Markus drives like a maniac, shifting violently as he races through town. I want to look over my shoulder to see if Sebastian is following, but I can’t let Markus suspect I’m not alone. Instead, I lean back in my seat and nonchalantly glance in the side mirror. I can’t see a damn thing from this angle.

“Who’s the vampire that’s following us?”

Well, holy hell. There goes the element of surprise. “What vampire?”

He levels me a glare that might kill a normal human. “I saw his light through the window of his car. Come on now. Tell me who it is, and I might let him live.”

I shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I’ll kill him before I let him harm Sebastian, and if he walks away from this, I don’t want him to know what vampire to focus his rage on.

Markus guns the car, and in no time, we reach his home. He turns the corner into his driveway like the car is on rails and the gates swing open just in time not to collide with the shiny black metal. I glance over my shoulder, and the gates close. Sebastian couldn’t possibly get through them, but I know it won’t stop him from trying.

“He can’t follow us.”

“Excuse me?”

He grins as he glances at me, but his eyes dance around my light. “You’re not the only witch in town. The property is protected. I’m the only vampire allowed.”

Fuck me. I look away and bite at my lip. Quietly, I take a deep breath while the realization that I have to do this alone hits me hard. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

He brakes harshly in front of the house, and I slam forward against the seat belt. It digs into my flesh and constricts my lungs—but only for a moment.

“You’re the last of your kind, and there’s beauty in that…” His voice trails off. “Every time we meet, we have the same conversation, and every time you fight me, you ultimately die. Although,” he says with a chuckle, “you gave me a run for my money the last time, luv. I was thoroughly impressed.”

I swallow a lump in my throat. “How…how many times have you killed me?”

He laughs lightly and slides his hand over the steering wheel. “If I had to guess, at least two dozen. Perhaps this time, we can have a drink, and you’ll finally give me what I want.”

“Which is?”

A gleam sparks in his left eye. “You.” He gets out of the car and leaves me sitting all by myself. After he jogs up the steps, the doors open. A man in a suit holds the door as Markus walks through. He remains there with the door open while I sit. But Markus doesn’t come back to urge me to follow. He leaves it up to me. Or at least, he gives me the illusion that it is my decision. In truth, he’d likely chase me down and kill me if I ran. And he would kill me. If he’s being honest, he’s already done it many times over.

I can’t run away, though every impulse inside of me tells me to. But I don’t want to. I want to be the person I was meant to be. I don’t want to be the girl who lives her life through books without ever really having a life of her own. I open the door and slowly climb the wide stairs. When I reach the door, there is a loud screech, and I spin around as Sebastian’s car hits an invisible wall and remains on the other side of the intact gates. I mouth “I’m sorry,” hoping he’ll see it before I head inside. The heavy doors close loudly behind me.

“In here, luv,” a voice calls from a room off to the left. I glance around the large foyer with the angled staircase and a small gargoyle carved into the wood in place of a newel post. I look up at the gold-flecked chandelier above me. Jewels that hang from it on strings sparkle like diamonds.

The man in the suit holds his hand out to point the way to Markus, but there’s no need. I follow his voice to find him in a sitting room with a massive stone fireplace that reaches the ceiling of the fifteen-foot tall room. There are paintings along the wall. As I glance quickly over them, I see one that catches my interest. It’s a charcoal drawing, and it’s of the girl that Justine showed me in her small home: the woman I was, in what seems like one of my many lives. In this picture, she has hair so pale it’s almost white, and it swirls around her like a cape. In her hands are swords. Her eyes are red, like the vampires’ eyes when they’re hungry, feeding, or agitated. This can’t be a true-to-life rendering. Maybe it’s just a fantasy.

“Drink?” he holds a glass out to me, but I shake my head. It might be poisoned.

“Suit yourself.” He pours one for himself. “Have a seat.”

“I’d rather stand.”

He chuckles at me. “As you wish.”

“How old is your body?”

I glare at him. The small talk is too casual. “Twenty-two.”

“You’ve hidden yourself well this time. Usually, I find you in your early to late teens.”

“Without magic? How easy it must have been for you to crush me like that.”

He laughs. “No. Always with magic. Wait…did you lose your magic this time?”

“No…I…it doesn’t matter.”

“Did they take it?” He shakes his head, smiling. “Bloody brilliant. That would explain why I couldn’t find you. I almost thought you’d stayed dead for real this time.”

The reference to ‘they’ gives me pause. “Who is ‘they’?”

“So it is true.”

“Answer the question.”

He sighs and lowers himself into one of the chairs. He thrums his fingers on one of the gold-painted arms. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. You won’t remember this conversation after you die.” He clears his throat. “The order.”

“Who’s the order?”

“Who indeed? Never met them. You gave them up to me once, although you lied about where they were so I couldn’t follow up. The order, according to you, is a coven of powerful witches who fancy themselves as the supernatural police. Like vampires, they’re immortal, and I suspect it’s they who have made you essentially immortal too.”

The order. Justine said only a very powerful witch could have bound me, and so what he says is possible. But why didn’t Justine mention them? She must know about them if they police supernaturals, because that would include her.

I want to ask him about my real family, but I dare not, not when he’s convinced he’ll kill me again. The fewer details he knows about my life, the better, and he’s already admitted he knows nothing about my current life.

“Outside, you said you want me. Why? I can’t imagine we ever had a relationship, given what we are.” As soon as I speak the words, I already know this to be false because these last few weeks with Sebastian have proven the opposite.

“Not like that. Humans hold little interest for me sexually. They just don’t have the…stamina.” He grins wickedly, and I can’t help thinking about Sebastian, wondering if he feels the same when he says he doesn’t.

“You’re the strongest witch I’ve ever met, and I could use your help.”

“For what?”

He’s silent a beat. “It doesn’t matter. I need your loyalty, and I need you to swear a blood oath to me that you’ll give it.”

“That won’t ever happen.”

He shrugs. “Yes, I know. If you were going to do it, you would have done it by now. Every time I see you, you seem even more righteous.”

“Tell me what you want. Maybe I’ll consider it, though it hardly matters since you’re so confident you’ll have to kill me again.”

His lips twitch. “Are you ready?”

“To fight?” I uncurl my fist. The heat from the magic burgeoning from my palms warms me all over, even in this chilly icebox of a house.

“To die.” He springs to his feet. “But I’ll let you get a few shots in—for old time’s sake.”

I throw a ball of light at him, but he dodges, and when I spy him again, he’s at my side. He smirks and slashes razor-sharp nails across my face. His fangs gleam at me while he hisses. His face, once handsome, is harsh and veiny. He’s too close, and I respond without thinking, jumping up and spinning with a roundhouse kick to his jaw. When I land gracefully, I gasp at myself. When the hell did I learn to do that? Markus flies back onto his behind. He growls at me before rising to his feet. He punches at me, over and over, but as I cross my arms in front of me to block them, I feel nothing. My magic surrounds me like a fortress, taking the blows. Like he’s hitting metal to metal, sparks fly to rain down around us like ash from a volcano.

“It seems the order gave you an upgrade.” He cracks his neck and runs in circles around me. He moves so fast his feet almost start a fire on the fancy Persian rug beneath us. My fortress crumbles as flames wave in every direction. I jump over them, nearly setting fire to my pants, and when I land, he whirls past me, flying through the air like Superman, with a fist outstretched before him. It connects with my cheek, and pain rocks through me, first throbbing and then dull. I hear a crack, and I’m sure my jaw is broken. Air whooshes from my lungs as I cut through the air to connect with the wall.

Coughing and sputtering, I try to push myself up, but everything hurts, and my arm buckles to leave me lying on the floor, breathless.

“You always remember in the end. The memories come back just in time for you to take your very last breath. You just can’t seem to keep those memories, and every time, you want so desperately to know who you are. Oddly enough, I never tire of it. I almost missed you these last few hundred years. Tell me, where have you been?” He lets out a laugh. “Oh, never mind. You can’t remember!”

“I remember nothing. Tell me, who am I? You’ve killed me so many times. You must know more about me than anyone else. Who was I in the beginning?”

“I won’t make it easy for you.” He stalks forward, each step slow and thoughtful. His head tips to the side, regarding me like a predator would before eating his prey. Please let him taste me. Only he never would. He would know that danger better than anyone else.

“I was told I belonged to a coven where the other witches gave me their magic to make me more powerful.”

He laughs wickedly as he crouches down beside me. “Gave you? Silly girl. You took it. You took it all because their lives didn’t matter to you. All that mattered was killing me.”

I have a flash of memory. It hits me hard, and I shake it off. It’s like someone is driving a needle into my skull.

“Oh! There we go, luv. It’s coming now, isn’t it?”

I gasp as his words shake me almost as much as when I discovered vampires and what my blood could do to them. The grin on his face makes me wonder if the truth will hurt more than the lies.

“You honestly think a witch would be so selfless, that they’d all give you their power so you could take on the battle between good and evil all by your lonesome? Please. You killed them and took their magic because you’re obsessed with killing my brothers and me. You always have been.”

“I couldn’t have done that. It wasn’t me.”

“Whatever you want to tell yourself. But you did do it. You told me so yourself. You’re as bloodthirsty as I am. Now that…that’s a trait I’ve come to admire in you. You’ll do anything and everything to beat me. But you can’t…”

“You’re a liar.”

“Any last words?”

I curl my hands, finding strength in my muscles I didn’t have seconds ago.

“Still got some fight?” He puts up his fists to fake bobbing and weaving.

I scurry away and get on my hands and feet. He’s in front of me, staring me down. I thrust my arm upward in an uppercut, but he grips my hand in his fist. As he closes it around mine, he crushes my bones, and I scream in pain. My thoughts go to Sebastian. Please let him have the sense to have left already. Please don’t be out there waiting to take on Markus.

With my other hand, I smash my fist into his stomach and see a flash of red flames. My eyes open wide as my punch goes straight through his clothes and lodges in his stomach.

He stops still, his eyes also wide. Unlike my expression of shock, his expression speaks of horror.

“Impossible,” he stutters as he stumbles. Blood springs to his eyes and his bottom lip. It slides down his cheeks and chin. I concentrate, and the flames shoot up my arm until my entire body is on fire, and though I’m wet with sweat from the heat, it doesn’t hurt. It fuels me.

Another flash. A memory. Oh, God help me. It’s dark and I’m beside a fire, wearing a long peasant dress. My hand is in the stomach of a stranger, just as it is now—only this man is human, more specifically, a warlock. A woman in the distance watches me with wide eyes before turning and running away. As the white lights in the man’s aura fade and his eyes lose their sparkle, he falls to his death as his light swirls into the dark night before spearing through the air to hit me in the chest. “I took it,” I say quietly. He wasn’t lying.

The guilt of what I’ve done hits me like a brick to the face.

He stumbles, and I lose my concentration. He pushes my hand out of his middle like he would drive out a spear. He falls to the ground. “You remember now?”

I don’t answer him. Instead, I see a pair of scissors on a desk and nothing else—no stake except the poker at the fireplace. I take the scissors and slice my palm. The vampire still sits on the floor, blood still leaking from his orifices. I run to him and place my hand over his mouth, forcing him to drink my blood. He fights me, but he’s weak, and I don’t pull away until his eyes flash and he swallows.

Only then does he find his last bit of strength, much like I did. He whirls through the room, jumping through the windows at the back. I hold up my hands and fire my magic at him, hoping to stop him long enough to stake him. But I can’t see if my magic connected with him. I run forward to the window where I stop. My world tilts, and I clutch my stomach in anguish. The vampire is long gone, but a human guard lies on the ground, holding his blood-covered hands over his chest. When his head falls back to the ground and his arms slide to his sides, I see the hole punctured through his rib cage, the edges still red and black with ash.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper. I killed him.