A lot can change in five years, but when dealing with centuries-old vampires, it was best not to expect progress. Without the urgency of mortality, the undead don’t seem to find it necessary to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. Personally, I liked to shake things up from time to time, but as I stood in front of my childhood home, I remembered the trait was not at all genetic.

The Vaughn Estate was a sprawling time capsule with spires and stained-glass windows, every inch a reminder of days long since gone by. The row of Black Beauty rose bushes lining the iron fence at the front of the property were just starting to bloom, most of the near-ebony buds still tight.

I passed through the gate and made my way up the front walk, my steps slow and deliberate. I had no doubt I was being watched, and refused to falter or show even a hint of weakness. Coming home after all these years was a nightmare come true, but I’d be damned before I’d let it show.

A pair of raven statues guarded either side of the front doors greeted me with skeptical stares.

“Hello, Ralph. Bartholomew,” I said, greeting my stony friends with a trace of a smile. The names were unofficial, bestowed upon them by a six-year-old version of myself, back when I used to daydream that some wayward magic spell would come along and bring them to life. I’d laugh as they shook off their dull exteriors to reveal velvet feathers and glittering eyes. They would take me gently in their talons and together, we’d soar away on some faraway adventure.

It never happened of course, but that didn’t stop me from wishing. Now, the memory struck me as sad, though inevitable. When your father is known for staking vampires first and asking questions second, you don’t tend to have a lot of playmates growing up.

Speaking of … if I dawdled much longer, I was going to be on the receiving end of that wrath.

I raised the heavy bronzed knocker and let it fall.

My eyes slid closed as the sound reverberated through the double wooden doors. I drew in a slow breath and on the exhale, pleaded with my stone-faced friends, “Wish me luck, guys. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

The door opened, and a woman appeared, her face as blank as those of the granite birds above. “Lady Vaughn,” she said, her tone cool if not full-blown frosty. She stepped back to allow me entrance. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Oh, good,” I said with my most innocent smile. “Does that mean you baked some of my favorite cookies?”

She frowned, perplexed. “I was told you had an … interesting, sense of humor.”

I turned away, rolling my eyes as I took off my coat.

Welcome home.

Without ceremony, she took the coat from me and dumped it into the arms of a petite woman dressed in black. She had a thin, tattooed line circled her wrist, marking her as a household servant, and took the garment without meeting my eyes.

Ignoring them, I side-stepped and gazed around the expansive foyer, taking in every detail. A tidal wave of memories crashed over me, immediately threatening to pull me under.

Just as with the exterior of the estate, not a thing was out of place in the mansion. A familiar Oriental rug covered the majority of the foyer floor, trailing to the foot of a sweeping staircase that lead to the second level. The carved mahogany paneling on the walls was freshly polished, gleaming under the soft light of the crystal chandelier above our heads. The art on the walls was arrayed in the same layout as it had been since I’d first been old enough to notice it.

Apparently Pinterest hadn’t spread to the far corners of the supernatural world.

As I turned back to face the woman who’d answered the door, my eyes snagged on one thing that had changed. A long table sat to the right of the staircase, as it had for decades, boasting two antique vases that were always empty. But in between them, something was missing.

As soon as I spotted it, I couldn’t look away. It felt like being blasted with a Howitzer. My heart clenched as my mind’s eye automatically filled in the missing piece from memory. For as long as I could remember, there had always been a silver frame sitting between the two antiques, showcasing a family photograph—my parents, Baron and Baroness Vaughn, bookending my older sister, Melanie, and me.

It was gone.

The statement couldn’t be louder or clearer: That family no longer lived under this roof.

“Lord Vaughn is in his study,” the woman said, her clipped tone punching through my thoughts. She’d started to climb the stairs but paused when she realized I wasn’t following. She cleared her throat. “Lady Vaughn?”

I tore my eyes away from the phantom photograph and muttered an apology. We went up the stairs and down the hallway of the east wing. The woman kept a brisk pace as we walked, not giving me a chance to look around. Still, I glanced in every open doorway, and the onslaught of memories became more and more crushing with every step. Each room held some reminder of the past—some good, most not.

“You may wait here,” the woman told me, stopping a few paces away from my father’s study. “Lord Vaughn will let you know when he is available. He’s been made aware of your arrival.”

I’ll just bet he has. I forced a serene smile, as though she wasn’t leading me to the lion’s den, and the woman continued down the hall and slipped around a corner that led to a back staircase. The eerie silence of the hallway made me fidget. The clicking of my heels echoed as I paced a few steps back and forth, my fingers twisting together and then apart again. Minutes crawled by, each feeling like an hour. I fussed with my heather grey sweater, picking at minuscule pilling around the hem, all the while keeping an eye on the door of my father’s study.

A strange war raged inside me. Part of me willed the door open. I wanted to face my fate and get it over with. Rip off the Band-Aid I’d slapped over this wound for the last five years. The other part of my mind was scared to death and firing off alarm bells, telling me to run and never look back.

Not that I had a choice. I knew it. Everyone in the mansion around me knew it too.

Six weeks ago, I’d come home from a late night out with friends to find an envelope bearing the Vaughn family crest in deep purple wax. A horrible mix of terror and dread had filled me before I’d even opened it. My father, the Baron of the East, was summoning me home after a five-year exile across the country. A summons wasn’t an optional thing. It wasn’t a suggestion or a friendly invitation to the family’s holiday celebration. That would have been far too civil. If I ignored a summons, my father would have sent a pack of his boot-licking minions after me and they wouldn’t have given up until they’d caught me.

No, it was either hold my head high and return on my own, or be dragged home kicking and screaming.

I knew which option my father would prefer, and if he was thinking what I thought he was, I would need all the advantage I could muster.

Footsteps sounded and my spine went stiff.

“Lacey!” a loud whisper carried down the hall.

Recognition blurred with surprise as I turned to find a willowy brunette running toward me.

“Jupe! What are you doing here?” I asked, matching her grin. It almost felt foreign on my face, being the first time I’d genuinely smiled since receiving the ominous letter.

Jupiter Reed, my oldest friend and confidant, reached me within a few strides, her long legs easily gobbling up the length of the hallway. She pulled me into a tight embrace and my throat clogged with emotion. “I can’t believe you’re here right now!”

“Of course I’m here! I had to see you.” She pulled back, holding me at arms-length for a moment. I reached up and swiped away a renegade tear.

Jupiter was still smiling as she looked me over. “You look incredible! Wherever you’ve been, it was obviously good for you.”

Though there wasn’t a trace of bitterness to her voice, guilt bit into me. I hated that I hadn’t been able to communicate with my one true friend all those years away, but it had been necessary. The only one I’d told where I was going was my Aunt Gemma. She helped me get out of the haven the night my father’s rage threatened to engulf the mansion in flames, and I’d run far and fast and hadn’t told anyone where I was heading.

Once I’d settled in the tiny community of Beechwood Harbor, a coastal town in Washington State, I’d reached out to my aunt to tell her I was safe, and we’d kept in touch over the years. She’d kept me updated with the goings on of the Eastern Court and sent me money every few months.

In portions of my letters to my aunt, I’d asked her to find a way to pass on well wishes to Jupiter, but I hadn’t been able to risk sending her correspondence directly. My father knew we were close and would have had her watched closely for any signs that she was involved in my disappearance. If I ever got her tangled up in any kind of trouble, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. Aunt Gemma, on the other hand, could more than handle herself when it came to dealing with my father. She was his sister by blood and held a large part of his territory under her control. If she needed leverage to get out of hot water, she’d find it.

I wasn’t entirely sure how my father had finally managed to track me down, but I knew it wasn’t my aunt’s doing. Over the years in Washington, I’d grown close to a group of other vampires. Probably too close. In all likelihood, one of them unknowingly said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and word filtered back to the east. The supernatural world was large, but clearly not large enough.

“I’ve missed you so much, Jupe.” More tears filled my eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get in touch all this time. Did my aunt ever pass on my letters?”

Jupiter nodded. “She did. And don’t worry, I understand why you had to do it that way. Please don’t cry, Lacey. You’ll just make me cry and you know I’m allergic to waterproof mascara!”

I sputtered a laugh and the tears fell anyway.

She wrapped her arms around me for another embrace. “I’m just glad you’re finally back.”

“You’ll forgive me if I can’t say the same,” I replied, giving my father’s door a withering glance.

“I will.” Jupiter laughed softly and released me. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her black skinny jeans and rocked back on the heels of her canvas flats. “It hasn’t been the same around here without you, you know.”

“Quieter, I imagine.” The joke didn’t quite land. Instead, a shadow passed over Jupiter’s face. “I was just—” I stopped short, realizing the reason for her change in expression.

The door to my father’s study was open.

Gulp.

I drew in a long breath through my nose, forcing a smile on the exhale. “Guess that’s my cue. I’ll come find you afterward, okay?”

She nodded but I knew my smile wasn’t fooling her.

A guard appeared in the doorway. He was a carbon copy of all my father’s guards: tall, broad-shouldered, clean cut, and likely didn’t have more than two free-forming thoughts cycling around between his ears. “Lady Vaughn, the baron is ready to speak with you.”

“Marvelous,” I muttered under my breath.

Resigned, I pivoted on my heel and marched through the doorway, leaving Jupiter behind. The guard announced my presence—apparently, in case my father had suffered some kind of head trauma from the time he’d sent the vamp out to collect me—and then stepped aside, giving me a glimpse of my father, seated at his desk.

He didn’t bother to stand up. Of course not.

Ice-blue eyes met mine. The one trait we shared, though I preferred to think of mine as more jewel-toned than glacial. His jaw was set in a firm line and though his lips weren’t turned down, he also wasn’t willing to offer anything remotely close to a smile either.

“You’re late,” he said, his tone more bored than impatient.

I scoffed and stalked past the guard. “Nice to see you, too, Father.”

Lord Geoffrey Vaughn bristled, a cold smile on his face as he leaned back in his chair. Some might wrongly assume he was relaxed, based on his posture alone, but I knew better. His every muscle was taut, ready to spring into action. My father could be midway through a hot-stone massage, breathing in fresh lavender while listening to a harpist and still be capable of tearing someone’s head off in the blink of an eye.

He practically purred as he replied, “Perhaps you would have received a warmer welcome had you seen fit to return home of your own accord.”

“Perhaps.” With feigned indifference, I dropped into one of the spindly chairs across from him and draped one leg over the other. “Since you’ve decided to eschew the pleasantries, let’s get to the point. Why am I here?”

“This is your home, Lacey. This is where you belong.” Lord Vaughn continued to smile, but there wasn’t a drop of warmth behind it. Anger radiated from him, humming just below the surface.

“Did it ever cross your mind that maybe I was happier on my own?”

His eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about your happiness, Lacey.”

“Clearly,” I muttered.

I flinched as he slammed his palms against the desk. “I see your time away hasn’t curbed that tongue of yours. It was a mistake, letting you run off to that fishing town. I don’t know what I expected. Certainly the humans weren’t going to teach you any respect.” He glared at me, his eyes narrowed into hard ice chips. “Make no mistake, Daughter, I’m not opposed to other forms of punishments if you’re hell-bent on proving this one did not work.”

My teeth clenched together as I fought off the shiver skating up my spine. “If I recall, my exile was self-imposed. You didn’t even know where I was until a few weeks ago.”

“I’ve known where you were for three years now,” he spat, barking a hollow laugh. “With a single word, I could have had you dragged back by your hair.”

“Gee, and you wonder why I left,” I snarled.

He pushed off the desk and stood to his full height, looking down his nose at me. “I don’t have to wonder why you left, Lacey. I know full well that you ran away to save your own skin! If it weren’t for your mother, I’d have you in a cell right now. But I let her talk me out of it. She wanted me to let you sow some wild oats and get it out of your system!” He cursed under his breath and turned his back to me.

I didn’t have a doubt that my mother had been the one who saved me. As angry as my mother was at my disappearance, she wouldn’t have allowed a hair on my head to be harmed. She’d already lost one daughter, and she’d fight like hell to keep the one she had left.

“Oh, please!” I said, scowling. “You were relieved … happy, even, to have me out of the way these past few years. You didn’t want me around, serving as a walking, talking reminder of my defiance. It was better for you to have me gone, especially when you could spin the story and make yourself out to be the one who’d sent me away.”

“I’m not stupid,” I continued. “Why do you think I left the way I did? No spectacle, long speech, or public outburst. You could claim the decision was yours and retain your image of absolute judgement.”

Lord Vaughn turned around, his eyes narrowed at me.

I sneered up at him as the anxiety that flooded my veins shifted, turning into a unstoppable geyser. “There are only two reasons you’ve summoned me back. Either you’re finally going to auction me off to the highest bidder, or—” I paused for a flicker of a moment as the words formed on my tongue. “You found some way around my producing an heir, and have now decided to publicly execute me.”

Surprise registered in Lord Vaughn’s eyes. Under any other circumstances, I would have relished in the thrill at saying something that stopped him cold. As it was, I felt sick.

“Execute you?” he said, his tone too quiet. “What makes you think I would kill you?”

I swallowed hard and dug my nails into the palms of my hands, tucked away out of his sight. The sharp pain kept me focused and stopped the swell of emotions from boiling over. Flicking my eyes upward, I dared to meet his. “Melanie.”

Lord Vaughn didn’t move. Not even to blink.

The sound of her name flicked a barb of pain through my gut. Pricking at a wound that hadn’t … would never … heal.

The stunned look on my father’s face melted away and his cold smile returned, though less wide than before. He retook his seat and calmly steepled his spidery hands together. “Ah, yes. Well, as you’ve already pointed out, I am dependent upon you to produce the heir to House Vaughn. So, despite your involvement in Melanie’s disgrace and the shameful way you acted during your previous betrothal, I have little choice but to offer you one more chance to fulfill your obligation to this family.”

In some odd way, having the possibility of death off the table made me more nervous. I braced myself, already knowing what was coming next.

“I have summoned you home with the full intent on restoring your position at Court. You will marry a lord and take your rightful place. I will give you a territory as a wedding gift and see to it that you have everything you need to produce a bornling.”

“Just what every little vampire dreams of,” I said, my voice tart. “And if I don’t want to be a pawn in your little game?”

Leaning forward, his eyes narrowed. “You can be whatever piece you wish, but you will play the game to completion. I can assure you, if you are to be exiled again, it won’t involve sandy beaches and beauty pageants.”

Heat scorched every inch of my skin. I wanted to scream, to curse, to throw things, or flash my fangs at him.

Calmly, he sat back in his chair and depressed a button on the corner of his desk. Half a second later, the door of the study opened and the guard lumbered back into the room. I hadn’t even registered him leaving.

“Lady Vaughn would like to retire to her room,” Lord Vaughn said, his voice false and cheery. “She’s had a long day of travel and needs to rest up for the gala tonight.”

“Gala?” I repeated, craning back around to look at my father.

He smiled again, all of his gleaming teeth on display. “Oh, did I forget to mention it? We’re having a little homecoming party in your honor. Everyone from the Court will be in attendance. They’re all dying to hear my special announcement.”

The guard reached for my elbow and I rose, jerking it away.

“Jerrod will see you safely to your quarters,” my father replied, apparently not about to call off his goon.

“I know the way,” I bit back. “I don’t need an escort.”

“Humor me,” he replied, nodding at the guard.

A vise-like grip encircled my elbow. The guard stared at me, menace in his eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere until your goon stops manhandling me!” I growled.

My father flashed his teeth, his fangs weren’t extended, but the gleaming canines were on purposeful display. His eyes darkened as he glared up at me. “Lacey, consider this your official—and only—warning. If even one thing goes wrong tonight, not even your mother will be able to protect you.”

With that, he waved his hand and the guard frog-marched me from the room.