Nicholas.

I pushed away from Constantine, my lips still tingling. His hair was tousled from my fingertips.

“My brother,” I said hoarsely.

He passed a hand over his face, as if he also needed to compose himself. The seductive smile—the crooked tilt to his grin that made me feel as if I were on fire—was gone. “I checked. No word yet.”

I pushed past him, darting up the metal steps and through the open gate. The forest glittered and gleamed as if carved from diamonds and obsidian. The snow had melted and more rain had fallen during the day. As night fell and the temperature dropped, ice formed on every surface. It dripped from branches, shone between flat cedar needles like lace, and crunched underfoot. Even the tiny veins on fallen oak leaves were traced with frost. I picked my way delicately through it, afraid to make a single sound and crack the frozen world into pieces.

The Bower was even more beautiful. It was strung with crystal beads of ice and draped with shawls of frost. Candles burned, melting little pools of water under the lanterns which reflected the flickering light. Someone had built a fire in an iron cauldron, and it snapped cheerfully. I wanted to sit in a velvet chair and soak it all in.

I turned my back on the winter fairy-tale beauty. “I need to hunt for Nicholas.”

“Of course you do,” Constantine agreed. “I’ll come with you.”

“You will?”

He half smiled. “I know the Drakes are ferocious and all, love, but I’ve been doing this longer than you have.”

I nodded, feeling grateful and slightly embarrassed for kissing him. And a little guilty. Kieran and I had broken up, but I still loved him, and he’d been there for me when I needed him. I hadn’t cheated on him, but I still felt awkward, as if he could see me. I pushed it out of my head. No time for that.

Time only to find Nicholas.

There were search outposts set up between the encampment and the Bower, as well as where Nicholas had activated his GPS tag. I checked in with them and kept the family channel open on the new walkie-talkie I’d been given after I accidentally broke the last one by whipping it at that tree. There were maps with color-coded pushpins to keep track of the search pattern.

I had so many guards trailing me, both from my parents and the Bower, that when Constantine ignored me to concentrate on hunting, it felt just as good as his kisses. I stayed away from my family. It just seemed easier.

They’d narrowed down Nicholas’s whereabouts to the mountain, the only other possibility being that he’d been taken up through the trees and the scent had dispersed already. I couldn’t bear to think about that. Anyway, I couldn’t search outside of the woods, not with my triple fangs and flared eyes, like red ink in water. Bruno and his detail would take the roads and the town, and so would Lucy and her friends. I’d concentrate on the caves with some of the others.

It seemed simple on paper: find the cave where Nicholas had been taken. But there were hundreds of caves and hundreds of dead ends. Not only did we need to search each one, we needed to map and chronicle our search so we didn’t double back and waste precious time.

But even with our large family and allies, time was running out.

We didn’t even know if he’d survived the last day. He could be trapped out in full sunlight for all we knew. I couldn’t stand it. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my friend.

That voice whispered inside me again, like water closing over my head. I can help you. Let me out.

I pushed it aside.

We hunted for hours, following half trails and suggestions of scent. Half the time it led to another one of my brothers, not Nicholas.

And then we heard it.

A hoarse scream echoing from somewhere inside the mountain.

Chapter 25

Lucy

Friday, late afternoon

We still hadn’t seen or heard from Nicholas.

Helena refused to sit at any council table until her son was found. Once the ceremonies began, Liam, being a better negotiator than tracker, would sit in for her. They needed to maintain the illusion of control over the tribes, or the ensuing feuds and fights would make finding Nicholas even more difficult. Vampire wars could decimate the countryside and would definitely obliterate any clues. All the brothers hunted too. Solange went out on her own and though we hadn’t spoken since we’d fought in the Bower, we sent texts. One from me at night and one from her at sunrise: nothing yet. Christabel tried to help too, even though she was still a city girl and didn’t know a dogwood from a poison sumac, let alone how to read footprints and broken twigs. The rain had washed away most of the vital evidence.

Kieran was helping, and so were Hunter and I when we managed to sneak off campus. It wasn’t easy for me right now; all the teachers were keeping an extra concerned eye on me, and my parents alternated days for visits. Mom used one of the pendulums she sold at the shop, but it only pointed to the mountains, and they were huge. Even Tyson was worried and kept trying to lend me schoolbooks. Sarita didn’t say much, but she still ratted me out when I tried to sneak out at night. And after my screaming episode, there were rumors circulating about a werewolf on the roof. Also, that I was crazy. I went to see the school counselor in the morning, who assured me I wasn’t crazy, that countless hunters before me had struggled through loss and anger over senseless tragedies.

But I could see crazy from where I was standing. I barely ate, mostly surviving on protein shakes Hunter shoved at me every time she saw me. I spent all the daylight hours not in class driving around Violet Hill and the countryside around it, listening to a mixed CD Nicholas had given me. When I couldn’t see through the tears, I switched it off and kept driving.