He touched my wrists, lightly stroking the veins, moving up my arms to dig his fingers in my hair and tilt my head back so I’d look at him directly instead of at my feet. “You were brave and beautiful when I first met you as a human. You’re still brave and beautiful, Solange. That hasn’t changed.” He tugged me a little closer. “Besides, Hart is still negotiating with your dad. They still want peace and if anyone can pull it off, especially now, it’s those two. And we’ll help,” he added. “All of us.”

I desperately wanted him to be right, already feeling the ice that had clawed at my insides melting away. “Kieran, you’ve already lost your dad. I can’t ask you to lose everyone else that you love.”

“Then don’t ask me to lose you too, Solange.”

Chapter 29

Hunter

Saturday night

“Grandpa!” I knocked on the door. “I know you’re in there!”

I tried to peer through the peephole even though I knew it was equipped with several layers of safety mechanisms. I also knew the house and lawns were sprayed down with holy water on a daily basis. Grandpa had a barrel of it out in the backyard, attached to a garden hose. He’d made me wash my hair with it until I left for the academy.

I kept pounding on the door. The UV bulbs in the security lights over the porch were so intense I could get a tan standing here, even though it was just past twilight. I gave up before my nose could get sunburned and shoved my key into the lock.

It didn’t fit.

My own grandfather had changed the locks on me.

My stomach dropped as if I were suddenly hollow inside. I knew he was still angry but we were the only family left to each other. He’d always been there for me. He’d been the one to show me how to use my first crossbow. He’d given me my own stake, which he’d whittled himself. He’d even learned to braid my hair, when I was seven years old and pitched a fit when he suggested I cut it short.

And now he’d locked me out.

I could feel dismal about it and stand here trying not to cry, or I could feel dismal about it and pick the damn lock on principle.

No contest.

“This isn’t over, old man,” I said to the security camera fitted into the eaves of the porch roof. I was glad I’d brought my full hunter’s kit with me, just in case. I’d never be able to break the door down since it was outfitted with so many locks, bars, and booby traps. I’d wondered if he might arm them out of spite, but I didn’t think he’d go so far as to call a locksmith.

From the outside, the house looked like any other bungalow on the street, set back against the edge of the woods. The driveway was interlocking brick, the hedges were trimmed neatly, and the garbage was taken out every Wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m. exactly. No one saw the cameras or the sensors, and no one realized the decorative bars on the windows were actually sturdy military-strength steel.

The biggest problem was making sure the neighbors didn’t call the police before recognizing me—especially Mrs. Gormley, who had a crush on Grandpa and spied on him through her blinds. She wore sweaters that looked like doilies, hung curtains that looked like doilies, and brought over casseroles draped in doilies. Grandpa had actually incorporated her into his security plans. So much so, that the side and back doors had way more locking mechanisms since they weren’t being guarded by the Doily Dragon.

It took me a few minutes to defeat the first lock—only three more to go. By the time I was done, my fingers were cramping and my ears hurt from straining to listen to the soft snick of the tumblers. I straightened and stepped inside.

I hadn’t been home since the school year started, since Grandpa had caught me with Quinn, to be precise. He’d filed formal complaints against the academy and Bellwood in particular, for letting vampires onto campus grounds. And he’d refused to speak to me ever since I called him from the hospital after being poisoned by Ms. Dailey—a teacher, not a vampire, something that I pointed out to him repeatedly.

And yet he claimed I was the one who was as stubborn as six mules.

“Grandpa!” He wasn’t in the living room, watching me on the security screens. As I went down the hall, premonition crawled on trembling mouse feet over the back of my neck. The house looked the same. I hadn’t expected it to change; it was just that everything else in my life had undergone such a drastic transformation, it was almost shocking to see the same rugs, the same photos on the wall, the same lumpy clay dinosaur I’d made Grandpa for Christmas one year. The plants in the window were still thriving—I was the one they curled up and died around. Grandpa had a green thumb and grew his own tomatoes every year. They were so big the neighborhood kids liked to climb over the fence to steal them for food fights.

I froze in the doorway to the kitchen. “Grandpa?”

He was slumped at the pine table beside a half-empty bottle of whiskey. The fumes hung on the air. There was gray stubble on his cheeks and his eyes were bleary and bloodshot when he blinked at me. “Kitten?”

I’d never seen him like this before—not after my parents died, not when the League forced him to retire him because of his arthritis, not even when he’d caught me kissing a vampire. I swallowed, feeling all of six years old. I didn’t know what to do. He was supposed to be shouting at me and smashing things, not looking old and uncharacteristically frail. I crouched beside him.

“Grandpa, what are you doing?”

He touched my hair with a massive, trembling hand. I could see the scars on his arms from his numerous battles. “Such a pretty girl,” he mumbled. “And always so smart. I miss you.”