“What’s wrong with her?”

Taelour slowly opened her eyes, seeing Jake standing on the left side of her bed.

“Hell if I know,” Seth answered, who stood on the right.

Head immediately starting to pound, she pulled the sheet to her chest with an exhaustive moan, her teeth sharp and sore. It was mid-morning. “What’s going on?”

“You’re going on,” Jake answered. “And on and on and on. Moaning so loud in your sleep we can hear you clear across the house.”

“It sounds like you’re having an orgy of one in here, sis,” Seth added.

She ran a shaky hand through her hair. Since the moment she left Rhemy, she’d been a wreck. Her teeth wouldn’t normalize, her body wouldn’t rest, her brain wouldn’t quiet. She was in a constant stake of aching. Everywhere. She thought she could control it, as she’d managed to do with her sensa, but every day was worse than the one before.

“I’m fine,” she lied to her brothers. “It’s nothing to worry about. Just some…strange dreams.”

Jake lifted a brow. “Right, well, kind of weird to hear my sister moaning and groaning hour after hour. You sure there’s nothing you want to tell us?”

“I’m sure.”

Seth guessed, “Maybe suppressing your sensa is catching up to you?”

And running me over. “Yeah, that might be it.”

“You should go into town tonight and deal with it. I think you’re overdue.”

She nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

As they filed out of her room, Jake glanced back with a small smile, then shut the door.

If she chose to be with Rhemy, would he demand she never see her brothers again?

What about her home? She would have to leave it and her brothers behind. And her revenge? She would have to forsake that, too. Rhemy would undoubtedly make her. She’d bought herself a few days so she could think, sort things out, come to terms, but time was up. She had to make a choice.

Taelour whimpered, turning on her side, her teeth refusing to shrink back, her skin so sensitive even her high-thread count sheets could rival sandpaper. What the hell was happening to her? Throwing back the sheets, she got dressed, hoping she would get the answer she needed.

An hour later, she walked in the heavily incense-scented covered porch of a woman named Miss Rita, renowned for her psychic readings and magick spells. Taelour was there for neither of those things, but Miss Rita also provided services to vampires. Thank the gods she was local. Many humans with gifts like hers refused to accommodate underworld beings; vampires were considered bad luck. Some psychics feared their abilities could be taken like energy, even though that wasn’t true whatsoever.

She pressed the doorbell.

Moments later, the door opened on its own accord.

Miss Rita sat in the kitchen at a Formica table, smoking a cigarette. “Come in, child.”

The lamps were covered in dark cloths, casting the rooms in a red glow. “Good evening. I hope you can help me.”

“Well, I can’t read ya mind. Tell me why you’re here to see ol’ Miss Rita. Help or truth? Truth is cheaper. Folks rarely like it so I cut the price to make it easier to digest.”

She sat down across from her. “Actually, I’m not sure. I’m so confused.”

“About him? The one with the sexy eyes and signet ring on his hand? Hmm?”

The woman’s gift was true. Just the thought of Rhemy had her closing her eyes, nearly moaning as she pictured him. “Yes. He’s a fateblood. I’m a pürblood. I can’t be with him, yet I don’t think I can be without him.”

The woman’s eyes squinted. “Two hundred dolla’s, please. Don’t hand it to me, put it on the dish over there.”

Taelour set the cash where instructed.

Miss Rita gave a grunt as she pushed up off her chair and hobbled toward an ancient sideboard. She pulled out a white handkerchief and set it on the table. “Rest your hand on top of the cloth, palm up.” Once Taelour did, Rita plucked a topper from a glass decanter, then produced a dagger from her mumu pocket. She dipped the tip of the dagger inside the decanter to the black substance within, then slowly turned to her. “Think of him. His face. Concentrate solely on him. As hard as you can, even through the pain. You hear?”

Taelour gave a stilted nod. That would be very easy.

The psychic held down Taelour’s forearm with her cold, wrinkly fingers and raised the dagger with the other. She stabbed through her hand quick and sharp like a cobra. The puncture stung and Taelour cried out, black rivulets spreading out from the wound.

“Be still now. Keep thinking of him,” the old woman commanded, cigarette hanging from her lips.

Taelour’s mouth gaped open at the pain coursing through her veins, her heart pumping furiously, while she clung to the image of Rhemy’s handsome face.

“Turn it over. Bleed on the cloth.”

Hand shaking, she turned her palm, her blood dropping on the white linen.

Miss Rita snatched her wrist. “Hold it.” After a few more seconds, she released her. “Good! That’s enough, child.”

Gods, Taelour hoped so. Curling her hand in a soft fist, she brought it to her chest, the wound already sealing.

“The side effects will only last a few seconds,” Rita muttered before putting on reading glasses and reaching for the cloth, sniffing it. “Oh. Hmm.”

Oh, hmm what? Taelour waited for the assessment, impatient. “What is it?”

“Pürblood you said? How long has it been since you bit him?”

“A few days.”

Miss Rita tossed the linen down. “Child, please. You are no pürblood. Your blood matches perfectly with his. See here? You’re a fateblood, through and through. You found your fated. Simple as that.” She patted Taelour’s knee. “You just fine.”

She stared at the woman for a few seconds, blinking. “No. No, that’s not right. I’m a pürblood!”

“Sweetie, I’ve been looking at vampire blood all my livin’ life. I know the differences between. You and he are fatebloods. Have him get a taste of you and you’ll both know. Lordy! That lust of yours is stinkin’ up my house. You gots to go.” She started to shoo her out. “I can’t believe you can even walk.”

“But—”

“But nothin’. Walk yourself to him right away. He’s all you need to feel better.”