“Oh.” I could have kissed her. I was common. I grinned. Constantine chuckled.

“I told you, you’re hopelessly colonial. There are lineages far rarer than yours in the world.”

“Watch out for Sarabeth though,” Marigold said. “She’s a right nasty piece of work. Easy to recognize too, with those goat legs.”

I blinked. “Sarabeth has goat legs?”

“Yeah and if you stare, she’ll kick you with them.” She rubbed her knee. “Hurts like a bitch.”

Ianthe nodded. “Very rare, the Baobhan-Sith.”

“And don’t offer her whiskey because she’s Scottish and you think she’ll like it. That pisses her off too. Just ask Jude.” Marigold rolled her eyes. “Never mind her, we’ve bigger problems, apparently.”

“What?” I wondered.

“One of ours has gone missing, likely dead,” Elijah said softly. “A vampire.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Even with the Chandramaa around?”

“This wasn’t a vampire dispute,” Ianthe explained. “It was a human kill.”

Elijah spat. “Hunters.”

I felt my eyes widen. I tried not to look at Spencer and give him away. “Helios-Ra?”

“We don’t know that,” Jude interjected. “Could’ve been anyone.”

“Huntsmen, Helios-Ra, they’re all the same. Human.”

I swallowed. “But how do you know it wasn’t another vampire?”

“Smell of human all over the bloody murder site, wasn’t there?” Elijah looked at me speculatively. “This conversation’s too gory for a pretty girl like you.” He had no idea I’d just watched a Huntsman commit suicide. He smiled at me, fangs poking out from under his top lip.

Pheromones. Oops. I shifted closer to Constantine.

“Thanks for bringing me here,” I said to him softly, as Spencer and Ianthe argued over whether or not vampires were intrinsically magical. Ianthe said they performed magic, while Spencer said they were magic. Elijah said he didn’t believe in magic and could we please discuss the vampire penal codes instead.

“You’re very welcome.” Constantine bent his head toward me as bats filled the sky over us. “You can make your own destiny, Solange. You just have to look a little farther than your front door.”

I could love this Bower. Everyone looked so comfortable, drinking blood out of wine bottles and talking. Even Spencer sprawled with Marigold, drinking from a glass.

I shook my head. “How are you so well-adjusted?” I asked Spencer. “You’ve only been a vampire for what, a month?”

He shrugged. “Better than the alternative. Besides, I can still surf at night.” He winked at Marigold. “And there are perks.”

She winked and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go explore those perks, shall we, boyo?”

They vanished into the quiet, cold forest. It wasn’t long before the others wandered away as well, Ianthe with the giggling bloodslave. Some of the candles guttered out and the shadows wrapped around me like a thick shawl. Frost glittered on the willow leaves.

“Pass me the bottle, would you?” Constantine asked, pulling a clean wooden cup out of a basket next to the sofa. I was handing him the bottle when it broke in my hand, glass shards dropping to the carpet. One of them dug into the pad of my thumb and stuck there. Blood and wine dripped down my arm. My fangs lengthened.

Constantine didn’t say a word, just brushed the rest of the glass off my leg and then pulled the sliver out. Blood immediately trickled out of the cut. His eyes flared, the blues and purples of a summer twilight. His fangs gleamed as he leaned into me, crowding me back against the velvet sofa. I didn’t stop him. He was so close, pressing me into the cushions. I didn’t know if he was going to kiss me.

And then he just lifted my hand to his mouth, slowly. He still didn’t speak, didn’t look away, just closed his mouth over my wound. He sucked at the blood. I blushed but I didn’t pull away. The cut stopped bleeding; it was so small a nick that I could feel it healing already. Constantine dragged his lips over my inner wrist, pressing such a soft, hungry kiss over my blue veins that I nearly sighed.

Then he rose and walked away, leaving me lying on a couch in the middle of the forest, feeling more like the princess in a fairy story than I ever had before.

Constantine was right.

I needed to take control of my own destiny.

And Isabeau was the only person I knew who might be able to help me. She also knew what it was like to have a prophecy hanging over your head. Of course, hers had said she’d hook up with one of my brothers and she’d done just that. My prophecy was slightly more sinister.

At least, that’s what I assumed.

No one actually knew the exact words of the stupid thing. They’d been muttered one night by a crazy lady in sixteenth-century Scotland. Someone must have overheard her, since the story had spread, but no one had ever written it down. ’Cause that would be, you know, helpful.

Instead, my very existence was bandied about like a vampire bogeyman to scare monarchs and rebels alike. And I was starting to worry that the vampire lore might be right. So I’d do what Dad had always taught us to do when we were scared or confused: I’d get more information.

We’d never believed in magic before, and because of that, and the fact that we’d been expelled from court for so many centuries, we didn’t know as much as we could. But maybe I could fix that. And show my family that I wasn’t made of sugar and moonbeams.