I had to release my death grip on Veronica so they could hasten her toward her family, who were being hastened away by the vampires. Her mother needed her more than I did, and since I was responsible for all this, I wasn’t welcome at the moment.

“How did Darius find us?” I asked as we made our way toward my house. “I mean, remind me to thank him for saving the day and everything, but we snuck out the window in that house for a reason.”

“I left a note. I knew he’d want to protect his interests.” Emery started to jog, my hand clasped in his. My mother was on her lawn, gun in hand, more bodies on the grass. Beautiful naked people lingered in the street, waiting for Darius. The wail of the sirens rode the breeze.

“You see? I knew you were crazy. Well, you’ve gone too far this time,” Lewis shouted across the street. “I’ve called the cops. And tell your naked friends to put some clothes on, for God’s sake.”

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, Lewis,” my mother shouted back.

“Mother, come on, we have to go!” I patted her arm as I passed her before running inside and grabbing her car keys. “The cops are coming.”

“I did not want that old goat to get the last word, that’s all.” My mother gave Lewis a hard stare.

“What sort of person yells at their neighbors about naked people when there was a magic fight outside of his house half an hour before?” Emery asked, staring in that direction.

“Don’t try to wrap your head around it,” I said. “He and my mother make no sense.”

After I hugged Veronica within an inch of her life, then pushed her and her family toward their vampire handlers, who would take them to safety, we loaded into the car. Darius and the rest of the vampires were running toward their hearses at the end of the street. I’d thought those vehicles were full of mages when they’d pulled up, but it had been the vampires the whole time, waiting for enough darkness to go outside. Clearly he had human workers to help him. Darius had certainly wanted to protect his interests, and while I was pretty sure that would be a very bad thing down the road, it was totally welcome in the moment. If it hadn’t been for him and Solas, Emery and I would probably be dead. There had been too many mages, and my hail Mary spell at the end wouldn’t have saved the day. I owed Darius one, and he surely knew it.

Back at the house we’d slept in the night before, I sagged in weariness. We drifted into the living room and fell onto the couches. Veronica and her family had been relocated somewhere else, safely behind a wall of fangs.

“Well that was some adventure, right there,” my mother said, way more upbeat than she should’ve been, considering the nearly fatal battle we’d just endured. “All the training I’ve done has finally paid off. At the shooting range, the younger guys always snicker at the older woman shooting the heavy artillery, but today I would’ve wiped the smiles off their faces. If only I could have used the semiautomatic. I didn’t, of course, because stray bullets would’ve gunned down the neighbors, but I could’ve…” She sighed. “Next time.”

“We were lucky to have you, Ms. Bristol,” Emery said, sitting a little too straight.

“I hate to say it, but we were lucky to have those vampires.” My mother stretched and kneaded her shoulders. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to help. I couldn’t very well shoot in your direction. My next option was to run a car through them and hope you guys jumped out of the way.”

Emery looked at me, a sparkle of humor in his eyes. “Now I see where you get it.”

I frowned, because so did I.

“But you best be careful where those vampires are concerned, young lady.” My mother lifted her eyebrows at me. “They are not the sort you want to get mixed up with. One second, you think you’re ahead. The next second, they own you. Best to steer clear if you can.”

“That might be a little harder after today,” I murmured, leaning against Emery. He didn’t lift his arm to invite me to lean against his chest. I had the feeling it was because of my mother. “So you knew it was Kempworth going in?” I asked him.

Sadness dragged on his features and he leaned harder into the couch, a little at an angle, subtly inviting me to keep leaning against him. “I was almost positive. I just needed Clyde or Darius to read a couple of letters to verify.”

“And it wasn’t who you thought?”

“Not at first, no, but I suspected something was amiss. What Clyde told me about the letter I brought him made sense, but the people in question didn’t. The two Barons he implicated used to agree on most things. I didn’t think they’d stab each other in the back. Since Kempworth was always at odds with them back in the day, I figured it was still the case.

“On a hunch, I riffled through his file first. It was ballsy, given the time constraints, but I figured something would jump out at me. And it did. There was a magically sealed box in the file. I broke in easily, and in it, I found Italian letters like the one I found in Nicholas’s office. Same style, not signed, everything. One was dated two weeks before my brother was scheduled to leave on his trip. I checked the other barons’ files, and while they also had secret letters in their possession, they didn’t have the same style. Not quite.”

“But why didn’t Nicholas—the guy who actually carried out the orders—notice the style was different?” I asked.

“I’m not a genius, but I do have some intelligence. Nicholas does not. He’s a hired gun, nothing more. He does what he’s told, completely controlled, and they love him for it. There are a couple like him. Still, I wasn’t positive. The letters are in Italian, after all. Then I found a correspondence between the two other barons about the possibility of Conrad replacing Kempworth. Another nail in the coffin. And now there’s a hole in their organization.”

“Now there are a lot of holes,” my mother said. “It’ll take them a while to recoup. It gives us some time.”

“But not much—”

“Ah!” I jumped and moved to fling out my hands, but Emery caught them, keeping the spell contained.

Darius stood in the archway to the living room, wearing slacks and a pressed shirt, his hair perfectly in place. He looked like he’d just walked off a runway. How did the guy do it? Also, why hadn’t he learned to make more noise when creeping into a room with me in it?

He sauntered in, all confidence, with a manila envelope. “You don’t have much time. A couple of months for them to regroup, but they’ll be back. We’ll need to think about changing locations.”

“We”—my mother gestured between the two of us—“will need to think about changing locations. You”—she jabbed a finger at Darius—“will get some spells and a thank you and asked to be on your merry way.”

“Mother,” I said, trying to shush her.

“Don’t worry, Miss Bristol,” Darius said, handing the envelope to my mother. “Lately, I’ve grown used to that kind of talk from the magically inclined.” Darius turned to me as my mother gingerly opened the envelope, her eyes narrowing. It looked like she expected a snake to jump out. “You know, of course, that you have a standing invitation for training from the dual-mages in New Orleans. As I’ve mentioned, I know them personally, buy spells from them consistently, and can attest to their excellent standing and knowledge within the magical community. You couldn’t ask for better training, or pushier people.”

“I’m liking the sound of these people already,” my mother mumbled, pulling out a few sheets of paper.

“Yes. Given your excitement level when heavily armed, I’d say you’d get along with them just fine,” Darius said dryly. His gaze flicked to Emery. “If you can’t get training elsewhere, then they are always an option.”

Emery stiffened, and pain I didn’t want to acknowledge squeezed my heart.

“Thank you,” I said to Darius, hooking a hand around Emery’s forearm. “You saved the day. And it looked like you got a little burned doing it.”

“Some of the younger vampires, yes. It couldn’t be helped. I’m sure you likely know I wasn’t solely concerned with your interests.”

“Wow. That’s not something I thought you would admit,” I murmured. Emery chuckled.

Darius didn’t seem to hear me, which was impossible, given his preternatural hearing ability. “Naturals are so very rare, and a pair with gifts such as yours is rarer still. The magical community would be loath to lose you, not to mention there was a debt that my child needed to settle. I didn’t wish to lose either of you.”

“What now?” my mother asked, lowering the papers so she could look over them.

As if on cue, Marie sauntered into the room, all hips and breasts and super-fancy clothes. Just like Darius, she looked like a million dollars, freshly minted.

Her smoky gaze hit me. “You saved me from eternal death within the guild compound. I had not expected that from a pixie-like creature such as yourself. You intrigue me, Penelope.” Lust sparked in her eyes. Her gaze flicked to Emery, like Darius’s had earlier. “I would not keep you all to myself, Penelope. I am willing to share.”

“What the… That was not where I thought this was going.” I grabbed Emery’s arm with my other hand.

“This just got weird,” my mother said, shaking her head as she bent over the papers. Emery was shaking with chuckles now. I had no idea what he thought was so funny.

“That’ll be all, Miss Beauchene,” Darius said, his eyes now on Emery. Marie made a soft sound, almost like a purr, before turning with so much hip she looked double-jointed and stalking out. “Mr. Westbrook, we need to discuss finances.”

Emery sobered. “We do. The inventory is significantly decreased. We had to use some of the spells.”

“That is no harm. They can be redone.”

Emery’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.

“Well, then.” Darius looked us over before glancing at my mother and turning. “I have business to attend to. Rooms have been made up for all of you. My assistant, Mr. LaRay, will make sure you’re comfortable. Please feel free to stay as long as you would like. Should you be willing to allow me to assist you in a future move, I hope you’ll let me know.”

“We’ll manage,” my mother said.

“Mother!” I said through my teeth. I’d never heard her be so rude to a host. It was embarrassing.

With a nod, he strode away, leaving us to ourselves.

My mother shook the pages she’d been reading, and I realized her eyes were glistening. “He was shot in the back by another Sheriff,” she said in a rough voice. “The other Sheriff tried to make it look like an accident. I remember him. Meuler. Your dad and Meuler hated each other. They were always at odds.” She shook her head, looking at the pages again. “I’d thought it was a larger conspiracy, like with Emery’s brother, but no, it was blind hatred. Meuler probably thought he could get away with it, so he went for it.”

“So they did investigate,” Emery said.

“Yes.” She shook the pages again, indicating that she was reading the file itself. “And they executed Meuler. Why didn’t they tell me?”

“The guild would keep something like that under wraps. They wouldn’t want it to give them a bad name.” Emery sighed. “It’s terrible, what happened.”

My mother nodded, flipping to the last page. “If I had known…I’m not sure I would’ve kept my daughter under lock and key. The guild did the right thing, in the end.”

“Then it’s a good thing you never found out,” Emery said.

My mother looked at him for a moment before nodding. “Yes. It certainly seems so. The guild was going in the same direction then as it is now. My husband saw it, even if his death didn’t prove it.”

“It did prove it, in a subtler way. There’s plenty of poison in the guild. Has been for a while.”

She took a big, shuddering breath. “I suppose you’re right.” She lowered the pages to her lap, looking at nothing for a second. “It feels good to know.”

“Closure,” Emery said. “I have yet to completely get mine.”

“Will you go after Nicholas now?” I asked quietly, my heart aching for my father. It didn’t feel like closure to me. The loss still felt raw, like a hole in my life, and knowing more about his death didn’t change that.

“No,” Emery said. “I want him to live for a while longer, knowing I’ll come for him eventually. I want him jumping at shadows. Seeing my face in passing strangers. Haunting his dreams. He deserves that, after all the people he’s hunted down in cold blood.”

I turned my lips downward, because that was intense, and let it go. Nicholas probably did deserve such a fate…and Emery probably wanted a break, knowing he’d finally gotten to the root of the problem.

“I need a bath, then sleep,” I said, struggling to get up. Emery stood quickly and helped me.

“Do not think, for one second, you will be sleeping in the same room, young lady. Not under my borrowed roof.” There were tears in her eyes from reading about my father, and still my mother was a ball buster.

I rolled my eyes and pulled Emery with me. I wasn’t too old to sneak around like a coward, and neither was Emery. Not when it concerned a woman who happily fired rounds into a group of evil mages.

“My life has taken a very strange turn,” I said as we walked down the hall.

He slipped his arm around my waist. “Can I speak to you for a second, Penny?”

Shivers washed over me. His tone was regretful and contained not one ounce of teasing.

“What’s up?” I asked, sitting on the bed.

He sat down next to me. “I was stalling earlier, when I asked you to stay alive. To not avenge my death. If we’d acted, either one of us, one or both of us would’ve died. I needed to give the vampires a chance to get in position. But your answer…” His thumb moved along the line of my lips, slowly back and forth. Pain blossomed in his eyes. “I just… You shouldn’t—” Frustration warred with sorrow in his expression. “I’m sorry. But I’m not the man for you. Not for you. You need someone with the world at his fingertips. Someone who’s not broken.”

“Emery, you don’t get to tell me what I need. I have my mother for that.” I smiled, reaching out to rest my palm on his chest. “I know that you are hurting, and you need to punish yourself for your brother a little more. So that’s fine. Do what you need to do. Then come back.”

The pain in his eyes increased. They dripped with it. That and regret. He shook his head slowly. “I have to leave. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back. Find someone else. Please.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I nodded for his benefit.

He kissed me, hard at first, his lips smashed into mine, but then pulling away slightly until the contact was soft and lingering. My heart ached. I knew he was saying goodbye. Knew that I had to let him. He was a man of the wind. A gypsy. I couldn’t make him stay if he didn’t want to. I just had to hope what I knew he felt in his heart ate away at him until he decided to end his suffering.

“Will you lie down with me until I fall asleep?” I asked.

“I am so glad I can see when death is coming,” he murmured, glancing at the closed door.