Page 113 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal

“Did you know Crusco was dead?”I asked.Maybe he needed a little help putting the puzzle together.I’d give him all the edge pieces he needed.

“No,” he said.

I squeezed my hands in frustration.It was like the Christian I knew, or thought I’d known, had been switched off.The man in front of me was an automaton with no soul, no willpower.His sister had carved out his insides and replaced them with wires and empty spaces.But he had to be in there somewhere.Hecouldn’tbe okay with this.

“Christian.”Melissa’s voice softened.She faced him squarely.“This wasn’t the plan, but it’s better.I won’t be tied down to a few nulled acres.I’m mobile.I can go anywhere, anytime.And you get what you want too.Don’t you see?”

“This isn’t what I want,” he said.

“You’re crazy about her.”She jabbed a finger my way.“And now she’s yours.”

A million tiny daggers stabbed my chest and my back.I shook my head slowly.I wasn’t sure why.

Melissa stared at me.“How could you not see it?He—” Her mouth flattened, then pursed to the side.“Never mind.I get it.For as smart as he is, he’s flat-out dumb when it comes to dating.”

“Melissa.”Finally there was something in his voice.Anger?

“It’s true.”She started pacing outside the bars again.“I tried to nudge him in the right direction, but when hefinallymustered up the courage to ask you out, he invited you to his stinky gym.”

Yeah.He had.He’d even asked me to meet him for coffee once.Those invitations all made sense though.We needed to exchange information.He wanted to help me protect myself.

She reached the chamber wall and doubled back.“He fell for you before you even met.I swear, I know more about you than any of my exes.Your dad wouldn’t shut up about his amazing daughter, and Christian?He just had to tell me every single story.”

“Melissa.”His voice was rougher now, his jaw clenched tighter.

She stopped near me and grinned like we were friends chatting about boys in a bar.“A few of them were actually funny.Like that time you tried to foster a pair of huskies and snuck them into a vampire’s room.Oh, and the sunscreen incident.”She laughed.“But the stories that really got to him were about how you got along with every guest and staff member.You treated them like they were normal humans.You just didn’t see anything dark about them or their world, not until high school.Then you started smuggling in the unsanctioned like it was just a practical solution to an absurd problem.Youinspiredhim.”

“That’s enough!”Christian ground out the words so viciously the werewolves stirred.

Jerro stalked toward him, chest puffed out, hands curled into fists.Christian faced him like he welcomed the violence.He swung a heavy right hook.Jerro must have been nulled by my blood because he didn’t attempt to dodge until it was way too late.

Jerro’s head snapped to the left.His body rag-dolled to the ground.

Christian shot toward him, but the other wolves charged forward.One caught his shoulder, lifted his fist—

Melissa shoved the wolf to the ground beside Jerro.

Then she straddled him.Leaned forward until her face was inches away from his.“He’s my brother.You touch him, you die.”

“Get off,” the werewolf snarled.She did but only after she shoved her hands into his chest again.

She returned to me, smiling like she hadn’t just threatened to rip off someone’s head.“I know it sounds crazy.If I didn’t have so many book boyfriends, I wouldn’t believe it was possible to fall in love just from astory.But that’s what he did.”

My gaze locked with Christian’s, but the man I knew still wasn’t there.Maybe the film was rewinding in his mind too, more slowly and sporadically than it had in mine because she was his sister.He loved her.He’d do anything—had done everything—for her.He was trying to see some way this couldn’t be happening.

For him, I wished there was another explanation, but another memory locked into place.I’d tried my best to suppress Lehr’s massacre of Shelli’s coven, tried to black out my role in Shelli’s death, but her final words resounded clearly in my mind.She’d said I couldn’t trust anyone.She’d singsongedI know something you don’t knowwith her last breath.Thiswas what she’d known.Melissa was the missing piece, the orchestrator, the person designing all the lies to get what she wanted.Couldn’t Christianseethat?

“She killed my parents.”

Her smile fled.“I didn’t.”She whirled toward Christian.“Iwouldn’t.I know you were close to them, and we were making progress.Everything was going perfectly, but Shelli and the wolves”—she glared at Jerro, who was just beginning to regain consciousness—“were impatient.They tried to speed things up.”She looked back at me.“Shelli killed your parents.She wanted Astrid.She’d been hunting her for over a decade.I knew she was a power-hungry bitch, but the spell required a full coven.”

She took Christian’s hand.“This is better, right?”

His gaze shifted from me to her.

“Kennedy might be pissed right now,” she continued.“But she’ll come around.She’ll realize you’reperfectfor her.And we’ll keep her safe.No more worrying if she’s going to get herself killed.”

For the first time, emotion moved across his face.It shifted the ground beneath my feet, made the stone walls close in.