“Where have you been?” my father snarled, staring down the sharp point of his nose. “I’ve had every guard out looking for you!”

I crossed my arms. “Every guard? What about the ones who are supposed to be looking for Jupiter?”

“Don’t get smart with me!”

“I’m not.”

As expected, the moment I showed up on the mansion grounds, I was all but dragged directly to my father’s study in a swirl of confusion and chaos. I was told by half a dozen staff members that my father was worried sick about me and had vamps searching all through the night to find me.

“Where were you?” he snapped again, his eyes flashing.

I bottled every ounce of my own impatience and heaved a sign. “Ironically, if you actually had guards out looking for Jupiter, you would have had a pretty good shot at finding me, too. The people who kidnapped me, were holding her prisoner.”

My father did something I’d never seen him do before: he sputtered.

“What are you—kidnapped? Prisoner? Jupiter?”

“Sit down, Father. And I’ll explain it to you.”

He glared at me. If there was one thing he wouldn’t do, it was take orders. From anyone, but especially not from his own daughter.

I studied him, keeping my expression masked. After a moment, I lifted my eyebrows.

He ground his teeth, his jaw so tight it looked like it might break, but inch by inch, he lowered himself into his chair.

When he was seated, I reveled in the power for a glimpse of a moment, and he bared his teeth. “Get on with it.”

“There’s going to be an attack,” I started.

My father waited a long moment, considering me. I could almost hear his thoughts churning, trying to decide what new stunt I was lining up.

“I’m being serious,” I snapped. “I know who, I know when, and I know why.”

“What kind of an attack?”

“An attack attack. The kind that leaves everyone dead. Or, should I say, permanently dead.”

“By whom? And what does that have to do with you disappearing? Or, being kidnapped, as you say.”

Some people just have no patience. Didn’t he know how long I’d waited to get the upper hand on him? He couldn’t honestly expect me to give away all the information for free? I was, after all, his daughter.

“See, Father, that’s where we need to have some clarification. I’m happy to tell you everything, but first, there are certain assurances I need in place.”

A low growl emitted from his throat. “Such as?”

“This Tournament of Blood, is over. Effective immediately. You will not choose my future husband from among the carnage of this disgusting fighting.”

“That’s out of the question!”

I dropped my arms and leaned forward, glaring at him. “I know what you’ve been up to,” I hissed. “I know about the turns and the little army you’ve been building with your buddy Jerrod. This whole tournament is a deflection. You’ve got everyone so focused on my homecoming and the games that you’ve been able to secretly turn thousands of people into vampires right under the Court’s nose. Not to mention the Vampire Council. How do you think they’d feel if they knew one of the Barons was involved in something like this?”

Fangs flashed and for a split-second, I braced myself, ready for my father to fly over the table and throttle me. His eyes were pools of pitch and the veins in his forehead were furrowed in a deep V. “Don’t hold up that card if you don’t plan on playing it, daughter,” he spat. “You think the Council would take your side, but you don’t know how they work. How they think.”

“I know well enough to know that taking thousands of humans and turning them into vampires falls outside the lines,” I replied, fighting to keep my voice calm. I was so tired of people telling me what I did and did not know. It was beyond time for me to take the reins and show everyone just what I could do on my own.

“How do you know they won’t cull you too? You’re fruit of the poisoned tree.” A sneer peeled back his lip to further showcase his extended fangs.

Truthfully, I didn’t know what the Council would do. They were unpredictable and at times, contradictory to their own rulings and laws. They turned a blind eye to some Houses’ corruption and not to others. There was a chance they wouldn’t care if my father had a thousand turns, but the odds were they wouldn’t want the risk associated with so many turned vampires running around. It put the entire race in jeopardy. Especially when my father wasn’t personally responsible for the new vamps.

“I have proof that I wasn’t a part of this,” I told him. “They would have no reason to kill me. Besides, if I’m the one to bring this travesty to their attention, I’d imagine that would play in my favor. They’d be all too happy to hand over the reins of the Eastern Court to someone they see as an ally and of course, as the rightful heir, they wouldn’t have to expend the resources to come and oversee some kind of power struggle or overthrow the existing systems. All they would have to do is get you out of the way and it would be smooth sailing for them.”

My father’s eyes hardened, the fiery pitch turning to a stony granite. “You’d really turn me over to be executed?”

“I’ll do what I have to do, but it should be noted that I didn’t go to the Council. I came here. To you.”

He thought about this, the veins between his brows fading back against his skin as he switched gears. This was part of what made my father such a feared conqueror. He could go from homicidal to backroom dealmaker within the blink of an eye. His rage was dangerous but always under a tightly gripped hand.

“You tell me that the tournament is off and that no future marriage contracts will be required. In exchange, I promise to tell you everything I know about the attack and who is behind it. I also agree to wed within the next eight years. That should give me time to find a suitable match.”

Matthias’s face flickered behind my eyes when I blinked and a stab of pain twisted my stomach.

After a moment, my father dropped his hands to the desk. His eyes were dark, but shifting back to their usual ice blue. “What am I supposed to do about the tournament? What reason will I give for its termination?”

“We won’t need to give one,” I replied. “I say we let the attackers come. They won’t expect us to be ready for them.”

A chilling smile slid over my father’s face. “So, you have learned a few things at my feet over these years?”

I frowned at him. “Don’t get too excited. My next condition is that we not spill any needless blood.”

He scoffed. “And why would I agree to that?”

I drew in a silent breath. “Because, the leader of the group preparing the invasion is Melanie.”

For the second time, my father was knocked speechless. The lingering redness in his face drained in an instant, replaced by tight lines formed at the corners of his mouth and eyes. He stared at me, not blinking.

“She’s been working with a group of humans who, in one way or another, have come to know about the existence of supernaturals and feel a particular passion for ridding the world of vampires. When they found Melanie, attempting to kill her, she somehow convinced them to not only spare her life, but let her join their ranks.”

A strangled smile ghosted across my father’s lips and for a moment, I wondered if he was almost proud of her. Regardless of her motives, she’d proved to be a conqueror like our father.

“I don’t know how many people she has, but it has to be significant if she thinks they can attack the mansion on the night of the final tournament, when it will be literally crawling with vamps.”

“How do you know all of this? Why would she tell you her plans?”

“She expected me to join her.” I paused and swallowed down the bubble of uncertainty that formed in my throat. There was a part of me that wondered if I should even be here, telling my father every bit of Melanie’s plans. I’d risked everything to help her find freedom and now, five years later, I was helping to set a trap to catch her.

She wasn’t the same person I’d known back then. Life had hardened her to an unrecognizable being. Cold anger and hatred had stolen away her bubbling laugh and easy smile. If left unchecked, there was no telling how much destruction she would oversee at the hands of her pack of zealous humans.

“She’s been close by for years, listening and gathering information. She heard that I was being summoned home and the reason why. According to her, it was the final straw. She’s been keeping us out of the path of her companions for some time, but now, she sees that there is no hope for House Vaughn or the Eastern Court. She wants to see it destroyed.”

“But she thought she would pull you out of harm’s way?”

I nodded.

“I tried to talk her out of it,” I said, my voice shrinking. “I told her there were other ways of getting what she wanted, but she’s bent on revenge and there’s nothing I could say to get her to change her mind. She doesn’t even care about Aunt Gemma or Athena or Jupiter.”

When I looked up, I found my father watching me, a quizzical expression on his face. He blinked it away before I could ask what he was thinking. “Any idea on their weaponry? What are these humans capable of?”

“They have these smoke bombs that they’ve rigged with silver dust. They can’t kill a vampire but they can certainly make life unpleasant.” I reached across the desk and grabbed a piece of paper from a notepad. My father handed me a pen. “This is what they look like,” I told him, sketching one from memory. “They can clear a room. I think they’ll use them to disperse everyone. Then, groups of attackers will surprise them with the usual: guns, stakes, knives.”

“How do they know where the tournament will be held? It’s been two different locations for the first two rounds.”

I swallowed hard and met his eyes. “They have spies.”

My father swore.

“I don’t know who,” I lied, refusing to give Matthias up. He’d assured me he wasn’t in on the planning and hadn’t known about the attack. I believed him. Or, at least, I really wanted to. In either case, my mouth wouldn’t form his name.

“I can’t have the planning committee interrogated,” my father said, thinking out loud. “I don’t want to give anyone a chance to report back. No. The game will have to go as planned at this point. No one can know.”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

We spent another hour talking about the strategy. He pulled out a map and explained how he was planning to set up the final tournament. He showed me where Matthias would meet his opponent and where they would be held until the fight. By the time I walked out of his study, things were solidly in place, and we’d both finalized our arrangement.

All I could do was hope I’d chosen the right side.