“It’s not your fault,” I said softly. “You couldn’t have known.” It was instinct to comfort her.

“I’m tired of being ganged up on,” she said finally. She stalked to the trapdoor.

Mom didn’t move. “We’re not done.”

“Yes,” Solange said deliberately. “We are.”

Her pheromones were invisible, but I could almost see them coming off her like heat melting pavement in the summer. It was nearly palpable. She leaned closer to Mom, baring her teeth. I could smell a faint combination of lilies and chocolate. “Mom. Move.”

Mom just clenched her jaw, her fists, every muscle she could. She fought the compulsion the way she’d fight a Hel-Blar. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re very grounded,” she said through gritted teeth, as if every word was torn from her unwillingly. Her feet twitched, as did the muscles in her calves.

Dad stepped between them. “Stop it.”

“Hey, kid, enough.” Duncan put a hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his wrist and flipped him over before any of us could move. He crashed into Connor, then landed on a painted wooden table. He only narrowly avoided staking himself with a jagged splintered leg. Quinn swore, loudly and creatively. Sebastian didn’t say a word, only went to stand next to Dad.

“Sol.” Logan gaped. “What the hell?” He held Isabeau’s hand back when she reached for her sword.

Solange didn’t back down. “Just proving my point. I’m stronger than you think. Now get the hell out of my way. All of you.”

Mom was still struggling with an invisible enemy, fighting to keep her boots planted on the trapdoor. She lost the battle, which scared us all more than even Madame Veronique striding forward, the air blistering frigidly around her. She spun to confront Solange, wimple fluttering.

“That will do. You will comport yourself with the dignity befitting a Drake.”

Solange folded her arms, her expression mutinous and impertinent. “This is none of your business.”

Madame Veronique just stood there for a long terrible moment.

They didn’t speak again, but it was clear they were testing each other, forcing their wills. Solange exuded pheromones. Madame Veronique was ancient and her direct bloodline matriarch. She had strength we didn’t know about. But Solange wouldn’t back down. She was filled with fresh blood and had something to prove.

Someone was going to get hurt.

Dad shifted to protect Solange.

“Liam, don’t interfere.” Madame Veronique flicked her hand and sent him sprawling, never once looking away from Solange. Dad landed hard. Solange looked uncomfortable, then scared. Madame Veronique didn’t betray any emotion, as usual.

Mom moved away from the open trapdoor, glancing at me as she eased it open with her foot. I was at an angle behind Madame Veronique. I did the only thing I could have, and barreled into Solange, knocking her into the doorway. She tumbled down the stairs, into the darkness.

I crouched, waiting to see how Madame Veronique would retaliate. It took an age for her gaze to drop, to spear me with those strange and severe eyes. Then she just lifted her foot and kicked me. Hard. I flew into one of the lodge poles, and the tent shivered, threatening to collapse.

A bat shot out of the tunnels and winged desperately in a circle over our heads.

“That little girl is trouble,” Madame Veronique said coldly, her voice like an icicle dropping off the roof of a house and impaling you in the head. She grabbed the bat out of the air while we gaped. It squeaked, leather wings frantically beating. Then she released it and stalked away, trailing her silent handmaidens and a disoriented bat smashing its head into the ceiling.

Mom looked bleak but determined.

“Plan B then.”

“You threw me down the stairs.”

I was in the safe house room I shared with Quinn and Connor, lying back on my bed. There were three cots, each with its own cooler of bottled blood and a chest at the foot for our clothes. Candles burned on a narrow table, flickering gold light over the stone walls. Inside the chest were more candles, flashlights, stakes, and other assorted weapons.

I took out my earbuds, which were blaring music as loud as they could. Sometimes vampire hearing isn’t an asset. Connor and Christa were having a Dr. Who marathon above my head. Mom was pacing, furious. When I got tired of sifting through the sounds of mice in the tunnel and dripping water and the rest of my family milling about, I listened to music. Loudly. It worked at home and it worked here. When I first turned, I listened to so much music when Lucy was hanging out with my sister, my ears rang. I was trying to drown out the sound of her heartbeat and her laugh drifting between the walls.

“You threw me down the stairs,” Solange repeated, backlit in the doorway.

“Hell yeah, I did.”

She smiled slightly. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Music still spilled out of the earbuds on my chest, sounding tinny and thin. “I mean that.”

She smiled fully that time; I could hear it in her voice. “I know.”

“What’s up with you and Madame Veronique?”

Her mouth tightened. “Nothing.”

I snorted, propping my head on my folded arms. “You suck at lying.”

“She just creeps me out.”

“Yeah. Kinda her job.”

Solange shifted from one foot to the other. I could smell the blood on her, the lilies and the chocolate of her strange pheromones. “Aren’t you ever tempted?”