Page 26

T elling Sysco and Harry everything we had learned required explaining everything .

The origins of vampires. King Cyrus. The reincarnating queen.

Their demented son. The war that divided the Royals from the Born.

The House system. So many damn details that I didn’t feel like we had a firm grip on yet.

And here Ares and I were, teaching the other Barons.

Harry had heard rumors about all of this. But he had never believed any of it. Even as we explained it all, I wasn’t sure if he believed us.

Sysco’s mind had been fucking blown. “You’re serious right now?” He’d asked about twelve different times. “A king?” “You telling me there’s vampire Royalty in Boston? In fucking Mississippi?” “No. No way.”

In the end, though, he believed me and Ares.

Then, the question was, what to do with the information?

What did it change? How did we move forward from here?

All of that could wait.

Because, for now, the priority was to find James, find Markus, and keep them from bringing the Blood Father back.

We’re about to head out—to get back into all of this shit—when Juliet calls.

I pick up on the first ring. "Hey."

"Hey," she says, voice a little softer than usual. "I don’t know how you feel about it, but it seemed like the right thing to do to give you an update. Ophelia’s being moved from the ICU to a regular room."

That takes me off guard. I stop walking, the city still humming around me. Ares pauses beside me, watching me carefully.

"Already?"

"She’s tougher than she looks," Juliet says. "Vitals are stable. She's banged up, but...she's conscious. Alert and oriented.”

I stare ahead, across the street, where a man in a business suit is sipping coffee and yelling into his phone. Life keeps moving, even when it feels like the rug is ripped out from beneath our feet.

"Thanks for letting me know," I say. My voice feels tight in my throat. It feels so damn wrong that I haven’t been there for her, been there with her. She was hurt. But the way things are… "I think... I think I might go see her."

There's a pause. "You sure?"

No. Not at all. This might be the worst idea I’ve had all year. But I nod anyway. "Yeah."

“Good luck,” she says. We hang up, and I turn to Ares. His jaw is set, unreadable.

"She’s stable," I tell him, even though I’m positive he heard everything said on the phone. "They’re moving her."

He doesn’t say anything at first. He’s studying me, reading how I feel about this situation. “You sure, Vengeance? The things she said to you before… I can’t stand the thought of her saying that shit to you again.”

"I don’t know, maybe this is a terrible idea. But I just… We meant something to each other at one point, you know? And to think of her being in the hospital, with no one with her?” I shake my head. “I think it’s worth a try.”

Ares steps in close, brushing his knuckles across my cheek. "Whatever you need. Do you want me to come with you?"

I snort. “We both know that’s a terrible idea.”

He tries to smile for my sake, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He simply nods and then kisses my forehead. "I’m going to check in with Roman. We still need to figure out where Markus is going next. Text me the second you’re done."

"I will."

We part ways at the curb. Ares melts into the crowd, his tall frame swallowed up by the surge of bodies and motion.

I head in the opposite direction, toward the hospital. Toward a ghost I’m not sure I’m ready to face.

Every step is heavier than the last. I try not to overthink it, but I’m already spiraling.

What do I even say to her?

She destroyed Ares. Almost got him killed. Got people killed. Lives were ended because of her need for revenge.

I try to reason myself into feeling better by thinking back to the real origin of it all.

Augustus. Ares’ father. If Augustus hadn’t been such a horrible being, if he hadn’t been taking people and selling them to vampires to feed on, none of this would have happened.

If Ophelia hadn’t gone to that Red party, she never would have been taken by Augustus’s guys, and she never would have hated vampires.

But also, then I never would have met Ares. I wouldn’t be engaged to the love of my life. I would still be living in that shitty apartment, being lonely and tired and unfulfilled.

I’d still be human.

But I haven’t regretted being a Made since the moment I opened my enhanced eyes.

The reality is that Ophelia made her choice. She took things too far. Bad things happen to good people all the time. It’s a horrific reality. But not everyone turns around from it and makes someone else kill innocent people who are simply guilty by species.

Ophelia made a choice.

Still, I can’t quite find it in me to hate her. Despite all of her terrible choices, I don’t know that I hate her.

Do I forgive her? Absolutely the fuck not.

Will we ever go back to what we were? Nope.

But once, she was everything to me. She was home

Each step toward the hospital feels heavier than the last. Not physically—my new body hums with strength—but the emotional drag is suffocating. I have no idea what I’m going to say to her.

But she’s alive. That matters.

I round a corner, the hospital coming into view. It’s quiet down this road, and it’s nice having a clear sidewalk to myself.

But as I go to step off the curb and cross the street, I freeze. Literally, my feet won’t move. My brows furrow, and I look down. Both my feet remain planted firmly on the sidewalk. And no matter what I do, I can’t fucking lift them.

Holy shit.

My throat tightens, and a sweat breaks out across my entire body.

And then I feel it—a presence. Heavy. Focused. My spine tingles, every hair on my arms lifting.

I’m not alone.

That’s when the world tips. It’s like vertigo hits me, but I don’t feel like I’m actually in danger of falling.

But it’s like everything spins slightly and tilts sideways.

The sidewalk around me dulls. Colors blur.

Sound drops away. The chatter of the city fades until I can only hear my own heartbeat, thudding like a drum inside my ribs.

She stands across from me. I didn’t see her arrive.

There’s a woman standing on the sidewalk.

She stares at me with fixed eyes, her gaze heavy and unrelenting as she studies me.

She is ordinary and extraordinary all at once.

Neutral slacks. Pale blouse. Hair the shade of dirty snow, pulled into a bun.

Her presence hits like a pressure front. Dense. Wrong.

I try to blink, to clear the haze crawling into my mind. My thoughts feel sticky, half-formed, like trying to wade through wet cement.

"You’re different," she says. Her voice is cool silk wrapped around a knife. "Not quite like them. But not human, either."

My mouth opens, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t focus. Her eyes—fuck, what color are her eyes? I can’t remember even though I’m looking at them.

“She never mentioned this,” the woman says, never looking away. I try to blink, to make my brain clear, but I just can’t. “We spoke about you at length. You were a solid presence in her life. Until you fell in love with the very thing infecting our city.”

“It was you,” I say as it hits me. The therapist Ophelia saw, the one who specializes in vampire trauma. The one who helped Ophelia influence Ares. “Do you even know what you did? What you helped Ophelia do? People are dead now, and my fiancé will have to live with that guilt forever.”

A small smile crooks on her lips, though I can’t even tell if they’re full or wrinkled, if they’re pale or colored. “In the end, the balance must be kept. The scales tipped too far years ago, they were too imbalanced recently. They remain imbalanced.”

And there I have it. The confirmation that this woman is indeed responsible for Aleah and Duncan Steele losing the majority of their family. She is the one who infiltrated their uncle, and made him kill every one of their family members.

“Imbalanced,” I say. I stay rooted in place, unable to move an inch. “What do you mean by that?”

“Numbers, girl, it’s not that complicated,” the woman says condescendingly. “There are far too many vampires in the world to begin with. There are cities around the globe infested with them. But New York, my home, is one place I can do something about. Where I can help with… crowd control.”

I shake my head. “You realize these are people , right? Good people. And you get to be the judge? You think you get to play god? More blood is on your hands than any of those vampires.”

She offers a smile, though it flickers in and out of my brain in real time. “You’re young. Inexperienced. You have yet to see the rot they have caused over decades. The power they’ve seized. I don’t ask you to understand. I simply thought I would give you time to give the rest of them a warning.”

I shake my head. “There aren’t even that many vampires in New York. And thanks to you, five of them, maybe more, are recently dead.”

She’s so cool, so calm, I want to rip her fucking eyes out. But I can’t really even see them. My vision of her continues to flicker, continues to wipe in real time.

“It’s no longer just about numbers, Lana,” she says, and the moment she says my name, my skin crawls. “I’ve recently heard about the influence a certain cell of Born hold over this city. And I want it to stop.”

My whole body goes cold. The Barons. She’s talking about the Barons, and I know it with every cell in my being.

“Harry Kim. Sysco Sullivan. Augustus Lonan. Giovanni Bosco. Cliff Morgan. And Ares Hunt,” she says, each word like nails in a coffin. “The influence they hold over this city is unacceptable, and I will see it end.”