I didn’t argue. Nothing with the supernatural was ever a coincidence. “They were working with each other from the start.”

“Yes. She must have created a spell to allow Tura to leave his form. I believe Tura meant to invade your heart and kill you, but the ability Rosaliana granted him allowed him access to Aric when Aric took the blow meant for you.”

In saving me, Aric had given Tura life, power, and access to all of us. At the very least, the asshole owed us a thank-you note. “Rosaliana showed up after the attack just to make sure I was dead, didn’t she?”

“That’s what we’ve concluded.” She looked at me then. “I’m sorry. I should have discovered Rosaliana regardless of the mask she wore long before you and everyone else suffered.”

I blinked a few times. She seemed sincere. “Okay.”

She raised her eyebrows elegantly, the same way she did everything else. “Okay?” she asked. “You can’t be serious?”

I fixed her with a hard stare. Although I suspected it alarmed her, she didn’t wince. “What else do you expect me to say? Until recently, I’ve tried to avoid the supernatural world. I don’t know the rules. Am I supposed to kill you?” Genevieve remained quiet, leaving me with the impression that maybe I had that right. I muttered a swearword under my breath. “You weren’t the cause of all this, Genevieve. I accept your apology, just leave things at that.”

She nodded. We sat in silence for a while. I stared at the peaceful brook, now illuminated by a full moon. I wondered how some places could always remain tranquil while in others chaos forever reigned. It surprised me when Genevieve’s delicate hand squeezed my shoulder. Her smile was small, pleasant, and that lovely sparkle had returned to her eyes. “You know, Celia. If your sister didn’t hate me, I imagine we could be friends.”

But she does, so we can’t. I gave Genevieve the once-over. At first glance, anyone in the mystical world would assume she was a vampire. Her skin was flawless, her body perfect, her face heartbreakingly beautiful. She was strong, intelligent, ethical, and kind. I couldn’t blame Taran for feeling threatened by her. On my best day, I couldn’t match her on her worst. And that annoyed the hell out of me. “You were homecoming queen, weren’t you?”

She grinned despite my irritated tone. “Prom princess, too. What about you?”

I scoffed. “Everyone hated me. I was constantly in detention for fighting.”

Genevieve hugged her knees and cocked her head slightly. “And yet here you are, engaged to the class president, the most valuable player, and the captain of the football team all rolled into one.”

She tried to give me a compliment, but her words only made my eyes sting. I glanced at my nails, still stained with blood. “Yes…but sometimes I don’t know how.”

She placed her hand over mine. “I do,” she said softly.

About a hundred feet away, the almost silent footsteps of a predator treaded through the darkness. From behind a stand of trees the class hunk stepped out. I rose and hobbled toward him, noticing for the first time the bloody footprints I’d left behind. Yeah, I might have been a tad easy to track.

As I limped, Shah appeared in my hands. He’d left me when Aric had embraced me during Rosaliana’s big reveal. Genevieve followed, noticing Shah almost instantly, but failing to reach for him. I stopped directly in front of Aric and showed him that Shah was with me. He stroked my cheek with his hand, although that was probably still bloody, too. I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking. “I’m tired, and he’s not mine to keep. Will you come with me so I can hand him to Makawee? She’s the only one I trust to look after him.”

Aric bent and kissed my lips. “Nothing could keep me from your side,” he whispered.

—
Emme rushed to me after I handed Shah to Makawee, but not before I told him goodbye. He’d helped me realize how to lure Tura out of hiding, and as much as he could, he’d been my friend.

Emme healed me, but my filthy condition and demolished clothing kept us at the Den a little longer. Aric led me to his new quarters and into a hot shower. We took our time bathing and holding each other before we finally stepped out.

The mystery behind my parents’ death and the bull’s-eye we’d been marked with had left me raw. I needed the intimacy and security that only time alone with Aric gave me. When he and I made our way down the grand staircase and into the foyer below, I was wearing the spare set of clothes Shayna had brought me from the room assigned to her and Koda. They were there, and so were Bren, Emme, Taran, and Gemini, although once again, Gemini appeared to be keeping his distance.

He sighed as he left Taran’s side and approached us. “Shah’s power has abandoned him. He is no more. The Leaders of the Alliance would like a word with Celia.”

Aric narrowed his stare. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” Taran hissed. “They’re convinced you took their last wish.”

At once the Leaders piled out of the room to our far left. Aric met them with a growl that shook the room. “You insult my mate and the woman who saved us by calling her a thief!”

Uri, Misha’s master, stepped forward, his phony gentleman persona absent in his rage. “We don’t fault Celia, after all, with so much power in her grasp, temptation was surely hard to resist.”

“And yet I did,” I countered. Misha met my stare with a sharp expression clearly meant as a warning. He didn’t want me to offend Uri, the other grandmasters, or the were and witch elite who had arrived. But I did, my sisters’ gathering presence driving me to do so. “And where were any of you, when your clans, covens, and Pack members were out there dying and trying to bring back Shah? You didn’t want to get your hands dirty. Then again you never do. All you wanted was to reap the rewards like always.”

Aric wound his arm around my waist and gripped my hip in a show of unity, just as my family closed in the circle they’d formed around us.

“Despite our lack of involvement, you owe us the truth,” an unfamiliar head witch ground out. “Shah’s last wish was proclaimed to be the strongest and most significant of all. The one that could tip the scales on either the side of good, or in the dark ones’ favor.”

“Are you deaf, Broomhilda?” I shot back. “I didn’t wish for anything!”