The second the office doors closed behind me, I bolted for Building Two. Mind racing, I couldn’t even begin to process everything that had just occurred. What I’d just done. My sisters were going to be pissed. Lucas was going to be furious.

I’d just signed my life away, and, thanks to Anastasia’s last demand, I couldn’t even tell them why. She would come down like a hammer on us all if I told them the truth, because, unlike me, they wouldn’t keep silent, and she knew that. That bitch knew that what she was doing wasn’t right, and she wouldn’t risk the Council’s reputation on one of them running their mouths that the Head of the Council had had to blackmail me into this.

The reality of it hit me as I stood in front of my door, lost in myself, not knowing what to say to the people I would find on the other side. The door swung open, and his shadow loomed over me as Lucas stared down. I couldn’t find the words to tell him that there would be no school for me, no boxing. That my old life was gone.

His eyes went wide as he reached for me, but now wasn’t the time for comfort. I sidestepped him and ducked under his arm. My gaze fell on the redhead standing before me, tall and regal, boasting a slight tan from the summer sun.

“Alexandra?” After everything I’d seen in the last two days, I couldn’t trust my eyes. “How did you get—?”

“You’re not the only resourceful one here.” She wrapped her arms around me.

Over her shoulder, I saw what she meant by resourceful. Standing only a few feet from us was her boyfriend Aaron White, the pain-in-my-ass boxer who burned with too much intensity for comfort. If I’d thought she was tanned, he was brown. His eyes settled on me with the same tension as always, black as coal and darker than I’d ever seen them. A shiver ran through me.

“What is he doing here?” I didn’t even bother to take the edge out of my voice, and Alexandra tensed.

“He’s with me,” she said, as if that were a real answer.

I released her and stepped back, suddenly aware of how many people were in this room. Lily sat in the far corner on my bed, with her arms wrapped around her legs, watching Tori as she slept under the pile of blankets thrown on top of her. The chills must’ve returned, but she was looking better. The transition must be coming to an end.

Blair leaned against my window with her hip angled in such a way that silver gleamed. She wore the knife on display; little did they know she actually knew how to use it now. Blair looked at me, arms across her chest and head held high. Her eyebrow arched as she motioned to my sister’s boyfriend.

“What the hell is going on?” Alexandra asked. Always the charmer.

“He needs to leave. We have a lot to discuss.” I moved to Tori’s side and swept the hair from her forehead. She was cold as ice, and didn’t even shift under my touch. I sighed.

The room tensed as Aaron took a step toward us. In less than a second, the metal at Blair’s hip was released and in her hand. Heat flared as Alexandra ignited her hands, stepping up to the plate. I turned and glared in both their directions.

“Out,” I said to him. His eyes were so dark, almost like demons’. That didn’t help his chances.

“No! He goes where I go,” Alexandra declared. She kept her eyes on Blair, but her words were for me and me alone.

I looked at her, the way she held herself. The way she was standing in front of him, protecting him. I cocked my head, and narrowed my eyes. “We have things to discuss, Alexandra. I’m not going to ask twice. He leaves now.” I growled the last words.

“No,” she said defiantly.

Silence fell between us, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why the sight of her with him infuriated me. He can’t be trusted, I reminded myself.

“Alexandra—”

“I’m back!” Amber called as my bedroom door flew open. Six pairs of eyes fell on her.

Goddammit, could I not even have a discussion in peace? I had to figure out how to break it to them and ask for help, but I couldn’t even clear a room.

“Amber—”

“What’s going on here?” she asked, gaze darting around the room at an impossible speed.

“Nothing. Can we have the room please?” I asked, trying my damndest to be polite. We’d come a long way in the last year, and she knew more about me than a lot of the people in this room.

“You’re evading,” she said simply, walking around the small space. Her gaze landed on Tori. “What happened to her?”

Ah hell.

“She was bitten by a Vampire. The transition should be phasing out soon. You can ask her more when she wakes up,” I said.

She stilled, staring down at her best friend with a wistful look. Her expression went blank before I could read any more into it.

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Blair said unceremoniously.

Alexandra rolled her eyes, keeping herself between Aaron and the rest of us.

“Matter at hand?” Amber asked. She moved to Tori’s side, brushing her hair back from her face.

“Do I need to take this somewhere else, Amber?”

“On the contrary, don’t stop on my behalf,” she purred, but her heart wasn’t in it.

I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to the two girls locked in a stare-down. “Blair, put the knife away.” She stared warily at my sister and her boyfriend, but sheathed the knife.

Alexandra’s gaze flipped between us, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and a cackle escaped her. “I leave for one summer, and she becomes your guard dog?” She turned to me, and met my gaze with a challenge.

“Leave it, sister,” I murmured. As I paced the room to collect my thoughts, the knife in my boot flew to my hand, and I spun it over and over. Its blade danced across my palm, too fast for anyone to keep track of.

“Selena.” A deep voice brought me to a halt as he grazed my forearm with his fingers. My gaze flew to his, and the blade stilled. I turned my back on him and focused on the people before me.

“You’re going to tell him what I say, regardless of whether he’s here or not. Aren’t you?”

Alexandra nodded, still standing protectively in front of him. The funny thing was that he didn’t need protecting, and the look he gave me said so.

I walked to the window and stared out into the wide expanse of the sunset. I couldn’t even say it was my last moment of freedom. That had already gone the moment Lucas tried to help me.

“Anastasia Fortescue met with me to inform me that I’ve been chosen for the honor of serving the Council, to try to end the war before it begins.” The word honor tasted vile in my mouth, but I told them of my task and what I was being asked to do, and what they would do if they chose to join me. I told them of the coming war, and what the Council intended. I never told them what she’d promised in return, though, or that I’d been blackmailed to begin with. I didn’t mention how I’d bargained for them, because my pride wasn’t ready to admit that I needed their help, despite the great disservice I’d done to them as my friends.

I was a coward, and I deserved the sentence given to me, but they didn’t.

The silence stretched on for what felt like an endless moment.

“What did they promise you?”

I turned to my wisp of sister, the first to speak, and the first to ask something I couldn’t answer. Not yet. Not until the war was over, Anastasia had said, so I did the only thing I could do. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“What did they promise you, Selena?” she repeated. Her eyes were terrified. Lost.

“Something precious.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair and pulled the ponytail loose. I turned to walk out, unable to handle the weight of their eyes, but a burning hand wrapped around my bicep, catching me.

“I know that look, Selena. What did you do?” Alexandra said, her eyes burning with rage, but not at me. I couldn’t tell her the truth, but maybe I could tell her something else. A half-truth.

I swallowed the bile and averted my eyes. “It was asked to serve because I have a particular skill set the Council wants. I said yes, because when Anastasia Fortescue goes out of her way to ask you for something, you don’t exactly say no. It was the right thing to do. Please just trust that.”

Lily’s sob broke the silence, and Alexandra wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t want the comfort, though—I didn’t deserve it for lying.

“I volunteer.”

My head whipped around.

“I volunteer,” Aaron repeated. There was a certain huskiness in his voice, and something in the way he stared at me that had Alexandra’s arms tensing.

“Me too,” Alexandra said.

“No.” It was out of my mouth before I even had time to think.

“What?” She pulled away to glare at me.

“Selena, you should consider it.” His voice hit me, quiet but firm.

I stared at him, and raised an eyebrow. Accepting the intrusion for the sake of brevity. “I don’t want to put her in danger,” I said.

“Selena, that’s so fucking typical—” she continued to rant, but I was no longer watching or listening.

“You need six people, Selena, and she’s not going to sit by while you leave again. She still feels guilty about the last time. You’re better off protecting her, and bringing him with.”

“Can he be trusted?” I asked.

Lucas glanced at the other man, whose gaze had never left me, and nodded once.

I grimaced, but accepted the truth. If anyone could save me when the time came, it was her. She knew what to do, the words to say—and I would make sure nothing touched her.

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine?” she asked, mid-rant.

I simply nodded, refusing to look at the man behind her. I could keep her safe, I had to believe that, but I had someone else who could help me. Someone I wanted by my side every step of the way.

“Blair?”

“You didn’t even have to ask.” My cousin grinned viciously.

“I’m going too,” Amber chimed in.

“What?”

“I hate school, Selena.” Amber said, her eyes locking on Lucas like a cat with a mouse. “Don’t look so shocked. Besides…if there’s eye candy coming with, it’s a win-win.” She smirked.

That was terrible reasoning, and I almost said as much until I caught her face when she glanced down at Tori. Not quite lost in thought, but there was more to this than she was saying, and I could accept that.

That was four down.

“Five.”

I looked up at him and bit my lip. He deserved to serve at my side for putting me here to begin with, but that didn’t lessen my gut reaction: to tell him no as I’d told Alexandra. But he’d brought this down on me, and like her, he would be there to bring me back when the time came. It’s only fair, my inner demons whispered. I nodded once then turned to my crying sister. Her tears were silent now, apart from her breath hitching. I ran a steady hand down her spine, trying to ease the pain.

“You promised me,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“You promised me you would teach me how to control it!” she snapped, rocking herself back and forth. Shadows danced in her eyes.

I grabbed her chin, pulling her face up. “Yes, and do I break my promises?”

“But you’re leaving—”

“Do I break my promises?” I demanded, knowing that my control would soothe her.

“No,” she whispered meekly, lowering her eyes as if she couldn’t take the weight of my gaze.

“Then trust me,” I said. Kissing the crown of her head, I wrapped my arms around her. I was just happy she wasn’t trying to come. I could protect Alexandra, but Lily…she was too far-gone to be that close to anything that bit. I couldn’t risk it, and I think she knew that. Sadness swallowed me whole, like hitting a nerve so vital that death would’ve been kinder.

This is his fault. I couldn’t stop the biting thought, and knew that I needed to keep him out for good, because Anastasia wouldn’t be kind if he meddled a second time.

“Selena!” he called as I slammed the bricks down and resurrected the walls in my mind. Piling them higher and higher, I enclosed myself in a prison of my own making. His body shifted backward and shuddered, but I only held Lily harder.

He’d said I’d let him into my mind, and if I’d let him in, I could keep him out.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alexandra asked, looking back and forth between the two of us.

“I’m fine,” he growled.

He’d recovered from being mentally chopped out of my mind faster than I’d expected. He was angry again, and I didn’t—couldn’t—even entertain the thought that he knew where my mind had been going. Anastasia had made her demands clear.

His presence stalked toward me, and I released my sister to turn on the giant of a man standing over me.

“What the hell was that?” he nearly snarled. His rage was unacceptable, and I glared back to tell him so. He gripped my upper arms and shook me, and I didn’t know if it was rage or desperation—maybe both—but I didn’t care.

Blair backed away, cleaning her nails with a knife I’d already told her to put away once.

“Hey!” Alexandra yelled, stepping up with fiery fists.

A growl ripped through the room as someone punched him in the face, and knocked him out cold on the floor below me.

I turned on the person who’d intervened.

Aaron’s eyes were boiling with contempt as he stared down at Lucas. His chest heaved as he tried to rein himself in. “He doesn’t touch you,” he said, his words hardly more than whisper.

“You don’t get to decide who does or doesn’t touch me, asshole,” I spat at him, working to contain my own rage at seeing Lucas knocked out, and not by me. I turned on Alexandra. “Leash your dog. I’m not dealing with this bullshit again.”

“He was only trying to help—”

“With all due respect, Alexandra, we both know she didn’t need anyone’s help,” Blair cut in, throwing her an icy look.

Alexandra’s mouth snapped shut as she looked away.

I sighed, dragging a hand through my hair. This hadn’t gone at all as planned. I had five people who couldn’t stand to be in the same room, an unconscious body, and a broken sister.

“So…what do we do with the body?” Amber asked, a wicked glint in her eye. Given her delight at seeing him like this, I had to wonder about her pointed man candy comments.

“He’s unconscious, not dead, and judging by the bruise on his jaw, he should heal just fine.” I rolled my eyes at her sigh of disappointment.

“Do we want to focus on the topic at hand now? We still need a sixth person, preferably someone who’s good at getting out of situations. We already have enough…” Blair trailed off at the sound of Tori’s yawn. “Muscle,” she finished, looking at the other girl peculiarly.

“How are you feeling?” I asked the fragile girl, stepping over her unconscious brother.

She gave me a knowing look and glanced at her brother. “Better,” she said tentatively, her gaze sweeping over the room. “So, is anyone goin’ to tell me why my brother is passed out on the floor?”

Both Blair and Amber chuckled, and I rolled my eyes.

“You know him, always sticking his head where it doesn’t belong,” I said nonchalantly, leaning down to turn his face from side to side. Aaron had given him quite the shiner, but Lucas must’ve been really pissed off not to see it coming.

“You sure you didn’t mean hands?” Amber said under her breath.

“Amber,” I warned.

“What? She’s going to find out anyway,” she huffed.

“Find out what?”

“Oh, just how rough he—”

“Amber!” I yelled, but I wasn’t the only one who responded. A soft growl rumbled behind me, distinctly male—and since the other one was knocked out, that left only one person to blame. I turned, ready to snap at the audacity of this boy.

“What about her?” Blair said.

“What?” I asked, swinging my glare away from him to focus on my cousin.

“What about Tori? We need a sixth person, and she can teleport.” Blair thrust her hand in the girl’s direction and raised her eyebrows at me.

“Lucas won’t be happy. Neither will Alec.”

“It’s not their choice,” Blair said.

“I agree, and she’ll be good for keeping the eye candy in line too.” Amber smirked, but her words were serious.

“What are y’all talkin’ about?” Tori asked, throwing her covers aside and sitting up with less effort than I’d expected.

I looked at one of my best friends and weighed my options. There were few I trusted more than Tori, and they were all in this room. If the whole point of choosing my own team was to have those I trusted with me, then why was I hesitating?

Shaking the remaining guilt out of my head, I made my choice.

“How would you like to get revenge on the bastard who bit you?”