Sebastian manages to get us back to the mansion in less than an hour. I’m surprised he didn’t get a ticket, he drove so fast, but then if he got pulled over, I suppose he could just mind control them. There isn’t much incentive to follow the rules when you can easily force people to see things your way.

If I couldn’t sense his emotions, I might wonder if he feared what Alexander would do to him when we finally see him, but since I can, all I feel is annoyance. It relaxes me a little because if he’s not worried, I shouldn’t be either. I’m not sure when I began to care if Sebastian lives or dies, but it’s happened, and it’s surprising. I tell myself it’s because I need him. My chance of surviving all of this depends on his desire to keep the ghost of his ex-girlfriend alive. Alexander’s interest in me stops the moment that elder dies.

He pulls up out front and turns off the car. I start to get out, but he lays a hand on my arm to stop me. I pull my door closed and look down at his pale hand. My stomach flutters. He doesn’t notice; his eyes remain firm on the mansion’s door.

“Don’t say a word.”

“About what?” I ask and genuinely mean it.

“When he starts talking, let me deal with him. Understand?” His gaze flickers to me.

I nod as I swallow hard. “Whatever you say.” Something tells me he doesn’t believe me. “I promise.”

We find Alexander in the sitting room with a glass of dark rum in his hand. He swirls the glass so the ice cube rounds the edges then downs the rest of the liquid. I see his aura and am not surprised to find it resembles dark clouds before a storm. The only light I see glows softly, barely an inch deep, from the edges of his body. “I’ve been worried, Bass.”

“That’s touching.”

“Care to tell me what you were thinking? I fail to understand why you would take the girl to see Justine?”

I open my mouth, but Sebastian silences me with a raised hand. In any other situation, I might bite the fingers off someone who tried to do that to me, but in this case, I know when to keep my mouth shut.

“You’ve been a little less forthcoming with information lately, so I put a tracker on your car.”

Sebastian stills before shifting in his seat and smiling tightly. “You what?”

“Clearly, it was necessary. Now tell me why you took her to see Justine.”

“I’m sure you’ve already made assumptions,” Sebastian says dryly.

In a blur, Alexander moves from sitting to standing. His teeth snap out as if on springs, and his eyes blaze. “Tell me you didn’t teach the witch magic.”

“I didn’t ask Justine to teach her magic.”

Alexander chuckles darkly, and then, faster than I can process, a glass smashes against the marble fireplace and shatters into a million shards that spray across the floor. I jump in my skin, and before I can respond, Sebastian is in front of me, shielding me. Alexander’s blurry form stops just short of Sebastian.

“This is a mistake.” Sebastian crouches slightly.

“You’re not in my good graces right now. I suggest you step aside.”

Sebastian shakes his head. “I can’t let you kill her.”

Sebastian is risking his life, going against his brother to save me. Finding out I’m a witch didn’t shock me as much as this does right now. I touch my hand to his shoulder, and he tenses at my touch but doesn’t turn.

I am about to speak up, to tell Sebastian that I won’t let him die for me, but by the time I find my voice, the two vampires tangle. They whip around me, making my skin and hair fan to the left, and then Sebastian is pinned to the wall, his feet dangling. Alexander’s fingers grip his neck. Sebastian’s and Alexander’s faces have changed, taking on an inhuman quality as their cheekbones and brows become harsher and grow into hard ridges on their faces. Purple veins rise to the surface to line their flesh like roadmaps.

Sebastian holds Alexander’s wrists and hisses at him while Alexander growls. Like two animals, they fight to show dominance, but Alexander seems to be stronger. For a second, I wonder if he’ll kill his brother. I thought maybe he might be all threat and no follow through, but I’m not so sure right now.

“You disobeyed me,” Alexander says in a low, dark voice. “And you come to her aid? Against me! Does family mean nothing to you?”

Sebastian bends his knees and slams his feet into Alexander’s gut. Alexander loses his hold on Sebastian as he bends over and holds his middle. Sebastian takes his brother’s moment of recovery as a chance to strike back and slams his fist into Alex’s face. I hear a sickening crunch and gasp as Alex spits out a tooth. Will it grow back? Alex recovers quickly, mimicking Sebastian’s movements. Their teeth are bared, gleaming white in the chandelier’s glow.

“I’ve always followed you. Hundreds of years I’ve stood at your side, brother.”

“I don’t forgive betrayal.” Alexander lunges for Sebastian, and Sebastian zooms out of the way. Alex sprints after him. Their punches and kicks sound like a car whooshing by, over and over again. I can’t quite make out which fists belong to whom. I try to keep up, but my human eyes aren’t fast enough. But I see the last blow exchanged before Alexander lifts off the ground and lands on his back several feet away. He does a bridge then flips to his feet. He’s near the fireplace and snatches a black metal poker.

“This is extreme,” Sebastian says. “Even for you.”

They’re brothers, roughly the same human age, so they had to have turned around the same time, which means they should be matched in strength and speed. Of course, I pray Sebastian outmatches Alexander because if Alex puts the poker through Sebastian’s heart, Sebastian will breathe his last breath on Earth. And that makes me feel…I don’t know what it makes me feel, but whatever it is, I don’t like the thought.

Sebastian glides through the air with his left foot extended. Alex tries to smash him with the poker, but Sebastian leans back, flying vertically, and Alex misses his head. Sebastian’s feet connect with Alexander’s stomach, and Alex grunts. He folds at the middle and flies through the air, to crash into the wall. Plaster falls from the ceiling to dust his blond hair. He growls and springs forward, poker in hand, and then they’re on the tiled floor with Alex straddling Sebastian’s hips and the poker held above his head. He’s about to thrust it into Sebastian’s heart, and something in me shifts rather dramatically. I feel something I can’t explain. Desperation. I have to save Sebastian. The need is so intense it almost consumes my mind and my body.

“Stop!” I scream. I reach out, as if I can touch Alex and pull him off Sebastian. Alex’s face contorts as he tries to force the poker down onto Sebastian’s chest. He snaps his head in my direction and glares at me. Sebastian regards me with glowing red eyes.

Alex fights harder to stab his brother, but my anger builds until I let out another scream. “You will not hurt him!” He freezes like a statue. He doesn’t even blink. Sebastian smiles wickedly at his brother before punching him in the face. Alex falls to the side, stiff, as if rigor mortis has set in.

Is he dead? I take a step closer and focus on his eyes. He might not be blinking, but he can still manage a death glare.

Sebastian sits up, dusts off his pants, and takes a deep breath. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem.”

“But I could have managed on my own.” He kicks his brother in the face. Another tooth falls to roll along the floor as blood rushes from his nose. The blood clots quickly, and as he starts to regain control of his muscles, he slowly rolls to his knees to snap his nose back into place. It’s beautiful, better than any plastic surgeon could manage, and I suspect it’s completely healed.

“Well, that was unexpected.” Alex stares at me.

Sebastian gets up and offers Alex a hand. Though he debates not taking it, he eventually does. When he’s on his feet, he hauls off and plants an upper cut on Sebastian’s chin that knocks him out cold.

“Oh, my God. You killed him!” I bend my knees and put up my fists. I concentrate hard and try to find some magic inside of me to pummel Alexander, but I feel nothing. I don’t know how I stopped Alexander cold, so I have no idea how to reproduce it.

“Relax. He’s not dead. Not permanently. I did break his neck, though. Did you hear it snap?”

He scoffs at me before adjusting the collar of his shirt. With a wave in my general direction, he says, “I’m not going to kill you. Not today. You can put those big fists of yours away.”

I gasp and run over to Sebastian’s side, keeping my eyes on Alex. Although he’s calmed down and doesn’t appear to want to kill me this very second—or he’d have been on me already—I can’t turn my back on him.

“Vampires don’t stay dead long unless you want to grab a silver-tipped stake and drive it through his heart. And if that’s the case, I won’t stop you.”

“He’s your family, and this is the way you treat him?”

Alex opens his arms. “He knew how I’d respond. And he did it anyway.”

“You’re a monster.”

He picks a glass up from the floor and the decanter of scotch that somehow managed to get knocked from the table but land on its side on the hard floor without breaking. He uncorks it and pours himself a full glass. In one swift swig, he downs the whole thing, breathing out through his lips as they form a hard circle.

With my heart beating out of my chest, I bend down and slap him on the cheek, but he doesn’t budge. I’d check for a pulse, but then, that’s not going to do me a whole lot of good. He looks so peaceful in death and mighty handsome too. As soon as I think that, I curse at myself.

“What happened at Justine’s? And I’d think long and hard about lying to me. Your sister might be the perfect person to fill Cassandra’s shoes.”

I glare at him. Monster. “She removed a cloaking spell.”

“I assumed as much.” He pours himself another drink and holds an empty one out to me. “Scotch?”

I make a face. That stuff burns like kerosene. And if he thinks I’m going to forget the last five minutes and drink with him after he killed Sebastian and tried to kill me too, he’s insane. Plus, knowing him, it’s probably poisoned. I doubt regular old poison would do squat for him.

“Your sister is home. Safe and sound. You’re a powerful witch again. And my brother went behind my back. How do I fix this mess?” Alexander takes a long drink of his scotch and breaths out slowly with his mouth open. “What incentive do you have to help me now? Huh? How do I keep you hidden? Any attention you call to yourself also leads to me and…” He points to Sebastian. “Him.”

“You just tried to kill Sebastian. Don’t pretend you care about whether people want to kill him or not.”

Sebastian stirs, a slight moan escaping his lips.

Thank God. I play it cool and try to be confident. “Maybe I don’t need an incentive. Maybe I keep my word, regardless of whether people hold things over me or not. Killing a vampire is what I was meant to do, after all. And I want to do it, especially if this Markus vampire is killing innocent people.”

He mumbles at that. “Hmm. You’re just going to go along with the plan without trying to betray and kill me when the time is right?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t believe me.

“And before you threaten my sister again, let me tell you something. I’ll do this because I said I would, and I keep my promises, but if you so much as go near her, the deal is off. I will kill that vampire anyway, and then I’ll kill you.”

The fire in his eyes stokes until they burn orange-red, and his aura matches their color. “Don’t threaten me, little girl. You might have your magic, but it remains to be seen if you have enough control to use it to kill me. If you take a shot at me, you’d better make it count, or I won’t merely kill you; I’ll kill everyone you’ve ever known, loved, cared about, or even had a conversation with. Understand?”

Sebastian sits up and shakes off his death, cracking his neck and rounding his shoulders. He focuses on his brother with an icy stare. “Feel better? Prick.”

“Much.”

“Good.”

“That’s it? He was going to kill you, and now you’re both going to go on like it never happened?” I snap back at them.

They glance at each other and then me, both shrugging their shoulders.

“Well, it’s not like it’s the first time.” Alexander holds a hand to the side of his mouth.

“And it won’t be the last.” Sebastian pushes himself off the floor to stand tall beside me. Wordlessly, he looks into my eyes, as if reassuring himself that I’m okay.

“I’m fine,” I say.

Alexander sighs and rolls his eyes.

“She’s useful,” Sebastian says. “More so now than before. At least now, she stands a chance against Markus if he suspects what she is.”

“Why would he suspect her?” Alexander says, irritated. “We all agreed the last hunters were dead centuries ago. He would have tasted her and died like others have in the past. She didn’t need magic to kill him. Now, we have a powerful witch who might be bold enough to try and use it against us.”

“Haven’t you listened to a word I said? I keep my promises.” Heat rises somewhere deep in my chest, and I feel sparks in my fingers, but when I look down, I see no difference. “Can we just kill the damn vampire so I can be done with this and go home already?”

“Not yet.” Alexander drops onto his velvet perch.

“Then when? Am I just supposed to live here indefinitely until you decide to take him out? That doesn’t work for me. I want to get back to my sister.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” His tone is ice.

“I want a date. A time. I won’t be your prisoner forever.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. When he flashes them open, he addresses Sebastian. “Get her ready. I want her gone as badly as she wants to leave.”

Sebastian nods.

The thought of hunting does strange things to my body. Before, I was both nervous and curious, but now, the thought of hunting causes my body to respond. Every muscle flexes as a surge of electricity travels through my veins. I have a desire to hunt. Today. Now. And I want it badly. I almost don’t recognize myself when excitement makes me almost bounce on my heels. Is this how it’ll be now? Killing vampires an itch I want to scratch? It surprises me, and I can’t decide if I like these instincts—a thirst for blood. I’m like the vampires. I need to leave. To think. I turn on my heel but stop and wait for confirmation. “Can I count on you not to kill me in my sleep?”

Alexander eyes me before offering a small nod. “I shall not rip your throat out while you sleep. Happy?”

“Not even close.”

It’s amazing to think a few days ago, I was a normal girl with a normal job, just trying to get by in life after a shitty year of struggling without my parents. I lived through my books because they allowed me to escape. Of course, I never dreamed the fiction I love might be true, although I often wished it were. Now, anything is possible because vampires exist, and I believed them to be fantasy. And I’m a witch. Witch. Even as I say this in my mind, it sounds surreal. How will it feel when I can do everything I’m capable of?

Justine said my powers would come, and they’d be there when I need them. But I’d feel a whole lot safer knowing what I can do from the start, especially since I’m about to start killing vampires on purpose. And Alexander? Though he seems to be over his urge to kill me, how long will that last? And what about Sebastian? I heave a sigh. What about Sebastian? There’s another detail of my new life that brings a whole lot of uncertainty. He stood between Alexander and me to save me. Because of Penelope? Because of his other interests I can’t pretend to know? I have a feeling there is something else there, though he’s not likely to tell me.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I know he wants to help me. Is believing I’m his dead girlfriend enough motivation for a guy like him? I’m not sure, so I still can’t trust him. If I knew his motives, at least, I could figure out how to deal with him. I’m at a loss because while I feel suspicious, I also feel grateful and maybe a little something else—a connection of some sort, a shred of a feeling I can’t explain. That feeling makes me uncomfortable in more ways than one.