“But it is.”

“I am told it is not.”

Baojia frowned. “Who has told you this?”

His father finally looked up. “What have you done with it, Baojia? Why are you going against protocol? The human police should have been called.”

“There is something very wrong here. I did not take her body, Father. Tulio did, along with the others.”

He heard his sire start to grumble. “That meddling hermit. I should kick him out of my territory.”

“I would not advise that.”

“And what would you advise?” His voice rose. “Going down to Ensenada after foolish women? Attacking a rival organization’s guards? Confiding in a newspaper reporter?”

It was worse than {as e ru he’d anticipated. “If you would let me explain—”

“Explain what?” Ernesto’s anger was legendary, as loud as his child’s was silent. His voice echoed through the house, and Baojia could hear the guards scurry to the door.

“There are humans being murdered in the desert by vampires,” Baojia said, keeping his voice even and calm. “Bodies have been dropped on your land like some dog pissing on a tree, marking his territory. Whoever is doing this is threatening you, your reputation, and everyone under your aegis. Father, you have to listen—”

“Do not call me your father as you stand before me, insulting me with your presence!”

Baojia could not breathe. The pain radiated from his chest as Ernesto rose to his feet.

Ernesto continued on. “Do you think I am incapable of seeing what is before me? Do you think I need you to tell me what is and isn’t a threat?”

He forced himself to speak. “Someone in the cartel—it might only be Ivan, but it could be more—is testing you.”

“Stop trying to justify yourself and leave my presence. Maybe someday I will forgive this disrespect.”

“There is something very wrong with the bodies of these girls.” He looked at the floor, swallowed back the lump in his throat, and kept talking. “Packs are feeding from them—”

“Get out.”

“—and their blood is tainted by something that makes it—”

“I will have your own men remove you, if I must.”

“You must listen to me!” Baojia roared, raising his voice to his sire for the first time in over 120 years. He raised his eyes and met Ernesto’s shocked stare. Slowly, the shock fell away to be replaced by a cold expression.

“You will bring this reporter—the woman from Mexico—to me. Leave her here and return to San Diego.”

His own temper, so long buried, roused itself. “I will not.”

Ernesto stared at him, his eyes narrowing as he bared his fangs. “You will do this, or I will have it done.”

Baojia let his lips curl back, his own fangs long in his mouth. “No, you will not.”

Slowly, his sire’s face fell, shock returning as he stared at his child. “Baojia?”

His silent heart thumped in his chest as he stared back. His sire would not listen to him. Ernesto had tied his hands behind his back, crippling Baojia from safeguarding those he had vowed to protect: Natalie, his sister, even Ernesto himself.

He had only one recourse. “Ernesto Alvarez, I have been your loyal child for one hundred twenty-nine years—”

“Do not do this.”

“—I have served you faithfully and without question for all that time, as honor demanded.”

“You cannot take this back,” his father hissed. “Once this is done, it cannot be undone. Think.”

“I have,” he said, the pain flooding his chest as bloody tears came to his eyes. “I ask to be released from your aegis this night.”

“Foolish boy.” Ernesto shook his head. “You foolish, foolish boy. After all I have done for you.”

He ignored the tears that tracked down his cheeks and lifted his chin proudly. “Sire, do you release me as I have asked?”

Ernesto let out a long breath. “I release you, Chen Bao Jia, as you have requested. Leave my aegis this night.”

It hurt. Even knowing it wa {knop> s the only way, it ached to hear his father say the words that cut him off from the only family he had known since boarding a boat a world away.

With an air of finality, Ernesto said, “I owe you no protection. You owe me no fealty. Leave this place and do not come back.”

He forced his lips to form the appropriate words. “Thank you, Don Ernesto Alvarez. May honor sustain you, even as I leave your clan.”

Baojia’s eyes rose to Ernesto’s one last time. Then he turned and left the room.

He did not stop at the door. He did not stop at the gate. Ernesto would have to tell his sister she was not his sister anymore. Baojia drove aimlessly through the black streets of Los Angeles, suddenly realizing that for the first time in over one hundred years, he had no mission. None. No protection. He was fair game for any challenger. No human under his aegis could seek refuge or help from Ernesto’s clan. No backup was coming if he got into a fight.

The woman from Mexico.

Natalie. Ernesto knew about Natalie. She was the only one directly under Baojia’s aegis, the only human he had publicly claimed, and now her safety was at risk, not only from Ivan and whoever was working with him, but possibly from Ernesto himself. He didn’t think his sire would physically harm the human unless she threatened him in some way. And Natalie wasn’t likely to threaten a vampire…