of my charcoal jacket. Reece and Alex had already made themselves comfortable and were looking around. The ceiling was lit with white lights, and liquor was lined up on a shelf. The black leather seats were wet from where we had dripped rain onto them. Heat blew out from the vents at our feet, making my jeans feel warm against my skin.

“Don’t worry,” Stu told Flo, coming into the limo behind her. “The hair is pretty much a lost cause anyway.”

Her fist flew toward his face. He spun and sat down beside her, leaving her punch to land in the middle of Sullivan’s palm. He glanced at her nonchalantly and dropped her hand before taking the seat closest to the door. Max hustled in behind him, soaked.

The driver slammed the door shut, and I felt like it was shutting on something more important than the bad weather. It was closing me into something big. Something dangerous. Of course it was dangerous—we were going to be surrounded by enemies, both human and otherwise. Inside Vatican City, where nearly everything would burn our skin, we were going to be our most vulnerable.

It was going to be worth the risk if Phoenix was behind the sudden population boom. I couldn’t wrap my head around the master vampire letting a city be terrorized, and Rome, the only city off-limits by our laws, in particular. It would be a disaster if the humans found out vampires really existed. The Enforcement Team should have been sent ages ago to clean up the mess. That was their job. If the secret of our existence was threatened, they had to erase the problem. As it was, though, Phoenix was letting it all slide.

If nothing else was strange about the situation, that was. He had to be the one behind it. I didn’t know what he was after. Maybe he was trying to wage another religious war or make a play for power. I had no idea, but we were going to find out.

The limo pulled into a small alley and stopped. Buildings rose up on both sides of us, with shrubs planted near almost every door. Someone had forgotten their laundry was on the line. Different colored towels were swinging around violently in the wind.

Max pulled a key ring from his pocket and hopped out of the limo before the driver could open the door for him. He mumbled something in Italian, and the man got back behind the wheel.

He hurried into one of the buildings and looked out at us. “Please come in,” he called.

We hadn’t needed an invitation. As an Iustitia member, Max should have known that, but like he had told us, he was new to the job. He had only gone through basic training before arriving in New York and was really going for his masters in art. If this was what they were sending into the field, I wasn’t surprised that they were falling like flies. Entrance boundaries should have been Vampire Hunting 101.

My eyes squinted against the sudden bright florescent lighting. The walls were made of dark wood and the floor taupe, stone-like tile. A large landscape hung on the wall across from the main entrance. A dark red mat was placed on the floor in front of a door, and another in front of the elevator.

“My sister-in-law owns this building,” Max said. “She’s letting you use the second-floor apartment as long as you don’t kill her other tenants.” He blushed a deep scarlet as he realized what he said.

“Then what exactly do you plan on feeding us?” Flo asked, running her hands over the front of her hair. “Don’t you dare tell me rats or other small mammals.”

“We took a page out of Kaden’s book,” he said, pushing the up button for the elevator.

The bagged blood would be fine for me. I was used to it. The others wouldn’t be so thrilled. The transition was hard to handle. I was still having problems readjusting after that one awful mistake with Lyn. And that wasn’t to mention how weak we would become. This wasn’t New York. We couldn’t afford to give anyone the upper hand. What the Iustitia didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, though. I would stick to the cold stuff. I was used to it, and, frankly, I was still too stubborn to give up on myself. The rest of them could find someone to feed on.

The fridge would have to be stocked up for the werewolves and Lyn. I was hoping they weren’t stupid enough to think Reece and Alex only ate raw meat. If there were hunks of cow, we would have a problem. Reece, I discovered, was rather fond of dried banana chips. Lyn ate a lot of cereal, and she seemed to like cheese sticks. Alex. Well, Alex could eat the hunks of meat for all I cared.

The elevator pinged opened, and Max ushered us inside. We had to cram together to fit. It was really only made to fit four people comfortably. The stairs would have been a better choice. I guess we were trying not to run into anyone, but I needed a lot more personal space. I was stuffed into a corner with Stu pressed against my left arm and Lyn in front of me.

If you never had something, you wouldn’t know what you were missing. But I knew how delicious her blood was. Her scent carried the promise of its sweet, metallic taste.

Somehow I had managed to maintain my control. Part of that was due to the distance I was trying to keep. That wasn’t easy either. Staying away was just as hard as being close, just for different reasons. I couldn’t help wanting to be next to her. I had been sleeping in my bathtub for the two last weeks while she took the bed. Separated by a door, it was close to being near enough. But, with her pressed against me, it was almost overwhelming. I had to hold my breath and stare up at the elevator ceiling.

I still had that gut feeling that if I didn’t have Lyn in my sight, she would disappear. Phoenix knew my weakness now. I might have been able to pull off my original plan, having them think that I had used her and then tossed her away, but the Marquis knew better. He was the vampire that handled torture for Phoenix. He reveled in making other vampires suffer. After failing to beat me in New York, he would settle for mentally and emotionally wounding me. The first words out of his mouth when he got back to Spain would have been that I was keeping a human. Although keeping her wasn’t the way I would put it. If a vampire keeps a human, it means that human is their main blood source, and no other vampire can feed from them without permission. It wasn’t like that between us. It only looked that way.

When the doors opened again, Max led the way down the bland, pale yellow hallway. We filed out like sardines to follow behind him. His keys jingled again before he stepped into an apartment. He disappeared into a bright white kitchen, talking to himself.

I sighed and exchanged a look with Sullivan. Max was probably trying his best, but his best wasn’t really good enough. I wouldn’t trust another Iustitia member, so he needed to learn quickly.

Flo reached out and rapped on the wall. Max stopped talking, turned around, and held up his hands in an obvious lack of understanding.

“This is public space,” Flo said, pointing to the worn hardwood floor. “That,” she pointed into the apartment, “is a private residence.”

“But, I …” he stammered.

Reece walked into the room and turned sideways to pass him in the narrow kitchen. He patted him on the shoulder and said, “Just invite them in already.”

Max scratched his head but told us we could go inside. Stu hurried in like a kid running into a candy store. “Where’s my room? Do we have to bunk together?”

“Yes,” Max said. “There are only three bedrooms, but the sofa pulls out into a bed.”

Stu’s eyes twinkled. “Flo, I’ll pick the best room for us.”

“In your dreams,” she grumbled.

I put a little pressure on Lyn’s back to make her go inside before me. The kitchen walls were made of thousands of little white tiles. The cupboards were wood, painted white, and the floor was white granite. The only color in the room was maroon sign hanging over the sink with an Italian verse scrolled in gold.

The granite floor continued into the small living room. A navy blue braided rug sat in front of a matching navy couch. A flat-screen TV hung on the wall across from it with bookshelves on either side. Two floor lamps were stuck in the far corners, and a heavy, light-proof curtain was pulled against the eight-foot window.

“Seven of us are supposed to live here?” Flo scoffed. “There’s barely room to move. There’s only one bathroom.”

Stu laughed. “All the better for me to stay close to you.”

“You’re not as amusing as you think you are,” she hissed. “You’ll be bunking with Sullivan.” Stu immediately started following her from bedroom to bedroom, trying to convince her to stay with him, despite getting an elbow to the stomach and stomp on the foot.

Reece pulled the blackout curtain back. It overlooked the alley where the limo still sat with its lights on. A small terrace with a white iron railing was on the other side of the glass. The building across from us was tan. Some of the tenants hadn’t bothered to pull the shades, and we could see them moving around in their apartments.

Max cleared his throat and pulled the curtain back across the window. “This used to be an Iustitia safe house. If you find anything … threatening, just ignore it. Try not to let anyone know you’re here.”

“What’s the plan?” Alex asked from the couch. His hood still pulled over his head. “There is a plan, right?”

Stu and Flo came out of one of the bedrooms to hear the answer. The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. We had been asking the same thing since we agreed to go. Maybe now that we were there, we could get an answer.

“The plan …” Max paused. “You have permission to do whatever it takes to stop whoever is behind this, so long as you don’t involve any humans.” His cell phone started beeping. “I’ve got to get going,” he said, looking at the caller ID. “I have a meeting with the heads of the families.” He squeezed past Lyn and myself. He set a key down on the counter and left the apartment without another word.

Reece flopped onto the couch next to Alex, and they started talking to each other in low voices. Stu had trailed after Flo again, and this time Sullivan was right behind them. The tiny apartment felt empty and cold, even though there were so many people crammed inside.

“Are you feeling any better?” I asked Lyn.

She nodded. Her color was back to normal. I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. My fingers lingered there, not wanting to break contact. I had to find the time to explain things more clearly to her. The hurt look in her eyes that night when she realized that we tried to erase her mind still lingered there. She hadn’t fully forgiven me. Not yet.

A high-pitched shriek filled the air. It came from outside. Reece flung open the curtain a second time. “Max is going to need some help,” he said in a shaky voice. “There’s like half a dozen vamps down there.”

“Stay here with Lyn,” I told the two wolves.

The rest of us bolted into the hallway and took the door with the picture of a stairwell. We ended up at back in the lobby, across from the elevator, and went back out into the storm.

The driver, or what was left of him, was strewn across the alley. The door had been torn from the vehicle and blood pooled in the cobbled street. They hadn’t used him for food, although they had sunk their fangs into his flesh. The poor man had to have seen it coming.

Max had a miniature, high-tech crossbow held out in front of him. Every shot he took missed. Silver-plated arrows imbedded themselves into the windshield and bounced off the walls of the tan building.

The vampires were leaping over them, laughing. The blood that had splattered their faces was now running down their necks with the rain and disappearing into the fabric of their shirts. They kept dodging arrow after arrow in a great display of acrobatics.

They were actually enjoying themselves until they saw us. We were real opponents. We weren’t human. We were the same, only much, much older and much, much stronger. They weren’t new vampires by any means. You could see their age in their movements, fluid and graceful. But there were very few as old as we were.

I grabbed an arrow from Max’s hand before he had a chance to load it, and drove it through the chest of the closest one. It pierced her heart and she vanished. Before the ashes could evaporate into the rain, the others had disappeared into the night.

I handed the arrow back to Max. “You’ll probably be needing this.”

“I guess you weren’t kidding,” Stu called from beside the limo. “Right off the bat, we’re left with a big gory mess.”

“We have people for that,” Max said, looking at the bits of human at our feet. He took the arrow from my hand and lowered his weapon.

“Hey.” Stu kicked at the driver’s side door lying on the street. “Where’s Sullivan?”

Chapter 2

Sullivan wasn’t behind me, nor to either side. As far as I knew, he had come down with us. He wouldn’t have stayed in the apartment to let us get rid of the vampires without him. I looked up at the window to our new apartment just to be sure. Reece still had the curtain pulled to the side, and I motioned for him to open it. He fumbled around with the latch for a moment before pulling the tall glass panel in.

“Is Sullivan with you?” I called.

His forehead wrinkled. “No, he went with you.”

“Max, get inside where it’s safe. Not in the lobby,” I specified. “Flo and Stu will take care of the mess.” I pointed to the mangled body. There wasn’t time to wait for Max’s people.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Where do you think?” I snapped. I wasn’t going to just go back inside and hope Sullivan was all right somewhere. He could take care of himself, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him fight on his own. He had always had my back, and being stronger didn’t always mean you can win a fight. The element of surprise, the location, sheer numbers—it all made a difference.

It didn’t take long before I realized that I should have gotten myself a map before we arrived in Rome. I was wandering around in a strange city with no idea where I was. Some people might think that vampires have some sort of internal GPS system or something along those lines, but we don’t. We can get just as lost as the average Joe Blow, leaving me with just my sense of direction to find our apartment again.

I was twice as lost trying to find where my oldest friend had managed to disappear to, assuming you can get lost when you don’t know where you’re going. I made my way through empty streets, hoping to see any sort of movement. I had no idea where I was, or where to look. I couldn’t hear much with the downpour, and I couldn’t see much either. There wasn’t much to look at, unless you were doing a bit of sightseeing or apartment hunting, but that was beside the point.

I hadn’t seen a single person, which could be contributed to the weather, but there weren’t any vehicles on the streets either. I was no expert, having never been in Rome, but that seemed strange. Maybe the all the murders had scared the locals into hiding.

It wouldn’t be the first time that happened. Over the centuries, vampires had been scaring humans the same way. It would be blamed on a curse, or a serial killer. In a few cases, it was attributed to witchcraft. It never lasted more than a few weeks. Just as the people got so frightened that they wouldn’t go out at night, the Enforcement Team was sent to end it. Times have changed, though. The people aren’t superstitious anymore.

I stopped in the middle of the road. It was a small street without any businesses except a tailor shop and a little café. The rain fell on me like little pellets, and my entire body was starting to tingle. I rubbed the water out of my eyes and sighed in defeat.

That moment was when reality hit—I mean, really hit. I was in Rome, Italy. I was breaking every rule in the book. I was going to get everyone killed, including myself. If someone were to ask me why, I wouldn’t have a good answer. Not unless you counted stubborn pride and foolishly listening to that little voice in the back of my head telling me to get revenge.

Revenge might have been the wrong word. It wasn’t that I wanted to kill Phoenix because he ruined my life. Not really, anyway. It would be nice if he were to be dusted, but I didn’t feel the need to do it myself. I just wanted him to leave me alone. Since that was never going to happen, I was going to stop him from doing anything else that would create chaos. If he wanted something from this city, I was going to make sure he never got it.

Easier said than done; I was aware of that.

“Kaden.” I jumped at the sudden appearance of Sullivan in front of me. His hair was matted to his head. “What are you doing?”

“I was looking for you,” I hissed. “Why else would I be out here? You shouldn’t just disappear without saying anything. Any number of things could have happened to you.”

He chuckled, his lips curling slightly at the corners. “I may have been out of touch with the world for while, but I’m still 130 years older than you are. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Maybe I didn’t under normal circumstances, but I wouldn’t underestimate our enemies there. “What are you doing out here anyway?” I asked.

“I followed them.” He pointed to one of the rooftops. “Come on.”

He jumped up onto the second floor terrace and turned around to see if I was following. I sighed and leapt up next to him. He led the way, going from the balcony of one floor to the next one above, until we reached the roof.

He went across the large cement tiles and laid down at the edge. I did the same. Below was a small, square patio leading up to a ground-floor apartment. There were three of the vampires that had run from the scene: two women and one man. They were arguing in low, mumbled voices.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” I asked. The rain was drowning them out, and I couldn’t understand a thing.

Sullivan shook his head. The sliding glass door flew open. The three vampires stopped fighting with each other and stood perfectly still. They faced the building with unwavering attention, and an overly muscular man came out to greet them. His face was creased in a deep frown. He looked over his shoulder and shouted something into the open door.

The man walked back inside, leaving the vampires to stand on the patio alone. They didn’t have to wait there long for someone to come out and speak with them. Only this time it wasn’t a man, but a vampire. A very recognizable vampire.

Abel had a metal eye patch over his right eye to cover the empty socket. It had been gouged out and the socket burned with holy water centuries ago in an attempt to calm his insanity. It hadn’t worked. Instead, royalty was forced to stay underground in Phoenix’s lair. For life. And for a vampire, that’s a very, very long time.

The vampire standing below us was definitely Abel. His brown hair was trimmed around his face, almost showcasing the patch. The light from the apartment gleamed on his porcelain skin.

“Impossible,” Sullivan whispered. “How did he get out?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” It wasn’t like Abel could just sneak up to the surface on his own. He was constantly guarded and would have needed a lot of help. Since he had obviously succeeded in escaping, he should have been tracked down a long time ago.

Abel stepped forward and grabbed one of the women by the shirt. She mumbled something, and he stepped back. His good eye darted around, surveying the windows and rooftops. I inched away from the ledge. I didn’t want him to see us. I preferred to get the lay of the land, and some idea of what was going on, first.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered, inching back as far as I could. I slid to the opposite edge of the building and dropped gracefully down to the sidewalk. Sullivan was right behind me, landing in the middle of a puddle.

“Tell me that you know the way back,” I said.

His coal gray eyes looked over at me awkwardly.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” I asked.

He plucked a piece of wet hair off his forehead and scrunched the muscles on one side of his face. “Unfortunately.”

Great. Just great. “I think it’s that way.”

He shrugged. “I was thinking it was the other way, actually.”

His guess was as good as mine. I walked in the direction he thought was right. If it was wrong, we wouldn’t be any more lost than we already were. As long as we got out of the general area, I could call Max and ask for directions.

“This is an amazing way to start out,” I grumbled as we put distance between ourselves and the vampires. I took my phone out of my pocket and tried to dial. There was no service. “Perfect.”

Sullivan took a deep breath. “There’s only an hour before dawn.”

“I know.”

We were going to be in serious trouble if we couldn’t find our way back in time. I wouldn’t have the first idea where to look for a good hiding place. If we survived to the next night, the first thing we were going to do was buy a map and memorize it.

“Are you worried about New York?” Sullivan asked.

I continued to move my cell phone through the air, seeing if I could find a signal while we walked. “You mean because Christopher wants to invade because Reece stole the Philadelphia wolves? Or, because Sid’s pack was cut in half? Or maybe because I had to leave Ennis in charge while we’re gone?”

“Any of it.” He paused. “All of it. How much do you really know about Ennis?”

“Not as much as I’d like to. He used to be a slave in Virginia and moved into my territory about a hundred years ago. He’s fair, though. He always listens to both sides before making any kind of decision. It was the best I could do under such short notice.” I paused. “He’ll do his best if the Philadelphia vamps do decide to make a move.”

“Are you trying to convince me of that, or yourself?”

I rubbed my face with my free hand. “I don’t know, and I’m not sure it really matters. I don’t know where home is anymore.”

A signal appeared on my phone, and I stopped. It disappeared as quickly as it came. There had to be a tower somewhere that the phone could bounce off. I would gladly pay the roaming charges. I shook the phone angrily and started waving it rapidly above my head.

Car tires squealed as they flew around the corner behind us. It was the first vehicle I had seen all night. We both turned to watch it speed forward. The black Lamborghini accelerated, with the passenger-side window rolled down. The woman in the seat tossed a bucket of water out at us.

Sullivan and I both leapt out of the way just in time for it to miss us. The car squealed to a stop and turned around. The driver slammed on the gas pedal and hurdled toward us again, this time, aiming a pistol at us.

I jumped toward the vehicle, landing right in front of it. The driver braked and swerved into the other lane. Whether they wanted me dead or not, it was a natural instinct to avoid hitting something.

I started after it to find out who they were but Sullivan grabbed my arm and pulled me between two buildings. “We need to fully understand who our enemies are before we fight them,” he whispered.

I was fine with killing someone that wanted to kill me. I didn’t need to understand them or their motives. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be good if we accidently killed someone that we shouldn’t. Max had already told us not to involve any humans.

“Holy water?” I asked, putting together why anyone would throw water at us in the middle of a downpour.

He shrugged. “Maybe it was a test to see if we were vampires or not.”

“You don’t think it’s the Iustitia, do you?”

“Who else would it be?” he asked.

I thought for a minute. “Maybe some vampire fanatics caught wind of the situation here and thought it would be fun to come do a little hunting of their own.”

Sullivan looked at me from the corner of his eye. “It’s possible, but look at the car they’re driving, and how young they are. I don’t think their daddy would pay for that kind of stupidity.”

After swerving, the car spun around a second time. We backed into the shadows and watched as they went slowly down the road, scanning for movement. I checked my cell again for a signal. I had two bars. I dialed Max before I could lose it.

“Where are you?” he asked frantically.

“Good question,” I hissed. “Somewhere between the apartment and the corner of Get-Me-the-Hell-out-of-Here.”

“Did you find Sullivan?”

“Yes.” The car drove by again. “And the local sharpshooters.”

“Sharpshooters?” he repeated.

“I need the address, Max. Now.” He rattled it off, and I hung up just as the Lamborghini made its way down the street one more time. We pressed ourselves against the building until it passed. I opened the GPS application on my phone and entered the information. It finished calculating directions just as the car disappeared around the corner.

The phone started spitting out the next turn we had to take, and I hung on every word.

Chapter 3

The GPS brought us right in front of our apartment building, telling us we had arrived at our destination. I shut the application, annoyed that it had taken us the long way through the city, and pushed the door into the lobby. We headed for the stairs just as an elderly couple came off the elevator. They were wearing raincoats, and there was an umbrella tucked under the man’s arm.

They smiled and nodded to us. The woman dug into her purse and handed Sullivan a small packet of tissues. He took them with a careful smile and a nod of thanks. A lot of good they were going to do; we were both completely soaked through. Our clothes were dripping like they had been taken out of the wash mid-cycle.

We exited the stairwell on the second floor, and our apartment door flew open. Flo came out into the hall and let out a deep breath. “Idiots. Taking off like that—did you want to give us all an ulcer?”

Stu’s head popped around the doorframe, and he held two towels out. I grabbed one and brushed past them to get inside. I dried my face and got whatever moisture I could out of my hair. We stood in the small kitchen with little pools of water forming at our feet.

“Max left?” I asked.

“A car came and got him just before you got here,” Stu told me. “Where were you guys?”

I wasn’t going to admit that we got lost. In fact, I wasn’t going to admit to anything at all. Lyn was standing in front of the flat screen. I squished through the apartment and took her hand. It was important that we talked, and Sullivan could let everyone know about Abel. It was irresponsible of me, I knew that. But I never wanted to be their leader. I wasn’t any good anymore. My head wasn’t in the right place; it hadn’t been since I abandoned my past.

I led Lyn toward the bedroom doors and waited for her to go into the one that she had chosen as her own. It was a plain room, something you would expect in a safe house, with only the bare necessities: a bed with a blue and gold comforter you could find in any motel, a white antiqued dresser, and a full-length mirror sitting in a corner. The walls were sage green and an old ceiling fan hung down in the middle of the room.

I turned my back to Lyn and started peeling off my sopping wet clothes. I didn’t turn away because I was shy. One tends to lose that over the centuries. The scars the Marquis had left me with after my punishment for trying to leave Phoenix were embarrassing. Three crosses were burned into my abdomen and lines where holy water had been repeatedly dripped marred my side. Even if she had seen them before, I wanted to hide them.

It wasn’t just that, though. I felt like I had to stick to more traditional rules with Lyn. We may have been sleeping in the same bed before the biting incident, but I hadn’t touched her. Not in that way.

“You can share the room with Flo,” I suggested. “Or the pull out with Alex, and Reece can sleep in here with me.”

“You don’t want me in here?” she asked softly.

She had been very quiet toward me since we tried to erase her memories. The first two days, she refused to speak to anyone except Alex, but she also refused to go home. On the third day, she cried. After that, she started to talk to me again, but it was different. It was obvious she was still mad, so I didn’t quite understand why she wanted to stick around.

“I do want you here,” I answered. She positioned herself onto the edge of the bed and faced the wall while I finished changing into dry clothes. I was thankful that someone had thought enough to bring my luggage into the room for me, but was unsure how I felt about the assumption. I zipped my suitcase shut, planning to unpack another night, and went to sit next to Lyn wearing gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt. “I think there are some things we need to talk about.”

She blushed, pools of blood rushing into her cheeks. “I … ” she started, but fell silent.

I had never been good at this type of thing, not even as a human. It was hard to say what you really felt. It made people vulnerable to wear their hearts on their sleeves, but I couldn’t very well go on with things the way they were. It was driving me insane.

“About what Sullivan did—I asked him to erase your memories. Don’t blame him for any of it,” I began.

“I don’t,” she interrupted.

A sharp pang hit my chest. I took a deep breath and continued on. “If your uncle hadn’t damaged my pride by implying I would kill you, then I never would have met you. I should have been smarter than to let his comments get to me. You never would have been through all of this, and you could have lived a long, normal life. It’s my fault it was taken away. I just wanted to give that back to you.”

Her eyes shot up to mine, holding back tears. Pain was etched into every crevice of her face. “You should have asked me if I wanted it back instead of assuming that I did.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “Some things are more important than a normal life.”

“You seemed so okay with everything, and so suddenly … ”

The door squeaked open, and Alex stood there with his arms folded. An angry look filled his eyes. “That’s because of me. I went inside to get some things that night when Sid got back to New York after the bus explosion. You were outside talking to Francesca about whether or not she was going to drag you back to Spain. I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

“Is it impossible to have a private conversation?” I asked, getting up to shut the door. “Get out of here,” I growled and slammed it in his face. I went back to the bed and sat down. “Is it true?” I asked Lyn, reigning in my temper.

She nodded. “He made me promise not to say anything.”

My stomach tightened. What could he possibly have said? And why didn’t he want me to know? I wouldn’t have been upset. I would have been thankful to him.

“What did he say to you?” I asked, teetering on nervous.

She shrugged. “He just explained some things to me.”

What was there to explain that I hadn’t already?

I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to press her too much. It didn’t matter what made her all right with me before. It only mattered that I screwed it up and didn’t know how to make it better.

“None of the things he said carry over to our situation now?” I ventured. “Not a single thing?”

“I think it goes against everything he said that night.” Her forehead wrinkled as she thought for a minute. “But what I don’t understand is why you spent all that time trying to save me if you were just going to forget about me as soon as it was over. Why didn’t you just let them kill me if you wanted to get rid of me so badly?”

She had completely misread what I told her. I explained to her the reasons why I did it at least a dozen times. She just wasn’t listening.

“Lyn, you’re still misunderstanding. It was for your own good to forget us, not the other way around. I was never intending to forget you. I wanted to know you were alive and well.”

“Alive and well somewhere else,” she butted in.

I took a deep breath and held it. It was almost like she was trying to punish me on purpose. “Lyn,” I said through my teeth. “You’re not listening to what I’m telling you.”

“I am listening.” She hopped to her feet and started to walk back and forth in front of me. “I’ve heard every word. You did it for my own good, so I could have a normal life, and not get killed. That pretty much sums up what you’ve been saying. But if it was such a pain to protect me, then why did you bother doing it at all? You could have just let Francesca get me when she went to New York to bring you back home. I mean, what am I to you that you’d even bother in the first place?”

I grabbed her right wrist as she passed in front of me, flinging her hands in the air. “You’re … to me … ” I didn’t know what to tell her. I didn’t know what to tell myself. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I made a promise that nothing would.”

“All of that just because you told my uncle that I’d be safe with you?”

“No,” I answered almost too quickly.

“Why do you care?” she demanded.

“I care quite a bit actually,” I said, meeting her big, brown eyes.

“Why?” she whispered, some of her anger fizzling out.

I didn’t have an answer for that. I was still completely convinced that vampires couldn’t have those types of human emotions. So instead of saying anything, I pulled her to me. My hand found its way to the back of her head, my fingers weaving into her soft hair, and I kissed her.

She held her breath, and her whole body stiffened. She didn’t try to pull away from me, but she hardly moved her lips to match mine. When I pulled away from her, I opened my eyes and stared. She was an inch from my face, searching for something.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said.

Neither did I.

“Please stop holding what happened against me,” I begged, my voice a hoarse whisper. “I can’t stand having you mad at me. I really did think I was doing the right thing, but I promise not to do anything like it again without your permission.”

“Do you keep your promises?” she asked, still right in front of me.

“Yes,” I paused. “If I can.”

“And if you can’t?”

There was a twisting sensation in my chest. I didn’t want to imagine breaking this promise. It felt like too much of a betrayal with her. I had hurt her enough already. There was no reason to pour salt into an open wound. If it didn’t work then, it wouldn’t work a second time. I couldn’t do it to her. Not when I knew she didn’t want it.

“I won’t break my word,” I swore. “Not with you. Never with you.”

This time Lyn leaned in and, for the first time, she kissed me. It was a gentle kiss, only lingering for a moment. Heat sparked from her lips to mine. The sensation was soft and delicate, just like the rest of her. It left behind a sweet aftertaste on my lips and a desire for more.

I fought not to pull her back in for a longer one. It wasn’t like me to act like that, and I didn’t want to press my luck. I wasn’t supposed to want to touch her, or to be that close. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right. I wasn’t right. But at that moment I found it very hard to care about right and wrong. I saw only gray areas where it should have been black and white.

“We were worried about you,” she said, sitting back down beside me. “Your phone went right to voicemail, and no one knew where you went. Daylight was right around the corner … ” she trailed off.

“I know.” I pressed my lips together and nodded. “There was no reception, but I needed to find Sullivan.”

She nodded, suppressing a sniffle.

“I’m sorry,” I said in low voice, being careful to stay in my own space and not touch her.

“At least you found him, and you’re both alright.”

I nodded again. “He had everything under control. He didn’t need me to help him.”

“Well …” She shrugged. “It’s better to know your friends are there, even if you don’t need them to be. My roommates haven’t even tried to call since I saw them at the Amaryllis.”

The last time either of us saw them, Stu had hypnotized them into leaving my club without her. If we ever made it back to the city, I would have to ask exactly what he told them to do. Sometimes the commands got a little tricky.

I put a hand on her thigh, right above the knee. Just that little bit of contact sent waves of relief through me. “I’m sure they’re worried about you. Maybe you should try getting in touch with them.”

She looked at me from under her eyelashes and shook her head. “They’re probably mad that I took off without telling them. If I called now it would only make things worse. It’s better to let them cool off.”

Flo shouted something undistinguishable from the living room. It was safe to say that Sullivan had broken the news to everyone. I smiled at Lyn in a failed attempt to keep her from worrying.

“Did you find something tonight?” she asked, staring at the door.

“Nothing solid.”

It wasn’t a complete lie.

Chapter 4

“So,” Flo started while perched on the small kitchen counter. “Abel? I wasn’t expecting that.”

I nodded. No one had seen that coming.

Flo seemed to have calmed down after a good night’s sleep. That was good. I didn’t have the patience everyone else had in dealing with her. Something told me she hadn’t gotten it completely out of her system, though. Her index fingers were rapping against the edge of the countertop. The ring she was wearing kept tapping against the tile.

I reached for my finger, half expecting my own ring to be there. It wasn’t, of course. I had left the sapphire in the top drawer of Lyn’s desk so she would always have a piece of me with her. It was the last thing I had from my human life. I had just gotten it back after losing it when I escaped Phoenix, and now it was gone again.

“Are we not going to do something about it?” she asked with a hard edge to her voice. “If he’s running around Rome killing people, don’t you think it’s a job for the Enforcement Team?”

“Don’t you think that this whole situation is a job for them? If they were going to do anything, they would have done it by now,” I countered.

“Abel is supposed to be locked up for the rest of his life. How is he out?” she yelled. “We should make an anonymous call or something.”

“Shh.” Stu waved his hands in front of her face, his hair slicked back from his face. “The neighbors.”

She pushed his hands away and waited for me to respond.

“To who?” I gritted my teeth. “Phoenix?”

“Why not?” she growled.

I blinked the surprise from my face. Flo was probably the only one in the room that thought calling Phoenix was a good idea, and I was sure even deep down she knew it wasn’t. Phoenix would have known that Abel was out long before now, but he didn’t know we were in Rome. I wanted to keep it that way.

“He’s probably in on it,” Stu said matter-of-factly.

“All right, all right.” I put my hands up and made my way to the pull-out sofa. “We all know contacting Phoenix isn’t an option.” I glared hard at Flo, making sure she got the message. She folded her arms and leaned into the cupboards.

“Great,” Alex said sarcastically. “Then go with plan B and get off my bed.”

Reece cleared his throat from beside me. Alex was bottom of the two-man totem pole in both age and experience. It was good to know that Reece was going to keep him in line.

“What about the car?” Stu asked. “Should we tell Max?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” Lyn asked. She was standing next to Alex in her pajamas. “He’s on our side, isn’t he?”

“Our side?” Flo snapped. “Did I not get that memo? When did you become part of the team?”

“Flo,” Stu whispered urgently.

“No,” she spat. “I want to know. Did Kaden bite you again and then give you his blood? Because you seem pretty human to me.”

I shot off the sofa and grabbed her by the throat. My fingers dug into her skin and I squeezed until she wasn’t able to breathe anymore.

“One more word,” I warned. “I dare you.”

A low hiss escaped her mouth, and I tightened my grip. Her blue eyes narrowed in anger, and she grabbed onto my wrist.

I leaned in until I was directly in her face. “No one is going to touch her. She’s never going to become a vampire. Do you understand?”

“Kaden,” Sullivan called softly. “We’re all a little stressed right now. Calm down. Take a breath.”

I let go of Flo, and her head bobbed back into the cabinet. Everyone was standing as still as a statue, waiting to see what I was going to do. The silence was deafening. Alex caught my eye and nodded once.

At least someone approves.

Lyn’s hands were over her mouth. She was bright red and wide-eyed. I walked over to her and traced the outline of her face with my fingers. I left my fingertips where her jaw met her neck. Her pulse throbbed beneath them, calling to me. We hadn’t had any blood since we left New York. Max said they were going to supply us with bagged blood, but I hadn’t seen any in the apartment. We were going to have to hunt tonight. We didn’t have a choice.

I hurried back into the bedroom to grab a zip-up sweater. My T-shirt would have been fine, but it didn’t have a hood. It wouldn’t do much against the rain, but it was better than nothing. The weather wasn’t like it had been the night before, but there were a few drops with the possibility of more on the way.

I paused on my way to the kitchen and turned my back to everyone. I took Lyn’s hands and pulled them down from her face. She was flushed, either from shock that I attacked Flo or from embarrassment of being called an outsider. The outcome of this trip affected her too. She was a part of things, however small a role she had in it.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

“So hungry,” Stu whined from the door.

I looked over my shoulder. He was bent dramatically onto the counter with his head on the small tiles. Flo was still sitting in the same place, gathering her blond hair up into a high ponytail. Stu’s hand reached weakly toward her thigh.

“Do you want to die?” she asked him quietly.

I turned back to Lyn. “We need to go. Reece and Alex will be here, but if you need anything, call me.”

She nodded. I gave her hands a little squeeze and followed everyone out the door. It had been a long time since I had been on the hunt. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was nervous.

It had to be like riding a bicycle. Right?

But what if I never wanted to get off the bike again?

If I was going to be completely honest with myself, I needed it. In this city, with Abel and whoever else, I couldn’t afford to be weak, but it felt like I was slowly slipping away. If I did this tonight, purposely fed, I was losing more than I would gain. I could feel the disappointment settling in the pit of my stomach. This wasn’t what I wanted. It was one step away from who I wanted to be and one step closer to what I used to be. I had broken the promise to myself when I fed on Lyn, but it didn’t mean I wanted to forgo my diet. Everyone falls off the wagon once or twice in their life.

But I also didn’t want to attack Lyn again. If I didn’t feed, the pain would become unbearable. Staying in that tiny apartment with her, sleeping beside her, I would bite her again if I wasn’t careful—Especially if she tried to pull what she did in New York and offer up her neck. I didn’t have endless self-control. It left me with a choice between two evils. Too much of my life was like that.

“I hear something over there,” Stu said. A soft rustling came from the shadows, followed shortly by a little ball of orange fur. Stu let out a sigh and hung his head. “A cat? Where are all of the people?”

“You can think of it as an appetizer,” Flo said sarcastically.

He smirked and hurried to catch up to her as she rounded the corner ahead. We were keeping track of our bearings now. After every turn, I noted the direction that would take us back to the apartment building, but it wasn’t without noticing the wonder of a foreign city.

It had been so long since I had been somewhere new, and yet these buildings were older than I was. Not all of them, of course. We had made our way into what would have been a busy area during the day. Clean, neat buildings rose up on each side of the street, wires hung overhead, and street lights changed from red to green with no cars to care.

One of the oldest buildings in Rome towered before of us: the Coliseum. I slowed to a stop, along with everyone else. It was something none of us expected to see in person.

“Wow,” Stu breathed. “It’s as amazing as I thought it would be. Let’s go inside and check it out.”

“I thought you were starving,” Flo grumbled.

I walked up to the exterior and touched the cool stone. There was so much that had happened behind these walls. So many people had died there. I felt a strange kinship with it, even if it was just an old, weathered building. We were both cold, both built for death. We had probably seen an equal number of killings in our time. We both had a history, this structure and I—a history rich in blood.

“Kaden,” Sullivan called from the street.

When I looked over, he bobbed his head to motion behind him. A black car was parked on the side of the road about three blocks away. The engine was idling, but no one was inside. We exchanged looks with each other and started toward it.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Stu asked. “What if it’s the same one that tried to kill you last night?”

“It is the same one,” Sullivan said, forgoing his desire to learn who the enemy was before engaging it. There was only one way to find out who was driving the vehicle if we weren’t going to ask Max.

Flo came up beside me and shrugged. “What’s a bullet or two?”

“It’ll ruin your shirt.” Stu smiled.

She raised a well-manicured eyebrow and scowled, but kept an even pace beside us. We walked slowly, scanning the area around the car for where the owners might have been. There was no one.

Stu stopped a block away and smelled the air. “I think someone’s afraid of us.”

“I don’t think it’s us,” Flo said from behind me. She pointed at the roof of one of the buildings. A vampire stood on the edge, looking down at us with curious eyes. She giggled after realizing we saw her and took off in the opposite direction.

Two men came flying out of the alley at a dead run. One was screaming “Sbrigati!” The other one was hurt. I could smell the iron from his blood and saw the limp in his stride.

My jaw started to ache. Focus, I told myself.

They climbed into the parked car without noticing us and slammed it into gear, leaving half of their tires on the street. We moved onto a partition in the road so we wouldn’t be hit, but the driver aimed the car directly at us. We jumped out of the way just in time and the body of the Lamborghini scraped against the concrete curb. They fishtailed before flying around the corner.

“Flo, Stu, find that vampire,” I called, racing after the car. That was the second time it had tried to kill me, and I didn’t appreciate it. They weren’t vampires, and we hadn’t been there long enough to make enemies with any humans. We were going to find out who they were—and, depending, finish them off.

Sullivan followed me around the same corner where the car turned. Black marks lined the street from their sharp turns. It was fast, but not fast enough. It hadn’t got far when we caught up to the taillights. The man in the passenger seat rolled his window down and started shooting at me. I dodged the bullets that hurdled toward my chest with an alarmingly accurate aim. The man disappeared into the car to reload the gun when the driver slammed on the brakes and made a sharp right-hand turn, leaving more rubber in their wake.

The giggling vampire darted out in front of the car, causing it to swerve all over the road, almost hitting a streetlight. The front tire jumped the ridge onto the sidewalk. Flo and Stu were right behind the girl. They dodged the back end of the vehicle and disappeared again. They should have been able to catch the girl by now. She was no faster than they were.

I pulled my attention back to the car. They could handle themselves. I had to worry about the two men jumping out of their incredibly expensive automobile with an arsenal. They were both wearing jeans, multiple silver crosses hung around their necks, and the driver had on a brown leather jacket. They already had a gun drawn in each hand, with spares stuck into shoulder holsters, before their feet hit the ground.

Bullets started flying through the air, aimed directly at us. Sullivan grabbed me by the back of my shirt and pulled me behind the safety of a corner restaurant. “Did you see their license plate?” he asked. “They’re Iustitia.”

“They can’t be.” I ducked my head out to look and cringed, moving back behind the wall as a bullet imbedded itself into the building. “They wouldn’t be shooting at us if they were.”

“They’re not regular bullets,” he said. He was clutching his arm. One had grazed his forearm, and it wasn’t healing. “They’ve been blessed.”

“We got her,” Stu called to us from the street with a smile. He strolled leisurely into the gunfire, thinking it wouldn’t seriously hurt him.

I opened my mouth to yell for him to get out of the way, but it was too late. Before I could form any words, he was falling to the ground. The two men were running forward, guns still pointed, their crosses jingling together from the rapid movement.

“Hey!” I yelled, leaving the safety of the building. It was a stupid move. They had perfect aim and weren’t afraid to use it. “What happened to our deal? You’re not supposed to be killing us.”

The two men turned their weapons to point at me and mumbled to each other quickly in Italian.

“What’s your name?” the man in the leather jacket called in a thick accent.

“Kaden.” I walked to Stu, feeling unsure about my personal safety, and knelt beside him. A bullet had gone straight into his left shoulder, and blood was pouring out. A wound from a holy object didn’t heal as quickly as a regular one. It would take hours, perhaps an entire day, for his body to fix the damage completely, and even then it would hurt for days. He would need blood long before then. “What were you thinking?” I asked him.

“Who knew they weren’t normal bullets?” He snickered, but it turned into a cough and he rolled onto his side in pain. “Oww …”

“That’s twice you tried to kill me,” I hissed at the two men.

“He won’t die,” the man from the passenger seat said. His leg was bleeding profusely, and I tore my eyes away. “It’s just his shoulder. He’ll be fine. These bullets will only disable a vampire long enough for us to finish them off.”

“Not with that aim,” Flo hissed from behind them. She was dragging an unconscious female vampire behind her by the arm. “Stu, get up and stop acting like a baby.”

He sat up gingerly and glared at her. His hand grabbed at the wound. “I’d like to see what you’d do if you got shot with a holy bullet.”

Flo walked around the two Iustitia, giving them a wide berth. She handed the vampire’s arm to Sullivan and knelt down beside me. She covered her nose and mouth to fight against the scent of blood. “We really need to find a couple humans,” she said quietly so the men wouldn’t hear and started unbuttoning Stu’s shirt.

“If you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was say so,” he joked.

Flo pulled the shirt off, exposing his tight abs, and started ripping his shirt into strips. She shoved a wad of material against his bullet hole. “Unbelievable,” she breathed. “Only you would kid around in a situation like this.”

He managed to smirk through his grimace. Flo pressed the ball of fabric further into the hole, and his entire body jerked from the pain.

I stood up and faced our enemy. “He’s going to need blood. We all are.” Their guns raised into the air again. The man with the injured leg turned so I wouldn’t notice the large gash on his knee. “Relax. We have a truce, right?”

The man let out a breath. “Right. A truce.”

“Great,” I grumbled. “About getting blood …?”

“They said they supplied you with some from the blood bank.”

I shook my head. “We’ve never seen it.”

“Then we’ll send more. We don’t need you going crazy from thirst too,” the man in the jacket said, pointing his gun at me. “And stay away from cars like ours. There’s a whole fleet of them in the city right now, looking for your kind. There are men on foot also. Don’t bite them,” he ended with a pointed scowl.

“The cars are rather flashy,” Sullivan observed.

“We needed something that could keep up with you.” The wounded man eyed him, and then the unconscious vampire. “What are you going to do with her?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said coldly.

“We don’t really like the idea of working with you either,” the first man spat. “But we need your expertise.” He said something to his friend in Italian, and they both started back toward the car. They climbed in and sped away without another word, screeching out of sight.

Stu was standing when I turned around. His shirt was fashioned into a sling, and his arm was wrapped around Flo’s shoulders for support. His entire face was glowing with the excitement of touching her.

“That could have been worse,” he said.

I let out a sigh and looked at the captured vampire Sullivan was holding. She was beginning to wake up, and he pulled her to her feet. Her eyes blinked as she adjusted her vision. It took her a moment to become coherent, and when she did, she let out an ear-piercing scream.

It ended a moment later, leaving Sullivan with a handful of ash. Abel stood in front of him with a thick piece of wood, broken off from something requiring spindles. He spun it around and blew on the end like it was a gun in an old western movie.

“Gentlemen,” he said coarsely. “And lady.”

Chapter 5

“What brings you to Rome?” Abel asked. “I’m sure it’s not for a little R and R. And if it is,” he laughed, looking at Stu’s shoulder, “I think you picked the wrong location. It’s off limits here, you know?”

“Is it?” Flo snapped. She hoisted Stu up a little further. “We had no idea.”

His good eye narrowed. It was almost black in color and shone curiously at us. The street light was reflecting off the metal patch covering his other eye, creating a strange glare. He had stubble growing on his chin and dried blood in the corner of his mouth.

“What brings you here?” I repeated his question, pulling his attention away from Flo. She was still helping Stu which put her at a disadvantage if he tried to attack. I didn’t want him to get any ideas. “Since, you know, it’s off limits,” I ended mockingly.

He leered at me and motioned around us. “I never travel alone, in case you were thinking of trying anything.”

“You’re not going to give us any answers, are you?” Stu wheezed through the pain.

Abel laughed. “What fun would that be?”

Sullivan brushed his hands together, trying to get all the ash out of the cracks. “Phoenix didn’t let you out of that cell.”

He glared, any trace of humor fleeing his face. “I didn’t mean to set her on fire. It was one little, tiny misunderstanding.” His voice was beginning to rise in anger. “My eye had just been ripped out of my skull, so I was a little cranky. I just wanted to feed from her, but she wouldn’t stop screaming. The sparks just happened to be near her hair,” he shouted, his hands flailing nervously.

“You threw the king’s niece into a fireplace,” I said evenly. “In the middle of his coronation ball.”

“She deserved it,” he hissed venomously, spit spewing toward us.

We all fell silent. He needed a moment to cool down, and we still had no idea how to read him. There had been next to no interaction with the black sheep of the family.

He had developed a nervous twitch since I last saw him centuries ago. Either that, or he was signaling the vampires with him, and we wouldn’t even know it. The vampires we had seen so far weren’t that young. I could only imagine how old the ones he kept in his close circle were.

“So,” he said, pulling himself together with some effort. “What are you doing here? Did Phoenix send you to get me?”

“We don’t work for him,” I said. “You know that.”

He grinned. “I know a lot of things. But, what I don’t know is how you got into the Iustitia’s good graces. I’m very curious why they stopped trying to kill you. Care to let me in on that one?”

I shrugged. The thought might occur to him that we were working together, but he would dismiss it whether he heard our conversation or not. The idea of it was too outrageous to really believe. Even for me.

“Why are you in Rome?” he demanded when he realized we weren’t going to answer him.

“You first,” Flo hissed.

Abel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s a secret.” He smiled and put his index finger up to his lips. “But trust me: it will completely blow your mind.”

I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. A sudden wave of coolness crashed over me. It was obvious that we had involved ourselves in something way over our heads.

“Why hasn’t the Enforcement Team come?” I asked suspiciously. “You’ve created a big enough stir.”

“Look at where you are.” He scowled at me, jowls forming on his face. “If they come, it will look like Phoenix is helping the church. Believe me when I say he doesn’t want that. He won’t set foot here.”

“And if he doesn’t send them,” Sullivan interrupted. “It looks like he wants our existence to be discovered.”

Abel’s face lit up with excitement. “Oh, I think it’s quite a deal more than our secret he’s worried about.” A high-pitched whistle came from the shadows, and he turned away from us. “Are you sure you don’t want to help?” he called over his shoulder as he retreated.

“Not you,” Flo yelled.

His top lip quivered between a snarl and a smile. “The Iustitia are coming. I’d tell you to get out of here, but you seem to have things under control in that department.”

Then he was gone. Gunshots went off again in the distance, and I turned to Sullivan. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Let’s get Stu back to the apartment,” he said. “I think it’s time to call Max.”

It was a better idea than standing around waiting for another Iustitia car to find us, but we still hadn’t fed. Stu, most of all, needed to. We were in a tight spot, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

I kept scanning the darkness as we made our way back to the apartment building, hoping a human or two would miraculously appear. They didn’t, of course. That would have been far too convenient. My veins were nearly on fire. I wouldn’t last very much longer. A day, perhaps, if I could handle the fiery pain of thirst.

We returned to the apartment worse off than when we left. Flo shoved Stu into the elevator, still holding him up with her shoulders. The strain on her face was clear. The blood was right under her nose, teasing her, but vampire blood couldn’t cure her craving.

Reece was asleep on the pull-out sofa when we walked through the door. His feet were up near the pillow and his head was buried in the crook of his arm, leaving just his blond hair visible.

Alex was sitting in the corner of the couch, watching an English news station. Lyn was fast asleep with her head on his shoulder. I felt a twinge of anger, but shoved it back into the depths of my thoughts. They knew each other longer than we had. He had been Lyn’s roommate’s boyfriend before we even met, even if it was a fake relationship. They spent more time together since the whole biting incident than we had. He helped her get over the vampire issue, twice now, so it was natural for them to be close. That did not mean I had to like it.

“You guys are back early,” Alex said, only half glancing at us. Then he wrinkled his nose and shot up from the mattress. Lyn’s head fell from its perch, and she rubbed her eyes.

“Who’s bleeding?” he asked.

“That’d be me,” Stu said through a rough smile. “Just a minor mishap with a gun, but if someone wouldn’t mind getting the bullet out? It kind of burns like a mother.”

“Just see if you can get it to stop bleeding,” Flo grunted, shrugging his arm off. “We couldn’t find any humans out there so we didn’t get to feed, and I’m about to tear my own arm off.”

Alex nudged Reece, causing him to jump in surprise. “Did you bring a first-aid kit?”

“What for?” he grumbled sleepily.

Flo let out an exasperated breath and stormed into her room, slamming the door behind her. Sullivan started unwrapping Stu’s ruined shirt so we could remove the bullet. I started scrounging through drawers for tongs or anything else that looked remotely useful for grabbing objects. I wasn’t willing to reach in and pull it out.

I had enough scars. I didn’t want to burn my fingers removing a holy object from his shoulder. This was one of Stu’s first permanent marks, though. It was a rather unique way to join the club, but he was holding up surprisingly well under the circumstances. If that was lodged in the middle of my body, I would be tearing my own flesh off to get it out.

“Nothing useful,” I said, slamming the last drawer shut.

Sullivan looked around me at the wolves. Alex immediately held his hands in the air and backed away. “No way. There’s no way am I sticking my fingers in there to fish it out.”

Reece groaned, tossing Alex a disgusted look, and hurried into the kitchen. He yanked on the paper-towel roll hanging from the wall until he had a huge handful.

“Sorry,” he said to Stu, positioning the paper towels under the wound. “I’ll try to be quick.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Lyn sitting wide-eyed on the mattress. “You might want to go into the bedroom until we’re finished,” I told her. She hurried from the couch, leaving the bedroom door open, and I turned back to Stu. He was clutching the edge of the sink with his eyes closed and his jaw clamped shut.

Reece took a deep breath and positioned his fingers over the bullet hole. His face was pale and serious. “Ready?” Stu nodded, and Reece thrust his index finger deep into the wound.

Stu’s grip on the sink tightened to the point where it was cracking the porcelain in a spiderweb design. A low, pained scream was creeping out of his throat. He quickly turned it into a rapid breathing pattern. Reece was trying his best to hurry, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Goddamn it,” Stu screamed. “Get it out.”

Reece’s face turned bright red, and he drove his finger further into the hole, making it significantly larger than it had been originally. Blood was oozing out in a steady stream, soaking though the paper towels.

Reece finally started to pull back, inching the bullet out of his shoulder. Stu screamed even louder as it seared a path through his muscles on the way out. When Reece stepped away, he was holding the shining, blood-covered source of all the pain.

Stu slumped. His forehead thumped loudly onto the edge of the cracking sink. He was breathing heavily, and his upper lip was quivering. His eyes glistened with agony. And immense thirst.

“That wasn’t any fun,” he managed to breathe.

“How are we going to stop the bleeding?” Alex asked. “Do you want me to find some duct tape or something?”

“Duct tape?” Sullivan asked, one eyebrow arched.

Before I could say anything, Lyn was squeezing by Reece. She had a threaded needle between her fingers and took the paper towels into her own hands. “I can stitch it up until it heals.” She glanced up at me. “That will work for you guys, right?”

She pinched the wound shut with her left hand, and stuck the needle in with the right without waiting for me to answer. Stu grunted and looked sideways at me, his forehead still resting on the sink. His eyes were glassy and dangerous, warning me to get her away from him.

“Lyn, that’s enough.” I put my hand on hers. “I’ll finish it.”

“I’m almost done,” she insisted.

Stu’s top lip was curling up, and he was shifting his bottom jaw back and forth. He was taking slow, shallow breaths. A deafening crack sounded as his thumb shattered the tile beneath it.

“Lyn,” I urged. If I pulled her away, or made any sudden movements, it could cause Stu to lose control.

Reece stepped up to the sink and rolled up the sleeve of his black sweater. “Here,” he said, reluctantly shoving his arm under Stu’s nose.

Stu didn’t hesitate. His fangs popped into the werewolf’s flesh, and he began sucking vigorously. Blood trailed down Reece’s forearm and into the spotless sink. I held my breath and looked away. Stu may have been worse than the rest of us, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t dying for some blood myself. Even the werewolf blood, with its acidic taste and short-lived boost of energy, looked good.

“All set,” Lyn said, wiping the excess blood away.

Sullivan turned her around and pushed her away gently with a hand on her back. “Thanks.”

“Come on,” I whispered in her ear. She let me lead her back into our room and shut the door. She didn’t realize how stupid it was on her part. She still trusted me far more than she should have. I may have managed to hold onto my control in that moment, but I wouldn’t always be able to. She should have realized that by now.

“I owe you a belt,” she said. “Regular thread would have been too thin, so I had to take the stitching out of one.”

“I have more belts,” I said, picking up one of her hands. Stu’s blood was covering her fingers. “I only have one of you. That was an extremely dangerous thing to do.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said carefully. “And you won’t let them hurt me either.”

I shook my head. “You have more confidence in my self control than I do.” It was going to get her into trouble, but I left that part out. I didn’t want to fight. She wouldn’t listen to me. I let go of her and stepped back. “Go get cleaned up.”

She went without an argument, and I knelt to pick her clothes up off the floor. The entire contents of her suitcase were strewn carelessly around the floor in her haste to find something useful. My suitcase lay open next to hers, and a brown belt sat, mangled, on top of my jeans. I folded her shirts neatly and set them on top of the dresser. We might as well unpack. It was doubtful that we would be out of Rome in a short amount of time.

“Hey,” Alex said from the doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. The hood from his sweater was pulled up onto his head again. “Did you mean what you said earlier?”

I sighed. I was not in the mood of an argument. “When?”

“When you said that Lyn wouldn’t become a vampire.”

“This isn’t a life I would wish on anyone,” I told him honestly. I focused on the mess in front of me. “I wouldn’t turn her into a vampire any more than you would turn her into a werewolf.”

“I was worried you’d try after … well, you know.”

“After I fed on her,” I finished for him. I stood up to face him, letting the clothes I was holding fall to the ground. “That was a mistake.”

“She’ll grow old and die one day,” he countered.

I nodded. “With any luck.”

There was a long pause. It seemed like everyone in the apartment was expecting Lyn to be turned. I wondered what she thought about it.

“It sounds like we’re on the same page then,” Alex broke the silence. He pushed his hood off so it hung down his back and stared at me. I stared back. It went on a long few seconds. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk. I don’t really have an issue with whatever your relationship is. I just think she’s too good for this life.”

“She is.” I nodded and ran my fingers nervously through my hair. “You’re right.”

“She’s in love with you,” he said carefully. “Don’t hurt her too much.”

“Hurt who?” Lyn asked, coming back from the bathroom.

“No one.” Alex gave her a big smile and a light bop on top of the head. “Night.”

Lyn watched him go with her forehead wrinkled in confusion. She shook herself out of it and smiled at me. “All clean,” she said, holding her hands up and flipping them front to back to show me that the blood was gone.

I offered her a half smile and turned back to the clothes. I was honestly very worried about what would happen to her if she stayed with me. If New York was any indication of how things would be, I didn’t want to find out what else could happen. Having her with me was unhealthy. Leaving her alone didn’t seem to do much good either.

Rock, meet my hard place.

Chapter 6

Someone was going to have to talk to Max about his friends shooting at us. I was sure they had some idea what we looked like. They had us marked on their to-do list, so they had to know who they were targeting. It might have been “shoot first, ask questions later” in their book, but I didn’t fly across an ocean to dodge their bullets.

Was there a nice way to tell someone their organization was using us for target practice? I laid in bed considering how to bring up the subject without starting a disagreement. Max would probably try to deny it, and then I would get angry and possibly say something I would regret later. It was a sticky situation, and the truce was already weak, at best. There wasn’t even proof that it existed.

Lyn didn’t know she had woken me up. The jet lag was worse for her than the rest of us. The sun came up and vampires could fall asleep without a problem. Humans had to deal with that whole internal-clock issue.

She got out of bed around three in the afternoon and quietly rummaged through the dresser for her clothes. She was trying so hard not to wake me that I played along. I needed the quiet time to think, anyway.

Once she left the room and the shower started running, I sat up. I was feeling stiff. My mouth was dry, and my head ached at the temples. My veins were dry and brittle under my skin. It was uncomfortable, but still bearable. It wouldn’t be by the end of the night. I needed blood.

I pulled my phone off the charger and dialed Max. It was time to get the news over with.

When he answered there was a lot of chatter and laughter in the background. Silverware clinked on plates and someone yelled in good humor. “Kaden?” he asked around a mouthful of food. “What’s wrong?”

I rolled my eyes. That was a response I heard too many times when I called someone. Granted, I never called just to chat, but was it too much to ask for a simple hello once in a while?

“Holy bullets, huh?” I said into the phone.

There was a pause while he swallowed his food. “Excuse me?”

“The Iustitia are upping their weapons,” I said. “And with silver plating. Your arrows the other night had the same thing. Have werewolves been a problem lately too?”

“They tend to go hand in hand a little more often these days,” he said numbly. “How did you know about the bullets?”

“Is it a problem that I know? I thought we were allies,” I said coolly.

“It’s not a problem,” he said, unsure. “How did you know?”

“One was lodged into Stu’s shoulder last night.” There was another silence, longer this time. “Are you there?” I finally asked.

“Yes.” He paused. “We didn’t put it there?”

“Afraid so,” I sighed. “I’m not sure who shot him, but the two guys got a little trigger happy. They do know we’re on the same team right now, don’t they?”

“Marco,” he yelled, followed by some Italian. The chatter in the background died down. “Sorry, Kaden,” he mumbled. “This isn’t really a great time. It’s my grandmother’s eightieth birthday, and she’ll kill me if I bring up business in the middle of dinner. I’ll take care of it as soon as I can and call you back, okay?”

“You’re blowing me off because it’s your grandmother’s birthday?” I asked in disbelief.

“If you want to come over here and explain to her why dinner is put to a total standstill, you’re welcome to. Everyone will be afraid that you will change your mind and call an emergency meeting. If you’ve ever seen my grandmother mad, you would understand.”

“We’re supposed to have a truce. How could they make a mistake like that? Do they have eyes?” I snapped into the phone. “It’s not like we were trying to attack them. The first night we were here, all we were doing was walking down the street.”

“They shot at you twice?” he said flatly. He said something in Italian again in a happier voice to appease a relative. “You’re not reconsidering things, right?” he asked in a rushed whisper.

“Not yet. They stopped after they realized who we were,” I said into the phone. “But Stu won’t be singing your praises. We need to feed, Max. Where’s the blood?”

“It’s in the refrigerator,” he murmured into the phone. “They stocked it before you got here.”

“No, they didn’t. You need to do something because it looks like the locals aren’t risking getting killed at night, and we can’t survive without it much longer.”

“They issued a city-wide curfew yesterday,” he said quickly. “I’ll do what I can. Stay put and I’ll call back.”

There was another second of loud chatter, and then nothing. I tossed the phone back to the floor beside the bed and fell back. I covered my face with the pillow and groaned into it. There was no chance we were going to stay put. Abel was running around out there doing who knows what. We came here to stop it, so that’s what we were going to do. There wasn’t time to waste waiting around for him to finish dinner.

When I brought the pillow away from my face, Lyn was standing in the doorway. Her hair was wet and smelled strongly of citrus, an unwelcomed change from her usual soft scent of lavender and vanilla.

“Did I wake you?” she asked, putting her pajamas into her empty suitcase.

I sat back up and shook my head. “No.”

“Are you okay?” She squinted through the dark room to try reading my face. The little light that the hallway offered wasn’t enough. She headed toward the door again. “There’s still hot water if you want to shower before Flo wakes up.”

I reached out and took her hand. “Later.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

From the two short words I had spoken, she could tell something was bothering me. When had I become so easy to read? That wasn’t good. But she was right: something was wrong. I felt confused and nervous. No matter how many times I told myself that helping the Iustitia was just a way to figure out what Phoenix was up to, it still felt wrong. The enemy of your enemy might be your friend, but how far was too far? Things in Rome seemed to be worse than I thought, but were exactly as Max told us. We thought he was playing up the danger to get us to help. He wasn’t.

“Let’s play a game,” I suggested. I just wanted to keep her with me. It was calming. I could forget where I was until the sun set and I had to go back out. There were hours before I could do anything about Abel, so dwelling on it wouldn’t do me any good.

“A game?” she repeated. “Like a card game or something?”

“Did you bring a deck?” I asked, a little hopeful.

She pulled her hand away and left the room. I heard muffled voices in the living room. She came back a minute later, holding cards with a picture of the New York City skyline. They were tattered and bent, but they would work just as well.

“Would you like me to teach you something new?” I asked.

She sat down on the bed, legs crossed, and faced me. Her hair was tossed over one shoulder, and the water was seeping into her bright coral sweater. She played with a rubber band around her right wrist and fidgeted around until she was comfortable.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Reversis?” I smirked. “It’s similar to hearts, but older. We’ll have to change it a little for two players.”

“Okay.” She laughed. “Teach me, Yoda.”

I shuffled the cards and dealt them between us. It had been a while since I played cards. I hoped that I could remember all the rules. If I couldn’t, she wouldn’t know the difference. It was all in good fun.

“Are we betting anything?” she asked, looking at her hand.

I raised an eyebrow and felt my lips curl up into a smirk. “Like what?”

“Hmm.” She put her finger to her lips and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. You pick.”

I let out a hearty laugh and relaxed into the pillows. “Why don’t you learn the rules first?”

I explained the game and let her win the first few hands—there was nothing like beginner’s luck to boost a person’s confidence. After she started feeling overly confident in her new skills, she took a bag of peanut M&M’s from the front pouch of her suitcase.

“We can use these,” she said, dumping them out onto the bedspread. “Blue are worth the most. They’re my favorite.”

I reached over and picked up the strange candy, rolling it between my fingers. “You like these?”

“What?” she started dividing them between us. “You don’t?” She looked up and met my eyes. “Oh. Right.”

“They’ll work, though,” I said when her face fell. I held the yellow candy up between my index finger and thumb. “Open up.”

She opened her mouth, eyes twinkling. I shot the chocolate gently into her mouth, and she crunched down on it. “That’s coming out of your loot, by the way,” she laughed.

I chuckled at her enthusiasm and dealt again. I enjoyed every second of watching her forehead wrinkle as she thought about what play she wanted to make. I liked seeing her face light up when she got a good card, and even the good-humored disappointment when I stopped letting her win.

We played for two hours, talking about nothing and joking about everything. My cheeks started to hurt from smiling, and my body was so relaxed that the thirst in my veins subsided.

When the game was over, I got lost in her voice as she told stories of her childhood. She showed me the scar on her knee from where she fell from her bicycle, and she told me about when she finally realized that Santa wasn’t real. I heard about the time her sister stole her car and crashed it into the neighbor’s greenhouse, and learned that her first crush, Scott, had been in her first-grade class. We carefully skirted around the topic of her crazy ex, Frank, and talked about her move to New York City for school.

With every new thing I learned, I could feel her endearing herself to me. The more time I spent with her, the harder it was going to be to let her go. It was inevitable that I would have to, but I wanted to enjoy it while I could. She was the only thing keeping me sane—keeping me human.

“So, what about you?” she finally asked. “What’s your life story?”

“That would take forever to tell you.” I nudged the last M&M from my winning pot toward her. “Narrow it down.”

“Where did you learn that game?” she asked, plopping the red-colored chocolate into her mouth.

“I was in France visiting the court of Louis XV, and …”

My cell phone rang, cutting me off. I gave her an apologetic smile and answered it. Max was on the other end, but this time there was no party in the background.

“Sorry about earlier,” he started. “I talked things over with everyone, and they want to offer an official apology tonight.” He stopped talking for a moment. “Tonight at a small assembly.”

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“I know it sounds intimidating,” he said hurriedly. “It’s just a few Iustitia members. It’s not that big of a deal.”

It was a big deal. It was a dangerous idea. A room full of hunters, armed with holy weapons and an apparent strong desire to kill us despite our reasons for being in Rome. I could only think how Stu would feel about it. His shoulder would still be pretty sore, if not unhealed. They would have to have old pictures of us, or portraits … something showing our likeness. There would be no other way for them to target us from just our name on a piece of paper. There wasn’t an acceptable excuse in my book.

“When?” I sighed into the phone. “And where?”

“A car is already on the way to get you. They want to see everyone.”

“By everyone you mean the just vampires, or are Alex and Reece supposed to come too?”

“Everyone,” he repeated. “Including Lyn.”

I opened and shut my mouth. That was completely uncalled for. She had nothing to do with anything. “Why?” I asked, trying to contain myself.

It was his turn to sigh. “I don’t know what you’re worried about, Kaden. It’s not like we’re going to do anything to her. We’re not murders. Don’t be so overprotective.”

I inhaled sharply and shut the phone. I wasn’t being overprotective. I was being just the right amount of protective. She was a midnight snack to the people we were up against and had no ability to fight them off.

Lyn was still sitting in front of me on the bed. She was pulling a pair of socks onto her feet. “We’re going out,” I told her. “To another meeting.”

She looked at me, her eyebrows lowered in confusion. She had forgotten about the last meeting I dragged her to. It was the one thing Sullivan had managed to erase from her memory. Anyone would want to forget having a severed head thrown at their feet.

I grabbed a clean pair of jeans and a button-up shirt before making my way to the shower. The bathroom was tiny. There was just enough room for a toilet, sink, and stand-up shower. There was a shelf on one wall with a stack of towels and a small, rectangular brown rug on the floor.

The water pressure was less than stellar, and there was hardly any hot water left in the pipes. I was either the last one to get in there, or the water heater needed replacing. The answer was waiting for me when I opened the shower door again.

Flo had the lid down on the toilet and was towel-drying her hair. “The hairdryer keeps getting too hot and shutting off,” she complained. It was no wonder, with her hair being as long and thick as it was.

I pulled the shower door shut without stepping out “A little privacy, Flo.”

“Oh please,” she said loudly. “You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before. Where are we going? There’s another limo waiting outside.”

“Well, go wait outside with it before this driver ends up dead too,” I grumbled. “We have a meeting with a few Iustitia members.”

She started to mumble under her breath before standing up and storming out of the bathroom. I shook my head and dried off, pulling my clothes on in a hurry. All I could think was “here we go again.” Admittedly, it was a lot safer to go than not. It wouldn’t be good if they thought we weren’t fully cooperating with them. We had to prove to them that we still considered our truce valid, and then we would be free to go about our business.

I stopped in my bedroom to get Lyn. It made no sense that they wanted to see her. Other than the fact that they didn’t expect me to have a human with me, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. On the way through the living room, I told the rest of them that it was time to go. Stu was already gone, but I assumed that he had followed Flo down to wait with the limo. Sullivan didn’t seem surprised when I said where we were going, but I attributed that to Flo’s big mouth.

Reece and Alex, on the other hand, didn’t expect to be invited along. Reece was better about it. His face turned to stone, and he grabbed a pair of sneakers. It was Alex that was the argumentative one. It was becoming a habit of his, I noticed.

“I’m just here to make sure nothing happens to you during the day,” he began. “I had no intention of going out there to help. Why do I have to worry about getting shot at? Why are they worried about me keeping the truce? I do what you guys tell me to do.”

“No one said you had to worry about that,” I said under my breath. “They just want to meet with us and apologize for shooting Stu. Let’s argue about this on the way.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Why does Lyn have to go?”

“Max said everyone. They probably just want to meet her.” And make sure she wasn’t full of little fang holes, I thought to myself. I moved my arm through the air to motion him toward the door. “Come on.”

Alex scowled at me but kept his mouth shut. I couldn’t tell if we were going to go right back to our cold war over this or not. He didn’t seem overly angry, just slightly annoyed.

I followed after him to the elevator. Reece was holding the door with his hand. Sullivan locked up the apartment and stuck the key in his pocket. It was going to be a very interesting night.

The black limousine stopped at the entrance to Vatican City. The driver rolled his window down to say something to the Swiss Guard. The guard, standing proudly in his simple, solid blue uniform and black beret, let us pass without a second thought.

“What the hell are we doing here?” Flo hissed in my ear. “If we so much as touch the wrong thing—”

“I know,” I interrupted her. “So don’t touch anything and you will be fine.”

I watched through the tinted glass as the city rolled by slowly. The buildings were four or five stories tall—and old. Street lights made the city glow a soft yellow. A few cars were parked along the street, and a huge, domed building rose up in front of us. I couldn’t help staring at it in admiration.

The driver pulled over and shut the engine off. Max was standing just outside the car. He waved, although he couldn’t see us through the windows. I felt like staying right where I was, in the safety of that backseat, where no one could see inside.

Alex crashed that hope by opening the door and climbing out, forcing the rest of us to follow suit. Maybe he didn’t realize that they were upping the ante. Their weapons were just as deadly to the werewolves now too.

“I’m glad you got here all right,” Max said. He was in a black suit with a blue tie and a fancy watch on his wrist. “Come inside. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

He pushed open an arched door and led us into an elaborate foyer. The ceiling was covered with a giant mural. Angels were standing on one side of the painting, while demons stood on the other, both ready to fight. Iron wall sconces lined the bright white walls with men’s portraits hanging between each of them.

“What is this place?” Stu asked, dumbfounded.

Max stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face us. He was fighting a boyish grin and shrugging. “It’s Iustitia headquarters.”

I fought against the initial reaction of letting my jaw hang open. It felt completely wrong to be there. Even if we had a temporary truce, it was important to remember that once our mutual enemy was gone, so was the friendship. Welcoming us into central command was a ridiculously stupid idea. It was probably to prove their trust in us, but it only made me question their sanity.

“These are all the leaders we’ve had,” he said, pointing to the photos on the wall as he started walking again.

They ranged from hand-painted portraits dating back centuries, with men in white wigs or sitting astride a horse, all the way up to modern day photography. At the end of the hall, facing the doors, was a colored photo of a young man with dark hair and eyes to match. He wore a smile, not condescending, but not quite friendly either. There was something in that smile that hid something.

I reached out to find Lyn beside me. Max was right. They wouldn’t try to hurt a human, but I wasn’t a human, and I was slightly nervous. We continued down the hall, our footsteps echoing in our ears. The judging eyes of the generations of Iustitia glared down at us.

“This is so creepy,” Stu whispered.

“Understatement,” Flo agreed in a hushed breath.

Max turned to his left and opened a thick wooden door. He stood in the threshold and spoke a few sentences in Italian. A deep voice inside the room replied to him, and he stood aside. “Go on in,” he said.

None of us moved. Not even Alex.

Max looked into the room and then nervously back at us. “Come on, guys. Trust me, at least a little.” His face was red and his eyes pleading, but I still had a hard time believing this meeting would end well.

Reece let out an exasperated sigh and brushed by me. He gave Alex a little shove and was the first to disappear into the room. Sullivan took one for our team and went in next, followed by Flo, dragging Stu in by the wrist.

I glanced down at Lyn. She looked up at me expectantly, and I knew it was time to stop stalling. I pulled her a little closer and stepped inside behind everyone else. Max shut the door with a deafening thud and walked to my side.

There was a long, ornately carved table sitting in the middle of the room. The two ceiling fans that hung from the ceiling were out of place with the rest of the décor. The walls were covered in deep blue wallpaper with fleur-de-lis one shade lighter. The wall to the far right was completely hidden by a bookshelf. There were books that dated back before I was even a thought to my parents. A long sword sat in the middle on its base, and other old artifacts were spread out among the ancient texts. But my attention was focused on one thing. Four things really: the men sitting at the table.

An Italian man in his forties sat closest to the bookshelves. His hair was peppered with gray, and he had a massive scar on his neck that disappeared under his shirt collar. The man beside him was much younger. He looked tall, even sitting down. He had the Roman numeral four tattooed on the soft spot of his left hand, between his thumb and index finger. Next to him was an elderly man wearing the collar of a priest. The last man sitting at the table was a little overweight, and his eyes were slightly sunken into his head. More importantly, he was wearing the red robes of a cardinal.

I reached out and grabbed Max by the wrist. “What is the church doing here?” I hissed into his ear.

He blushed even deeper than before. “They’re Iustitia. Only the most capable sons and daughters do the field work, but the rest have to be involved somehow. They’re like consults.”

“You can take your consults and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine,” Flo growled.

“Is there a problem?” the man in his forties asked.

“Of course not.” Max put a smile on his face and pulled his wrist free. “Please sit down,” he said to us.

We did. I felt like pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t stuck in a dream. It was stiff and awkward, and I kept expecting one of them to shoot me from underneath the table.

Max introduced each of the men in turn. The first man was Anthony. The younger man beside him was his son, Tony, who I assumed to be a junior. The man with the white collar was indeed a priest. Father Rocca, Max said, was a hunter in his youth, but became a man of God after an accident. He left it at that. The last man was introduced as Cardinal Lombardi.

After we all knew each other, the four men flipped open notebooks and set them onto the table. It was formal and rigid, only adding to the tension. With pens in hand, Anthony started the meeting, reading directly from a sheet in front of him.

“We would like to offer our heartfelt apologizes for the events resulting in the shoulder wound of Stuart Bailey on the evening of November 27.”

Stu cringed and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The use of his human name was a cheap stab. We were so completely different now than we were as mortals. It was an insult to our former selves. It also showed just how much the Iustitia had researched us. I could barely remember my own last name, but I was sure they had it on file somewhere.

“We assure you that it won’t happen again,” Anthony continued. “We have sent out a bulletin with your likenesses and instructed the hunters not to be so ‘trigger happy,’ as you put it. So,” he slid a paper across the table toward Stu. “If you could just sign this, we can put everything behind us.”

Stu stared blankly at him, and then looked at me. He carefully pulled the paper until it was right in front of him. He took a minute to read what was written on it before sitting back in the chair, paper in hand, and looked at Anthony in disgust. “You need me to sign something saying you apologized and there are no hard feelings? Is this some kind of joke?”

“It also says that the accident will not affect our agreement,” Anthony added.

“Accident?” Flo shouted, her palms landing hard on the table. “He pointed the gun right at him and pulled the trigger.”

I took the paper out of Stu’s hand and slid it back across the table. “If we have to take you at your word, you will have to take us at ours.”

“What he means,” Sullivan jumped in, speaking calmly before things could get out of hand. “Is that our original agreement wasn’t a written one. We have to believe our names will be removed as targets from your list. You will have to believe that we won’t go back on our word.”

They scowled and began mumbling to each other in their native tongue. Max interjected, I assumed on our behalf, but received only four fierce glares in return. It made me think we were about to enter some sort of catch in the deal – as if our relations weren’t already strained enough.

Stu reached across the table too quickly for them to see and grabbed the paper back. The four men and Max froze in their seats. Their mouths were hanging open and eyes wide.

Stu held his hand out. “Pen,” he said.

No one moved, so Flo reached over and yanked the fountain pen from the priest’s hand. “Thanks,” she said sarcastically.

Stu scribbled his signature at the bottom of the paper and flung it back at them. “It’s easier this way,” he told me under his breath. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”

“Thank you,” Tony said. “We’re really glad to have you here.”

The cardinal nodded. “And, how are things progressing?”

“We’ve been here three nights,” Flo said flatly. “One of them is currently being wasted sitting at this table. How do you think they’re progressing, Cardinal?”

Tony shut his notebook and scooted back in his chair. I glared at Flo, hoping she would take the hint and shut up. We didn’t need to make the armed men angry.

The priest followed suit and closed his notebook, now that he had no pen to write with. “We were hoping for quick results,” he said carefully.

Alex let out a laugh. Reece glared at him, and he waved his hand in front of his face in an attempt to erase his smile. “My bad.”

“I’m sorry,” Reece told the Iustitia. “He’s young.”

Anthony started clicking his pen angrily. “How long will it take to see results? We can’t keep the citizens under curfew for long. What are we supposed to do about the tourists?”

“You’re worried about the tourism?” I asked, my mouth forming a straight line.

“It’s a huge source of income,” he said, glaring at me. “People won’t come here if they think they’re going to get brutally murdered.”

“I don’t know what you expect us to do.” I met each of their eyes. “Like Flo said, we’ve only been here a few days. We need time to find out what’s going on.”

“Why do you care what’s going on?” the cardinal asked angrily. “Just take care of the problem.”

A cold hush fell in the room. They thought of us as exterminators. They thought we would swoop in, kill the vampires causing them all the grief and then go away, never to be seen again. Vampires weren’t that easy. There was always a reason behind every move we made, even if it wasn’t a reason that made sense to anyone but the vampire doing it. We could kill the vampires, but more would come. We had to cut it off at the head. In order to do that, we had to find out who the head was. It was Abel. I knew it in my gut, but they didn’t. I wasn’t ready to tell them everything yet. I would toss out the name and see the reaction it got, but I wouldn’t explain anything tonight.

“I, um …” Max hesitated. “I don’t think it will be that simple.”

“What do you know?” Anthony spat. “You weren’t even supposed to be trained. Your brothers were enough.”

“And now they’re dead,” he said evenly. “So you’re stuck with me, like it or not.”

We watched the events unfolding before us with a strange kind of confusion. Maybe it was that we were seeing a real side of Max. A side that showed he was a real person and not just a cold-hearted vampire killer. Or maybe it was because he was siding with us against the others.

“Don’t worry,” I said before they could get further off topic. “We haven’t figured it out yet, but we will. All we know right now is that Abel seems to be involved somehow.”

“Abel?” the priest asked. “I don’t think we’ve heard of him.”

“No,” Sullivan told him. He leaned forward, resting both his elbows on the table. “You wouldn’t have. He was the outcast of the family, and we had to stop letting him out in public.” He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “So, I think you’ll understand why it’s a little more complicated than ‘taking care of the problem.’”

The other two notebooks closed, and the men mumbled in their own language again. They knew we couldn’t understand what they were saying. It was starting to become a little rude. So was the way the cardinal was looking at Lyn. His eyes kept straying over her face and neck, and then further down—all a little too intently.

He leaned in, whispered to the priest, and pushed his chair back. He came around the table, his red robes swaying around his feet, and held a hand out to Lyn. “Miss Emmalyn Baker,” he said, plastering a fake smile on his face. “It’s nice to meet you.”

I wasn’t sure if I was more surprised that he was taking the time to greet her individually, or that I hadn’t known Lyn’s full name before that very moment. There wasn’t time to decide. Lyn reached out to shake his hand, and he pulled her to her feet.

“I would like to speak with you privately for a moment,” he said, still grinning.

I grabbed her other hand to keep her with me. I didn’t want that strange man taking her anywhere. Not if I couldn’t see her. Not if he had anything to say that couldn’t be said in front of me. He made me uncomfortable. I didn’t trust him. Sullivan met my eye and gave the slightest shake of his head.

I unwillingly let go and watched the cardinal lead her through a side door. I sat on the edge of my seat, which had somehow been pushed a foot away from the table. My head spun around to watch them exit to a side room. All eyes were on me, and I squirmed uncomfortably. I slid the chair back, cleared my throat, and tried my best to sit still. It was harder than it sounded.

“What can you tell us about Abel?” Tony asked.

There was a muffled “ow” from the room Lyn had just disappeared into, followed by shuffling. I was at the door, yanking it open before anyone could stop me.

A flurry of red robes hovered around Lyn. She was standing in the middle of the room with her hands covering her nose. Blood was dripping out around her hands and running down her chin. The sudden smell of it hit me, almost knocking me over. I forced myself across the threshold and pulled Lyn away from the cardinal.

“What did you do?” I snarled.

Chapter 7

“It was an accident,” Lyn said through her hands, sounding muffled. “His elbow …”

“Let me guess.” I scowled at the cardinal. “Your elbow accidently hit her right in the face?”

He tried to speak, but just stumbled over incoherent vowels. I grabbed Lyn and tore her out of the room, holding my breath the entire way. The scent of blood was too much for me. For all of us. I shoved her out into the main hallway before the others could lose control, and slammed the door closed behind us.

“It’s not so bad,” she sputtered.

“Not so bad?” I repeated through my teeth. “Have you seen yourself?”

I brushed her hands away and tipped her head back. The blood kept trailing out. My jaw was clenched shut, and my eyes were narrowed against the sight of the warm, red liquid. It was so close—taunting me, daring me to take just one small taste.

Her eyes were filled with tears, and she studied my face. “Sorry,” she said, her nose stuffed.

“It’s not your fault,” I said without breathing. The blood wasn’t stopping. It just kept getting worse, which meant it was getting worse for me too. “He really hit you hard.”

“It hurts.” She let out a little cough. “Is it broken?”

I held her hands away from her face to take a better look. The blood was warm on her fingers, and now it was on mine. Her nose was just as straight as before, luckily for Cardinal Lombardi. But my eyes weren’t focusing on her nose. I couldn’t help staring at the blood. It was trailing over her lips and down her chin. I leaned down, my face in front of hers, and a shiver ran from my head, down the length of my body.

Lyn’s breath caught in her throat. I had to force my eyes up to meet her gaze. She was calm but alert. She watched me carefully, waiting for me to move, unsure what I would do. There were tear streaks running down her face from the pain radiating from her nose. I inched just a little closer, fighting not to lick the blood from her lips. It wasn’t until she suppressed another cough that I looked away. I let go of her hands and stepped back.

“What did he want to talk to you about?” I asked.

Her hands went instantly back up to cover her nose, and she shrugged. They didn’t have enough time to get to that. Lombardi hadn’t wasted any time shoving his arm into her face.

“Who’s Abel?” she asked, still muffled.

“He’s a psychopath,” Flo said, sticking her head out the door.

“Why does it seem that all the bad guys are psychos and you guys somehow seemed to stay normal?” Lyn asked.

“Not all of the bad guys are lunatics,” Flo corrected her coldly. “Most of them are quite cunning and pulled together. That’s why you don’t see us fighting them head on. They’re smart enough not to try doing anything this utterly stupid.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked Flo before she got any further with her train of thought. “Do they want something?”

She scowled at me. “Mostly to make sure you’re not out here sucking the life from one of their precious little sheep.”

I let out a breath and headed back toward the door. “Stay here, Lyn. We’ll leave soon.”

No one was sitting at the table anymore. The tension was too thick in the air to keep up with the pleasantries. I walked up to my seat and pushed my chair back under the table. The legs scraped against the floor, echoing around us. The five men huddling into a semicircle turned to me with guarded looks. I glared back, unwilling to speak for fear that it would only make things worse than they already were.

“Did you need us for anything else?” Sullivan asked dryly.

The resounding silence was our answer. As if it were synchronized, we all turned and exited through the door, back into the hallway. I grabbed Lyn’s upper arm on the way by and pulled her out the door with us. The Iustitia portraits watched us leave with angry eyes.

The limo was still waiting on the side of the street for us. I opened the back door and ushered Lyn inside. “Alex, Reece, go with her. We’ll find our own way back.”

“But …” Alex started.

“No buts,” I growled. “Get in the vehicle and go straight back to the apartment. Now. Go.”

It was just about the worst idea imaginable to have us in closed quarters with a bleeding human. All of us were still over hungry. There was no way we could control ourselves the entire way back to the apartment building. We were going to have to find another source of nourishment before the night was out or find somewhere else to spend the day.

Cardinal Lombardi hurried out after us and grabbed Stu’s arm. Stu flinched and pulled away from his grip. It didn’t really cause any discomfort; holy people were not the same as objects. It was a personal-space issue. Stu might not know the meaning around Flo or the rest of us, but when it came to outsiders, he was as unsettled as we were. More so with that man.

“Wait.” The cardinal shoved a small piece of folded paper into his hand. “Take this as my apology. The curfew begins every night at dusk.”

Flo reached over and snatched the paper from his outstretched hand. From over her shoulder, I could see that it was an address scribbled in blue pen.

“What is this?” she asked.

Lombardi stepped away from us. “I’ve arranged for …”

Before he could finish his sentence, Max came running out of the Iustitia building. The cardinal bobbed his head and started down the sidewalk at a brisk walk. Max waited until he was out of earshot before taking his eyes off him. I didn’t think that any of us really trusted him. There something about him that screamed “warning.”

“They’re not so bad, are they?” Max asked me hopefully, rocking back on his heels.

I scowled at him. “Do you mean the part where they wanted us to commit genocide, or the part where they gave Lyn a bloody nose?”

“Whatever,” Flo growled over my shoulder. “Who cares? Let’s go.”

It was the best idea I had heard all night. “We still need that blood,” I reminded him.

Max held his arms out. “They already delivered it,” he told us again.

“No,” I insisted. “They did not.”

The four of us took off toward the gate, back into Rome and didn’t stop again until we were far enough away to be consumed by buildings. Vatican City disappeared from view and the Tiber River was spanned out at our feet.

“Use your phone.” Flo flung the address at me. “If there’s even the slightest chance there’s someone to feed on, I’m going there.”

I wasn’t sure that was the best idea. If Cardinal Lombardi was behind it, there had to be some kind of catch.

“It’s probably not what you think,” I told her.

“Can we please find out?” Stu asked. He was holding his hand up to his shoulder. The gunshot wound had already healed, but it was taking a lot of energy from him. And, it would take more to stop the aching.

I looked to Sullivan for his opinion. He nodded, and I slowly punched the address into the GPS, convinced we were about to walk into a trap. We were just a few blocks away. The voice told us to continue straight and arrive at the destination.

“It’s worth a try,” Sullivan said quietly.

I nodded half-heartedly. I didn’t agree, but there weren’t many options available to choose from. We were desperate.

The building was light orange, with off-white around the edges of the windows and doors. There was a piece of paper ominously taped to the front door. Sullivan walked up to the door and ripped it down, unfolding it. His brows lowered over his eyes, and he held it up so we could see. It had a large arrow pointing down, drawn with a thick black marker.

“Down there,” Stu said. He was standing at the edge of a white bridge with three large arches. He pointed to the walkway beneath it.

A group of three homeless people were huddled under the bridge, using each other’s shoulder as a pillow. They were sitting ducks. I was surprised that Cardinal Lombardi had actually done something useful, but I wasn’t about to count my chickens.

My veins started burning under my skin. They knew what was about to happen and desperately wanted it. I flexed my fingers while I considered what I was about to do. I had no choice, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to bother me. I had slipped only that once since I gave up fresh blood. It had become a lifestyle—my lifestyle. I was happy with it, despite all of the downfalls. But it was a question of survival now, not morals.

Things were changing quickly. I didn’t have time to adjust. My mind didn’t have time to shift into a new mindset of feeding from a human again. It was gnawing at my conscience just thinking about it. Tough times never left a person with many alternatives.

“Let’s make it fast,” I said flatly. “And don’t kill them.”

Flo was the first one to hop off the bridge. The rest of us followed, landing softly on the walkway below. We were quick about approaching them, too quick for them to see us coming. Flo, Stu, and Sullivan had their fangs sunk into the dirty flesh before the men could even open their eyes. With their hands over the human’s mouths, they sucked blood from their veins with slurping sounds. I watched, desperate to join in, but unsure what it would mean and how to go about it.

Sullivan came to my rescue yet again. He had attached himself to the man’s throat, and with his free hand, held the wrist out to me. I needed the invitation, and I took it.

The man smelled sour, and his skin tasted like dirt, but the moment his blood filled my mouth I didn’t notice anymore. It was weak blood, lacking in iron and other important things, but it was warm. The energy sparked through my body like little jolts of electricity. I let it flow down my throat and seep into my system. I kept sucking until I felt the man’s heart slow. I pulled away before he could lose too much blood, and licked the traces from my lips.

My body felt amazing. My mind felt confused. Sullivan caught my eye and shot me an understanding smile. “There wasn’t a choice,” he reminded me softly.

Stu was trying to wipe the corner of Flo’s mouth where a small drop of blood still hovered. The humans at our feet were unconscious, but would wake up with time. Flo stepped over them, swatting Stu away. “I’m not a child,” she growled.

“Debatable,” he replied with a smile.

A car engine hummed on a nearby street above us. The only vehicles that would be out this late, due to the curfew, would be Iustitia. Even if they knew what we looked like now, I couldn’t imagine that they would be too keen on us feeding on their homeless. After all, they were supplying us with all the bagged blood we could drink. If we didn’t have a refrigerator full by nightfall, Max was going to get a piece of my mind.

I leapt back up onto the street when the vehicle had passed and looked around. There was nothing dangerous that I could see. The streets were just as empty as they were when we arrived. Eerily so.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said over my shoulder.

They joined me back on the street, and we started back in the direction of our apartment building. The little sparks of energy fluttered through my body. I wanted to run or do something equally productive to release some of it. It was going to take a few nights on the fresh blood to get used to the power again.

“So, Kaden,” Flo said from behind me.

I could tell from her tone that she was going to start something that I wasn’t going to like. We were halfway back, just reaching the top of the Spanish Steps, but she just couldn’t wait to give me an earful about something.

I stopped walking and turned to face her. “What is it now? Did I not feed the way you wanted me to?”

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me for a long time in silence. “It has nothing to do with that, although I’m glad you’re back in the game. I’m sure you’re feeling a million times better.”

I fidgeted under her scrutinizing gaze. It felt like she was looking straight through me. I couldn’t stand still. “Then what could possibly be bothering you this time?” I demanded, sounding a bit angrier than I really was. She had started it, though.

“Don’t take your guilty conscience out on me,” she hissed, flattening her hair with her hands. “You had to feed on them or you would have ended up snacking on your bedmate tonight. I saw the way you were looking at her back there in the hallway.”

“Leave Lyn out of this,” I growled. “She has nothing to do with it, and I haven’t laid a single finger on her since that night.”

“Like we’re supposed to believe that?” she scoffed. “You might be old, but you’re still a man.”

My fists were balled at my sides, and I was trying very hard to maintain control. “I am a vampire, not a man,” I said tersely.

“It’s not like that makes any difference,” Stu chimed in. “I mean, I still want to …”

Flo slowly turned her head and gave him the death stare. “Stay out of this.” Her head snapped back to me. “If you’re not going to turn her into a vampire, she’s going to get killed. I would have thought that was obvious after everything that happened in New York, but here she is. What business does she have being here? She doesn’t belong.”

I closed the distance between us, keeping my hands firmly at my sides. “She’s here because I brought her here. If you have a problem with it, you can leave, or you can keep your mouth shut. Those are your only two options.”

“She’s going to be a corpse before this is over,” Flo hissed. “Turn her or lose her. Those are your only two options.”

My hand flew through the air, slapping her across the face so hard that she had to take a step back to steady herself. “I told you before that no one is going to be turning anyone. If you lay one finger on her, I swear that I will kill you myself.”

“I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.” Flo wiped a spot of blood off her lip. “Humans are landmines. You just have to look at Sullivan to see the damage they can cause. The last thing you need is to find that level of humanity in yourself again, Kaden. You’ve already found as much as you can handle now. If you fall in love with this girl, it will be the end of you. I guarantee it.”

“Get her out of my sight,” I growled to Stu. “Now.”

He stepped meekly up to Flo and touched her elbow. She yanked it out of his reach and flew down the Spanish Steps. Stu’s jaw was hanging open in shock. “I … uh …” he stammered.

“Just go,” I told him, losing some of my edge. He rubbed his cheek with his hand and started slowly in the same path Flo had just taken. “Stu, don’t take all night,” I called, causing him to pick up the pace.

Sullivan stepped up beside me. “Are you all right?” he asked once Stu had vanished.

I shrugged and leaned over the railing. “I don’t know.”

Sullivan released a long, heavy sigh and joined me, leaning his back against the stone beside my shoulder. “Flo is just confused herself, so she’s lashing out.”

“That’s no excuse. It’s none of her business, and she never should have brought you into it.”

“I told you what happened with Lucy,” Sullivan started. “I loved her more than I had ever loved anything before. I don’t think I will find it again. I will never stop blaming myself for her death.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

He shrugged. “I hope you never have to feel this way.”

I glanced at him sideways. “I have a hard time deciding what side you’re on sometimes.”

“What side?” He gave me a halfhearted smile. “There are no sides. I understand what Flo is saying, but I also understand what you’re feeling. If you want to know what I think you should do, I can’t answer that. It’s your choice. But …” he paused and pretended to wipe a bit of dirt from the back of his hand. “If I could have Lucy here again, I think I would do it.”

“You would turn her?” I asked in genuine surprise. “You would choose this life for her?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Are you really that shocked? I would do anything to have her with me again.”

“Anything?”

“You know … ” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking up to the sky. “If she hadn’t died the way she did, she still wouldn’t be here now. I try to tell myself that every day. Humans age, Kaden. They age quickly, and then it’s over for them. There is only one way that I could have saved myself this pain, no matter the circumstances. And, that’s exactly what you don’t want to do.”

I pushed myself up off the railing, hooking my hands under the ledge to stretch my arms. “I refuse to do it. This life would ruin her.”

“This life is what you make of it,” he said quietly. “Sometimes it’s the people around you that make all the difference.”

“And being able to live with yourself? What about that?” I asked. “Haven’t I already done enough?”

“We all have,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be happy in the future. You have one shot at this. It’s your choice. Make sure you make the right one.”

“I am,” I insisted.

Chapter 8

“I can’t believe you hit a girl,” Alex shouted under his breath.

Just when he was starting not to hate me …

“Listen,” I explained. “Once you become a member of the undead, you stop distinguishing between men and women. She’s a vampire and therefore no longer counts. I would never hit a human female.”

“But …”

“Alex,” Reece sighed, “if you had the chance to smack her, you would have done it too. Stop viewing the world from a human standpoint before you get yourself in trouble.” He grabbed a slice of pizza from the refrigerator and bit off a chunk of saucy crust. “This is so good.”

“Did you have fun?” Sullivan asked from the couch.

“Definitely,” Reece answered around a mouth full of food. “This city is so amazing. I went to the Pantheon, the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, Trevi Fountain, and a couple museums. It’s a shame we’ll get booted out after we’re done. You guys should get the chance to look around.”

It definitely bothered me that Reece had gone out sightseeing, but I didn’t say anything. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all of us to be where we were. He had nothing to do in the apartment all day except be on the lookout for anything trying to kill us, but it sounded worse when I thought of it that way. I felt relatively safe for the moment. Abel had made himself known but hadn’t threatened us. And Alex had stayed behind.

“Phone,” Stu called from his bedroom. “I think it’s Kaden’s.”

I felt the pocket of my jeans. I must have left it in the bedroom on the charger. I opened the door quietly so I wouldn’t wake Lyn. She was curled up in the middle of the bed with the covers pulled up to her chin and both pillows positioned to form a V around her head.

The phone was buzzing violently across the nightstand. I ripped it off the charger and opened it. It was Sid. I answered quickly, whispering into the microphone.

“How’s everything going?” Sid asked calmly. “I haven’t heard from you since you left.”

“Reece and Alex are fine,” I assured him. “Abel’s here, but we still have no idea what’s going on.”

He paused, trying to hide his disappointment. “When do you think you’ll be getting back?”

Back? That was the furthest thing from my mind.

“Sorry, I don’t think it will be for a while. Why? Is there something I should be worried about?”

There was another long pause. “Ennis is doing all right with everything,” he began.

“But?” There was yet another long silence. “Sid?”

“Do you remember Merv?” he asked nervously.

“Merv?” I repeated. “Of course. He was my blood supplier before Francesca killed him to get to me. Why?”

“Well,” he said, carrying the vowel longer than necessary. “He’s not exactly dead.”

“What?” I shouted, waking Lyn up. “I tried calling him. He never answered and never called me back. He’s dead.”

“Kaden, I’m telling you that …”

“What does ‘not exactly dead’ mean?” I interrupted. “Is he in critical condition at the hospital?”

“Kaden?” Lyn was rubbing her left eye.

“You’re either dead or you’re not,” I continued.

“He’s alive,” Sid said carefully. “He’s just not human.”

“Excuse me?” I screamed into the receiver. I jumped off the edge of the bed and started pacing back and forth so hard the ceiling was probably shaking in the apartment below. “Define ‘not human.’”

“Kaden?” Lyn slipped out of the bed and flicked on the lights. “What’s going on?”

I winced against the brightness, shielding my eyes. “Nothing,” I snapped at her. “Sid, tell me what’s going on.”

“Merv showed up this morning. He said he was being kept in a shed, but when the people that were keeping him there stopped coming back, he found a way out. He’s lost a lot of weight, but looks fine otherwise. His spirits are up now that he’s had something to eat.”

“Something, or someone?” I hissed angrily.

“Something,” he replied in a quiet, calm voice that just added further to my bad temper.

“Get back to the un-human part,” I growled.

Sid took a deep breath. “He’s been bitten.”

I held the phone away from my ear and squeezed until it almost cracked into a hundred pieces. Merv, the man who had been so obsessed with the vampire world, was a werewolf. He was part of it now, but from a different perspective. And again, it was my fault.

Stu’s head popped inside the room. “Everything all right?”

“I’ve got to go,” I told Sid and hung up the phone. I sat down on the edge of the bed and waved my hand at Stu. “We’ll leave in a little while. Give me a few minutes.” Stu shot Lyn a nervous look and backed his head out of the door, shutting it behind him.

I didn’t know how I had ended up failing Merv so miserably. I had promised to keep him safe in exchange for supplying my bagged blood. It wasn’t that I liked the guy, I didn’t. At all. But he had been my responsibility. Not only had I left him for dead without confirming it, but he was a werewolf now. After his fascination with vampires, I could only imagine how he felt about being our polar opposite. Maybe finding out that werewolves existed would get the same reaction as the vamps, though.

“I need to send you home to Vermont,” I said to Lyn. “It’s not safe for you here, and I don’t know who I can trust in New York anymore. No one should bother you there.”

“What?” She walked around the bed and sat down next to me. “We already decided that I could stay.”

“Things change,” I whispered.

“No, I’m not going,” she said defiantly, her fingers digging into the comforter.

I moved quickly, pinning her to the bed with her hands above her head. I looked down at her, my face a few inches from hers. “Don’t you see how defenseless you are against us?” My breath came out in a hoarse whisper. “I could rip your throat out, and you would never see it coming.”

Her heart was beating quickly in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. Her eyes searched my face, and she squirmed beneath me. “I’m not afraid,” she insisted.

“You’re not?” I whispered in her ear. “Then why do you reek of fear?”

She paused. “You won’t hurt me. I’m not scared with you around.”

With me around, she had all the more reason to be frightened. I was the reason all the dangerous things surrounded her, and I wouldn’t always be around to save her. One day, I wouldn’t be there.

“I hate that you’re so confident in me,” I told her, lifting my head to look her in the eye. “It will make the day I can’t protect you that much harder.”

She fixed her eyes on me and didn’t say a word. There were a million of them floating around in her head—I could see them under the surface. She was thinking very hard about more than one thing, but chose not to speak any of them out loud.

Her cheeks flushed a light pink, and her rosy lips parted as if she was about to change her mind and speak. The pull to kiss her buzzed in my head, but I wasn’t going to give in. Not this time. I sat up onto my knees with her still beneath me and sighed. “Alex should take you out to see Rome before you leave.”

“Can’t you take me?” she whispered.

“Lyn.” I choked on my words as a single tear fell from her eye and ran down onto the comforter. I wiped the trail from her face and reminded myself that I was doing this for her. The day would come when she realized that and would thank me for it.

“Kaden,” Sullivan called from the other side of the front door, “we should get going.”

“Coming,” I answered. I looked back to Lyn and took a deep breath. “I’ll be back later.”

I rushed from the room and out of the apartment. It was going to be another wet night, although the rain was just a light sprinkle for the time being. I stood there, letting it fall on my face to snap me out of my red-colored haze, and pushed my dark hair away from my face. I felt Sullivan come up beside me, rather than seeing him.

“I want to get out of here,” I told him.

“We all do,” Flo hissed, joining us. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Stu was right behind her with a black Puma baseball hat on.

I bit my tongue. “Let’s go back to the apartment where we saw Abel the other night.”

“Why?” Stu asked.

“We’re skipping right to the source of the problem. I’m sick of being played with.”

There was still no blood in the apartment. Deep down I knew Max had nothing to do with that, but I was angry that the church lied to us. It wasn’t a setup to make us look like the villain because it was obvious they needed us, but there was something off. The sooner we left, the better.

It made sense that Abel was the proverbial head of the dragon. He told us himself that there was more than our secret that Phoenix was worried about. I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but I was going to find out sooner or later. Even if I had to torture it out of Abel, I would figure things out. Then I was going to finish it and never step foot in Rome again.

“That’s the roof we were on,” Sullivan said.

I looked up the building. It looked familiar, but to be honest, I wasn’t paying very close attention that night. I was lost and we were getting shot at. I was banking on Sullivan’s memory, and it was usually pretty accurate.

I hurried up to the roof the same way as before. The rain started to pick up and drop down in heavier sheets. It was déjà vu. I laid down on my stomach and looked over the edge. Nothing was happening. The lights were on, spilling out onto the patio from the windows, but no one was visible inside.

“Stu,” I whispered. “Keep an eye out in that direction. Let me know if anyone comes to the front door.”

Sullivan and I watched the back, while Flo joined Stu at the front. We settled in for a long night of waiting. I didn’t want to spook them. Not just yet. Information was power, and I wanted as much as I could before confronting them about anything.

“What do you think Abel meant when he said it wasn’t only our secret Phoenix was worried about?” I asked Sullivan as softly as I could.

He wiped the water from his face and shifted uncomfortably. “I think Phoenix has his own secret hidden here.”

“His own?”

“I could be wrong.” He shrugged. “The first thing Phoenix did when he took the crown from Tobias was to forbid any vampire or werewolf from Rome. There were a few things that didn’t add up at the time. Tobias, he said, was killed in Rome, and he wanted us to stay out as a sign of respect for him. But Tobias was last seen in what is now Amsterdam. Later, Phoenix was quoted saying that he wanted us to stay out of Rome to avoid the church.”

“Why didn’t I know any of this?” I asked.

Sullivan looked at me sharply from the corners of his gray eyes. “No one was stupid enough to speak any doubts out loud, especially not to you.”

He was right. I would have run right back to Phoenix and told him everything. Then they would have made a visit to the Marquis. No one wanted that, but I would have gladly sent them. I was ruthless, but more importantly, I was loyal. Neither of which I was proud of anymore.

“So, you think he’s hiding something here?” I continued.

“Kaden,” Stu called. “There’s a car.”

I crawled quickly and quietly over to the other side of the building and looked down. A white Alfa Romeo was parked across the street, and the lights switched off. The engine stopped purring, and a man stepped out in a brown suit, his stomach bulging out over his pants.

“Get out of here,” Flo said under her breath. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Depends,” Stu replied. “Do you think it’s Cardinal Lombardi?”

I looked more closely through the rain. They were right. It was the same cardinal from the meeting the night before, and he was running up to the front door of Abel’s apartment with a large cardboard box. He knocked, and someone immediately opened the door to let him in.

“What the …” Flo started.

“Is this some kind of joke?” I asked.

Sullivan shook his head. “Either we’re being fooled, or the church is.”

I pulled out my phone and called Max. It took him five rings to answer, and when he did, it was with a low, husky voice.

“Sorry to wake you,” I said without any conviction. “What’s the story with Cardinal Lombardi?”

“What?” he asked sleepily. “He’s a distant relative of mine—second cousin five times removed or something like that. I don’t really know him that well. Why?”

“Why isn’t he Iustitia?”

“He is,” Max said. “He’s just not a field man. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Did he try to become a field man?”

There was a pause while Max thought. “Yes. He has diabetes and a heart murmur, so they didn’t accept him. Kaden, what—”

I hung up on him.

“Anything shady?” Stu asked.

I scowled. “Maybe.”

I moved back to my original spot and watched the patio. Through the glass doors I could see Lombardi sitting at a kitchen table. Someone, we couldn’t see who, dumped the contents of the box out in front of him. Blood. Bags and bags of blood. Our blood.

Lombardi’s hands were moving through the air while he spoke. There was a loud bang, and he jumped up from his seat. Abel walked in front of the doors and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. It took two other vampires to pull him off the cardinal.

Then Abel stood back and smoothed himself out. He turned to the doors. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn that he looked right at us, but he simply reached over and swung the curtain shut.

I let out a breath. I was just being paranoid. He hadn’t seen us. It wasn’t possible through the rain, or at least I hoped it wasn’t. If we could see him, he could probably see us too.

“Calling Phoenix sounds better by the second, doesn’t it?” Flo asked.

I glared. “Not even remotely.”

“Davis?” Sullivan said quietly.

Davis had been in New York with the Marquis and Francesca to drag me back to the master. I had the chance to kill him after the fight in Flushing Park, but I didn’t take it. I liked Davis. He was good and honest, at least as far as vampires went. He owed me for sparing his life.

“He’ll tell Phoenix,” Stu whispered. “What are you guys, nuts? I’m with Kaden on this one. Leave Phoenix and the family out of it. They already know and obviously don’t give a rat’s behind.”

“He won’t tell Phoenix anything.” Sullivan spoke carefully, giving me direct eye contact. “He owes Kaden a favor.”

“Yes. A favor I’d like to hang on to,” I shot back. “I have eons to find another use for it.”

“Hey,” someone shouted from the street. The four of us were on our feet and spun around in time to see a female vampire with short purple hair jump onto the roof. She smiled with a malevolent glint in her eye. “Why don’t you come on down and play?”

Chapter 9

The vampire showed her white fangs from behind dark red lipstick and somersaulted back to the street. I hurried across the roof after her and peered down. Two dozen vampires were waiting for us in the dark alley.

Each one of them was all smiles, staring up at us in great anticipation. Leering was more like it. They were the types of smiles you saw when someone thought, “I’ve got you.” Technically, they did. We were outnumbered, six-to-one. They weren’t exactly spring chickens, but we still had a handful of centuries on them. Combined together, however, we didn’t have a sure win. I would say our chances were seventy-thirty. We weren’t invincible—numbers could easily outweigh experience.

“I don’t think we should go down there,” Stu said nervously. “What are our odds if we run?”

The same.

We didn’t know the streets as well as they did, and who knew if more waited around the corner? We could run to the apartment, the only place we had permission to enter that they didn’t, and then they would know where we were staying. That could prove to be even worse. It would have been nice to have Reece and Alex there to help out, but it wasn’t worth the risk. It only took one to escape and fill Abel in on our location.

“How does your shoulder feel?” Sullivan asked.

Stu moved it around in a circular motion. “Better, but I’d like it to stay that way,” he grumbled.

“Make sure you’re on your toes then,” Flo told him. “We never run from a fight.”

“Scared?” the girl with purple hair yelled to us. “We can come up, if you’d rather die there.”

“That little …” Flo started for the edge of the roof.

Sullivan stopped her. “Let’s not rush into it,” he said calmly. “It could mean the difference between living and dying.”

“I’m going to live,” she spat. “They’re going to die. What’s the problem?”

“Bawk, bawk, bawk!” the purple haired vampire called. A few others joined in, clucking like chickens. A few were even flapping their elbows up and down in the air.

“Wow.” Stu’s eyebrows lowered and his top lip arched in disgust. “Can you say immature?”

“We’re not the ones too afraid to fight,” she called up to him. Her eyes shifted over to me. “I thought I was about to face the infamous Kaden. Mr. Second-in-Command. The dark angel of the underworld. I guess I didn’t need all this backup after all. You’re nothing but a big coward.”

Coward?

My stomach clenched. I would show her who the coward was. I had been through hell and back. Nothing about my life had been easy. If I was a coward, I would have stayed next to Phoenix. I risked my life to get out of there. I risked my sanity changing my lifestyle—finding my humanity again after all those horrible things had literally almost destroyed me.

I stepped up onto the ledge and off the side of the building without another thought. The wind whistled in my ears as I sped toward the ground. I landed on my feet, knees bent, on the hard cobblestone. A twinge of pain shot up my legs, but there wasn’t time to think about it. The vampires weren’t wasting any time with their advance.

I leapt aside just in time to miss having a fist land in the middle of my face, and I threw my own punch into his abdomen. He doubled over just as one of his friends dug into my arm. Her nails were like needles, drawing my blood in thin strips.

I pushed her backward into two of her comrades. I was surrounded. We were—I hoped. There wasn’t time to make sure that my allies had followed me down. I never would have thought so many vampires could fit into one small alleyway. They hung from terraces and leapt over each other like they were accustomed to small battlegrounds.

Someone heavy slammed into my left side. I flew through the air, stopping only when my right shoulder met a brick wall. A vampire had me around the waist. He chomped into my lower back. Stars danced in front of my eyes. Blindly, I slammed my elbow down onto the side of his head. It only jarred his fangs inside me, worsening my pain.

There was another vampire in front of me then. He was so close I couldn’t see a face. The rain poured down around us, making quick movement almost impossible to see. I clawed at his neck while trying to get a third vampire off my shoulders.

I slammed my back into the brick building behind me. There was a loud crack, and the vampire’s grip on my waist loosened. I used my foot as leverage and pushed forward, trying to keep the vampire in front of me from biting into my artery. The fangs in my back ripped through my flesh as the vampire fell to the ground with a crushed skull.

The vampire on my shoulders shoved his thumbs into my eyes. Immense pressure built up as I clawed at his arms. He wasn’t letting go. It was dark, and so many things were happening around me that I couldn’t concentrate. My ears couldn’t find single sounds. Everything sounded like one giant scuffle with grunts and screams thrown in. My sense of touch was numbed by the constant pounding of water falling from the sky. I couldn’t smell anything over the blood. And that was all I tasted.

A fist, or maybe it was a kick, had hit me perfectly in the right cheek. The inside of my mouth was grazed open by my own fangs. Blood danced along my tongue. But I could see again. The jab had knocked my head from the vampires grip. My vision was blurred for a few moments, but I recognized the ash falling around me. The vampire pressing my eyes was dead, but there were more to take its place. Another vampire got me from behind. His arm looped around my neck and pulled me backward.

The one in front of me snapped his jaw, finally landing in my shoulder. Pain shot through me. The blood ran down my arm in a thick strip and dripped to the ground.

A wave of anger rushed over me, replacing the sting of the vampires fangs. I wasn’t going to lose to them. I was better than that. I have been in worse situations and survived. This was no different—only I was.

In a fresh rush of energy, I pried the vampire’s fangs out of my shoulder. Then I snapped his bottom jaw with a defending crack and twisted it off. Blood was everywhere and awful gurgling sounds filled the air. His tongue dangled out in such a gory way that forced me to look away.

I reached above my head and grabbed the vampire behind me by the shirt collar. I pulled him over my head, and his feet hit the now jawless vampire in front of me. They both landed on the ground in a pile.

A sharp, high-pitched shriek from my left distracted me from finishing them off. Flo had four vampires attached to her in various places. She was face-first on the ground with no chance of pushing herself up.

I ran to her and kicked the vampire holding her right arm. It was the female with purple hair. She turned her head to hiss at me, blood covering her mouth. It was what Flo needed. She broke free of the grip on her arm and elbowed the girl in the back of the head. That was all I saw.

I was falling back. The rain pounded my face, and the streetlight shone in the distance. When I hit the ground, my head bounced off the cobblestones. It took long seconds to gather my wits about me. Long seconds I didn’t have to spare.

The jawless vampire was kicking me with everything he had. The side of my face, my ribs, my chest—he didn’t care. His blood was still pouring out of him as the mandible slowly grew back into place. I reached out and grabbed his ankle in mid-motion before it could contact my face. At the same time, the vampire I had tossed at him lunged for my throat.

And then my hand, which had a firm grip on the vampire’s joint, suddenly closed on air, and I was covered in ash.

I leapt up and spun around. There were just the four of us left.

Stu was automatically helping Flo to her feet, and Sullivan was wiping blood off his face. They looked just as stunned as I felt. It was almost surreal. I had only managed to kill one and wound another.

What happened?

Stu shrugged at me in bewilderment. We were all caked with blood, our own as well as the enemy’s. My clothes were ripped and stained. I was sore. My ribs were mending themselves beneath my skin. My veins were tingling despite our recent meal.

But I was alive.

“How do vampires suddenly burst into dust without us laying a finger on them?” Stu asked in a low, monotone voice.

No one had an answer. For that many vampires to disintegrate at once, something had happened. If we hadn’t done it, someone had. Someone on our side, but it wasn’t clear who. Or, why.

“Iustitia?” Stu asked under his breath. “They said they have people on foot, right?”

Flo swatted at him without actually hitting him. It seemed like a lack of energy more than a show of kindness. She just wanted him to stop talking so she could think.

So did I.

“No.” Sullivan bent over and picked up a very thin, three-inch wooden sliver. It looked like a long toothpick, with one pointed end and one flat. He held it up in front of his face and turned to me. “The Enforcement Team.”

Chapter 10

Stu laughed. “They’re still using those things? Even the Iustitia have guns now.”

His smile quickly faded as he realized the gravity of the situation. The Enforcement Team had come to clean up the city. Finally. But, chances were, we were going to get tangled up in it. We were going to take some of the blame, if not all of it. I had already pissed Phoenix off enough times. He would probably want me killed after this. If there was really a secret, there was a reason he hadn’t told me about it before. He definitely wouldn’t want me to know now that I wasn’t his faithful lapdog.

Of course, the fact that the Team had saved us was a good sign. Not good enough to feel comfortable with their arrival, but good. They probably weren’t expecting us to be there. Before I killed Francesca, she made it clear Phoenix wanted me back at any cost. I hadn’t been replaced, so, as far as everyone was concerned, I was still the second highest ranking vampire. They would need to get special permission to dust me. A knot lodged itself in my stomach. I couldn’t imagine it was going to be that difficult to acquire.

The rain was washing all of the ashes down the street. It ran between the cobblestones, weaving its way out of the alley, racing against the red streams of blood. That could have been us. It still could. Nothing was settled yet. The Enforcement Team could still be watching, hidden. They wouldn’t be seen unless they wanted to be. They were experts at what they did, and we were standing there in the open, ripe for the picking.

“Let’s get back,” I said, still dazed.

“We’re totally busted,” Stu whispered to Flo as we hurried out of the alley and back to the safety of our apartment building. “The Master is going to freak out.”

“Of course he is,” she snapped. “But if you were expecting any other outcome, you’re more stupid than I thought.”

He looked at her with his jaw hanging open. “That was harsh.”

She was right, though. Even I had known Phoenix would somehow find out what we were doing eventually. It was just a matter of time, but we came anyway. I had come with the purpose of stopping whatever he doing. Now that I knew he wasn’t masterminding it, that he was only letting things continue, I wasn’t any less determined.

The fact that he waited so long to send the Enforcement Team was enough for me. There had to be a reason he wanted vampires to stay out of Rome. Maybe Sullivan was right. There were secrets buried here that were big enough to keep hidden at any cost. I wondered, though, how Phoenix thought doing nothing was best.

Abel had managed to get clued in. Now it was my turn. If I could find out what he was hiding, I would have power over him. And when I got it, it was quite possible I would use it.

We were wet, bloody, aching, and miserable when we got back to our apartment. Our clothes were ruined, and our blood supply cut in half. It was bad enough that we couldn’t feed daily, and that the blood the Iustitia was supposed to be supplying us had fallen into the wrong hands, but to add fighting and blood loss to it made for a very dangerous combination. We were going to have to try under that bridge again. I had kept the address. Maybe Lombardi had arranged for the homeless men to be there every night.

He was crooked. That much was obvious, so there had to be more to his help than met the eye. It wasn’t something that was church-approved or he wouldn’t have hidden it from Max. I wasn’t going to say anything yet. They wouldn’t believe me over one of their own, so I was going to have to get proof first.

I opened the door to the lobby and let it slam shut in my face. I was frozen in place. My companions tensed up behind me in response to my reaction, but with no understanding why.

“What’s wrong?” Flo asked.

There was a long silence as I fought to find the words. I couldn’t deny being afraid. Any vampire would have been. “Two of them …” I trailed off.

“They know where we’re staying,” Sullivan said quietly after a second-long pause. “We can’t stand out here forever.”

“Oh, I think we can,” Stu squeaked.

Sullivan was right. I took a deep breath and opened the door again. I walked inside with them behind me and tried my best to present an air of confidence. I tried not to let the two members of the Enforcement Team see my fear, but I wasn’t sure how well I managed to pull it off.

“Hello,” Alonzo greeted.

He was just as tall as I remembered, and just as intimidating. His eyes were a deep green, the same his twin brother, Vin. Alonzo had gotten a haircut up to his shoulders with bangs hanging in his eyes. Vin had the same short hair as before and still wore the tattoo on his forehead proudly. It was a small black circle in the exact center with two elongated triangles on the each side, pointing toward his temples.

Vin smiled at us. “Long time, no see.”

“Not quite long enough,” Flo grumbled from behind me.

“How have you been?” I asked stiffly. I hadn’t always been afraid of them. We had been friends a long time ago. Before I became a deserter.

“Busy,” Alonzo replied. “The world is going to pot. Vampires are turning any human they feel like these days.”

Vin nodded. “It was better when we were selective. At least when we turned nobles, they already knew how to be discrete. And there are a lot more females now. No offense, Flo,” he added quickly. “You’re one of the few that we like.”

As sexist as it sounded, it was the truth. Centuries ago, women weren’t viewed as equals. You could debate it all you wanted, but it wouldn’t change the past. I wasn’t saying it was right, but it was a hard fact that there were drastically fewer female vampires that had seen anymore than fifty years. They weren’t seen as good fighters back then, and their emotions were worn on their sleeves. Vampires couldn’t reproduce, so most of us didn’t see a purpose for them. There were the exceptions, of course, like Flo and Francesca. It just wasn’t a generally accepted practice.

“To be a women in a man’s world,” Alonzo said, attempting a joke. It failed. “But, in all seriousness, we haven’t had a break. The Master has been too preoccupied lately to stop the vamps from making all these street-rat babies.”

“Preoccupied with what?” I asked. The two of them exchanged a look but kept their mouths shut. “I didn’t think the Enforcement Team was doing anything about the situation here,” I continued. “Otherwise, we might have stayed home and saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”

“We aren’t officially here,” Vin said. “The rest of the team is doing some work in Russia, so we snuck over here to see what was happening.”

“Why chance it?” Stu asked. “Phoenix will send you straight to the Marquis when he finds out.”

“He’s not going to find out.” Alonzo gave him a very stern look, rising up to his full height and towering over him. “And, believe it or not, we care what happens to our species. We don’t want to be outted to the humans anymore than you do.”

“Plus,” Vin added. “Our mother used to live nearby.”

I really didn’t care why they were there. I cared that they weren’t trying to kill us, and most importantly, that they weren’t going to report back to Phoenix that we were in Rome. Our secret was safe for the moment, but I felt a sudden urgency get everything over with before they could change their minds.

“Does that mean you’ll help us out?” I asked.

The twins looked at each other, shrugged, and made a few faces. It was fascinating to see them communicate without a single word. I had read a story once about twins having their own language. I wondered if it was true at the time but never got around to finding out. It looked to me like they didn’t need their own language. They just knew what the other was thinking. But, after a thousand years together, you wouldn’t need to be related to be on the same wavelength with one another.

“Help you how?” Alonzo asked.

“We need information,” I told them. “Anything.”

“Like, how did Abel get out for starters,” Flo said, getting right to the point.

“That’s a good question.” Alonzo scowled. “We were told to keep the boundaries, though. Phoenix doesn’t want us here.”

“Phoenix knows that he’s here?” Sullivan asked.

They nodded, but that seemed to be all they would do to confirm or deny on the subject.

“We’re not here. Remember that.” Vin told us. He caught our eyes one by one. “Word is spreading everywhere about what’s happening, so curiosity got the better of us. That’s it. We saved you tonight because we figured that by helping you, we were helping everyone.”

“Do you know exactly what’s going on?” Stu asked. “Really? Because I think you do.”

Another round of facial expressions and hand movements were exchanged before Vin spoke again. “Are you really working for the Iustitia?”

“With them,” Sullivan corrected. “But we owe them no loyalty.”

“Just tell them,” Vin whispered to his brother.

Alonzo brushed the hair from his face. “I think Sullivan was on the right track. We were listening to you on the roof.”

I scowled. How long had they been watching us? They were privy to a lot more information if they were watching us for an extended amount of time. The involvement of Lombardi, or more personal matters if it they had been around longer than that night. A chill ran over my body as flashbacks raced through my mind.

“Phoenix is hiding something here,” Sullivan said confidently.

“Well, do you happen to know what it is?” Flo snapped.

Even Stu gave Flo a dirty look. It was a secret of enormous proportions and it would take an equal amount of effort to find out what it was. If Phoenix was keeping the Enforcement Team from stopping Abel, then he feared they would figure it out. Obviously the only ones that knew were Abel and the master. Neither of which were going to tell us.

“What?” Flo gave Stu a little shove. “Someone has to know. A secret can’t stay a secret forever.”

“No. Just for seven hundred years or so,” Vin said.

“Then I was right?” Sullivan asked. “It’s related to the night Tobias was killed and Phoenix took the throne?”

The twins shrugged in unison.

“Call it a hunch,” Alonzo said. “But it’s something that I would look into if I were you. We’ll be here for a few days. The rest of the Team is covering for us. If we hear anything useful, we know where to find you.”

“How do we get in touch with you?” I asked.

Vin raised an eyebrow. “You don’t.”

That was all they had to say. The two of them started for the door with nothing more than a slight wave of the hand.

“Hey,” I called after them. “Stay away from the Lamborghinis.”

The brothers chuckled. “The Iustitia don’t scare us.”

We stood in the lobby for what seemed like an hour but, in actuality, was only two minutes. There was a ringing in my ears and a knot in my stomach. No one spoke. No one moved. And, thankfully, none of the tenants decided to break the curfew that night. Not even the nice elderly couple from the other evening would pass us by without calling the police. We looked like we came straight off the set to a horror film.

“Well … ” Stu trailed off.

“Yep,” Flo agreed. “My thoughts exactly.” Stu looked at her and cracked a smile. He was about to say something when she closed her fingertips against her thumb in front of his face. “For once in your life, don’t start with me.”

“Sullivan,” I said quietly. “What happened between Phoenix and his master, Tobias?”

He shook his head. “They got along really well. That’s why no one looked into things when it happened. That, and no one was willing to go up against Phoenix.”

“So we know nothing?” I looked sideways at him. “Absolutely nothing?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Stu chimed in. “It’s more than we knew before we got here.”

Helpful, Stu.

I sighed and plodded to the elevator with squishy sneakers.

Chapter 11

Lyn sat on the couch, riveted, while we recapped the night with Reece and Alex. The colored drained from her face at the initial sight of us. Her hands then covered her mouth when I told them about the fight. She sat on the edge of the cushion as I told them about the meeting with the Vin and Alonzo in the lobby. And, when I revealed that there might be a secret hidden behind everything, her eyes grew wide and sparkled with life.

I stood beside the window, dripping wet, with blood staining my torn clothes and ash clinging nearly everywhere. She was in crisp, clean jeans and a baby blue knit sweater. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and little pieces fell lightly around her face. The comparison was perfect symbolism, so perfect that it was alarming.

My eyes had wandered to her enough throughout the briefing to make myself angry. I should have been concentrating on solving the mystery, not on the doe-eyed, fair-skinned, dark-haired beauty in front of me. Getting distracted by her was the last thing I needed, but somehow I couldn’t help myself. She made me feel like a different person—more like the person I wanted to be. It was good she was leaving the next night. She was so …

“Kaden.” Flo snapped her fingers in front of my face impatiently. “Pay attention.”

Somehow I guess I felt that I didn’t have to pay attention. I had a front-row seat for everything we were talking about. The fight and seeing the twins were equally tiring. The secret was a large, vague hole looming over our heads. There was no plan to figure it out. Our only ally in Rome was the church, if that was what they were, and they weren’t bound to know. If they did, they would have used it against us long ago, unless they were biding their time. But then we would have been irrelevant, as that time had obviously arrived. Vin and Alonzo were almost as clueless as we were. We could torture it out of Abel or try to make contact with Phoenix. Neither of those options were real options, which left us with nothing.

“I’m taking a shower,” I announced. And that was what I did. After, I felt like a new person. It was one of those moments when you feel so incredibly clean that you believe your skin glows. Of course, to get that feeling, one has to be filthy beforehand, but that fresh feeling makes it almost worth it. Almost. I would exchange the night’s events for the radiant sensation in a split second.

My veins were tingling again. All of the energy used to battle and the loss of the blood had taken a little too much out of me. I could only hope that the homeless men would be under that bridge again right after sundown.

“Kaden,” Reece called from the living room.

I looked at my blue eyes in the mirror and squeezed some of the water out of my hair. A few strands reached down and poked at my eyelashes. “What is it?” I answered.

“Your phone.”

I pulled a green undershirt over my head and rummaged through my suitcase for pants, finally stepping into a pair of black sweats. It felt too weird to walk around in anything less in front of Lyn. I knew that she had seen at least one man in his boxers before, but it still made me uncomfortable. Exposed.

Reece was gushing over a map of Rome with Alex and Lyn. A travel book was open on the table with a few other pages marked with small pieces of paper. Lyn must have told Alex about the adventure they would get to take in the morning. A small pang hit my chest, but I ignored in favor of the phone call.

I picked the cell off the kitchen counter and flipped it open. “Who is this?”

“Cardinal Lombardi,” the man said without missing a beat. “And we have a problem.”

“Now what?” I asked, sounding a bit snippier than I meant to. I didn’t want him to know that we had seen him at Abel’s.

“Calls are flooding into the police that there was a large disturbance in one of the residential areas. One woman even claimed to see two gangs fighting each other with their bare hands and teeth.”

I looked over my shoulder. Flo, Stu, and Sullivan had retired, while the rest of them continued looking over the map. “You wanted us to take care of the problem,” I told him. I had to play things out carefully. He could place us right near the apartment he was in.

“Quietly,” he grunted into the phone.

“We were attacked. We had no choice but to defend ourselves,” I retorted. “Pass it off as whatever you want.”

“We need to have a meeting,” he said suddenly. “I’ll send you an address. Be there at dark tomorrow, and I’ll have more unfortunates waiting for you.”

Was he really bribing me with the homeless people?

“I’ll have to talk to Max first,” I said cautiously.

“No,” he nearly screamed. “Just you and I.”

I looked over my shoulder again. “I can’t do that.”

He sputtered over a few words. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“Our liaison is Max. If he’s not there, I’m not there,” I said matter-of-factly, trying to make it sound as reasonable as possible

Maybe I trusted Max more that I thought I did. He had done nothing but prove to me that he was reliable. Everything from defending us at the meeting to killing the werewolf that broke into my house in New York. If this man didn’t want Max to come along, I wasn’t going either.

“Is that all?” I asked after a long pause. The click on the other end of the line was my answer. “Great,” I mumbled to myself.

“What is?” Reece asked. “Who was it?”

“Cardinal Lombardi.”

“The one you saw at the apartment?” Alex gaped.

I nodded. “The police are getting some calls about the fight. Apparently we were too loud. He wanted to meet.”

“Another meeting?” Reece cracked his neck. “I’m sorry, but the last one was totally pointless.”

“No,” I corrected. “Not another meeting. He wanted to see me alone this time.”

“What?” Alex raised his voice. “Are you going?”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do I look that stupid?”

Reece rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Maybe they shouldn’t go out in the morning.”

Maybe not.

But I didn’t have the heart to stop them.

“Alex isn’t going to let anything happen to her,” I said, sounding more sure than I was. He would put up the fight of his life, but none of us knew who he would be up against. No one knew if he would be enough. “Keep planning. The sun will be up soon, and I need to get some sleep.”

Lyn hopped off the couch and hurried after me. Her feet padded behind me all the way to the bedroom. When I turned around, she looked up and smiled nervously. “I caught a quick nap and we have everything figured out.”

I grunted in response. Having her close after feeling the thrill of a fight, and running on low, was just another bad idea. A repeat of New York couldn’t happen. Just because I was feeding on humans again didn’t mean I had to feed from her.

I pushed the bedroom door open and let her go in before me. I looked down the small hallway at Alex. He gave me a half smile and a one-shoulder shrug. I exhaled heavily and shut myself in the room with Lyn.

“Um,” she hesitated. “If you really don’t think it’s a good idea, I’ll stay here instead.”

Her suitcase was repacked. It was standing upright against the far wall with a change of clothes sitting on top. A pair of cream sneakers with a green stripes down the sides sat on the floor beside it. Her purse and jacket were sitting on top of the dresser, ready to go.

“No,” I started awkwardly. As much as I wanted to protect her, I didn’t want to be a tyrant. I couldn’t stop her from living. I didn’t want her to resent me for anything more than she already did. “Alex will keep you safe. What did you decide to do?”

Her shoulders relaxed. “We’re going to eat pizza for lunch, spaghetti for dinner, and find Italian cookies to bring back. We’re going to take pictures of literally everything and see all the sites we possibly can in one day,” she said, determined.

“You’ve got a full day ahead of you,” I said numbly. I smiled down at her and moved a piece of hair from in front of her eye. “Just be careful, especially in Vatican City.” Lombardi might not be the only member of the church or Iustitia that was a traitor.

Her cheek leaned into my hand. We stood there quietly for a long minute. I felt her pulse thump in time with her heart. It was soothing and rhythmic, but like everything with Lyn, it had a darker meaning.

Behind everything that attracted me to Lyn was something that attracted the vampire in me. The lavender and vanilla scent both intoxicated me and made me feel like I had come home. Her skin was incredibly soft, but her veins were easily visible beneath it. Her eyes sparkled with life, but it played a dangerous game with the part of my nature that wanted me to hunt. I could remember how sweet she tasted, how smooth her neck had been under my tongue as I sucked the blood from her.

A gentle sigh escaped her mouth, the breath dancing along my arm. I shivered and pulled my hand away. She took a step closer and looked me seriously in the eye. Her lips parted ever so slightly.

“Lyn, I … ”

“Why?” she cut me off, speaking softly. “Why do you keep me at a distance? I’m right here in front of you, but all you do is try to get rid of me. Do you really hate me that much?”

“No,” I replied almost too quickly. “I don’t hate you at all. I tried keeping you close, but you were still in danger. The only option I have is to put distance between us. It’s the only way you won’t get hurt. It’s the only thing I know to do right now. You just have to trust me.”

She frowned. “There are other options.”

“What other …” I stopped myself as I realized what she meant. “No, Lyn. No. Don’t even think about it. It’s absolutely out of the question.”

“If I was like you then you wouldn’t have to protect me anymore,” she continued. “Would it be so bad?”

“Yes,” I yelled. How many times did I have to have the same conversation? “It would be worse than that. It would be a complete and utter catastrophe.”

Tears flooded her eyes. I pulled her to me and wound my arms around her. Her tiny hands wrapped themselves into the back of my shirt. Her breathing slowly steadied, but her hold remained tight.

“Please don’t do this to me,” I whispered. “Don’t make it any harder than it already is.”

Slowly, she pulled herself out from my embrace. She stood on her toes so her face was closer to mine. I could feel it—the draw between us. I wanted nothing more than to surrender to it.

I wanted to feel her satin lips on mine again. I wanted it more than anything in that moment. More than blood. I wanted to pull her close again and never let go. What I needed, however, was to forget about my human emotions. I needed to embrace what I really was and finish what Abel started. I needed not to feel anything at all.

I placed a stiff kiss on her forehead and stepped away. “I’ll take you to the airport after the sun goes down.”

“Kaden,” she started, but lost her words.

I grabbed my wallet off the nightstand and pulled out a credit card. “There’s no limit on this. Get anything you want tomorrow. Don’t spare any expense. I want you to have fun.”

“I can’t do that,” she said quietly.

I walked to her purse and stuck it inside. “It will make me happy if you do. Alex too. I don’t want you to miss out on anything.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly.

Part of me doubted she would actually use it, but I wanted to believe that she would. I couldn’t give her what she wanted. It was a sad excuse for a substitute but all I knew to do.

My hand rested on top of her head for a moment before I passed by her. I climbed under the sheets and turned to face the wall. Her warm presence burned into my back. My fingers dug into the corner of the pillow and I concentrated very hard on breathing steadily.

This was how things had to be. It was the only way they could be.

Chapter 12

The sunlight was shining off the pond like a million little crystals. Birds were chirping, and the laughter of children from a nearby playground filled the air. The scent of freshly cut grass and sweet flowers surrounded me. A man on a bicycle pedaled by, and an elderly lady was throwing bread crumbs to a flock of pigeons.

I stood under the safety of a stone tunnel. I was as close to the sunlight as I could possibly get without being burned. In my gut, I knew there was something terribly wrong. My hand shielded my eyes against the blinding light and desperately searched the park.

The ducks were swimming serenely on the pond. A young couple was rowing leisurely in the distance. An ice cream truck was playing a happy melody somewhere close by.

I took a step forward, and light seared my arm. I jumped back, a low scream stopping in my throat.

A man emerged from behind a large oak tree. He was dressed all in black, standing out against the bright landscape, and headed straight toward me. I cradled my burnt arm and backed further into the darkness of the tunnel.

As the man got closer, I recognized him. The werewolf coming at me was the same one whose head Francesca threw at my feet in New York; the old leader of Phoenix’s werewolf pack. My body froze. He was alive.

How could he be alive?

He stopped a hundred feet away and smiled before pulling his clothes off. When he was down to his underwear, he winked at me. Then, with earsplitting intensity, he changed into a gray wolf before my eyes. Even in his second form, I knew he was smiling. His yellow eyes flickered away from me to something outside of my view.

And then Lyn suddenly came down the path wearing a white dress, her brown hair gleaming brightly in the sun. The wolf looked back over his shoulder at me before trotting right toward her.

I tried to yell to Lyn, to tell her to run, but my voice wouldn’t come out. She saw the werewolf coming and stopped dead. She looked to me, eyes wide with fear, but she couldn’t move. I tried once more to step forward, but my skin blistered instantly, sending me flying back into the shadows.

The wolf circled Lyn. She reached out to him, as if she were about to pet a giant dog. It took a moment, only a split second, and she was being torn apart. The blood. There was so much blood.

“Kaden,” someone called. It seemed so distant. “Kaden!” My eyes flew open. Stu was standing over me, slapping my face. “Finally. I didn’t think you were ever going to wake up.”

Lyn’s screams echoed in my ears. Her bloody body was still burned into my mind. It took a while to realize that I was in my bed and not in that park. I sat up quickly, knocking Stu out of the way. The room spun, and I grabbed my stomach.

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“Who?” he asked. I gave him a sharp look “Lyn? You told Alex to take her sightseeing, remember?”

I fell back onto the bed and closed my eyes. The scene from my dream seemed to be etched into my eyelids. I instantly flung them open again and glared at Stu.

“Bad dream?” he asked, flashing me a quick, nervous smile and backing toward the door.

“More like a nightmare,” I grumbled. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a dream. They say that you have them every night and that you just don’t remember. I didn’t think that was true. In the last six centuries, I had only dealt with a handful. I always remembered them. Always. Only none were quite like the one I just had.

A couple had been about my life as a human, learning how to ride a horse or the first time I saw my daughter. The others were all violent. Pleasantly so, waking me up with such a desire to hunt. They would be considered nightmares now, but nothing would ever top the one I just experienced.

“I think you woke up the entire floor with your screaming,” Stu continued. “Are you all right?”

“Get out,” I said quietly.

“Okay then.” He bolted for the door without looking back. Once he was gone, I sat upright slowly and pulled my knees up. I rested my forehead on them and stared down at the comforter in my lap. The image wouldn’t leave my mind. I felt like I could vomit. It was the one image I never wanted to see, and one I never wanted that to become a reality.

It was very possible that it would. It was a reality for Sullivan, and he was still trying to recover from it. There was no way I would be able to handle it as well as he had. I wasn’t that strong. It would be the end of me. I wouldn’t pull through something like that.

“Damn breakable humans,” I mumbled into my knees.

I blindly reached for my cell phone. After searching for it with my hand, I pulled it under my face and opened it. My thumb clicked through the phonebook until it highlighted Lyn’s name.

My finger hesitated over the call button. I wanted her to go out and have a good time without me interrupting them. I knew she was fine, but I desperately wanted to hear her voice. I wanted confirmation of what I knew—that what I saw was just a dream.

Before I could press the green button, the phone started vibrating in my hand. I jumped and almost dropped it to the ground. I looked hopefully at the caller ID and sighed. It was only Ennis, the vampire that was looking after New York for me.

“Yes?” I answered, obviously unhappy.

“Hey,” Ennis’s raspy voice came through the other end.

“What terrible thing happened now?” I grumbled.

“Merv has moved into your house with Sid,” he said.

“So?” I paused. “Wait, why?”

Ennis cleared his throat. “Christopher has finally started to move against you.”

There was a long pause while I let the information sink in. I stood up and started to pace the room. “Christopher, the vampire in charge of Philadelphia?” I asked just to be sure. “The vampire who is pissed at me because he thinks I stole half of his werewolf pack? The one who wasn’t going to move against me until it was clear that I wasn’t going back to Spain?”

“Well,” Ennis said carefully, trying to pick his words. “I’d say it was pretty clear.”

He was right. The vampires that survived New York, the Marquis, and Davis had gone back after the fight in Flushing Park and reported everything. They had no choice. They couldn’t leave out a thing. I had thought Phoenix would just try again. I had overestimated his patience with me. I thought it would take more to get him off my back, like being where I was and doing what I was doing. Actively seeking out a way to destroy him wasn’t going to endear me to him. I knew that. I just wanted a little more time. Phoenix was going to start by letting Christopher take New York, but that wasn’t where it would end. Soon, nowhere would be safe for me. Not even Rome.

“Do what you can,” I told him. “Sid’s there. He’ll help.”

At that moment, I felt like I didn’t care as much as I should have. New York was my home. I had created something there. And it wasn’t just for me. All of the vampires and werewolves in the five boroughs had sought refuge there. What would become of them if I let someone else take charge?

The same thing that would happen to me: death. On a great big silver platter, unless they swore a new allegiance.

“There’s one more thing,” Ennis said. “Oliver’s here.”

I groaned again. That was the reason Christopher pushed to move forward. Oliver was his pack’s leader and the one that went behind his back to help me in the first place. It made Christopher look weak as a leader, but now that I was apparently harboring his biggest outlaw, he looked like a complete joke for not sticking up for himself.

“Wonderful,” I snapped. “Just talk to Sid. I have enough to deal with here.”

“But, what do you want me to do? Round up some sort of army, try to talk it out, or …?”

“I don’t know,” I half-shouted. “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you to take care of things for me. So. Take. Care. Of. Things.”

“Right, sorry.” He called to Sid in the background and hung up the phone. I instantly felt sorry for yelling at him. It wasn’t his fault that I was angry. He was just doing his job.

I tossed the cell aside. It wasn’t dark yet. According to the clock, it was another half hour until the curfew became effective. Alex should have been back with Lyn already. I told myself that they would be back at any second. He would walk in with a very alive, unscathed version of Lyn.

I shook away the dream again.

Was it too much to ask to have one normal night?

In the last 627 years, I couldn’t remember one normal thing. If I wasn’t killing humans, I was trying not to bite them. The last six centuries had never been my own. I had always been controlled by Phoenix, even when I wasn’t with him.

It was time for a little bit of normal, even if the timing was all wrong. If I sent Lyn away now, I would always regret it. For one night, I was going to do something I hadn’t done in a long time.

I was going to do something normal.

That was what I needed.

Chapter 13

I sat next to Reece on the couch, shaking my leg up and down nervously. I had on clean jeans and a blue, striped, button-up shirt with my white sneakers. For the first time in a while, I had bothered to do something with my hair. Stu was more than happy to give up some of his gel. So happy, in fact, that he tried to help until I slammed the bathroom door in his face.

“Relax,” Reece said, holding back a laugh. He was picking at a bowl of popcorn while an Italian drama played on TV.

“You would think it was his first date or something.” Stu laughed and elbowed Flo playfully. She elbowed him back, hard, with sincerity.

“It’s not a date,” I insisted for the tenth time. “I’m never going to see her again after she leaves. There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing.”

I was trying to convince myself of that. There were actually quite a lot of things wrong with it. Taking a break in the middle of a crisis. Chancing both our lives with a night out on the town. Spending time with a human while I was thirsty. The simple fact that I wanted to spend time with a human. The list went on, but I was determined.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Flo grumbled.

Alex and Lyn were coming down the hallway. Their laughter floated through the door. Bags rustled in their hands, and they stopped just outside to fumble with them. Then the key slipped into the lock and turned.

Lyn barely made it through the door before I shot up off the couch. I took her purse from her shoulder and set it on the counter. Her smile faltered a little. She probably thought I was going insane with the grin I knew was plastered on my face.

“What’s up?” Alex asked.

I gently pushed Lyn toward the bathroom. “Go freshen up and come right back.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “Wha …”

“Go on,” Reece said, finally letting his laugh break free from his throat. “You’re going back out, so you might want to grab a jacket.”

She looked at me like I had grown a second head. Her face slowly turned a bright shade of red as she realized everyone in the room was staring intently at her. Carefully, she set her shopping bags down and rushed from the room.

Alex came up beside me. “Are you taking her to the airport?”

Lyn bounded back into the room faster than I could have expected, having changed her clothes and grabbed her suitcase.

“We’ll be back,” I told Alex. I removed Lyn’s grip from the suitcase and pulled her back out into the hallway. I pressed the elevator button and smiled down at her from the corner of my eye.

“Have you seen the Coliseum?”

“Just the outside,” she hesitated. “The lines were too long to go in. It would have taken hours. Where are we going?” she asked hurriedly. “I need my suitcase and my passport is in my purse.”

“I’m not taking you to the airport.” I winked.

Her forehead creased, and she opened her mouth just as the elevator doors opened. I ushered her in first and quickly pressed the button for the lobby.

“Kaden?”

I ignored her until the doors opened again. I led her back onto the street by her hand, and she stopped just outside the doors. “Come on,” I told her. “There are only so many hours of night.”

She skipped to keep up with me as I started walking away. “Where are we going?”

“We’re jumping to the front of the line,” I said.

“Kaden, this isn’t like you.” Her forehead was still creased, and she pulled on my hand. “Are you feeling all right? The last time you did something like this was the night I found out you were a vampire.”

I stopped on the sidewalk and turned to her. I rubbed my fingertips along her upper arms and my smile faltered. “I know it’s not like me, but it occurred to me that I needed to let myself experience a little bit of life. Once I send you back to New York, who knows when I’ll see you again. If I will see you again.” I paused. “I know that this is out of character, but will you just play along for tonight? I promise it’s nothing like before.”

Her head bobbed up and down slightly. “Is there a taxi or … ”

I picked her up. With any luck, she wouldn’t get sick again. Traveling that quickly hadn’t agreed with her the first couple of times. We weren’t as far from the Coliseum as we had been from my club in Manhattan. I was going to take my chances. She handled it decently the last time. She hadn’t vomited, at least.

I darted through the streets as quickly as I could and set Lyn down just outside the Coliseum wall. She swayed, grabbing onto my forearm for support, but that was all. Once she caught her footing, she was fine.

She was wearing the same jacket and black boots that she wore the first night I met her. Her jeans were tucked into them, and her pea coat hung, unbuttoned, over a dark purple cowl-neck sweater. Her hair was blowing around her face with the cool breeze.

I turned my eyes away from her, as hard as it was, and studied the Coliseum wall. “How do you feel about jumping?” I asked.

She leaned toward me and crossed her arms. “You can’t seriously think that we’re going to break in?”

I looked at her and offered her a big, fang-baring smile. “Well, we won’t break anything.” I pulled her close so I could pick her up again. “No one has to know.”

“Kaden,” she whispered frantically.

We leapt up into one of the arches, then once more over the wall. The night air circled around us in a calm breeze, brushing mildly over our skin. Lyn screamed warmly into my neck, and I let us fall onto the platform. I landed squarely on my feet, setting her down gently.

“See,” I laughed. “Nothing’s broken.”

“We’re going to get arrested,” she groaned, face slightly pale.

“No, we won’t,” I assured her. “If the cops come anywhere near this place, I’ll get us out of here.”

“But, the curfew. What if other vampires show up?”

I put my finger up to my lips. This was supposed to be a night of normal. I would be keeping a keen eye on things, but I wouldn’t worry about them unless I needed to. And I really hoped that I wouldn’t.

“Nothing’s going to happen. Look where you are. Aren’t you even a little bit excited?” I waited, holding my breath, for her reaction.

She exhaled. The moon was bright, and, between the street lights and special lighting around the structure, even her human eyes could see. She spun around, slowly taking everything in, until she was facing me again. Finally, she gave me what I was looking for: an enormous smile.

I was acting like a teenager. I was being stupid. I was fully aware of that, but for the moment, it didn’t matter. This one night wouldn’t make things easier for me. It would, in all honesty, make it ten times harder to send her away. But every time I had to see the dead look in Sullivan’s eyes, and after that dream I had, I found myself feeling a bit scared. If I didn’t let myself have this one night with her, I would be sorry for it later.

Did I feel guilty about putting off the reason we were in Rome? Yes. Each night was extremely important. One day was all it could take for things to escalate, or one night for Abel to accomplish his goal. It was a completely reckless thing to do.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked. “Go look around.”

Lyn hesitated. I walked by her, toward a wide staircase, and reached back for her hand. She took it, and I tugged lightly until she followed. Her fingers wrapped between mine, sending heat trailing up my arm.

I carefully navigated our way through the ancient structure. The lights cast our shadows across sections of ancient stone and down into the depths of the hypogeum.

The warmness of her hand tingled through my body. It made me … The smile fell from my face. I hadn’t felt like this way in so long that I hardly knew what it was. But, I think the word that I was looking for was happy. I didn’t know how that was possible.

We walked onto the wooden-planked floor, and Lyn leaned over the railing. She squinted, looking down at the labyrinth below. “What’s down there?”

“That’s where the gladiators and animals were kept before the contests would begin,” I explained. She looked over at me and pursed her lips. “What?” I asked.

“Did you look that up before we got here?”

“Of course not. I just know things.” I laughed. “Do you want to go check it out?”

She turned back to the floor beneath us. “Can we do that?”

“We can do anything you want,” I answered. I picked her up, waited for her to wrap her arms around my neck, and let us fall to the ground below. “Can you see?”

“So-so.” She blinked repeatedly, trying to adjust her eyes. “Don’t let me walk into anything.”

Her hand found mine once more and held tight. She walked between the brick walls, letting her fingers skim over them. “It’s so old,” she said quietly.

I didn’t reply. I was simply enjoying her company, and watching her take in all the things around her. There was no way that I deserved to feel the way I did, especially when so many others were having a hard time. Not when I had done so many horrible things.

“Kaden?” she asked. “What made you bring me here?”

I scratched my head. I didn’t want to tell her the dream made me realize what it would feel like to lose her. It was still carved in the front of my brain, and was far too graphic to ever speak out loud. I couldn’t tell her I thought it was going to be the last night I would ever see her either.

“The Coliseum?” I ventured, hoping I could play the question off. “I felt a strange connection when I saw these walls. I wanted to show it to you. Besides, you can’t leave Rome without visiting the Coliseum.”

“A connection with a building?” she asked, running her fingers over the old walls and ignoring that I tried to make the subject a lighter one.

“Does it sound that strange?” I laughed.

“Tell me,” she said playfully. She turned to face me, a crooked smile dancing on her lips. “How are you the same? Because what I see here …” She put her palm on the wall. “… are a bunch of very old bricks with no life to them. And what I see here …” She moved her palm to my chest. “… is a man with centuries of life within him.”

I immediately shook my head and leaned away from her touch. “This isn’t what you would call a life. I am the same as these bricks. I’ve seen the years pass by, and I haven’t changed. We’ve both seen more death than anyone should have to see. The walls are crumbling here, and so are mine. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Everything I had is slipping away.”

It was Lyn’s turn to shake her head. “Things in life change. It’s natural, but you shouldn’t worry. And …” She smiled at me. “… this place was made for violent killings. There’s a big difference.”

I had to stop myself from laughing out loud because it wouldn’t have been a pleasant thing to hear. “Is that what you think? I’m a vampire. I was also built to kill. I’ve slaughtered more people than you would care to know.”

I felt my happy mood slowly slipping away. It was being replaced by a much deeper feeling. A feeling of regret and anger. I was angry at myself for everything I did for so many years. I had believed in Phoenix. I had believed we were doing the right thing, but I was wrong. The only thing I had accomplished was creating the immense feeling of pain and loss in thousands upon thousands of other families while they mourned the loved ones I murdered.

“I was an Irish noble,” I started, not realizing what was coming from my mouth. “Like my father, I was strongly opposed to the English on our soil. My marriage was political. While I didn’t love her, she was a good woman, and she gave me one child. A daughter. When she was four, something happened.” I paused and took a deep breath. “I didn’t understand what angered the villagers so much that they took action against me. Against them.

“But, they did. They burned my house down with my wife and child inside. I tried to help them, but before I could make it a hundred feet, something struck the back of my head. When I woke up again, I was in the dark hull of a ship bound for Spain.”

Lyn watched my face as I told her about my past. I couldn’t look at her as I spoke, but I felt her gaze boring into me.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

I motioned to myself. “Phoenix was there to greet me. He welcomed me into my new life. It was full of promises of revenge. I realized then what the true nature of men was. It took me centuries to understand just how wrong I had been. Phoenix killed my family. He did it with full knowledge that they were the only ties I had left to the human world. Without them, I would be the perfect baby vampire: free of all attachments and full of nothing but hatred. I was his to mold. And, then I realized that vampires were just the same as humans. We stabbed each other in the back and manipulated each other. We did it more than the humans did, and more openly, with twice the violence.”

Lyn’s warm fingers trailed across my jaw, leaving streaks of heat behind. “You’re not like them. Not anymore.” She gave my hand a light squeeze and smiled warmly.

I felt myself grow angrier. I would never understand her accepting attitude. I wished that I knew what Alex had told her that night in New York that made her so unafraid. A part of me wanted her to be disgusted at all the wrongs I committed.

“You don’t understand,” I said through my teeth. “I killed women and children. I butchered them, and I enjoyed every second of it. And that isn’t the worst that I’ve done. There’s more. I’ve …”

This time it was Lyn who put her finger to my lips. I fell completely silent looking into her eyes. They were deep, dark pools, and I felt myself get lost there. My anger slowly fizzled away.

She shook her head. “We all have a past. You’re not that person anymore,” she repeated. “The only person you’re hurting by holding onto those things is yourself.”

“What is it that makes you so tolerant of everything?” I asked, my voice a low whisper.

She shrugged. “Everyone has their struggles. Just because yours are different than mine, doesn’t mean they’re any more or any less important.”

I found my smile again. I leaned forward and rested my forehead on hers. “You are such a mystery.”

“No.” She wrinkled her nose and laughed. “Ask me anything. I’ll give you an honest answer.”

“Is that so?” I laughed with her. “Come on. There’s a lot more to see.”

We walked through all the chambers. She led, I followed. Not a word was spoken, but she had me entranced. The moonlight reflected off her hair and caught in her eyes. She stood on tiptoe in places to get a closer look at things. Her feet moved carefully, unsure where they would step next. Every so often she would look back at me and smile, giving me a warm feeling of comfort.

“So,” she broke the silence. “I was wondering something.”

“What’s that?” I asked, my voice different than usual. Softer.

“About something Stu said at The Amaryllis before we left.” She stopped and turned to face me. “You didn’t seem to want to tell me then.”

I wracked my brain trying to think of what he might have mentioned at my club but came up empty handed. “Okay,” I said, uncertain.

She blushed. “He can hypnotize people with his voice, and Sullivan can erase memories,” she paused. “What about Flo?”

My eyes narrowed. This was dangerous territory.

“Flo?” I repeated. “She never developed a special trait.”

“Oh.” She looked around the immediate area, refusing to meet my eyes. “What about you?”

I swallowed. “That …” I started, rubbing my face. “That is something you will never have to worry about. Ever.”

“Why?”

“Trust me,” I begged. “It’s a power that I will never use again. It’s not something light and fluffy like Stu and Sullivan have. It’s dangerous and wrong.”

I pleaded silently for her to let it go at that. It wasn’t something she was good at, but in that situation, I needed her to. She studied me, looking me in the eye with a steady confidence.

“Okay,” she finally said.

I let out a breath, and my chest lightened. We had seen just about everything there was to see. There was no reason to linger in the clammy passages. I jumped, holding Lyn, to the landing with the stairs and into the lighter air.

She stood in the exact place that I set her down in. She was in right front of me with her hands still resting on my upper arm. My own fingers lingered at her waist.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said. “But I want to ask you about one more thing.”

I met her gaze. Something told me that I wasn’t going to like the new question any better than the last. “All right,” I said slowly.

“Earlier, what did you mean when you said ‘if’ you see me again?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. My guess was right—it wasn’t something I wanted to answer. There was more than one reason for my statement. New York could fall to Christopher while I was gone, leaving me to fight to get it back. There was also a chance that I would have to look for a new home all together. Or, equally possible, I could be killed.

My hands found their way inside Lyn’s coat and around her sides. My palms ran along the soft fabric of her sweater. The distance between us closed, but I never lost eye contact. There was no longer any hint of citrus left on her. Her lavender and vanilla scent filled the air around me, making butterflies dance in my stomach. And causing my veins to erupt in a dry, thirsty itch.

I leaned down and gently pressed my lips to hers, determined not to let it interrupt my evening. They were as soft as I remembered and tasted just as sweet. I knew nothing but her in that moment.

Our kiss slowly grew from tender into something deeper. My fingers started to curl into her shirt. Her body was pressed against mine and was burning hot through all the layers that separated us. Her hands found their way to my cheeks, holding me to her. Her heart was pounding in her chest. It stirred something inside me. I wanted to be closer.

In one fluid moment, I lifted her and pressed her against the ancient wall. Her cheeks were flushed, and her breathing was heavy. I had never seen her look as attractive as she did in that very moment.

She grabbed onto the collar of my shirt and pulled me to her again. My fingers tingled with heat while holding her. In the back of my mind, I felt that I was losing control. It wasn’t the kind of control that would endanger her. I didn’t want her blood. Not yet.

So, I decided to let myself go.

I lost myself in her kiss and in her warmth. I was thoroughly enveloped in her presence. Her heart pounded furiously within her chest. I could feel it resonate through my entire body, and I pressed against her a little more.

Then someone cleared their throat loudly from behind me. I spun around, the taste of Lyn still on my lips, and found it hard to catch my breath.

Flo was standing there with Stu and Sullivan. Her fists were propped on her hips and her foot tapped impatiently against the ground.

“It’s good to know that you’re having fun,” she hissed. “But we’ve got huge a problem.”

Chapter 14

It better be a monumental crisis.

I should have known better than to think I could make it through the night without one. If it were any other night, I probably would have gone without seeing another vampire. I could have gone on deluding myself until dawn that it was possible for me to have a …date, or anything else that resembled a normal human activity.

Vehicles whizzed by on the other side of the wall. There were at least six, from the sound of it. The tires squealed when they rounded the corner. The engines whined at the sudden acceleration as they made it to another piece of straightaway.

My muscled tensed, and they stayed that way. “Was that who I think it was?’

“We might be too late,” Stu said quietly.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“Lyn is going to have to come,” Sullivan said. “There’s no time.”

“Time for what?” I almost yelled.

Sullivan reached behind me and grabbed Lyn by the arm. He scooped her up. “They’re trying to kill the pope.”

He didn’t say another word. No one did. They simply hopped over the Coliseum wall. The statement rang in the air, and I fought to comprehend it. I stood, dumbfounded, for a good ten seconds before hurrying after them. I didn’t understand what exactly was happening, but I understood that it was bad. The Iustitia had flown by in their Lambos, and I hadn’t seen Sullivan so aggressive in a long time.

Who was stupid enough to try killing the pope?

I caught up to everyone after a few streets and ran with them toward Vatican City. We passed the Iustitia’s cars a block from the entrance. There were no guards waiting at the gate. Screams and yelling filled air. They were coming from the direction of the Papal Palace.

We hurried toward the sound of the commotion to find the Swiss Guard there, along with four other parked black Lamborghinis. Low growls echoed off the walls inside the building. Men were shouting in Italian and were running past the window.

The Swiss Guards were backing away. Werewolves hadn’t been part of their training. They were too shocked to be of any help, even if they knew how to hunt them. At that moment the guards were nothing but a giant liability, for the church and for us.

Flo rushed forward and into the open door of the building. I wasn’t sure that we would be allowed in, but it was apparently considered public because she went over the threshold without any problems. Stu raced in behind her and the men started to shoot, causing them to jump back outside.

The other Iustitia vehicles came racing up to the building. The men and women were jumping out of their cars before the vehicles were barely in park, with their weapons fully drawn. Max was one of them. He was wearing a gun holster around his shoulders and had his crossbow in hand.

“Kaden,” he called. “Hurry. They can’t get by the werewolves. ”

“Max, what …” I started.

Tony, the young man from the meeting, nodded to us as he ran by. He yelled something to the men as a dozen Iustitia filed through the door and started shooting immediately. Flo and Stu went in behind them. This time, Sullivan and I followed.

There were five giant gray wolves snarling and snapping at the men. There weren’t any humans inside besides the Iustitia. Between the twenty men, it seemed that they had robbed an entire armory on their way. They each had multiple guns strapped to their bodies—some with crossbows and small knives. I even saw a set of throwing stars whiz down the hall. Bullets exploded from their barrels and ricocheted everywhere.

Stu was wincing against each one that came too close. The wolves were trying to dodge everything, and for the most part, doing a good job of not getting hit. I was impressed. There were almost two dozen men shooting deadly silver at them, and they were still going strong. They weren’t advancing, but neither were the humans.

There were noises from the floor above us. The werewolves were preoccupied with the Iustitia, and the second I saw a window to get by, I took it. I slid along the wall, hoping I wouldn’t get shot. One of the wolves noticed what I was doing and lunged toward me. A bullet saved me, hitting him in the shoulder. The wolf growled and leapt back.

Sullivan was running behind me down the corridor, with Lyn over one shoulder. My stomach dropped. “What are you doing, bringing her in here?” I hissed. “What if she had gotten shot?”

He looked at me very steadily. “I could have left her outside.”

“At least there weren’t any bullets out there,” I spat.

“No,” he agreed. “Probably just vampires.”

A thunderous thump, followed by growling, came from the top of the stairs to our left, putting an end to our discussion. “Come on,” a man yelled. “It can’t be that hard to break a door down.”

Another loud thump sounded, this time followed by a loud grunt. I skidded to a stop at the foot of the stairs and peered up. It was impossible to see who was there without climbing up, but I could hear the beating of four different hearts. One of them was fast and irregular—a werewolf. The other three belong to humans.

“That has to be where the pope is,” Sullivan said in my ear.

I glanced over my shoulder at him and scowled. “Put her down already.”

He set Lyn on her carefully on her feet. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

She shook her head and turned toward me, her eyes wild with fear. I held out my hand and guided her to a small niche under the stairs. “Stay here,” I told her earnestly. “No matter what you hear, don’t move. If anything nonhuman sees you, scream as loudly as you can.”

She nodded, but kept clinging to my hand.

“Don’t leave this spot,” I repeated. I slowly pried myself free. “Promise me.”

She nodded once more, and I leaned in to kiss her cheek.

I wasn’t sure about leaving her there in the middle of a fight. If the werewolves somehow got away from the Iustitia and came to help, they would know she was there. Her face was white with fear. She reeked of it. Her heart was trying to beat its way from her chest.

“Kaden,” Sullivan said.

Another resonating boom from above caused the wood to split with a loud crack. Whoever was up there was beginning to make progress. I spared another nervous look at Lyn before leaving her there.

Sullivan and I hurried up the stairs. We were concerned about what would be waiting for us at the top, and wondering what kind of reaction time they would have. Vampires gave off no signal. There could very well be an entire room full of them.

Luckily for us, we weren’t greeted by anything when we reached the second floor. The one and only vampire was half way down the lavish hallway. He was encouraging the medium gray werewolf to try the door again. He, himself, couldn’t do it which meant that the room was considered a residence of some kind.

The pope lived in this building, if I remembered correctly, but I highly doubted his apartments were so easy to get to. Still, if they were trying to kill him, he had to be in there, whether they were his personal rooms or not.

The werewolf had made a large fracture down the middle of the door and was preparing to slam into it again. We watched as the wolf shoved into the door, splitting it even further. It had to be the thickest door in existence to have survived as long as it had. The hinges were giving way now. One more solid hit, and they would be in. We had to stop him before that happened.

I took a step forward and the vampire noticed my movement. He turned slowly with a blank stare. His dark eyes narrowed, and he held a hand up to stop the werewolf from charging the door.

“How did you get by my wolves?” he shouted.

We ignored the question and kept advancing forward.

“Who are you?” he asked, growing more and more suspicious. “Did Abel send you?

“It’s not important.” I nodded toward the door. “What’s in there?”

All right, I knew he wasn’t going to answer me, but I asked anyway. Before I went in there to save anyone, I wanted to know who it was. It may have sounded callous, but there wasn’t time to waste saving just any random person. It was the head of the church and Iustitia we needed alive.

“You should leave,” he said. “I don’t want to fight you.”

Of course he didn’t. It was two against one, and an easy win. It wasn’t that I discounted the werewolf, but it was young. It was full grown in size, standing a little over four and a half feet, but seemed to cower at the sight of us. It had no experience.

“Get away from the door,” I told the wolf.

The hair on the back of its neck stood up, and its head dropped. The vampire grabbed a handful of gray fur just behind its head. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Sullivan took a few steps forward. “Move, or we will move you.”

The vampire laughed. “Do you know who I am? I run things here.”

“You do?” I asked. I had never seen him before. “I thought that was Abel’s role.”

He scoffed. “I got him out of that cell, and he wants me to answer to him?” His fingers dug into the wolf’s skin and it whimpered. “I’ll play along with his charade for now, but when this is over, I will get my dues.”

“I don’t recognize you,” I said simply. I found it very hard to believe he had just waltzed into Phoenix’s underground mansion and casually opened a heavily guarded door.

“No,” he agreed. “Every night for two years I was Abel’s dinner. But then I accidently overheard a little tidbit from the Master about Rome. Abel turned me, in exchange for the information, and for getting him out. And, viola, here we stand today.”

A burst of shouts floated up from the floor below us. It seemed like the gunshots were getting closer. We didn’t have time to waste chatting, even if it seemed like a good opportunity to learn something. The Iustitia would need help soon, and Lyn was still alone.

I rubbed the back of my neck. I hated that I liked what I was about to do—that I was actually looking forward to ripping the vampire apart. I had a taste for it again. This place was going to be the death of me. I was going to lose everything that I worked so hard to get. I was going to lose myself, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

Sullivan had known me long enough to know the little movements I made before I attacked. We all had them. Even if we went from zero to sixty in under a second, they were there. The muscle under my left eye twitched, and I flew at the vampire. Sullivan was right behind me.

The vampire leapt over the werewolf and right at Sullivan. Why he chose to attack him over me was strange. Sullivan was over a hundred years old when I was turned. He was physically stronger than me and always would be. It came with age.

I wasn’t going to complain, though. He made his bed, and it left me free to deal with the wolf. It was scratching frantically on the door, desperate to get in. I kicked him in the ribs and he flew down the hall with a yelp. Prayers suddenly became audible from within the room.

The wolf didn’t try to get up, which was surprising. Behind me, Sullivan was using half his effort to defeat the vampire. I walked carefully toward the shivering werewolf. Its yellow eyes watched me as I got closer, and it tried to crawl backward to get away.

I stopped a few feet from him, disturbed by what I was seeing in front of me. “Change back,” I told him.

The transformation back to human looked even worse than turning into the wolf. The fur receded into the skin. The bones shoved through, pulled back, and shoved through again, shrinking back into delicate human flesh. The face was the worst part. Raw muscle and cartilage were exposed while skin seemed to creep back into place from beneath it, spider webbing its way back into place. The human and wolf eye colors melted together until the yellow faded, followed by a sudden expanse of the pupil.

When it was finished with the horrific scene, a young teenage boy was left crouching before me. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, meaning that, if he was one of the cursed, he had been a wolf for about two years. If he had been bitten, he could be as young as two weeks. My guess was that he was somewhere between the two.

His ribs were bruised from where I kicked him, and his shoulder was swollen from running into the door. The back of his neck was fire-truck red from the vampire’s grip. His breathing was heavy, and tears were pouring down his face in heavy sobs. Even I wasn’t heartless enough to kill a crying child. There was no deception or ill will in his weeping. He was honestly afraid.

“Move and you’re dead,” I growled.

Sullivan was brushing ash off his sleeve when I turned around. It was stuck to half his face. I wasn’t going to ask how he managed that. “He’s young,” he whispered over my shoulder, wiping furiously at his cheek.

I nodded and looked back at the boy. He knew something, and after I questioned him, so would I. But first, I was going to see what was in that room that was so important.

I knocked on the splintered door and waited. No one answered, not that I could really blame them. “Your Holiness? Are you in there?” I asked as politely as I could manage. “My name is Kaden. I’m here to help.”

The door creaked and fell into the room, almost crushing the lone Swiss Guard that tried opening it. The pope was sitting in a purple velvet chair against the far wall. He was mouthing a prayer as he stood up. His knees buckled, and an arm reached out to help him.

“Kaden.” Cardinal Lombardi smiled. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

Chapter 15

“Lombardi,” I answered, trying hard to keep my voice neutral.

Things weren’t right. The cardinal was too involved. They could argue that he was Iustitia. They could swear up and down that he was just playing his part, but I wasn’t buying it. Not after seeing him at Abel’s apartment. Not after his phone call when he tried to meet me privately. It had been a setup. Lombardi was Abel’s mole, who had even turned on him to get what he wanted.

The sounds from downstairs were getting louder and louder. There wasn’t much time before one of the other wolves made their way up the stairs, or to Lyn.

“Invite us in,” I said. The men all hesitated, making me even more suspicious of Lombardi. “Unless you want to get killed, invite us in.” Padded feet pounded up the stairs, tumbling over themselves. “Now would be a good time.”

“Come in,” the guard blurted through near tears.

Sullivan and I stepped over the threshold just as one of the huskier wolves came barreling into the hallway. She was breathing hard and bleeding from more than one place. All the bullet-dodging must have tired her out, but it wasn’t stopping her.

She froze and took in the scene: a pile of ash, a cowering human werewolf, and two vampires guarding the target. Its lips curled into a snarl, and the boy started to get up.

“I swear to God you will not see the light of day if you get off that floor,” I hissed at him.

The boy curled back into himself and the bigger, now angrier, wolf focused on me instead. It moved slowly in a wide half circle, not wanting to miss any slight movement I made.

Sullivan stepped back into the hallway and called her attention away. I was left with making sure the pope remained alive. I glanced at him over my shoulder to make sure he was still all right. Lombardi was glued to his side, making me very uncomfortable. Humans could kill humans just as easily as the supernatural could. It was my one great life lesson. Only, in this case, I would take the blame for it. A cardinal’s word over a vampire wasn’t going to hold any sway.

By the time I turned back to the hallway, Sullivan had knocked the wolf unconscious. A woman that looked to be in her mid-forties lay at his feet, having transformed back before she hit the ground. There were gunshot wounds in her arms and legs. The tip of an arrow was protruding from her back, and she was covered in cuts and scrapes.

“What do you want me to do?” Sullivan asked.

My eyes drifted back to the young boy. We had a better chance of getting him to talk than the older woman. She was a seasoned werewolf and was obviously willing to put up a fight. But killing the woman in front of the boy could help us or hurt us. He was either going to clam up and not say a word, or he was going to be so scared that we would do the same to him that he would spill his guts.

“We only need one of them,” I replied steadily.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth. That was something my old self would have said, if I wasn’t the one doing the killing. I wanted to believe she had a chance at redemption and to let her live, but I had to face it. The situation wasn’t one where I could pretend to be righteous. This place, the holiest of places, was where I had to leave that notion far behind.

Sullivan reached down and snapped the woman’s neck. I forced my face to remain blank. The boy was watching me, and I didn’t want him to know that it had bothered me. He was frightened now. He knew what we were capable of. I didn’t want to shatter that image until we had a chance to question him.

One of the Iustitia came hurrying up the stairs. Beneath the blood running down from his forehead, I recognized him as Tony. “Is he all right? Alive?”

“Yes,” I said, neutrally. “Lucky for you, we were here.”

Tony took in the dead woman, and then the live boy. He didn’t say anything, so he earned a few points in my book. “There are two left. Your friends took care of one, but we could use some help finishing up.”

I was surprised Flo and Stu stayed to help, with all the dangerous flying objects soaring through the air. I couldn’t remember a time when Flo had done anything that wasn’t selfish. Stu would follow her anywhere, but I would have thought his self preservation was stronger than that.

“Someone needs to stay here,” I told him. Lombardi couldn’t be left alone with the pope, and the guard was going to keep his eye on the door and the door only. The fear on his face alone said he wasn’t leaving that room under any circumstance.

An ear-piercing shriek sounded from the bottom of the stairs. A female scream. I took one step out of the room, feeling my body go numb, and I abandoned the pope. Tony pointed his gun down the corridor. I heard Lyn’s feet running up the stairs as fast as they could. I could feel her urgency washing over my skin in waves.

I rushed forward and grabbed Lyn by the arm before she could make it halfway to the second floor. I yanked her up the rest of the way and backed her into a corner.

“What’s wrong?” I looked her up and down for any injuries. “Are you okay?”

The sound of paws pounding on the steps filled the air again. Tony started shooting his gun in the direction of the new werewolf. The bullets weren’t stopping it. It flew up the stairs, teeth bared and lips curled. Sullivan hurried toward it, trying to prevent what we all saw coming, but he wasn’t quick enough. There wasn’t enough time. The wolf’s jaw clamped down on Tony’s outstretched arm.

His gun fell to the ground with a loud thud. He screamed and dropped to the floor, withering in pain. The werewolf stood over him, saliva dripping from between its bloodied teeth. Sullivan pulled the wolf off the Iustitia and threw it back down the stairs. Shots continued to fire below, and I began to wonder how they still had ammunition.

Tony screamed through a shut jaw. His body shook. A few tears rolled from the corners of his eyes. He was trained to kill us, shoot us from afar with the possibility of close combat. It was doubtful that they were trained to properly handle a werewolf bite. There might have been a brief Cliff Note during training, but not an entire chapter. Werewolves were just an unfortunate part of the vampire package, not their main objective.

The werewolf gene was already rushing into his bloodstream from the bite wound. On the next full moon, he would make his first transformation. Then he would learn to control it at will. That was assuming he made it that far. The Iustitia wouldn’t be very excited about having a supernatural member in their ranks. Perhaps this was a death sentence for him. I hoped for his sake that they would find it useful. Remarkable tracking skills and super strength were hardly ever frowned upon.

Sullivan and I exchanged glances. This was getting out of hand. Two werewolves should have been easy to kill. “Tell them to stop firing,” I demanded. “Give us the opportunity to end it without getting shot.”

Tony wasn’t in any shape to do it. They most likely wouldn’t listen to a vampire, but Sullivan offered to give it a try, leaving me alone with the mess. A dead woman, a child werewolf, a bitten Iustitia, a jumpy Swiss Guard, the pope, a deceitful cardinal, and a very shaken Lyn. I didn’t know which issue to address first.

I didn’t have to know. A gunshot reverberated from the room behind me.

The pope.

Lombardi stood ten feet away from a very alive pope. The Swiss Guard, however, was another story. The bullet had hit him straight between the eyes. Who knew that a cardinal would be such a good shot? The problem was that now the gun was pointed directly at the Holy Father.

“Lombardi,” I boomed. “What are you doing?”

His eyes narrowed but his gaze didn’t move from his target. “I know you saw me at Abel’s apartment. Let’s not pretend I’m fooling you anymore.”

“I wasn’t pretending,” I said slowly. “I was seeing how things played out. Apparently, that was an incredibly bad idea.”

“It’s best to confront issues head on,” he said calmly.

It took a moment to realize he was aiming for humor. The situation was the furthest thing from funny that I could think of. I stepped into the room and got to the small round table before the gun was turned on me.

“Iustitia bullets,” he sneered. “And I have great aim.” His head bobbed to the man he just killed.

“Aim, yes. Speed, no,” I said. I had no intention of letting him fire the weapon. Not at me or anyone else.

“You have no clue what you’re getting yourself into.” He let out something that sounded like a laugh. “If I don’t kill you, you still won’t make it out of Rome alive.”

“It sounds like you know a lot.” He obviously did. He was allied with the enemy while playing the rest of us—and then managed to pull a double-cross on Abel.

“You know,” he said, turning angry. “I hope that you do survive tonight. I hope you survive long enough so I can kill you with my own two hands.”

I tilted my head. As I saw things, he was about to do just that. If he shot my heart with that, then I was a goner.

“How is that any different than right now?” I asked.

He took a step closer to me, gun still pointed. “I will be just like you soon.”

“A vampire?” I asked, stunned. “You want to go through the rest of eternity as an old man?”

Red burst into his cheeks. “I tried to become a hunter. They wouldn’t accept me. They said I had to be able to defend myself and I would bring the others down. What was I supposed to do?” he spat. “I’m not like those muscle men that are downstairs right now. I gave myself to the church, thinking I would still be able to make a difference.”

I stood, shocked. He was doing this because he wasn’t allowed to hunt us? How did that turn into wanting to be us?

“I’ll show them now,” Lombardi ended.

“You’re completely out of your mind,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Me?” he glowered. “You ruined everything. I tried to get you to lose control. I jabbed my elbow into the face of your human thinking you would surrender to the blood lust and we would be forced to kill you. But you didn’t, so I got you to feed on other humans hoping it would spur you on to attack others. Again, you didn’t. What kind of vampire are you?” he asked, tightening his grip on the gun. “If you weren’t here, everything would have gone off as planned. This is your fault.”

He cocked the gun and his finger moved toward the trigger. When I heard the blast, I jumped. His finger hadn’t reached its destination yet.

Bright red blood started flowing through the hole in Lombardi’s chest. The gun dropped from his hand and he fell to the floor. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. His gun hit the ground and fired. A bullet landed in the ceiling and bits of plaster floated down in front of me.

I turned my head to see who had fired and felt my stomach drop. Lyn was holding the gun Tony dropped with both hands. It was still pointed in the same place where Lombardi had just been standing. Her face was ghostly white, and tears sprung from her eyes.

“Lyn?” I asked tentatively. “Lyn, are you all right?”

She looked away from Lombardi, who was struggling to breathe on the floor, to me. Her shoulders slumped and she swayed on her feet. “I … He was … ” She let the gun fall from her hands.

I hurried forward and grabbed it before it could hit the floor. One stray bullet was enough for one night. I set the handgun on the shelf just inside the door and carefully took her shaking hands.

“Are you okay?” I asked again.

“I just killed a man,” she breathed. “He was going to kill you, and I just … I wasn’t thinking. I killed him.”

I looked over my shoulder at the pope. He had sunk into the chair again and was rubbing his rosary with closed eyes. I wanted him to say something reassuring. Maybe tell Lyn that God would understand. Coming from me, it would mean nothing. How was a damned creature supposed to know what God would think?

“Kaden,” Flo popped up outside the room. “Thank you,” she sighed heavily. “If you had let the old man die, we would probably all be screwed right now.”

Stu walked up behind her and surveyed the bodies that littered the floor. He spotted Lombardi, and then the gun I had just set down. Finally he saw Lyn’s face. “Whoa.”

“Is it safe?” I asked.

“Why else would we be standing here?” Flo snapped.

Iustitia flooded up the stairs and shoved their way into the room to make sure the pope had survived in one piece. The dead guard and the cardinal that was fading away on the floor were quite a shock to them.

I pulled Lyn out of there before they could question us. I held her tightly under my arm while she shook involuntarily. The boy was still curled up on the floor, nearer to the long curtains than before, but at least he had listened and stayed put.

“Stu,” I called. He was less intimidating than Flo. The scare tactics could be saved for later. “Give him your jacket. He’s coming with us.”

“Kaden,” Max yelled. He ran toward us with his phone in his hand. “I just got a call. Gabriel is in Rome.”

I watched as Stu handed his sport jacket to the boy and offered him a kind smile. The boy reached up and took it, putting it on quickly and zipping it up to his neck. He was swimming in it, his hands lost in the sleeves.

Lyn sobbed into my shirt. A giant string tugged inside my chest. She should have been on a plane back to Vermont, but I had been selfish. I wanted to feel ordinary for a night. I wanted something to remember her by. If I hadn’t, she would never have been a part of this.

“Kaden,” Max shouted. “Are you listening?”

“Sorry,” I grumbled, miserable in my own guilt. “Who’s here?”

“Gabriel.”

I sighed. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“The head of the Iustitia,” he said, like I was an idiot.

“I thought the pope was the head of your group,” I replied, tired. I wanted to get back to the apartment, have a long talk with Lyn, and catch a few hours sleep before doing whatever came next.

“Technically,” he said. His hands waved in the air impatiently. “But if Gabriel tells us to do something, we do it, regardless of the pope. He’s the head of all five Iustitia families. He’s law.”

“So?” I asked.

“He’s here,” Max repeated. “In Rome. And he’s wants everyone at his house, and he wants us there yesterday.”

Chapter 16

Meeting the leader of the Iustitia was not high on my to-do list. Then again, neither was standing in the Papal Palace, saving the life of the head of the church. I found it strange that they were letting us so far into their world. Meeting the men in charge, coming into their inner workings—either there was a lot more happening that we weren’t privy to, or they were that stupid. And there is no one that would call the Iustitia stupid.

We followed Max down the deserted street. Lyn was close beside me, Sullivan right behind. The young wolf was between Flo and Stu. I wasn’t going to leave him there with a bunch of humans. Even with their guns, I wasn’t sure he would be intimidated enough to behave. Instead, I called Reece and Alex with the address. He was under my protection until we got the information we needed. Or until he tried something brainless.

The house was near the Vatican, but by the time Max helped with the major cleanup to avoid suspicion from his fellow hunters, Reece and Alex had managed to beat us there. They were talking in hushed voices on the lawn outside a large yellow house. A large green plant with small white flowers had grown up the beams that were holding the porch roof up. There was more shrubbery planted around the house than you could buy at a nursery.

They stopped talking when they saw us coming. Alex turned to face us. “Is that him?” he whispered to Reece.

We stopped in front of them, and Flo gave the young werewolf a shove so he stumbled forward. His tears had stopped, but he was still shaking, shoulders slumped. His feet were bare, and he tiptoed the last block across the pavement. He stood between us and the two werewolves like a scared puppy.

“Hi,” Alex ventured, trying to sound chipper. It came out more like a nervous peep. “What’s your name?”

“Dave,” he said quietly.

Max fidgeted. His eyes kept darting to the house. I wasn’t sure if he was anxious from fear or not. He said Gabriel wanted to meet us immediately, and that was over an hour ago. If he was the head of a group like the Iustitia, and if his word weighed more than the pope’s, he was probably a ruthless man. It didn’t instill much confidence.

“You three stay here and bond,” I said. “We’ll be back.”

With a relieved look, Max started up the side of the grass. The front porch was new. The wood wasn’t weathered yet, nor stained. It was free of plant overgrowth. Instead, multiple flowers and types of ferns sat in pots around lawn chairs.

Max opened a white steel door with an intricate pattern cut into it and knocked on the glass door behind it. A large man with bulging muscles and spiked hair hurried toward the door. I had seen him before somewhere. My mind flipped through memories, looking for his face. He was in the photograph that hung at the end of the hallway at Iustitia headquarters.

Instead of opening the door, the man motioned with his hands to go around to the back.

“What?” Flo snapped. “We’re not going to get an invite? How hospitable of you.”

Max turned red. He walked off the porch and around the side of the house. I didn’t start to follow him until he disappeared into the bushes. The vibe coming from the vampires behind me mirrored my own feelings: Uncomfortable. Nervous. Unsure.

I squeezed Lyn’s hand for reassurance, both mine and hers. It made me feel slightly better as we went down a small path between tall shrubs and entered a spacious backyard. It was surrounded by even more greenery. A koi pond was positioned near the back steps. In the very far corner was a large, white awning stretched between two trees. There were two lawn chairs beneath it. One of them was occupied.

Max motioned us forward. “This is Gabriel,” he said quietly.

The man sitting in the chair was much younger than I had imagined. He was no more than twenty-five. His dark hair was shaved short, and he was excessively thin. There were bruised bags under his deep brown eyes, and he was pale as snow. The sweet scent of death hung around him like a thick blanket.

Gabriel shut a folder, but not before I saw the contents: snapshots and bios on each of us. He set it on his lap, resting his hands on top of it. He forced his chapped lips into a smile. “Kaden, Flo, Stu, and Sullivan,” he said. “Am I right?” I nodded. “Is this Emmalyn?”

“Lyn,” she said meekly.

He looked at her thoughtfully before extending a boney hand in the direction of the empty chair. “One of you can have a seat. Sorry I didn’t have time to set anything else up.”

I steered Lyn toward the chair. She was still in shock from killing Lombardi, and I wanted her to sit. Her heart hadn’t stopped beating out of her chest since it happened. The tears brimmed in her eyes. The last thing she needed was to faint.

“Thank you for your services tonight,” Gabriel said. The four of us exchanged looks. “Leukemia.”

I started to say something. I wasn’t sure what, but he held up his hand to stop me. The picture hanging on the wall wasn’t the man inside. It was the man in front of us, but from before he was sick.

“You were wondering why I look like I’m about to keel over. I have leukemia,” he continued. “I’ve tried all the treatments, even some new ones in the trial stage, but nothing worked. I decided to stop trying.”

I shifted uncomfortably. This had “change me” written all over it. People that are dying usually look for something, anything to save them. They don’t care about being damned or what immortality really means. I’ve seen it thousands of times. All their family will wither and die around them, taking away a majority of the reason they wanted to live in the first place. But they don’t realize that. They’re desperate. They just see it as a solution to their problem.

“I’m not afraid to die,” he added. “That’s why I wasn’t concerned about coming here alone. And, no …” His lips curled up at the corners. “… I don’t want you to save me.”

“He’s a mind reader,” Stu said. His mouth was hanging open with a half smile.

Gabriel laughed weakly. “Not quite. Just perceptive.”

“If you’re not afraid to die, why are we in the backyard?” Flo asked. “Is the butler scared?”

“Marco?” His eyebrows lowered. “He’s not the butler. He’s my brother.”

Brother? It made sense. The family resemblance was obvious. He was huge compared to Gabriel. If that was the gene pool, he should have been a force to be reckoned with. Instead, he was about as strong as a toddler. Why hadn’t they simply made his brother the leader?

“It’s my house,” he continued. “But I live north, in the country. My brother stays here most of the time. I don’t want him to worry. He won’t let anyone know you’re here tonight. He wants no part of what I’m about to tell you.”

A few irrelevant questions popped into my mind, but I brushed them away in favor of the important ones. “Why did you want to meet with us secretly like this?”

Gabriel looked at Max and blinked slowly. He was tired. You could see it in every inch of his sunken face. Getting from the country to Rome had taken more energy than he would like to admit. I didn’t know him, but he seemed like a good man.

“It’s not a secret meeting,” he said. “Max is here.”

“We all know that Max is a cut above,” Sullivan explained. “He’s proven himself trustworthy and won’t say anything.”

Gabriel smirked.

“What did you need us for?” I asked again, not wanting to get too far off track.

“Where is the young werewolf you picked up?” he asked in return. “I’d like to see him.”

Max hurried back around the house to ask them to join us. A quiet hush fell around the backyard. News traveled fast if he already knew we took the wolf with us. We weren’t sure of what to say while we waited, or if we should say anything at all.

“How are you enjoying Italy?” he asked Lyn.

She forced a smile. “It’s amazing.”

Max came back with all three wolves in tow. Gabriel sat up a little straighter and fought a cough.

“Hello,” Reece said stiffly.

“Hello,” he replied. His eyes traveled over Dave, wearing nothing but Stu’s jacket. “Max, run inside and find him some clothes. Some of my old things should fit.”

We waited again in silence, like Max’s presence was the only thing allowing us to have a conversation. Flo was getting anxious behind me, sighing and folding her arms across her chest. Stu stepped a bit closer to her. Surprisingly, it seemed to help.

The night was chilly, but dry. I shoved my hands into my jean pockets and occupied myself with digging up a rock with the toe of my sneaker. This was not what I had in mind for my evening. It wasn’t what any of us had in mind.

It took Max an especially long time to get back, but when he did, he was carrying an armful of fabric and an old, beaten pair of sneakers. He handed Dave the plain white T-shirt and pair of jeans, setting the socks and shoes on the ground next to him.

The boy turned his back to us and pulled the jeans on in haste. He wasn’t used to letting himself be exposed, showing his true age. The most unfortunate thing was that he must have had no one to go through the changes with. Maybe I could call Sid and find a place for him in New York.

When he was fully dressed, Dave handed the jacket back to Stu with a very quiet thank you.

“There. That’s much better.” Gabriel shifted in his seat. “Don’t be afraid. I just want to ask you a few questions. When I’m done, you can go with these two fine werewolves who can teach you all kinds of things.”

Dave nodded slowly. His red hair bobbed with the movement.

“Wonderful.” He left the statement open, waiting for the boy to identify himself.

“Dave,” he said again.

Gabriel motioned the wolf closer. Lyn got up and came to stand next to me so he could have a place to sit.

“Tell me, Dave. What brings you to Rome?”

The boy’s eyes switched from his lap to the sick man before him and back again. “They found me and told me that they would take care of me if I came with them.”

“Who did?” Gabriel asked in a gentle, patient voice. He was good with children. I found myself feeling sorry that he was ill-fated. I could have learned to like him.

“Meagan found me,” he said. “But I never saw her again after that day. She just dropped me off with her friends and disappeared.”

Alex whispered something in Reece’s ear. Reece nodded. When he saw me watching them, he mouthed “Sid’s dead girlfriend.” I had thought she was working for Phoenix. Now, she was working for Abel.

Who wasn’t spying on me in New York?

“And what are your friends doing here?” Gabriel continued.

“Tonight …” he swallowed hard. “They were trying to kill the Holy Father.”

“Do you know why?”

“They said he knew too much.” Dave’s voice wavered. “If we didn’t kill him, he would tell everyone what we were going to do.”

“Do you know what it is they don’t want us to find out?”

Dave stiffened and leaned backed into the chair. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he looked like he might vomit. His hands shook in his lap and he grabbed onto the fabric of his jeans.

“It’s all right,” Gabriel continued. “You’re among friends here. We won’t let anyone hurt you now. We are the good guys.”

He was taking a lot for granted. I wasn’t completely sure what we were going to do with Dave just yet. I knew, without a doubt, that Sid could find a place for him. And it wasn’t like I was going to toss him back to the enemy. Maybe Gabriel was really as observant as he claimed he was. Or maybe he had his own plans for the boy.

Dave glanced nervously at all of us. I didn’t think he was completely convinced that we were good guys. He watched as I told Sullivan to kill the werewolf as she lay unconscious.

“You work for the church?” Dave asked.

“With them,” Gabriel corrected. “Yes.”

“So, you’re not going to kill me then?” He waited for Gabriel to shake his head. “Tonight … Abel wasn’t a part of it, but you’re going to stop him, right? From letting him out?”

The little color that was left in Gabriel’s face drained out immediately. I didn’t think it was possible for him to be paler, but he was. He looked like an animated corpse. A dark cloud grew behind his eyes. “We’ll stop them,” he said in his calm voice. “Thank you.”

There was a long pause. No one wanted to ask, but everyone wanted to know. Gabriel had figured something out. His body slumped back into the chair, and he looked to the sky. He sat that way for so long I was beginning to think something was wrong with him.

“Alex,” he finally said, just before I suggested calling an ambulance. “Take Dave inside to get something to eat. The kitchen is to the left. If my brother says anything, tell him I gave you permission.”

“Go with them,” I told Lyn. Sending her with a strange, young wolf wasn’t normally a good idea. But he had already transformed back and forth tonight, so even under the stress it wasn’t likely he would again. If he did, Alex would stop him. I didn’t want Lyn with us when we heard what had obviously been discovered.

I waited until the three of them had disappeared into the yellow house before turning my attention back to the head of the Iustitia. He was holding his head with one hand, his elbow propped up on the arm of chair. Only his eyes moved to meet mine.

“You know what’s going on,” I stated.

“I do. I started to suspect a few days ago, but then I heard about tonight’s attack.” He let out a long shaky breath. “It’s good that I convinced the pope to let you come. We could never win this alone.”

Flo huffed. “Are you going to keep us in suspense all night? The sun will be up soon.”

Gabriel inhaled, sitting up straight. “While he was in Rome, Pope Gregory X struck a deal with your current master. Directly after that, he created the Iustitia. The secret has been passed down the line to every new pope and Iustitia leader, and no one else.” He paused and watched me carefully. “Do you know who Tobias is? You were made after Phoenix took his throne.”

I nodded, but it was Sullivan that said, “I knew him well.”

“Then you knew how he was. Manipulative. Cunning. Strong. Hateful.” He sat up a little more in the chair. “Evil.”

Sullivan nodded. “It was a good day for many of us when he died.”

Gabriel shook his head. “He’s not dead.”

“What?” Flo shouted.

“Explain the deal,” Stu said after the vibrations in the air settled and he stepped away from Flo’s side.

“To keep the vampires out of Rome, Gregory agreed to make sure that a certain door was never opened again.” He looked intensely at me. “Beneath this city is a network of tunnels. In one of them, there is a tomb. Tobias has been sealed in a six-by-six cell for over seven hundred years.” He paused to let the information sink in. “If Abel succeeds in letting him out, not only will we have a crazed, bloodthirsty vampire on our hands, but Phoenix is going to bring his wrath down on this city. And that will just be the beginning.”

The world started to close around me. I could feel my lungs fighting for air. “That’s why he wants me back,” I whispered. He needed me. He needed me to have his back and help him win against the revenge Tobias was going to carry out against him.

“Kaden,” Stu said. “This is bad.”

“Why should we trust you?” Flo demanded.

Gabriel blinked in surprise. “Why shouldn’t you trust me? Why would I make this up? I don’t want a war. This may be the last thing I can do to help. I want to make a difference. I want to know that my family, this city, and the rest of the world are all safe.”

Flo opened her mouth, but I shot her a look. “He’s not lying,” I growled at her. “Reece, get them from the house. Dawn is coming.”

“Do you know where the tomb is?” Sullivan asked.

Gabriel shook his head. “It’s somewhere directly beneath the Vatican.”

“We’ll find it,” I said, determined.

Gabriel stood up using the arms of the chair. “Come here first. I’ll locate it before dusk and take you there myself.”

Chapter 17

Gabriel was waiting for us on his front porch the next night. He was dressed all in black with giant lantern-shaped flashlight in hand and a black skullcap pulled onto his head. He swung a small, child-sized book bag onto his back and adjusted the straps. I had my doubts that it was all right for him to exert himself, but we were at his mercy. He was the only one on our side that knew where the tomb was.

“Hello again,” he called.

“Are we doing a jewelry heist for some Hollywood flick?” Flo asked, taking in his appearance.

The Iustitia leader smiled. “If I die, I prefer to do it in style.”

Flo snorted, but surprisingly kept her mouth shut. His statement didn’t make me feel any better about exploring the tunnels. I wasn’t sure it was supposed to. The enemy hadn’t found it yet, or Tobias would be free. And we would probably be dead. What was so dangerous?

Enough.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I asked. “If anything happens down there, we might not be able to save you.”

“I left a note,” he said, like a child rebelling against his parents. “No one’s going to blame you. My mother might,” he smirked. “Besides, it could be fun.” He flicked his flashlight on, temporarily blinding us, and started down the drive to the waiting van.

I doubted it was going to be an enjoyable night, but I wasn’t going to burst his bubble. For some reason, he looked happy. Being sick, it was most likely a rare chance to get out of the house and use the training he received.

“Come on, slowpokes,” he called from the white, rusting van on the side of the road.

Stu laughed and rushed over to it. He was sitting in the back before Gabriel knew what happened, making him jump.

“Who are you calling slow?” Stu joked, sticking his head over the seat.

Flo pushed on the top of his head to get him back into the seat. “Don’t give him a heart attack before he shows us the tomb.”

“After that, it’s all right?” Gabriel asked.

Flo snapped her head around to look at him. Her blue eyes twinkled, but she forced her lips down into a scowl. “Well.” She shrugged.

“She’s not serious,” Sullivan told him.

“I am,” she mumbled.

Stu shook his head. “She’s not.”

I shooed Flo off the street and into the back of the vehicle with a wave of my hand, and the rest of us climbed in. Max was driving. I should have been expecting that, but I wasn’t. He was sipping on a travel mug, and an empty McDonald’s bag was crumpled on the floor.

“Borrowed your mom’s van?” Stu asked, plucking a children’s toy out from beneath him.

“My cousin’s.” He shrugged and tapped at butterfly air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. He started the engine, and we pulled away from the curb.

I hadn’t seen a cop since we arrived. I wondered how they enforced the curfew, or if they did. Since I didn’t understand Italian, I hadn’t bothered watching the news to see if there had been more murders. I assumed there were. The vampires here were feeding on someone. Maybe the authorities thought that if you were dumb enough to go out after dark, it was your own fault.

All I knew was that, if there were people breaking it, we weren’t lucky enough to find any of them.

Max rolled up to the Vatican City gate and stopped to speak with the guard. Security had doubled since the night before. It was understandable, but completely useless. The men still weren’t trained to handle supernatural situations.

Flashbacks of Lyn holding the gun rose up when we started to roll into the city. I hoped she would be all right with Reece and Alex. Dave had stayed behind with them, against my better judgment. Yes, he seemed harmless. No, I didn’t think it was an act. But you never could tell sometimes.

I sighed and remembered back before Lyn and I were interrupted at the Coliseum. I could feel the heat on my lips. If we had been left alone, I wondered what would have happened. Maybe I could have ended the night with a bit of normalcy; finished kissing her, maybe found a little café where I would have bought her a dessert or coffee, and then dropped her off at the airport to go back to a nice, safe Vermont. None of that happened.

“You coming?” Stu asked.

I snapped back to reality. I hadn’t felt the van pull over or the engine cut off, but we were parked on a small, dark street. Gabriel was already on the sidewalk, his hat pulled down around his ears and his flashlight glowing.

Max left the doors unlocked after I climbed out. Apparently there was a low crime rate in the Vatican, at least when it came to grand theft auto. Or it was easier for a quick escape. We started toward a short, gray stone building that didn’t look like it had seen an update in decades. It looked out of place next to the newer ones beside it.

“Are you all right?” Sullivan asked quietly.

I nodded.

“Keep it together,” Flo hissed. “No one knows what’s down there.”

Gabriel unlocked the faded green door with a large brass key and pushed it open. His light bounced off the walls, revealing one giant room with absolutely nothing in it. The inside walls looked exactly like the outer. The floors were made of loosely placed wooden boards, and it smelled like soil.

Gabriel motioned us in and spoke a sentence of Italian to Max.

Max nodded and crossed the room. He bent over and started pulling wooden planks out of their slots to reveal a stone staircase beneath. Max waved the dust out of his face and tried not to cough.

“What’s that?” Stu asked, peaking down into the dark.

“That …” Gabriel paused and blinked the dust out of his eyes. “Is one of the forgotten entrances to some of the undiscovered tunnels. And it’s in the general location of the tomb.”

“General location?” I repeated.

Gabriel started toward the stairs, his flashlight leading the way. Max reached out to take his arm, but was brushed off. He was determined to do this himself. He held the flashlight at eye level and took each step with caution. “Yes,” he answered. “General.”

We followed him down stories beneath ground and came out in an extremely narrow passage. It was musty and damp. While we could see perfectly without the light, the two humans needed it to see two feet in front of their face. The beam disappeared into the darkness without anything to land on. The stone walls were cold to the touch and medium brown in color. Rats scurried away from us as we made our way further into the maze.

“How are we supposed to do anything down here?” Stu asked. He was wiping spider webs from his face with his tongue stuck out.

Max squinted at us. “We’re just here to find the tomb. We’re not going to do anything about it.”

“Then why do we need to find it?” Flo snapped.

“Because,” Sullivan said. “We need to know if anyone has found it before us. And if they have …”

He didn’t finish the statement. It just hung in the air like a giant rain cloud.

What if they had found it?

It wouldn’t make sense if they had and then left it sealed. Not unless they were waiting for something. There wasn’t exactly a “right” time to unleash a crazed, blood-thirsty vampire that was older than all of us put together.

“Let’s go back to this being the general area,” I said. “There are more miles than I care to count down here. Can you narrow it down?”

“The exact location was lost through the years,” Gabriel told me, his face apologetic. “I asked the pope, and he couldn’t remember either. After a while, no one came down to check that it was still holding the vampire. No popes or Iustitia have been down here in at least four generations.”

“So, why don’t we just ask one of them?” Stu suggested. That earned a strange stare from both Max and Gabriel. “Right … dead,” he corrected himself. “How do you expect to find it then?”

Flo swatted the back of his head.

“What?” he mumbled. “It’s a valid question.”

“By looking for it,” Gabriel answered, very matter-of-factly. “Naturally.”

Max smiled. He held in his laughter and stopped his leader from going around a dark corner. “We should probably let one of them go before us.”

It bothered me less that it sounded bigoted than it did that we were being volunteered to be attacked first. It made sense, but that was not the point. We were there to save the Romans. Technically, the Iustitia counted. Technically, but not exactly.

I squeezed by the two men to stand in front of the flashlight. It blinded me when I turned to face everyone behind me, and I squinted my eyes. “How big of a search area are we talking?” I asked.

Max made a face. “Everything that hasn’t been explored yet.”

There was a deafening silence. That could be endless. We didn’t even know precisely what we were looking for.

Sullivan met my eye, raised one eyebrow, and shrugged. I let a long breath out slowly and silently through flared nostrils. And then, down the tunnel I went.

It didn’t change the further we walked. Cold, damp air clung to our skin and clothes. An alcove was carved into the wall every so often. Most of the walls were lined with built-in slats. Some of them contained a human skeleton or two. It was an eerie place that enveloped you in darkness.

When there was nothing but space in front of me, even my eyes had a hard time focusing. It was even harder to find something when you didn’t know what you were looking for. I wasn’t expecting a blinking, neon sign, but there had to be something. A door should have stood out somehow.

“Ow,” Stu hissed. “What are you doing?”

Flo had stopped dead, and Stu ran into her. His mouth slammed into the back of her head.

“Shh.”

No one moved. I didn’t see anything—didn’t hear anything. Flo had pushed Stu up against the wall with her hand on his chest. His hands were held up on either side of his face in a surrender pose. She held him pinned there while she looked down the tunnel behind him. Her long hair was fluffed out around her face.

“What is it?” Stu whispered.

She stopped holding Stu. Her eyes were narrowed and she kept staring. “I thought I heard something.”

“There’s no one down here but us,” Stu whispered.

Whether she believed him or not, she turned to me and motioned me forward. “Forget it. I was hearing things.” Then a light flashed behind her eyes, and she glared into the dark behind me.

“Flo?” Sullivan asked tentatively. “What’s wrong?”

“Something’s down here. There,” she shouted. “Did you see it?”

Gabriel and Max squinted into the distance while the rest of us shook our heads. I hadn’t seen anything and I certainly hadn’t heard anything. The only noise I heard was coming from the two human hearts that were pounding a mile a minute.

“It’s just us,” I told her.

“It is not,” she insisted. She pushed her thin body past Sullivan, Max, and Gabriel. When she got to me, she glared. “Move. I’m going to find out who it is.”

I sighed. “Don’t be unreasonable. We have to keep together.”

She gave me a look as if to say “yeah right” and squeezed by me. “I am not paranoid. That’s your department.” With that, she disappeared from the area of Gabriel’s flashlight.

Stu started mumbling and frantically fought his way up the line of bodies. “I’ll get her,” he said, sliding by me.

I rubbed my eye in frustration. “How easy is it to get lost here?”

“If you don’t know where you’re going …” Max grimaced. “Easier than you would think.”

“Perfect,” I grunted.

“They’ll be all right.” Sullivan always sounded so sure. Sometimes I thought it wasn’t completely genuine. No one could be that sure about everything. Not unless they were psychic.

I looked at Sullivan, really looked. There was no expression there. His face was blank. That was the face almost every vampire knew how to make after a century or so. It was what we used to hide our emotions. He was just as worried as I was.

On the bright side of things, if we got lost, it would be dark all day. With all that extra time we could keep looking for the tomb. There were worse things that could happen than being stuck underground. It wouldn’t be the first time. But, I wanted to get back to the apartment. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Lyn about shooting Lombardi yet. I knew it was bothering her.

“We’ve been down here for hours,” I said. “Let’s just check out that alcove while we wait for them to get back, and go home.” I wasn’t the only one that was tired. Max had put in a long day before this, and Gabriel wasn’t looking very healthy.

We walked the few feet down the tunnel and turned left into the alcove. The flashlight lit up the entire room. On each wall, there was a shelf shaped like an upside-down half moon. It was long enough to lay a body on, like the other rooms, and deep enough for five. It was different. The others had only been made big enough for one.

Our eyes searched every inch of the walls. Every crevice and crack, every piece of dirt. That was the only difference. Everything else was normal. There were no lines where a doorframe might be. There wasn’t a scrape on the floor where a door could have been opened. There wasn’t even anything that could be used to trigger a secret passage.

“Nothing,” I said quietly.

Max helped Gabriel over to a large rock in the corner so he could sit down. “It’s down here somewhere.”

I leaned up against the wall. Unfortunately no one knew where, and it seemed to me that it was impossible to track it down. That was a good thing—people wouldn’t stumble upon it, and the enemy would have the same luck.

That was assuming they had no extra information.

We were running out of possibilities.

“Take a few deep breaths,” Sullivan whispered. His gray eyes were steady, and he offered me a half smile. “You’re getting near your edge.”

He was right. I did what he said, breathing in the stale air. I even pulled my old trick of counting backward from ten.

Before it could make me feel any better, Flo and Stu came running into the alcove like the world was about to end.

Chapter 18

“She was right,” Stu huffed. “Something’s down here.”

“Something?” I asked, stunned. “Or someone?”

“Vampires. Two of them,” Flo said quickly. “Let’s leave.”

A deep scowl spread across my face. Like she had said before, we don’t run from a fight. There was more to it than she was letting on. But it didn’t take long to understand her sudden change in attitude. The two vampires had followed them back to the alcove. Vin and Alonzo were standing in the small entrance to the room we were in, and they didn’t look happy.

Lines formed between their brows, and their eyes were narrowed into slits. Their jaws were set. Their lips pursed. Alonzo’s chin was crinkled, and his arms were folded against his chest. Vin’s left eyebrow was raised. Both sets of eyes glared at us with malice.

“Evening,” Sullivan said to break the tense silence.

Vin raised his right hand in response. The twins examined us carefully, one at a time. I was getting the feeling that we were being sized up. Being sized up by the Enforcement Team was never good. It usually meant they were figuring out the quickest way to end you.

They had been so normal the other night. There were no threats, no anger. They even seemed slightly cooperative. Now we were getting stared at like we had just killed their favorite dog. I wasn’t sure where the complete one-eighty came from, but I didn’t like it.

“What are you two doing here?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as pleasant as possible.

“We were about to ask you the same thing.” Alonzo’s friendly tone from the other night was lost. “Who are they?”

Stu shifted to stand in front of the two humans. They wouldn’t be able to hurt them without hurting Stu first. Not that they wouldn’t. It just gave the rest of us a little more time to react. First the pope, and now Max and Gabriel. We were turning into regular knights in shining armor.

“Max and Gabriel,” I said.

“Iustitia?” Vin asked. None of us said a word. I wasn’t really a question, after all. “And you’re showing them your back?”

Stu shrugged. “Enemy of your enemy and all that. We have worse things to worry about right now.”

There was another long silence before Vin spoke again. “We aren’t planning to kill you.”

That’s less than comforting.

“So, if you’re not planning to kill us …” Stu said. I was glad that I wasn’t the only one to pick up on that.

“We’re here to stop you,” Alonzo finished for him. “You can’t find what you’re looking for.”

Flo let out a laugh. “You’re right. We can’t. Apparently it’s hidden so well, there isn’t a single person that knows the location except Phoenix. I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to ask him.”

The twins peaked around Stu to the Iustitia. “You don’t know?”

Gabriel looked at me before answering with a steady, “No.”

The brothers let out a breath and actually gave a little snicker of relief. It was in that moment that I realized it. They knew. They knew exactly where the tomb was.

“How did you find out?” I asked. They had been just as clueless as we were the last time we met.

They sobered. Alonzo shrugged. “After the whole ordeal at the Vatican—good save with the pope, by the way—Phoenix sent us here, officially, to make sure nothing happened.”

A whole string of questions rose up in my head. I wanted answers to them all. I was tired of being kept in the dark. My whole life I had been deceived and manipulated. Enough was enough.

“Why now?” I blurted. “Why did Phoenix wait until now to send help? Why does he care if the pope was murdered? Who was he talking to that Abel’s human overheard about this? Who else knows?”

The twins blinked slowly and shrugged.

“Because Abel took things too far. Because he thinks the pope is the only thing keeping the tomb sealed. You. And we’re it. Except Phoenix and Abel’s people, of course,” Alonzo explained.

“In that order,” Vin added.

I was rendered speechless for a moment. I wasn’t expecting such honest, straightforward answers. They only brought more questions flying out of my mouth. “Abel has a lot of people. How do you know they aren’t spreading the news everywhere?”

“Taken care of,” Vin said, bored.

I opened my mouth to ask one thing, but stopped, forgetting whatever it was I wanted to know. “Wait—me? How was he talking to me?”

Alonzo twitched. His eyes floated from my face and he became very interested in the structure of the room. “Your painting.”

“My … what?”

“Phoenix went a little off the deep end,” Vin explained with a sigh. “It started after you left and has gotten progressively worse as time went on. He talks to a portrait of you sometimes when something happens and he needs advice. I’m not sure if he thinks you respond or not, but I mean, either way it’s weird.”

That shut me up. Anything else I was going to ask escaped me. Phoenix wasn’t needy. He was independent and merciless. He was as callous as they came. Even I had hardly seen another side to him, and we had been extremely close. It wasn’t like him to pine over anyone. Not even me.

“He told you his secret?” Sullivan asked. “And you’re helping?”

Vin laughed sarcastically. “Do you remember Tobias? Because I do, and he’s better off where he is.”

Alonzo stopped his brother before he could say anything else by clearing his throat. “He was wrong to imprison him. Phoenix should have killed him and taken his position the right way, but it’s too late for that.”

“Why don’t we just open the tomb and kill him. That will end all of this,” Stu suggested.

“Open that door, and you’re a dead man,” Alonzo said.

That hovered between a threat and good advice. I didn’t think he meant that they would kill us for letting Tobias out. They would probably be on the other side of the earth if that happened. I think what he meant was the insane vampire waiting inside would finish us off. I disagreed. If I was starved for more than seven centuries, my body would be in so much pain that moving wouldn’t be an option. Then again, desperation might kick in.

Both ideas sounded good to me. Kill him and never worry about it again—kill the people that knew about it and erase the threat. It was the same result in the end. One was just more permanent.

“Abel wasn’t responsible for the attack on the pope,” I said numbly.

“We know,” Alonzo sighed. “It looks like his own people turned on him. They thought they were untouchable because no one had taken action against them yet. They were relatively young and naive, and now Abel is on his own to finish this.”

There was another long pause. This time it wasn’t as thick with tension, but it still left me uncomfortable.

“You should get out of here,” Vin said. “Phoenix knows you’re here now, and he’s not going to waste the opportunity.”

“How …” I started.

Alonzo scoffed. “Don’t look at us. We didn’t say a word, but it came in with the report on the pope that you saved the day. He thinks that it means you’re ready to come back, and this was your way of saying sorry.”

Anger grew under my skin, leaving me warmer than I had felt since I fed on the homeless man. My hands balled into fists, and I took one step forward. Sullivan put his hand over my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I felt a hiss build up in my throat and forced myself to swallow it.

“I don’t need to prove anything to him with some grand apology,” I breathed. “I don’t have to apologize at all. I have nothing to prove to him, except that I’m never going back.”

The twins exchanged glances and a few slight facial movements.

Alonzo turned back to me first and gave me a halfhearted smile. “We’re not saying you do. We just thought you might want to know that things are on the way.”

“What things?” Flo snapped.

Vin’s hand rubbed at the tattoo on his forehead. “We weren’t filled in on the specifics. Our mission is Abel, but you better hope Phoenix doesn’t find out that you’re working with the Iustitia.”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll leave.” Right after we finished our obligation to the Iustitia. It wasn’t that I thought Vin and Alonzo couldn’t handle it, but I made a promise that I intended to keep. They had kept theirs up until now. So would we. “Thanks for the heads up,” I added.

“Excuse us,” Sullivan said politely as he headed for the entrance.

Stu motioned Max and Gabriel to go in front of him. Flo, however disgruntled she was about it, positioned herself so they couldn’t be hit. Gabriel’s light disappeared back into the tunnel.

I was the last to leave the alcove. As I slid by them, Vin grabbed my arm. “Tallin and Sora are here. Don’t let them see you with them.” He shoved a thumb over her shoulder to indicate Max and Gabriel.

I nodded. The other two members of the Enforcement Team weren’t nearly as understanding as the twins. “Last I knew, Abel was staying at an apartment where you saved us the other night.” They threw me a bone, so I threw one back.

“He moved,” Vin said simply and let go of my arm.

I stepped into the tunnel and hurried to catch up with everyone. The twins stayed where they were. It felt strange to be climbing back to the surface so quickly. We had walked for hours but made it back into the little dusty room within fifteen minutes. My head was buzzing with new information. The sound of Max putting the planks back over the entrance echoed in my head.

Then Gabriel slumped to the floor next to the green door.

Sullivan knelt in front of him and looked at his face. “You’re pale.”

“So are you,” he wheezed. Max was on his cell, calling for a transport. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

Max ignored him.

Gabriel’s heart was beating quickly with a lightweight, fluttering sound. It wasn’t the usual liquid-filled thump that humans had. It was the sound of a heart trying to keep going when it wanted to stop.

“Relax,” Sullivan told him. “You’re safe. Those two are not going to hurt you.”

Gabriel forced a smile. “I’m not worried about them, but you have to find that tomb. You have to find it and kill the vampire inside. We never should have made this deal.”

He was right about that. The deal was stupid on everyone’s part. The whole thing could blow up in Phoenix’s face—like it was about to do. And the church was going to be held responsible for letting the vampire out. After Phoenix dealt with things on his end, he was going to bring the Vatican crashing to their knees.

A car squealed to a stop outside the building, and Max opened the door to let four men in. Gabriel’s heart was slowing back to a regular beat, but was still weak. As they hoisted him from the floor, I found myself wondering if he would make it through the night. The men carried him outside and put him in the back of the vehicle.

“Wait,” I called before the car could pull away. Gabriel rolled his window down. “Thank you.”

“I wasn’t about to leave this world without doing something worthwhile.” He looked me right in the eye. “It’s always been my duty to keep the world safe from vampires. Don’t let me down.”

The car sped away, rushing him to the hospital. I stood alone on the street. In the middle of Vatican City. If someone had told me that one day I would be there, doing that, I would have had them committed.

“We need to leave. The sun,” Sullivan said, pointing up when I looked at him.

I nodded numbly. Max was still talking on his phone. He was becoming more like the official ambassador every day. I thought he was biting off a little more than he could chew for a temporary job. The bags under his eyes were getting bigger, and worry lines were forming on his young face. He did say that he wasn’t originally a part of the Iustitia. His brothers fulfilled his family’s obligation. After this ended and things calmed down, maybe he could return to college.

“Let me know what they say at the hospital,” I told him. He nodded, still on the phone. I wanted to ask him for blood now that Lombardi wasn’t around to steal it, but the timing seemed wrong. They hadn’t questioned that Lyn shot the cardinal, so it was probably best not to press our luck.

Flo tapped my arm, impatient to get back to the apartment. I nodded and followed them back through Rome. I wasn’t paying attention to where we were going. There was a big decision to make, and a conversation to have with a certain scared human.

With the door locked behind us and the sun about to rise within half an hour, I grew instantly tired. Alex and Reece were passed out on the couch, and probably would have stayed that way if Flo hadn’t stomped her feet all the way to her bedroom.

“How did things go?” Reece mumbled. “Did you find it?”

I grunted in response. “Where’s Lyn?”

Alex pointed toward the bedrooms. “Getting some sleep.”

Leaving the tale of the night’s events up to Stu or Sullivan for a second time, I plodded into my own bedroom. Lyn was sleeping soundly with the covers pulled up around her shoulders. I kicked off my sneakers and leaned over her.

Her scent wafted into my nostrils, and I closed my eyes, reveling in the comfort it brought. But then my veins started to tingle under my skin. I opened my eyes again to help combat the urge to feed on her, and she was looking up at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I wasn’t going to do anything.”

As I straightened back up, she grabbed lightly to my wrist. “Wait.”

“I wasn’t leaving.”

She sat up, her hair hanging around her face, and the blankets fell into her lap. She was propped up on her elbows and squinting her eyes against the sleep that coated them. “Do I have to go home now?” she asked quietly.

I shook my head. “It’s nearly dawn. Everyone’s tired.”

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I took a deep breath and shook my head again, sitting down beside her. “Are you all right?”

She shrugged and looked down at the sheets.

I reached over and smoothed down her messy hair the best I could. My fingers lingered on her neck, her pulse beating beneath them. The first kill was the hardest. Unless you were a vampire the first time. In that case, it wasn’t hard at all.

“I killed him,” she stated. I adjusted myself on the bed to look at her. “He was going to kill you, so I just … fired.”

I didn’t have the heart to say it wouldn’t have killed me. It may have been a holy bullet, but I had plenty of time to dodge it. Instead of making her feel worse, I simply stroked her hair.

“I know it’s hard,” I told her. “But he wasn’t a good person.”

The look on her face told me that didn’t make her feel any better. You would think that after six hundred years, I would have been able to come up with something to say to make it better.

I couldn’t.

I shifted closer and pulled her into a hug. Her heat seeped through my clothes, and I shivered. Hot tears landed on my arm as I held her. They were silent tears, but heavy. It was a long time before she calmed down. She needed to cry it out, and I could only be there for her while she did. I wasn’t sure that it had solved anything in the long run, but it made her feel better for that moment.

Lyn pushed the covers off and sat up on her knees. Her hands on my chest, she leaned in and kissed me with scorching lips. It was a rough kiss, full of need. I responded with equal force, my fingers trailing along her spine.

Without breaking our lips apart, she moved until she was sitting on my lap, one leg on either side of my thighs. My stomach knotted while the rest of my body reacted in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. My mind fuzzed over, and every little touch was intensified. I pulled her closer, my hands still running over her back. Her heart was beating frantically against my chest.

And then the burning started. My veins roared under my skin, and her pulse echoed in my head. It broke through the fuzz, and a sudden wave of intense thirst flooded my body. I moved my hands from her back to her shoulders and pushed her back. My breathing was unsteady, and my mental state was following right behind it.

“What’s the matter?” she breathed.

Her face was flushed. The blood was just there, under the surface. I forced myself to lock onto her innocent eyes instead of her veins and held onto my sanity for dear life. “I haven’t fed tonight.”

“Oh.” There was a slight falter in her breathing.

I tucked her hair behind her ears. My palms cupped her cheeks. “I won’t do it again,” I promised. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She studied my face with her lips pressed together. “But if you’re careful, it won’t hurt, right?”

“Lyn. No,” I warned. “No one in their right mind wants to be bitten. Maybe some masochists, but not someone like you.” She opened her mouth to say something, but I kept going. “I don’t know what came over you in New York. I’ll credit it to curiosity and maybe whatever Alex told you. Provoking me a second time isn’t smart.”

“It’s not that I want you to bite me,” she half-shouted.

She practically flew off the bed and sprinted for the door. I reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back to me. “Then what is it?” I asked.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she tried her best to hold them in. She pulled against me to free her arm, and it set off little bells in my head. The predator part of my brain fought against the human part.

“I … it’s just … I need to …” she fumbled over her words. “Nothing.”

She tugged on her arm again. It was enough. It was just that little push I needed to fall off the cliff. I pulled her back into my lap and moved her hair out of the way.

My jaw ached at the sight of the creamy, delicate skin. I lowered my head to Lyn’s neck and closed my eyes. I ran my lips over the softest spot, absorbing the heat. I wasn’t in a rush this time. Having fresh blood again helped control the lust, even if it was just a little.

I sank my fangs in gently, but quickly, so it was as painless as possible. A soft scream came from her mouth and her body tensed. It was too late to stop. The warm liquid flooded my mouth and slid down my throat like velvet. I sucked tenderly, encouraging the blood to the surface. It was rich, not like the homeless men. I savored the taste with every inch of my tongue.

The heat ran into my veins. My joints loosened, and the ringing in my ears stopped. When my body felt almost human again, I stopped. I removed my fangs from her flesh and ran my tongue over the puncture marks. The blood clotted almost immediately, leaving no mess behind.

I knew what I had done. I knew it was wrong. I knew I had promised not to do it again. But it was not completely my fault. There was something she wasn’t telling me. She didn’t want me to bite her, and yet she seemed to shove her blood under my nose. I felt angry, at myself and her.

“Are you all right?” I asked in a controlled voice.

She nodded. Her hand covered the marks on her neck. “I’m sorry.”

“That should be my line,” I murmured. “Why do you keep doing this to me?”

She inhaled sharply, held it for a moment, and let it out.

“Never mind.” I took her chin. Although she couldn’t see me well in the dark, I could see her. “Just promise me you will never encourage it again. I’m serious.”

“I promise.” She nodded and held back a sob.

I was still angry with her, but it was hard to show it. There wasn’t much time left to be next to her. If I had learned one thing from Sullivan, it was not to take that for granted. I didn’t love her like Sullivan had loved his Lucy.

It was different, but somehow it was the same.

Chapter 19

I woke up feeling a pair of eyes on my face. It was an uncomfortable sensation, or at least it was until I realized who was causing it. Lyn was lying next to me, studying my features.

“Evening,” I mumbled, my voice still hoarse with sleep.

She jumped a little, not realizing I had woken up. “Hi,” she said in a voice so low I could hardly hear it.

Rolling onto my side, I stared back at her. “How are you?”

“Fine.” She moved her hair to show that the two puncture wounds I left were nothing more than two pink dots. “But you’re not.”

I scowled. “I’m not?”

“I asked you last night if you were all right and you shook your head.” She paused. “You never told me what was bothering you.”

Overnight my problems seemed to melt into one seamless ball of stress. There weren’t any individual worries anymore. The pieces had clicked together. Now it was just a matter of doing what needed to be done. That was easier said than done, but it was my reality.

“Nothing,” I told her. “I learned a few things, and it made me anxious. We’re under a lot of pressure right now, and it doesn’t look like it’s about to get any easier.”

She held my gaze. Her eyes sparkled with understanding beyond her years, but with a youth beyond her understanding. “You’re worried that you won’t be able to save Rome from whoever is doing this,” she stated.

I didn’t care about Rome. I cared about making sure Tobias never got out of that tomb. It would be a lie if I said I didn’t like the idea of Phoenix getting what he deserved. Turning him into a pile of ash was incredibly appealing. Letting countless people get brutally killed in the process was not. Neither was being one of the first victims.

“There is no room for things like worrying. At this point, it’s do or …” I paused. “Failing isn’t an option.”

She reached out and traced the frown creased in my forehead. “What are you going to do?”

“You shouldn’t ask questions like that.”

“Why?” She pulled her hand back, putting it between her cheek and pillow. “It’s not like I’ll think any less of you.”

She would. Even though she accepted that I was a vampire, there were lines I couldn’t cross. Telling the girl that I—telling Lyn that I was going to kill Tobias didn’t seem right. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t think my mouth would form the words. She knew my past and accepted me despite it. My future was a different story.

“Don’t be worried.” I smiled sadly at her. “There’s just a lot to get done. We have to find something that no one knows the location of first.” While making sure the other two members of the Enforcement Team didn’t discover who we were working with and hiding from whoever Phoenix was sending my way. I left that out. “And I have to get you back home,” I ended.

She blinked. “Uncle Tom called a couple days ago. I told him I went on vacation with you. Frank reported me missing, and everyone was freaking out.” Her eyes lowered to the foot of the bed. “It really makes me wonder how far I have to go to get rid of him.”

She would have to deal with him a lot if she returned to New York. Even Vermont, for that matter. No matter how I looked at it, though, he was still a better choice for her than I was. He was alive and wasn’t constantly putting her in at death’s door.

“As long as your family knows you’re safe,” I replied. “I’ll make sure Tom is there to pick you up from the airport. He can drive you back to Vermont so you can talk things out.”

“Kaden, I’m safe here. Why can’t I just stay?”

I brushed a single tear off her cheek, and she sat up. I followed suit. We sat there very quietly while she composed herself. It was like a broken record. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t accepting my motives. I didn’t want to get rid of her—I wanted to save her.

“Lyn,” I ventured after what seemed like an hour, but was only ten minutes.

“Last night, when you thought I wanted to be bitten …” she paused and looked at me. I nodded for her to continue. “It’s not that I want it, but … ” she paused again and turned a deep shade of red. “It’s the only way I know how to be close to you, and last night I really needed to be.”

My stomach churned. I hadn’t realized I kept her at such a distance that she would need to go to such lengths to feel close to me. I slept next to her every day. I was always taking her hand and keeping her close. What she meant was more than those things. I had kept her at arm’s length, she was right. I was afraid if she got too close, she would get hurt. Maybe I thought I would.

She inhaled sharply. “Kaden, I think that I’m fall—”

The bedroom door swung open and banged against the nightstand with a loud thump. The door vibrated, and the small lamp on the table nearly fell to the floor. Flo didn’t care that she was interrupting an important conversation, and I was relieved that she did. I wasn’t ready for it.

Flo’s hair was pulled into a braid and wound around the back of her head. She was wearing jeans and a red tank top with a black dress jacket. “Max called. Gabriel’s fine.”

“Thanks,” I said, still surprised by her sudden appearance.

“We’re leaving,” she added.

I got up and pulled on the same jeans I wore the night before. They were only going to get filthy anyway. I looked over my shoulder at Lyn. Her face was the color of a beet, and she had fallen back onto the bed.

“I’ll be back before dawn,” I said before hurrying out after Flo.

My body was numb with shock at the words Lyn had been about to say. I could be jumping to conclusions, but it wasn’t something that I wanted to hear. It was better to forget it and follow Flo out into the cold November air to take my chances with the vampires.

Stu and Sullivan were waiting for us outside. Stu smiled brightly at Flo. He cracked his knuckles overdramatically. “Ready for some do-gooding?”

“You sound like a moron,” Flo said, giving him a whack on the head.

The two started squabbling and I leaned over to Sullivan. “What are you three planning?”

“Us?” he asked. “We’re following your plan.”

I scowled. I hadn’t even known what I wanted to do until I woke up. There were two options I was considering. I wasn’t sure which they thought I picked.

“Mine?”

He smirked. “You want to find the tomb and kill Tobias. It’s a good thought, although I’m a little shady on the details. Chances are that he will come flying out at us and rip our throats out before we know what happens, but …” He shrugged with one shoulder. “Don’t look so surprised, Kaden. We’ve known you long enough to know what you want to do.”

My chest lightened. I had expected some resistance from them. Sullivan was right. It was probably a suicide mission, if not for all of us, for some. I hadn’t thought the actual killing out, but it was the only way that this would never become an issue again. Enough vampires knew about it now. It would only take one to escape the Enforcement Team and start blabbing the information to every vampire they met.

Sneaking into Vatican City alone wasn’t hard. The guards didn’t even notice when we flew by them. But getting back into the tunnels was almost too easy. There was no one guarding the building. There was no alarm on the door, as if they wanted to make it seem too unimportant to monitor. It was idiotic. If we could get in, anyone could.

In the tunnels again, I felt just as lost as I had been before. We hurried through the passages we took the prior night, unconcerned with the things we had already explored. They were irrelevant. There was no door. We needed to look elsewhere.

Stu was leading the way with a bizarre sense of confidence. He wound his way through the turns like he knew exactly where he was going. His eyes didn’t even flicker over the side tunnels as we passed them.

We passed the alcove that Vin and Alonzo confronted us in. It sent a chill down my spine. We were openly defying them, and I was outright lying. If they weren’t our enemy before, they would be soon. It was like asking to be killed. In New York, I knew I wasn’t going to be slaughtered. Here, it depended on which vampire I met first.

The Enforcement Team’s main objective was Abel. Two of the four were keeping my secret about working with the Iustitia. The other two would love the chance to expose me to Phoenix. None of them would personally kill me, I hoped. Abel on the other hand saw me as nothing more than a threat. He would kill me in a second if he had the chance.

But, even though I was a begrudging leader, I was a leader nonetheless. I had to think about the people following me just as much as myself. The Iustitia were probably going to be angry with us for this. We didn’t involve them, or even let them know. Killing Tobias would end their arrangement. We should have gotten their permission, but we were in Rome to help. We were doing what we were told. Sort of. I just hoped that we all made it out alive.

“Where are we going?” I asked quietly.

Stu turned around with a giant smile. “We found it.”

“Last night,” Flo added. “The tomb. We didn’t get a chance to tell you, but we knew what you would want to do regardless, so we let you get a good night’s sleep.”

Sullivan reached out and took Flo’s shoulder before she could take another step. “What?”

She shrugged him off. “Am I speaking in tongues?”

Stu chuckled. “Someone started to dig at the wall, so Vin and Alonzo were trying to build it back up. They were wearing gloves and had a huge bag of religious paraphernalia.”

“I was thinking that they were going to try sealing the objects into the stone,” Flo said. “It just seemed too crazy to think they were going to try to bless it again. I don’t even think that’s possible.”

“There it is,” Stu called over his shoulder, picking up the pace.

“Wait,” I hissed. “They’re probably still down here.”

Flo pushed to the front of us. “I don’t see anyone.”

There were small bits of rock on the floor that hadn’t fit back into the wall. It was obvious where someone had chipped into the stone. It looked like they used a pickaxe or other tool to break away at it. There were other patch jobs further down, but this one was bigger. It was wider and taller than the rest. And it was done in a hurry.

“This isn’t a door,” I said, knocking on the wall ten feet away from the hack job with my knuckles. “It’s a solid wall that someone’s digging into.”

Sullivan shook his head. “There’s a slight line near the ceiling. They did an amazing job covering it, but it isn’t natural.”

There was the faintest of ridges above our heads, like someone had tried to blend the two rocks together. It had to have been done recently. I doubted the technology to do anything like it existed in the late thirteenth century. The line continued along and turned to go down toward the ground. The hole that was being dug was in the middle of the square it formed.

They knew. Both Abel and the twins.

Stu pulled out four pair of thick, black leather gloves from the waist of his jeans. “I think we’ll need these.”

“Where did you get them?” Flo asked, looking disgusted at the thought of wearing cowhide.

He shrugged. “We can add breaking and entering and robbery, to the list of things I’ll get to do tonight.”

I ignored them, pulled on the gloves, and started knocking the broken rock out of its place. I wasn’t sure what the point of the gloves was, but if Vin and Alonzo had them on, there was a reason. The rock had most likely been sprinkled with holy water or blessed as a last stand against Tobias clawing his way out. Or against anyone trying to claw their way in.

Sullivan pulled on his gloves and started helping me. It didn’t take long before there was a six-foot square in the wall that was at least two feet deep. The wall behind the rock was simple, packed dirt.

“Ouch.” I looked behind me and saw Stu holding a piece of the rock in his hand. He had touched it to his forearm, and it left a small red burn mark. “I figured.” He shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“That will probably have the same effect,” Flo said, nodding toward the dirt.

“Let’s not find out.” I stepped away from it so I could barely reach the top and made sure my light gray sleeve was tucked inside the leather before sticking my hand in. The dirt crumbled easily and fell to the floor. It was going to take time to get through it without getting burned. Time we didn’t necessarily have. And there was the problem of where to put it once it was all knocked off the wall. If the door swung out, we wouldn’t be able to open it.

“Kaden,” Flo hissed. “There’s someone here again.”

“Keep digging,” I told Stu. I stared in the direction that Flo was. I didn’t see anything. “Are you sure?”

She let out an angry breath of air.

Then I saw him. Abel. He was rushing toward us, and he was alone.

The sound of falling dirt slowed to a stop behind me. “Keep going, Stu,” I said without turning around. The dirt started scattering to the floor again as Abel halted twenty feet away.

“You’re helping me out after all,” he said with a grin. “I should have let you in from the beginning.”

“We’re not helping you, you psychopathic cyclops!” Flo spat.

Anger flashed behind Abel’s good eye. He wasn’t stupid enough to take on four of us, but he didn’t want to give up his prize either. That much was obvious, or he would have taken off at the mere sight of us.

“Or really?” he snarled. “Then what are you going to do?”

“Whoa,” Stu breathed. “The door …”

I chanced a look over my shoulder. The door was solid silver with thousands of crosses carved into it. A prayer was written along the edges in Latin. There was no handle. The door was never meant to be opened again. There was a small lever, though. It controlled the locks that were jetting into the stone.

“Open it,” Abel yelled.

“We will,” I said calmly. “And then we will destroy him.”

“No!” he screamed. “I need him. There isn’t anyone else that can beat Phoenix. There’s only him.”

There are other people. I could kill him.

I shook the thought out of my head. That wasn’t what I needed to be thinking. First, I had to kill Tobias.

“Apparently, there’s not even him,” Stu corrected. “Or he wouldn’t have been stuck here in the first place.”

Abel’s hands were balled into fists, and he was positioned to lunge. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“You’re kidding me,” Vin’s voice said in a loud, monotone voice. A loud clang resonated around us as he dropped a plastic pail full of metal. “Kaden, you said you were going to leave.”

I cringed and looked over my shoulder again. “Sorry, but I couldn’t.”

“You’re getting in our way,” Alonzo said. “We weren’t going to let them go through with their plan. We just spent the last hour killing off the rest of his double-crossing minions. Did you think we couldn’t handle it? We’re the Enforcement Team.”

“I know,” I said quickly. “You could kill any one of us at the drop of a hat. But you’re not. Those aren’t your orders.” I was still hoping that was true. “And just because you kill Abel doesn’t mean that this won’t happen again.”

“That’s something we can deal with when the time comes,” Alonzo growled. “You should have left when you had the chance.”

“Sorry,” I said, ignoring the last bit. There would still be time to leave. There had to be. “We’re going to kill him and end it all. It’s better for us, and it’s better for him. Besides, it will let your beloved master reign in truth.”

There was a long silence in the passageway. Everyone was waiting to see what the other would do. None of us moved a muscle.

“Abel,” Alonzo called down the tunnel. His voice vibrated off the stone walls. “We want to ask you some questions.”

Abel’s face was a blank slate. And then all we saw was the back of his head, running in the opposite direction. Alonzo swore under his breath and violently pushed through us, disappearing after him.

“I can’t let you open that door,” Vin said. “I don’t want to fight you, but I will if I have to.”

I turned to him and shook my head. “We don’t want to fight you either, but you’re outnumbered.”

He shrugged. “I’m older than all of you. I have equal training, but I’m stronger and faster. You know that.”

Sullivan took a deep breath. “Then, we’ll just have to take our chances.”

Vin looked at each of our faces in turn, making sure we were serious. Fighting him was a losing battle, and we all knew it. We were just lucky he said fight instead of kill. It meant he might stop before the final blow if we were sufficiently incapacitated.

Vin laughed, kicking his bucket out of the way, and rubbed his face. “I never thought I would see this day.” He looked up, and his face turned serious. “But here we are.”

Flo unbuttoned her jacket and tossed it aside. She bared her pearly white fangs, and a low hiss escaped her lips. That was the signal to go.

Vin lunged forward and grabbed Flo by the shoulders. Running, he pushed her all the way into the newly exposed silver door.

Flo screamed as the crosses seared her skin. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Stu grabbed Vin and tore him from Flo. She fell to her knees, panting. Smoke was still rising from her charred flesh. The look in her eyes was one I had never seen. In that moment, there was nothing but inhuman brutality left in her face.

Vin pulled on Stu’s arm until he had flung him over his shoulder. He landed fifty feet down the tunnel. Vin ran after him, Flo at his heels. She reached out and gave a sideways punch to Vin’s head, sending it into the rock. Vin spun around. Blood was leaking from his forehead.

There wasn’t room in the tunnels to join the fight. We would be climbing over each other to reach Vin. So I reached toward the door with my gloved hand and slid the locks out of place with a loud creak. Sullivan was behind me, guarding me in case Vin came back.

My stomach was in knots, and my head was spinning. I didn’t know what to expect on the other side. There was about a 90 percent chance I was about to kill myself and let a monster lose. I braced myself for the worst. Death and the nothingness that scared me so much.

“Hurry,” Sullivan said.

I inhaled and exhaled sharply. It was time to go all in. With both hands, I pushed. The door groaned under the pressure. It didn’t want to move. Sullivan put his hands next to mine and we both shoved. The door gave way, swinging into an eight-by-eight room.

Every inch of the walls were covered with crosses, and scriptures were carved innately into the stone. A moat, one foot wide, filled with what appeared to be stagnant holy water ran around the perimeter. And, in the middle of the floor was Tobias.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t what I saw. He was as pristine as any other vampire. His face was pale, with strong angles. His dirty blonde hair pooled beneath his head as he lay there with his eyes shut. He was wearing tight black pants and what was once a white tunic.

Sullivan was pulled backward. I didn’t dare take my eyes from Tobias. He appeared to be sleeping, but vampires could be excellent actors. That was one reason I hesitated to go into the room. The other reason was fear. The room was a vampire’s hell, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. I would never survive being locked inside.

“Kaden, stop,” Vin demanded. “Get away from the door.” There was the sound of impact and he began coughing.

“What are you waiting for?” Flo hissed.

I chanced it. I looked back. Flo’s back was blistered and red, Stu’s face was covered in blood, and Sullivan’s neck was slowly healing from a large gash. There wasn’t any time left to waste. I had to kill him and get us out of the tunnels safely.

I turned to the tomb again and jumped, banging my head on the stone. Tobias was sitting with his legs crossed and his hands curled over his knees. He looked up at me calmly with angry hazel eyes.

“Hello,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Chapter 20

I shook my head slowly, frozen in fear. I knew I should move—get out of the way of my own demise. My body refused to listen. All I could do was stare at the oldest vampire I had ever seen. I felt like I was being sucked into a deep vortex and couldn’t look away.

“Kaden, is it?” He continued to glare. Power rolled off his tongue and glided along my skin, sending a chill down my back. “I could hear through the door. You wish to kill me?”

I had no words. Nothing I said could change the things I had spoken around to a positive light. It wasn’t possible to turn things in my favor. He knew what we were there for, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

His eyes were full of anger. And pain. The rest of his face was as flawless as a statue. There wasn’t a line to be spoken of. His body was as still as the stone surrounding him and equally strong.

“Sullivan.” He spoke louder than before, his voice dry and scratchy. “Are you allied with this vampire? Have you come to end me as well?”

“Tobias.” Sullivan stepped away from the fight with Vin, almost tripping on fallen rock. Blood trailed down the front of his shirt, and his hair was falling from the string holding it back. “Kaden was Phoenix’s second, but the four of us have forsaken him.”

Only his eyes moved, narrowing in distrust. “Why?”

“He deceived me,” I managed.

“There seems to be a lot of that going around.” Tobias went quiet for a long time. Sullivan and I stayed completely still while the others continued the violent quarrel behind us. Loud cracks filled the air, mingling together with the hisses and grunts of the fighters. “The Enforcement Team?” he asked casually.

Sullivan nodded.

Tobias’s eyes glazed over. He inhaled slowly through his nose and held it, savoring the bit of fresh air that floated into the room from the tunnel. “I am in excruciating pain. I need blood.”

Sullivan looked to me, and I shook my head. Tobias seemed completely normal. The centuries locked in solitude with nothing to feed on hadn’t touched him. I didn’t buy it. He should have gone insane. He should have lost his mind. The bodily urges should have taken over long ago and turned him into a bloodthirsty animal.

What angle is he trying to play?

“We’re not letting you out of here,” I said.

Tobias was in front of us in the blink of an eye. He stopped just on the other side of the holy water moat. His hair was down to his knees, stunted from growing further from the lack of protein in the blood he wasn’t getting. His muscles rippled angrily beneath his threadbare clothing.

“Truly?”

I wasn’t going to be able to grab the door without reaching into the tomb. If I tried it, Tobias would latch on. I could see in his eyes that he was just waiting for one of us to make a move. Being locked in the room wasn’t something I was willing to risk. Neither was being killed unnecessarily. Opening the door had been a mistake. A huge mistake.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, trying to remain firm in my decision now that it was too late to turn back.

“I’m going to get out of here,” he said evenly and without a shred of doubt. “And when I do, Phoenix will die. Right after I kill each and every one of you. Vincent!” he screamed so loudly that my body jolted.

Vin stopped fighting immediately. His hands fell to his sides, and the skin on his face smoothed over the snarl he was wearing. His body tensed. His fingers flexed nervously. He swallowed hard before begrudgingly turning around and giving a slight bow with his fist over his heart. “Master.”

“Enough. Get me out of here.”

“I … can’t,” Vin stammered. His shoulders rose a few centimeters, and he leaned back in fear. “Phoenix sent me to make sure you weren’t released.”

Fury rose up behind Tobias’s eyes, his voice rippling along my skin. “The mutiny runs deeper than I ever imagined.”

Multiple gunshots rang out behind us. I ducked just in time to have a bullet fly over my head and imbed itself into the wall. When I turned to see who was shooting, I saw Vin run at full speed past the tomb. Flo and Stu were both lying on the floor, bleeding. Flo had been hit in the lower part of her back, just missing her kidneys. Stu had been hit in the shoulder, again. Sullivan pressed himself against the wall leading to the silver door.

The bullets stopped, and footsteps tapped slowly toward us.

Tobias chuckled.

Then the familiar ivory cane was twirling in the tunnel. The Marquis bent over so only his head was visible, his long dark hair falling over his shoulder. “Greetings.”

“What are you doing here?” I growled.

He made a tsk sound. “Someone had to fix things. Too many vampires know about this now, and the Iustitia.” He tossed one of their guns to the ground. A large letter “I” was engraved on the grip with a family shield behind it. Blood, fresh and metallic, covered the barrel. “What’s left of them, anyway.”

He killed one of the Iustitia. It was better that they weren’t here tonight for that very reason. I hoped that they hadn’t been there looking for us. I hoped that it wasn’t Max. I stepped toward him, and Sullivan held his arm across the opening to stop me.

“What did you do?” I snarled.

“What’s wrong?” The Marquis stuck his bottom lip out. “Did I kill your friends?”

Phoenix knew. It had gotten back to him that we were working with the enemy. It was too late to run. It was too late for a lot of things. I lunged over Sullivan’s arm at the Marquis, forgetting about the bigger danger behind me. Our fight was left unfinished in New York. It was time to end it. To end him.

The tunnels blurred. Pain burst through my body from my abdomen. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t see straight. The Marquis pushed me away from him. I stumbled, almost falling over Stu’s leg. I brought my hand to my stomach and felt the thick liquid oozing out around something hard. I looked down. Two inches of a large wooden stake were sticking out. Another large “I” was carved into the handle.

“The master still wants you back,” he said. “I can’t kill you. He will most likely do the honors himself after this little stunt. Really unwise move, Kaden. I have to say, I’m surprised.” He paused, and I fought to gain control of my senses. “I can kill them, however.”

He raised his cane in the air and aimed it over Flo’s heart. It flew toward her. I was suddenly knocked off my feet. Stu’s upper arm was pierced by the dull end of the cane. His jaw clenched so hard that teeth began to crack under the pressure, and he took two heaving breaths over the semi-conscious Flo. He reached over with his wounded left arm and grabbed onto the cane just above where it entered his flesh. Blood coated the ivory surface, and his grip slipped.

“That … really … hurt,” he breathed at the Marquis.

He found his grip, yanking up on the cane, and flung himself into the Marquis. The two fell backward, and Stu hissed in his face. Spit flew through the air. It was the angriest thing I had ever heard from him.

Sullivan grabbed my arm and quickly pulled me to my feet. I started to fall back, but he held tight. My hand closed around the stake. I held my breath and wrenched it out. Blood gushed from the wound. I watched it soak into my shirt and down into the denim. My mind swam, trying to find something solid to focus on. I found it. Tobias. He was looking at the blood with lustful eyes, but he didn’t move for me. Vampires can’t feed from vampires. There wasn’t any life left to the blood. I wasn’t in danger in that respect.

I was trying extremely hard to convince myself of that.

“Are you all right?” Sullivan asked.

Tobias licked his lips. His fangs were nearly dripping with saliva. “Been better,” I said through gritted teeth. “Stop drooling,” I added directly at Tobias.

His eyes moved from my stomach to my eyes. “It’s been over seven hundred years.”

“I’m not dinner,” I growled.

Tobias smirked. “I have spent centuries planning my revenge, but things are very different than I thought they would be. They’re much more complicated. I think I’ve changed my mind about you. You will be useful to me one day. I won’t kill you. Yet. I want to see what you’re going to do.”

The Marquis laughed. His delicate features seemed more sinister than usual in the dark catacombs. Stu was kneeling at his feet, trying his best to remain conscious. His head bobbed, and he swayed back and forth.

“Do you know what this is?” the Marquis asked. He held up a small, plastic, egg-shaped container with a tab protruding from the side. “I got it off the Iustitia coming into the tunnels.” He paused. “No? No one?” A smile spread across his face. “Let’s find out.”

He pulled the tab, leapt forward, and hauled me out of the way. He tossed the can over his shoulder and continued to pull me further down the tunnel. I watched from a safe distance as a cloud of smoke exploded. I yanked my arm free from the Marquis’s icy grip. I tried to run back, but the Marquis tackled me from behind. I landed face first on the hard stone surface. The entire right side of my face slid along the rough surface. The precious blood I still had escaped from gashes on my cheek and forehead. I was too weak to lift myself up against the weight of his body.

“It’s the vapor from holy water,” he explained. “It won’t kill them, but they’ll never look quite the same.”

My mind filled with horrible images: bubbled skin, red and raw, healing to leave horrific scars. The ones on my abdomen were excruciating enough. My eyes glazed over thinking about the pain everyone was experiencing before my eyes. With every bit of strength I had left, I pushed the Marquis off. I stood next to him and waited anxiously for the smoke to settle. My hands were in fists. One arm was propping me up against the wall.

It seemed like forever before I could see through the vapor. The Marquis stood next to me, waiting. He loved to see his handiwork. He reveled in it. It was his greatest joy and what he lived for. I remembered his face when he dripped the holy water, one drop at a time, down my side. The way he smiled each time he pressed the cross to my stomach. I felt sick.

Sadist.

But when the vapor completely settled, there was nothing to see. No one was there, and my stomach flipped with hope.

“What?” the Marquis shouted in anger. He rushed forward and looked into the cell. “Impossible.”

I took the chance while he was distracted to run. At full speed, I darted past the tomb and back through the tunnels. I took the same turns we had earlier that night. It seemed to go on and on forever, until the stairs loomed in front of me. I was starting to lose steam. The wound from the stake was almost done healing, but blood was still leaking from the center. I shook my head against the pain and climbed back into the empty building.

I burst out of the faded green door and into the crisp, cold air. It hit me with a force that almost brought me to my knees. A wind carried the sickeningly sweet scent of death up to my nose.

At my feet lay five dead bodies in the street. Each was more mangled than the one next to him. My eyes searched each of their bloodied faces, urgently searching for Max. He wasn’t among them. The only two I recognized were from the night when Stu was shot. A wave of relief rushed over me, but it was short-lived.

We were going to be in a world of trouble. From every direction.

“Kaden,” Sullivan called. He jogged down the sidewalk to me. His hair was in his face, and he was cradling his left elbow. “We lost him.”

I let out a long breath. He was alive and unscarred by the mist. “Where are Flo and Stu?” I asked.

“Gabriel’s house,” he said. “It’s the only place close by that the Marquis or Tobias couldn’t get to us. They let us in. Max is there.”

“How pissed are they?” I breathed.

He scowled. “Tobias escaped.”

He didn’t have to say anything more. Pissed would be an understatement. We screwed everything up. Rome wasn’t safe anymore. Nowhere was. The entire vampire world was in for a rude awakening. Turmoil was about to settle it for the long haul. If Phoenix wanted me back before, he would want me even more now – traitor or not. He should have replaced me a long time ago, but he didn’t. And now he needed backup to hold everything together. It wasn’t going to be me. I would deal with it on my own terms. I would do it the same way I had been doing things since I left. On my own, with the few people I trusted.

I followed Sullivan to Gabriel’s house. My feet moved slowly, my legs ached with each step. My whole body was in protest. I never knew it would hurt that much to be staked. I never knew I would lose that much blood. My veins screamed for nourishment, threatening me with an all-consuming fire.

“Come in,” Max said quickly, holding the white iron door open. I hadn’t realized we arrived before he was ushering us inside. My mind snapped back to reality. “He wants to talk to you. Follow me.”

Max was moving too fast, basically sprinting forward. I reached out and grabbed his hand. He looked me up and down, taking in my injuries, and gave me an apologetic smile. He turned and climbed a set of circular stairs at a calmer pace. I cursed under my breath. I was going to have to find a house with a normal set of stairs. It was getting to be too much in the last couple months.

The house smelled strongly of pine disinfectant. And blood. Mostly the blood. My jaw ached, and saliva flooded to my mouth. It wasn’t the right time to lose control. I held my breath and fought against my blurred vision. Max opened the door at the end of the sparkling white hallway and let us into the bedroom before him.

I stopped in front of Max before going into the room. My bloodied hand grabbed onto the doorframe for support, leaving a perfect red print on the wood. “Max, just know that I really appreciate everything you’ve done. I know it wasn’t easy for you to ally yourself with us.” I paused to catch my breath. “Even though we’re about to become enemies again, it was nice to know the Iustitia aren’t what we thought they were.”

I walked inside without giving him a chance to reply. The room was beige with a dark green carpet. Paintings of beaches hung on the walls. The comforter was dark brown with small palm trees covering it, and there was a bowl on the nightstand filled with seashells.

Flo was sitting the wrong way on an armless rolling chair with her head hanging over the back. Her eyes were pressed shut, and her fingers were digging into the fabric. Stu was washing out the burn marks on her back with a squirt bottle. White gauze was wrapped tightly around her lower back. The area she was shot in was padded with layers upon layers of gauze.

Red stained almost every inch of Stu’s clothes. Blood was caked to the entire left side of his face. The wound in his arm from the Marquis’ cane had healed, leaving a large gaping hole in his sleeve. The gunshot was still leaking blood. It had hit a little below his first bullet scar, but this time Lyn wasn’t there to sew him up.

He glanced sideways at me through blood-crusted eyelashes while his patient hissed from pain. “We thought you got abducted,” he said without moving his jaw.

I shook my head and instantly wished that I hadn’t. “How are you?”

“How do we look?” Flo spat. “I’m healing a few broken ribs, a broken nose, internal bleeding, a bullet hole, and my back feels like it’s on fire.”

Stu glanced sideways at me again and motioned to his jaw. “Broken,” he explained. He shrugged and then grimaced, his body jerking from the sudden pain his movement caused.

“You’re all alive. That’s what matters,” Gabriel said softly from the bed.

My attention turned to him. His skin was a strange shade of gray. His eyes were dull, and his heart was significantly weaker. He looked small and insignificant in the king-sized bed, under the down-filled blankets.

Guilt surrounded me. I had not only failed my friends, but him, and the rest of the Iustitia. They had put their trust in us, and we threw it in their faces. I hadn’t lost sight of what brought me to Rome. I knew Phoenix’s secret now and could have used it against him if things had ended differently. But despite Lombardi trying to double-cross us, I didn’t mind the Iustitia that I got to know. We were working toward the same goal, and in one night, I had managed to screw it all up.

“We’ll find him,” I promised.

“I know.” Gabriel smiled reassuringly. “We’ll help. This isn’t your fault. Although …” he paused. “You should have let us help tonight.”

I shook my head slightly. “You lost five that I know of. If I let you help, there would just be more dead bodies. This is a vampire’s fight now. You shouldn’t get involved.”

“We’re already involved.” Gabriel pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Like it or not, the Iustitia aren’t going to sit by for this. Both of our leaders got us into this situation. Both of us are going to end it, whether we work with you or not.”

Sullivan bobbed his head to Gabriel. “Forgive me for saying this, but it will take longer than you have left to fix this. It could take decades, maybe longer.”

“I am aware of that.” He paused thoughtfully. “My brother is my successor and will honor my wishes.”

Max nodded. “He’s right. There’s no reason our truce has to end because of what happened.”

“This isn’t something you can help with,” Stu said, agreeing with me quietly. “It’s too deep into our politics. It will get more gruesome and dangerous than even your group is ready for. You have no idea what it can be like. Vampires don’t think like you do.”

A gentle hush fell around the room. The realization of what Stu said hit me hard. He was right. Vampires didn’t think like humans did. And we were vampires. We had been fooling ourselves to think we could keep up the charade. It was over for us now. It was time to return to our true nature and leave all the useless feelings behind.

“Well …” Gabriel held out his hand. “We will keep our end of the deal. Your names are off the books.”

“Thank you.” I hesitated before shaking his hand.

He put his boney left hand over ours and gave them a weak squeeze. “You have friends with us.”

I nodded, pulling away. It was time to get back to the apartment. There were still a few hours of night left. I needed to say my final goodbye to Lyn, put her on the next plane home, and start doing what had to be done.

Like it was on cue, Max’s cell phone rang. He answered it quickly, speaking in Italian. Only a few lines were exchanged before he shut it silently and turned to face me. “Kaden.”

The look on his face froze me in place. My eyes met his, and I felt an immense pressure well up in my chest. I couldn’t speak. There was more bad news on the way. Bad news I didn’t want to hear. News I wasn’t going to be able to handle. I could see it in every inch of Max’s face.

“What?” Flo snapped.

“Alex, Reece, and Dave are being rushed to the hospital right now,” Max said evenly. “We’ll try to intercept it so the doctors don’t get suspicious of their healing.” He paused and cracked his thumbs with his middle fingers. “Neighbors reported a huge commotion in your apartment. They also saw a strange man with long hair and a cane lingering outside the building.”

The Marquis.

“Lyn?” I breathed.

Max’s face drained of color. “No one knows where she is.”

The world crashed around me. Everything was a blur. They knew my only weakness. The Marquis had tried it in New York, but this time he succeeded. He was luring me back to Spain. He knew, without a doubt, I would follow.

The things that were going to happen to Lyn before I could get there …

Her smiling face floated before my eyes. My body tingled and became so light that I swore I could have flown away. The room spun. I felt like I was spiraling down a never-ending hole.

And then my vision went black.

Table of Contents

The Well of Truth

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20