Page 2

F rom my pocket, my phone buzzes. It’s so normal, so mundane, it feels impossible or ridiculous considering all that’s happened. I pull it out, checking the notification.

It’s the camera at the house. My heart jumps into my throat as I click on it.

He’s a bit of a blur, but that’s definitely Ares walking into the penthouse.

“Ares is at home,” I say, immediately stepping toward the elevator. “Do you have anything that can maybe knock him out? If we can put him out, we can contain him until we can fix him.”

My step stalls for just a moment. I realize that I do, in fact, have something that can knock a vampire out. The dart that Elle gave me when I went to visit her in Boston. It’s tucked away in our penthouse.

“A heavy enough dose, and I think most sedatives can take even a vampire down,” Florence says as she turns in the lab, pulling a fridge open. She pulls out a syringe. “Even if it’s short term, it’s better than nothing.”

Problem there is that you have to get close enough to a vampire to stick them.

Elle was smart, making her version into a dart. I might not have a blowgun to fire it, but I can throw it well enough.

“Come on,” I say as I press the button for the elevator. “We’ve got to get there before he can leave again.”

“Lana, are you sure you feel okay?” Clementine asks warily.

She’s staring at me with doubtful eyes. “I was totally out of control for three solid weeks after I was Bitten and transformed. Every Born I’ve ever met was at least a week until they had a handle on themselves. It’s been twenty minutes, Lana.”

I stare into the eyes of the most compassionate and calm woman I’ve ever met. I see fear there. Alarm. Concern.

I take a moment and search within me. Do I feel out of control? Do I feel like I’ll be a danger to anyone outside?

The honest answer is no.

“I don’t know what it feels like to wake up as a Bitten,” I confess, holding her gaze. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a Born. But Clementine, I promise you, if I was doubtful about how I felt, I’d beg you to lock me up. I just feel like a damn superhero version of me. I feel amazing.”

Florence steps beside Clementine, sliding her hand into her wife’s. Clementine still looks incredibly worried as she looks into Florence’s eyes. But at the steady expression on Florence’s face, Clementine lets out a little breath.

The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. We step inside, and Florence swipes her badge for it to take us to the ground level.

Just then, my phone dings again. I’ve missed a call. I hold my phone to my ear to listen to the voicemail.

It’s Lazlo, our doorman, letting me know that Ares has just walked in. The man’s a saint. I didn’t give him any details about why, but I’d begged him to call me if he saw Ares, and he has.

I slip my phone back into my pocket and anxiously, eagerly wait as the elevator ascends.

It feels like it takes three hours, but really, the journey takes about fifteen seconds.

Finally, the doors slide open, and the three of us step out into an empty lobby.

Considering the twilight lighting outside and the fact that the lobby is empty, everyone has gone home for the night.

Florence heads straight for the door, and we all step out.

Of course, there is a slick white SUV waiting at the curb.

I haven’t met Florence’s driver yet, but of course, she, too, has one.

“Lana, this is Kat, Kat, this is my sister-in-law, Lana,” Florence gives a quick introduction as we slide into our seats and buckle up. Considering how indestructible I feel, though, a seatbelt seems laughable.

“Lana,” Kat says with a nod just before she merges into the light traffic.

“Nice to meet you,” I say distractedly.

Being in this small space, suddenly I hear heartbeats.

I feel surrounded by them. I heard them earlier, but now that we’re in such a small space, they sound so damn loud.

Florence’s sounds different than Clementine’s.

It must be the difference between a Bitten and a human.

Kat’s heart sounds like Florence’s. Guess she’s human.

It’s fucking wild that I can hear that difference now.

“Any ideas how we fix Ares?” I ask as we roll through the city.

Florence rubs two fingers over her lips, thinking as she looks out the window. “It would help if we had any understanding of how this happened. You really don’t have any ideas other than someone did this to him?”

I shake my head. “This happened before with the Steele family, and there were essentially no leads as to what caused their uncle to snap like that. I’ve gotten one confirmation that there are others out there who can do…

supernatural things. They have abilities.

So, yes, I believe someone did this to Ares. But I have no fucking clue who.”

Florence worries her lower lip, mulling this over. “We’re definitely getting outside of my realm of knowledge. I think we’re going to have to bring in your other friends.”

Meaning the Barons.

When we’re a block and a half from the penthouse, I get another camera notification. Only when I open it up, I don’t see anything. Just the empty hallway outside our home.

Fuck. What does that mean?

Finally, we roll up to the curb, and Kat stops right in front of the doors. All three of us pile out of the vehicle, and it’s everything I can do not to sprint inside.

Just as we step into the elevator, I get yet another notification, but before I can even get it to open and load, the doors slide open on my floor.

We step out, and I find Sysco standing at my front door. He looks back at us as we step out of the elevator.

“Where the fuck have you been, Lana?” he demands, his tone angry and terrified at the same time. “I’ve called about fifty times, and texted you just as many times. You?—”

He stops short when I get within five feet of him. He stands a little straighter. His eyes narrow. I see his nostrils flare as he scents the air.

“What the fu?—”

“We have to see if Ares is still inside,” I cut him off, dreading what I think might be coming. “I got a notification he went in just a little bit ago. If he is, we’re going to try to knock him out. You willing to help us?”

I don’t really ask it as a question. It’s more of a desperate demand.

Sysco presses his lips into a thin line, then nods at the door.

I pull my keys from my pocket and unlock the door, stepping inside with wild nerves.

“Ares?” I call out as I step into the entryway. My newly enhanced ears strain, listening for any sounds, any signs. I step into the living room, my eyes sweeping for tattooed flesh and dark, wicked eyes.

But I don’t see him.

“Ares?” I call out again as I step into the hall. But as my hearing casts out, as it listens for any sounds, I get absolutely nothing back.

I dart for our bedroom. Nothing has been disturbed. But when I enter the closet, I smell him. Wealth and danger in the most intoxicating musk. And in the hamper, I see the pants he was wearing when I picked him up in Queens.

“He was here,” I say as Sysco steps into the bathroom behind me. “Just a minute or two ago. We barely missed him.”

“How can you tell that, Lana?” Sysco asks, and there’s something almost accusatory in his tone.

I look over my shoulder at him, nervously trying to gauge what his reaction will be. His eyes are a little feral, a little wild, a little confused, a little scared.

“Lana,” he says, almost a warning.

“Just let me check the cameras again,” I say as I step around him and walk back out into the hall.

As I head for the dining room, where Florence and Clementine wait, I pull out my phone.

There are movement notifications from when Sysco showed up, just ten seconds before the three of us women arrived.

I click the one I got when we were still in the car.

There’s a little blur of black clothing in the bottom right corner. I missed that before. But there’s nothing more than that.

“He left in a fucking hurry,” I say as I extend the video to Florence. She swears under her breath. Sysco steps up, and I show him the video. “This had to have been only two minutes before you got here.”

“Shit, Lana,” he says, shaking his head in worried confusion. “If I’d been looking up, I probably would have seen him leave the building. What the fuck is happening to our boy?”

Our boy.

Those words practically make me cry.

Sysco has Ares’ back.

Will he still have mine when I give him the answers to the questions I haven’t let him ask?

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “But we need a plan for when we catch up to him.”

“I think knocking him out is still a good option,” Florence says as she pulls the syringe from her pocket.

“Agreed,” I say, picturing Elle’s dart that’s hidden in the guest bedroom.

I don’t know if I dare say anything about it.

Everything about Elle is fantastical, but her stories and secrets are also dangerous to her and her growing family.

Sometimes, secrets are not ours to tell.

“Ares obviously isn’t in control. And if he tries to fight us, he’s a capable man. It wouldn’t be easy.”

“We’ll need to contain him after,” I add. “This might not be a quick fix. It won’t be a quick fix since we don’t know what the hell happened to him. So, once we knock him out, we need to lock him up somewhere.”

“How do you lock up a Born?” Clementine asks doubtfully. “When they can break through chains, burst through walls, how do you contain that kind of vampire?”

“Harry,” Sysco says, his gaze growing heavier, darker. “He had some serious enemies a few years back. He needed information. And he needed somewhere to lock them up. Harry has a place in one of his properties, designed specifically for a Born.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. Every single vampire I’ve met has a fascinating backstory I know very little about.