Not that she hadn't tried. After dinner, she'd actually sat down and had a conversation with the thing.

Asked if there was something she needed to know. Told it her concerns about staying alive.

It didn't talk back. Not that she expected it to, but seriously, she wouldn't have been too shocked if it had. Face it, crazy shit happened at Shadow Falls.

Seeing it was almost twelve, Kylie got up. Della walked out of her bedroom the moment Kylie stepped out of hers.

"Where are you going?" Della asked.

"I just want to sit on the porch. Alone."

"You're hoping he'll come, aren't you?"

Kylie nodded.

"Fine," Della said. "But if tomorrow you have doggy breath..."

Kylie giggled and went outside. She gazed at the moon and wondered if shifting would help Lucas deal with his grief. She hoped so.

The memory of him as a wolf when he'd stopped Fredericka from charging her still teased her memory, and she ached to see him in that form again. There were so many things she wanted to know about him.

What he looked like when he first woke up in the morning. What side of the bed did he normally sleep on?

Did he snore?

Pulling out her phone, she checked her e-mail to see if maybe he'd sent her something earlier. She had only one, from Derek. He had forwarded her all the links he'd found in connection to Lucinda Esparza.

Since the spirit hadn't actually passed, Kylie suspected she wouldn't leave until after the confrontation with Mario. Or maybe she just wasn't eager to head off to hell.

The thought sent a shiver down Kylie's spine. She went to cut off her phone, but she accidentally hit one of the links. She read it, not really learning anything new. Then she read the last one on the list, an old newspaper clipping announcing the wedding of John Anthony Esparza and Lucinda Edwards.

Kylie pulled up the link. She saw a picture of Lucinda in her wedding gown. She was pretty, young,and innocent all dressed in white. The next picture was the couple cutting the cake.

Kylie looked at the picture. Her heart stopped. Completely stopped. She blinked, praying her eyes were playing tricks on her, but no, it was him.

No wonder she didn't like him. John, her mom's John, was John Anthony, Mario's son.

Thrown instantly into protective mode, her blood buzzed, as adrenaline spread from limb to limb. The sword appeared beside Kylie-glowing, beckoning her to action. With clarity, Kylie remembered Mario's threat. You will come to me, Kylie Galen, come to me willing to die, to suffer at my hands for my pleasure, because the price will be too great! Your weakness will take you down.

He'd had this plan all along.

Kylie considered calling for Della, or going after Burnett, but something inside her knew this was her fight.

Hers to win.

Or hers to lose.

She didn't have an exact address for John's beach house, but her mom had said it was on the same street as one of the old plantation homes they had visited a while back. The sword flickered and Kylie sensed it might know exactly where they were going.

Picking up the weapon, Kylie could swear she heard something stir in the woods. She looked back, didn't see anything, then willed herself invisible and took off.

She flew over the gate knowing the alarm would go off, but never looked back. Burnett would be livid.

Yet everything in her said this was right. Living or dying wasn't even important. Saving her mom was.

Right then she knew exactly what Mario had meant by her weakness. Love.

Weakness or not, it was the only thing worth dying for.

* * *

She followed the coast past Galveston, to the next little island. The moon hung in the dark sky, round and bright. The sound of ocean moved with the wind and carried Kylie closer. She found the street where John's beach house should be, and as she moved lower to the ground the sword grew brighter. When she came up to a large yellow house on stilts with an eight-foot-high block gate around the property, she instinctively knew she'd found it. She noted the house backed up the beach, but they only had a small gate opening up to the sand and ocean. Who bought a house on the beach and then closed it off? Someone afraid of intruders.

The sword seemed to pull her even closer to the property. Hell, maybe she and the sword did speak the same language after all.

Kylie almost landed inside the block fence, but she realized John might have an alarm system that rivaled the one at Shadow Falls.

Heart racing, blood fizzing in her veins, she told herself to slow down and think before taking some action that could get her, or her mom, killed.

Remaining in one spot, she checked out her surroundings. Vegetation was sparse compared to Houston and the hill country area. Palm trees and some large oleander bushes with salmon-colored flowers lined the block fence. She heard voices in the distance. She darted to the black shadow lining the gate, away from the moon's glow, and followed the tall block gate around the property, closer to the voices.Instantly, the sword's light faded as if to keep her from being seen. But her hand holding the sword still felt the weapon's power, its energy.

Around a slight bend, she spotted a side driveway and an iron gate. She moved in quietly until she got to another large oleander bush. Peering through the limbs and leaves she saw two men behind the thick gate sharing a conversation. Guards.

What kind?

She needed to know what she dealt with. Tightening her eyes, she focused on their foreheads- chameleons. But their patterns were murky, almost black.

Evil.

Her breath caught for one second, knowing and accepting just what she was up against.