Darkness swallowed me like a tsunami of nothingness.

I plunged down, under the surface and into the depths.

Shadows morphed and became others. Gabriel reached out for me as I sank. Our fingers touched…I’m sorry, he called…I want to come home…

But I was still falling, still drifting deeper and deeper.

To the granite peaks of the Keep, where scales shimmered red…green, and blue.

The Keeper.

The Watcher.

The Protector.

The Order…

The words were power through my veins. I knew what it was they were trying to tell me…I knew what it was they needed me to understand.

The answers lay at the tips of my fingers—just out of reach.

Red…blue…green…purple…I swam in the colors, swept up in blinding hues.

I’m sorry, Lorn…I can’t, Rival murmured behind me.

I turned at the sound. He was burning from the inside, turning into midnight flames…the hound that belonged to the royal line…just like the rooms at the Keep. I hadn’t understood how tight his bond had been with my father.

“It’s okay,” I answered as he turned to ash in front of me. “Rival, it’s okay.”

Don’t you remember? Lucifer murmured. Don’t you remember being here at all?

I tried to grasp an image, even a fleeting sense of familiarity, and there was nothing…nothing before today.

I was lost in that sea of aching, desperate to remember, desperate to belong, until the depths called me once more, taking me away from those I loved and casting me out into the cold, dark nothing until a brush of a finger skimmed across my cheek.

It’s okay, a woman whispered, her voice so faint I couldn’t place her. It’s okay if you don’t remember. I remember enough for the both of us.

A boom echoed across the darkness, wrenching me awake. Eyes snapped open, my hand slipped under the pillow, finding the hilt of the blade, finding home once more.

The boom came again… only this time it was in the heavens as the faint rumble of a storm passed overhead. I blinked and stared into the darkness. Day had passed me by. I sat up, finding the hard indent of my body against sagging springs.

My hips ached, my muscles were tight. I lifted my feet and dragged them from the sheets. A cold breeze snaked its way up my jeans to wrap around my calf. I shuddered as my feet hit the floor before I stood.

Coffee.

Coffee and a shot of adrenaline.

My eyes were crusted. I felt like hell. But with each stumbling step toward the kitchen, I found myself waking. I hit the switch for the light and then found the kettle.

Alma had that tea…that ancient tea that tasted like ass, but kept you powering all damn day. I wonder where she hid that? I turned for the cupboards. It was around here somewhere…I yanked open overhead cupboard doors, searching.

There was an envelope between the wall and the dinner plates…my name printed in bold…Lorn.

I stilled, sleep falling further away. She left it there knowing I’d come. She left it there, knowing I’d open this damn door…my heart thundered with the thought.

The faint, familiar scrape of a shoe behind me. I spun, searching the empty kitchen…finding nothing more than her ghost. A ghost inside my head.

My fingers trembled as I turned back and reached for the edge of the envelope. It was thin…too thin to give me everything I needed.

I wanted it all.

All her love.

All her snark.

All her rough hugs.

It’s just you and me, kid…just you and me.

I fumbled for the opening, sliding my finger along the seal. Adhesive parted, the paper tore free. Inside was a small black and white picture of a young girl with perfect braids and a woman by her side.

It was us, her and me…sitting outside Henderson’s Ice Cream Parlor in Mississippi. Ice cream ran in thick white rivulets down my arm. I was still eating, mouth open wide, tongue poking out. But it was Alma that I stared at. Her head was thrown back, hands dancing at her belly as she roared with laughter.

She was so beautiful there. So young and beautiful, not beauty like the cover of magazines, but honest, weathered skin, calloused hands, blood-splattered boots beautiful. She was a protector, a survivor, a hunter…right up to the very end.

A fist drove into the middle of my chest as I turned the photo over.

My favorite one of us…I hope it is yours, too.

I smashed the image to my chest. These are the things I remembered. These are the things that would see me through. I stood like that until the kettle screeched and then clicked off, and still I gripped the picture and remembered the day so vividly.

It’s just you and me, kid. I ain’t the kinda grandmother to teach you how to crochet but I can teach you to hunt. Together we’ll hunt the bastards that took away my daughter—and your mom.

I won’t stop, not until each one is gone from this world, not until all the lies are exposed. You got my blood, kid. I can already see it in your eyes. You’re the one who takes after me.

I had taken after her…in every sense of the word.

“Ugh, for fuck’s sake,” I swiped the tears from my face, and yanked on the next cupboard, finding the tea right in front, along with the cupboard filled with canned food, a can opener, and an old key.

I grabbed the key first and then the tea, and turned. I knew what this was. It was for the safe hidden under the floor in her room. She’d made me hold the damn thing often enough.

I turned toward the counter, and grabbed my mug from above. The letter L was molded on the side, one of those rusted red and green handmade mugs she’d picked up from an out-of-the-way pottery store.

It was ugly and I loved it.

I splashed the cup with a little water, swirled it around, and then threw the liquid down the sink, before prying the tin open and dropping a teabag into the cup with the rest of the water.

The tea seeped while I headed back to the cupboard. The sandwiches and cakes had sat heavy in my belly. But now I wanted food, real food, some that didn’t make me sluggish or damn nauseous.

I yanked open the refrigerator and grabbed eggs, butter, tomatoes, and anything green. An armful later and I was piling it onto the counter. I found a pan and set it on the stove and then got to work, chopping and frying until there was a pile in the middle of the pan.

The tea warmed my belly as I stabbed a fork into the food and chewed. I carried the pan into the living room and set it on a mat. The key was next. I went to her bedroom and pushed aside the safe. She’d upgraded from the old one years ago, smashing apart the concrete floor and setting this new device in place.

I pressed a finger to the scanner. But there was no light to find the loops and swirls of my fingerprints. The sting came fast with a snap. And the countdown on the timer started.

No, this one was all DNA. After a minute, the lock clicked open, revealing two small drawers. I shoved the key into the top one and twisted. The drawer sprung open, revealing a thick stack of pages.

Bulletproof, bombproof, fireproof.

I could only imagine what secrets were kept in here.

Corners buckled under my fingers as I gripped the sheaf and dragged it free. The folded letters held my gaze. I wanted nothing more than to flip open the pages and read. Instead, I set them onto the floor and then pushed the drawer back into place.

The next was filled with journals. Some looked familiar. The spines were broken from years of use. My pulse quickened, thundering in my ears. Fingers worked on their own now, shoving the drawer back into place before I twisted the key.

Alma had other places, that I knew. But this place was her sanctuary. This was the place where she kept all her precious details.

I’ll never be too far from you…her words echoed as I shoved the safe door shut and watched the light turned from green to red.

It was all here…years’ worth of hunting, years’ worth of sacrifice. I gripped the journals and the papers and then shoved to my feet. I hit light switches on as I went, and blinked into the glaring yellow light.

I dropped onto the sofa and spilled the contents onto the table next to the food. I ate and sorted the letters, opening one after another and scanning the pages.

There it was again that name…Heavenly Convent of Christos…I scanned the letters filled with dates. My birthday, and another four years later. Couldn’t understand a damn thing after that.

Other letters followed, this time they were handwritten and signed by a Sister Carolina. Her handwriting was beautiful and elegant and totally fucking unreadable. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

I shoved it aside for another underneath, same woman, same writing…same goddamn deal. I didn’t even know what this place was about, probably just another one of her connections keeping tabs on the supernatural community.

I flicked through five more letters and stopped at the last one…one written in clear, legible writing.

Dear Alma,

I hope this letter finds you well. Unfortunately, I am the bearer of some terrible news. Our dear friend Sister Carolina was struck down last night and is fighting for her life in Our Souls Community Hospital in Heavenly Waters. I’m praying you receiving this letter as quickly as you can.

She is calling for you. She’s hanging on. But she cannot hang on forever.

Her wounds are too great and the doctors are standing by to assist her through Our Father’s Gates. Hurry, Alma. Time will wait no more.

Your faithful friend, Sister Elouise.

I read the letter once, and then twice. Struck down. A definite supernatural attack. I would’ve liked to look into it more. But I had more important things calling me. I shoved the letters aside and looked for anything to do with Titus or the Nine.

These are the things I know about the Nine.

1. Unseelie Prince Absolon is behind every attack, and every person. He’s manipulating and controlling, but this is more than about Steph, or Lorn. They want to control Lucifer, and that makes him not only a target, but a liability, especially to my kin.

2. A large number of these Nine are mortals, men and women who want to control the gates to Hell and Heaven like puppet masters, they’re pulling the strings.

3. This all comes back to Lorn. I fear this is far too much to put onto such young shoulders. Turning your back on family is one thing, but spilling blood is another. Especially mortal blood.

I sat back against the front of the sofa and stared at the words. It was all right there written in black and white…spill mortal blood.

My heart thundered with the thought. Everything in my life had been against this…Alma, the Supernatural line…working for The Circle.

We protected human lives—we didn’t take them.

I leaned forward, stabbed a tomato and filled my mouth, and tried to think of all the things Alma’d taught me.

Protect the innocent. Maintain the peace. Whatever it takes, you guard what is yours and when the time comes to go hunting, you give it your all. There can be no hesitation. There can be no regrets. The Circle maintains the balance—always moving, always carving away the guilty to protect the weak.

The words seemed to flow. But nowhere in there did she say ‘mortal’, she said innocent. So what happens when the innocent aren’t innocent any longer? What happens when the innocent become the Nine?

I chewed and swallowed and tried to nail down any time she hinted we served the mortal realm.

It’d always been us against them…but had it?

Had the supernatural line divided more than houses and streets?

Had it divided communities?

Had it divided laws?

And had it put a target on one head and not the other?

I wrestled with the justification, fighting against everything I knew was wrong. Innocent. I wrestled with the word…my mom was innocent. Lucifer was innocent.

Gabriel…he was innocent, as were Titus and Rival. The Nine waged a war. They killed, they manipulated—they hunted, and the longer I thought about it, the more certain I became.

I was okay with spilling blood. I was okay with the darkness inside. I’d use it anyway I could to protect the innocent.

I’d be the monster they wanted me to be.