He grabbed her hands before they found his throat, tried to talk her down. “But you won’t. You’re not built like that.” Sorrow made fine lines around her eyes and he wished like hell he knew exactly what had happened in that office. It was so much easier to think when Yahla wasn’t around.

“Yes, I am. You just haven’t seen that side of me.” She jerked out of his grasp, another sob muffled but audible. “Why are you here? There’s no damage left for you to do.”

“I’m not…” He stopped. What was the point? She was going to think what she wanted to think. “The KM found out that Daciana has returned to Corvinestri and taken your brother, Damian, with her. He’s back in Tatiana’s control now, but being held as a prisoner. She’s still using him for blood, though.”

Chrysabelle’s breath hitched. “Damian?”

“Yes.”

A tiny spark of hope lit her eyes. “They have proof he’s my brother?”

“It’s in the file they gave me.”

“Is he all right? How does the KM know he’s my brother?”

“The KM have been protecting him as best they can. As to how they know, they have inside sources. Ways of finding out this stuff.” Creek took out his phone and pulled up the info he’d been given.

She closed her hand over his to hold the phone steady, her touch colder than he remembered it being. He’d loved her once. Maybe not as much as Mal, but enough that he would have willingly given his life for her. Probably still would. But she’d chosen the vampire and Creek had come to terms with that. Didn’t mean he’d ever completely stop caring about her. “Tatiana will take him to achtice, to the Dominus ball.”

She nodded. “The comarré always travel with their patrons.”

“The KM will give you whatever resources you need to get to achtice and get your brother back, so long as—”

“I bring the vampire baby back with me.” She let go of the phone and went back to staring at the water.

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it.

“There’s nothing the KM could give me I don’t already have access to. Nothing from them I need.”

He reached for the envelope tucked into his waistband beneath his shirt. “There is one thing.”

She sniffed. “I doubt it.” But she glanced over anyway. “What?”

He held out the envelope. “An invitation to the Dominus ball and maps of the comarré tunnels underneath the estate where the ball will be held.”

“And if I don’t bring the vampire baby back with me? If I only rescue my brother?”

He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. “The KM know what you did with the ring of sorrows. They’ll come after you and…” The KM’s dictates were more than he could stomach at times.

“And what?”

“They’ll take it back. By whatever means necessary.”

As soon as Creek left, Chrysabelle loosened her grip on the invitation and let it fall to the side. Despite the news about her brother, her mind had no space for thoughts of going to achtice and all that entailed. She couldn’t give it room, not with Mal… gone.

She swallowed hard and blinked back tears she’d thought long ago used up. Holy mother, how would she survive this? The hole inside her widened with every breath, the pain rippling out in relentless waves. Mal was gone. That was the only word she could manage right now, and even it felt much too close to a truth that weighed a thousand pounds.

Sorrow mingled with guilt, scraping her raw every time she managed a breath. Guilt that she hadn’t told him how she felt when she’d had the chance. Guilt at her own cowardice.

She closed her eyes. Instantly, his image appeared, playing across the insides of her lids like a horror movie. Her hand reaching up to him. That blinding bright sun off the car that had seared the pictures into her brain and melted away her last shred of hope as he turned to smoke.

How could the mayor have done this? How could she, with a few words on a written statement, so casually extinguish the one bright spot in her life? What past crimes? An example of what? Of how insane the mayor had become? How cruel? How stupid? Chrysabelle’s hands clenched and she imagined them around the mayor’s neck. Imagined the mayor’s soft flesh and the crunch of bone as her throat gave way. Not since Tatiana had killed Maris had Chrysabelle wanted to take a life with such ferocity. She would end Lola for this.

The sun beat down relentlessly on Chrysabelle as it began its descent below the horizon. With a shudder, she bent under its unyielding heat, her anger turning back to sorrow. It burned her skin until she imagined she felt a fragment of the same pain Mal had in his last moments. She tucked her head against her knees and forced herself to breathe when all she really wanted to do was collapse onto the ground and pray for it to swallow her up. If not for the crowd of people inside, who were all friends, all there for her, and all tiptoeing around her like she’d suddenly turned to glass, she’d climb into her bed and stay there for a month, but going inside meant more of the sideways glances and meaningful looks they thought she didn’t see.

She saw and understood those looks. They were worried about her. They were right to be worried. She was a little worried herself, about the way she felt, the thoughts building in her head, the revenge fantasies that were the only real comfort she’d felt today. Her friends were here to help her in any way they could, but the help she needed, no one could provide. No one could bring him back.