I tried to kick Aidan, but it was surprisingly difficult to aim properly when two guys were fighting. Especially when they sometimes moved so fast that they blurred around the edges. I really wanted to believe that was a side effect of the drugs. I kicked again. Aidan grunted.

“Sorry,” I muttered, since he hadn’t tied me up in the trunk of my car or killed me horribly when he could have. “But stop trying to kill him.”

Someone’s elbow caught me in the sternum and I flew backward, crashing into a shelf. Dozens of bottles tumbled to the ground and rolled in every direction. A few broke into sharp pieces. I clutched my stomach. Connor ran to my side. He almost looked like he had fangs. His eyes were so blue, it hurt to look at them.

“Christabel, are you okay?” He was slurring his words. He glanced at the window and cursed. I looked, too, half expecting more of those blue creatures to be scrabbling through the window. All I saw was a lightening in the sky, a touch of gold in the east. It was comforting.

“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

He looked like he was in pain. “Dawn.”

Chapter 15

Lucy

It had been nearly a month since I’d been inside the Drake farmhouse. It was the longest I’d ever gone without a slumber party of some sort, or just hanging out with Solange while she worked on her pottery wheel in the converted shed. The oak trees and the cedars were the same and the rosebushes were still as scraggly. Nicholas and Solange jumped down from the roof before I’d fully stopped the car.

I got out as the front door opened and the dogs barreled out, barking. They would have been intimidating if they hadn’t both slept on my head when they were puppies. They danced around my legs and I crouched briefly to hug them, feeling the vise in my chest ease. Then I felt guilty for feeling better when Christabel was still missing.

My parents rushed out as various Drakes and Bruno cluttered the porch behind them. My mom was babbling and hugging me. Dad didn’t say anything, only hugged me, the family tattoo on his arm standing out in stark relief. His eyes were shiny.

“Dad, don’t,” I whispered. If he cried, I’d cry, too. “I’m fine.”

“You’re grounded forever,” he said into my hair. “In fact, I’m having you microchipped.”

I laughed, the sound muffled in his shirt. “Dad, I’m not a dog.”

“Why don’t we all go inside?” Liam suggested. I would have hugged him, too, but my dad wasn’t letting go of me. Mom ruffled Nicholas’s hair, which he hated, but he never stopped her. Solange was quiet, drifting behind us into the house. I heard bats above the treetops. I ducked my head and ran up the stairs. A wolf howled somewhere in the forest. Gandhi howled back before squeezing himself through the dog door fitted into the gate to the backyard. Isabeau had put it in herself, insisting her animals weren’t ever to be confined.

The lamps were lit inside the house and there was a fire in the fireplace, which I knew was for our benefit. Vampires didn’t feel the cold, and now that Solange was fully turned, there wouldn’t be much heat running through the rest of the house. The fridge would have only enough food for Bruno and his detail. No chocolate or ice cream since I hadn’t visited in such a long time. I wondered if my candy stash was still in Solange’s desk.

Liam stood next to the wingback chair where Helena perched, vibrating with the need to go out and break kneecaps. She was only sitting here because it was our family. Her fangs were out. Even Liam’s teeth were fully elongated, which was rare in what he would consider “polite company.” Mom, Dad, and I shared a velvet couch, and Solange stood just out of the fire’s light. She was wearing her sunglasses again. Quinn was pacing and scowling. He must have known already Connor was missing, too, and being twins would make it even worse for him.

Nicholas leaned against the wall nearest to me, like he didn’t want me out of his reach, even in his own house. His jaw was still clenching spasmodically. There were a lot of humans sitting around being fragrantly anxious. We probably smelled like a banquet to the Drakes. I smelled only the faint lemon floor polish and the wilting lilies in a giant urn on the mantelpiece.

“I’m happy to see you’re safe, Lucy,” Liam said calmly. He looked at my dad. “We’ll find your niece, Stuart. You have my word.”

Dad just rubbed the spot where his ulcer must have been on fire. I half expected to see flames searing through his shirt. There was a jug of cranberry juice on the coffee table and a silver antique urn filled with tea. I poured him a cup.

“We’ve already got Bruno on it, and our three eldest are tracking,” Helena said darkly. “And I plan to be out there as soon as possible.” She looked at my mom. They’d known each other when they were girls, when Helena was still human. Mom nodded, just as severely.

“And Connor,” Nicholas added. “He took off when he caught Christabel’s scent.”

“Since when do Hel-Blar hold hostages?” Quinn asked disgustedly. “And why the hell’d you let him go without me?”

“That’s something I’d like to know as well,” Helena said. Her black hair was like a braided whip down her back. “Hel-Blar have never organized.”

“We don’t know what the Hel-Blar are like among themselves,” Liam said. “We see the ones most driven by madness. I’ve often wondered if there are others who survive. The Hounds rescue Montmartre’s leftovers, but he wasn’t the only one making Hel-Blar. We’ve always known that.”