FOURTEEN

THE GROUND TREMBLED underneath her. That was the first thing Shay became aware of as she awoke from her death sleep.

What was—

Gabriel! Memories of the last moments before dawn raced back into her mind, driving out everything else, any other questions. They were going to kill Gabriel. And there was no way she’d be able to get to him in time to save him.

Her eyes snapped open as she jerked into a sitting position. The ground still trembled, and she felt motion. Shay shook her head, disoriented. She was in a small, dark . . . not room. Car. She was in the backseat of a car with the windows blacked out and a heavy board separating her from the front seat.

Her vampire vision didn’t give her much help, because there wasn’t much to see, but Shay was pretty sure the car was her mom’s immaculate Mercedes. She twisted around and pounded on the board with both fists. It cracked instantly, and Shay jerked her hands back. She really had to try to remember how powerful she was.

“Hang on, Shay. Give me a minute. I’m pulling over,” her mother called. “No more knocking. We’re going to need that board tomorrow night. I hope.” She muttered the last two words, but Shay had no problem hearing them.

The car slowed, veered left, then came to a stop. Her mother yanked free the board that separated the front and back seats. “You did say west, right?” she asked, with a small smile. The smile widened to a grin in response to the expression on Shay’s face.

Shay scrambled into the front seat next to her mother and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I love you, you know that?” she asked as her mother began to drive again.

“I actually do,” Mom said. “There are some bags of blood in the mini-cooler.”

Shay pulled one out and began to drink. “How did you—”

“I know my way around a hospital, remember?” her mother asked.

“But why?” Shay narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t expect you to help.”

Her mother sighed. “After you fell asleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about something Sam told me once. About his mother, his vampire mother, Gret. She’d been dead for ages, but he never stopped missing her.”

Shay’s hand went to the locket around her neck. Gret’s locket.

“Sam said that Gret always chose love and forgiveness, while his father—”

“Ernst,” Shay said.

Mom nodded. “Ernst tended to choose anger. Sam lived his life trying to be like Gret. That’s what he said.” Shay’s mom reached over and took her hand. “And you, you’re just like your father. You think the way he did. The reason he was able to fall in love with me was because he didn’t see all humans as being like the ones who had hurt him. He saw humans as individuals. And he died for it. I couldn’t let that happen again.”

Her mother’s words gave her more strength than the blood entering her body. Mom understood. She really got it.

That joyful thought was followed by a deeply disturbing one. It was incredible that Mom had decided to help. But Gabriel’s family hated her mother, maybe even more than they hated Shay. They saw her mom as the cause of Sam’s death.

“Let’s find a motel for you,” Shay said. “I can take it from here, now that it’s dark. I’ll pick you up on my way home.” If I survive, she silently added.

Her mother shook her head. “I’m getting you where you have to go.”

Shay didn’t have time for a big argument. “Okay, but that’s it. You get me close, and I do the rest.”

“By the way, I don’t really know where we’re going,” her mother told her, not agreeing or disagreeing with Shay’s statement. “I hope you do.”

“Let’s stop for a minute. I need to concentrate on Gabriel and see if I can feel the way. I’m still new at this vampire stuff. I’m not sure if my vampire GPS was telling me to go west for three miles or three hundred.”

“We’ll, I’ve been driving since about noon, so let’s hope we weren’t just supposed to head to the end of our block,” her mom said. She pulled over on the shoulder of the highway.

Shay climbed out, wanting to smell the air, to see the moon. None of it would help her find Gabriel, but somehow she felt better being outside. “Please let this work,” she murmured.

She stood facing the scrub trees that lined the edges of Interstate 80. She smelled raccoons in the woods, pine needles, and a lot of car exhaust. If she concentrated, she could hear voices from the houses in the development on the other side of the woods. She was tired. Exhausted, even though she’d just awoken.

I need Gabriel’s feelings, not my own, she thought. I’ve got to get to Gabriel.

She bit her lip, hard, trying to block out the flood of sensations that filled her with every breath. Her own vampire senses were still a little overwhelming. And the emotions coming from Gabriel were weak.

“There!” she gasped. She’d hardly even registered the fact that she was feeling him. Gabriel’s fatigue seeped through her, and she suddenly understood why she felt so tired—or rather, she realized that she didn’t feel tired. He did.

He’s almost dead.

Shay focused on the weakness, because that was Gabriel. She blocked out her own feelings and concentrated on him. Love. Still love. And sadness. “Resignation,” she whispered. That was the word for it. Gabriel was resigned to dying.

“Fight it,” she told him, as if he could hear. “It’ll make it a hell of a lot easier to track your feelings if they’re stronger.”

She jogged back to the Mercedes and climbed inside.

“We’re going the right way,” she said shakily. “I feel him, and I think I can keep feeling him as we drive. I’m hoping I’ll know if we start to go in the wrong direction. It’s not as if I can get a picture on a map, I just have to follow the emotion. I don’t know how far away we are.”

Her mother nodded and pulled back out onto the road. They drove for a moment in silence. Outside, the highway whipped by in the dark, punctuated by a strip mall here and there. It reminded Shay of driving with Gabriel, back when he was holding her captive, driving through the night toward his family.

That wasn’t a good memory. She’d hated him during that drive. Shay pushed the memory away. She didn’t want to send negative emotions to Gabriel, not when he was so weak.

“So he’s alive?” her mother asked after a moment.

“Yes.” Gabriel wasn’t in pain, at least not right now. That made Shay feel better. And he was still pulsing out love—love for her, she was sure of it—although she could feel panic shimmering around the edges. I’m coming, she thought. I’ll be there in time, I promise.

“I guess they weren’t killing him, then,” Mom said. “Or he’d be dead.”

“They don’t do it quickly,” Shay replied, not wanting to tell her mother too much about the horrible way Sam had died. She felt sure they were killing Gabriel the same way. “It’s a ritual.”

“Oh.” Her mother began to knead the steering wheel with her fingernails. Shay knew she was thinking about Sam.

“How’d you even think to do all this?” she asked, trying to take Mom’s mind off it. “The windows and the barrier?”

Her mother glanced at her in surprise, and then she laughed. “I used to date a vampire, remember?” she said. Shay heard her mother’s heart beat a little faster, and the scent of blood grew a little stronger as her mother blushed. “Where do you think you were conceived, anyway?”

“Oh, that is just TMI,” Shay cried, covering her ears in mock horror. But she laughed too. For so many years, when Shay was so sick that she could hardly ever make it to school, her mom had been pretty much her best friend. Shay had lost that feeling somewhere along the way. It had gotten buried in the resentment of her mother trying to control her—even if the control had been all about wanting to keep her alive longer. But now that best-friend feeling was back.

“So what’s the plan, besides getting there?” her mother asked. She ripped open a bag of BBQ-flavored corn nuts and dumped some directly into her mouth.

“The plan is to stop the other vampires from killing Gabriel,” Shay told her. “That’s the only plan I’ve got.”

Shay stared out into the darkness, her gaze reaching for miles. I’m on the way, she thought. And she wasn’t a dying little girl, the way she’d been last time she’d faced his family. She was a vampire too.

A vampire who would be outnumbered four to one. Shay had no clue what she should do when they reached the vampires, but she was leaving with Gabriel. Either that, or they’d have to kill her.

It was time. They were coming. To drink the rest of the life out of him. Gabriel hadn’t cared before. He’d wanted it. He’d wanted the release and sweet oblivion of death because he didn’t believe there was anything to live for.

But now . . . Shay. Something had changed in her emotions. There was worry, fear even. She’d been afraid on and off ever since she became a vampire, but this was different. She wasn’t afraid of something that was happening in her life. She was afraid for him. Gabriel could tell the difference—there was a tinge of horror along with the worry, and a strong sense of urgency. She didn’t hate him. She was worried about him.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Gabriel want, suddenly, to live.

Gabriel strained against the bindings that held him to the ground. His arms and legs trembled with the effort. There was no escaping. There was no hope for survival.

And they were coming in. Ernst leading the way into the scorched circle. No Millie, Gabriel realized. Fear for her rippled through him. What price would she have to pay for standing against Ernst on his behalf? He searched the family’s communion for her. The mix of grief, anxiety, and fear he found didn’t tell him anything other than that she lived. Were they holding her prisoner?

“Tonight this ends,” Ernst announced, pulling Gabriel out of his thoughts. “I will drink until I feel his life force begin to flicker. Then we will all drink together, sharing in the moment of Gabriel’s death.”

“All?” Tamara asked. “I don’t see Millie. She’s still a part of this family, isn’t she?”

So angry. Was she always this angry, and being with Richard just calmed her? Gabriel wondered. Ever since his death, Tamara had been filled with rage. Most of her fury was directed at him, but now it spewed toward Millie, too.

“If Millie doesn’t drink tonight, she is no longer one of us,” Ernst replied. “It will be a hard life for her on her own, but the decision is hers.”

First Sam, then Richard, then me . . . now Millie, Gabriel thought. The entire family will be gone before Ernst realizes the error of his ways.

Gabriel’s stomach clenched as he heard his father walk toward him. Ernst didn’t immediately kneel down. Instead, he stood over Gabriel, staring at him. What is he thinking? Gabriel was simultaneously frustrated by and grateful for the fact that Ernst’s connection to the communion had been severed. He was curious about what Ernst was feeling, but he also didn’t want to spend the last hours of his life awash in the hatred of his father.

Ernst continued to stare at him, looking down into Gabriel’s face. Gabriel forced himself to hold his father’s gaze as the seconds ticked away, away, away. “What are you wai—,” Tamara began, but Luis shushed her before she could finish.

Why the hesitation? Gabriel knew how deeply Ernst believed that any threat to the family must be eliminated. He’d believed it just as passionately once, fervently enough to take Sam’s life.

Finally, Ernst dropped to his knees, landing heavily. “Gabriel,” he said in a whisper. Then, fast as a snake strike, his eyeteeth bit into Gabriel’s throat. Gabriel’s blood went molten as it sped through his veins into Ernst’s waiting mouth.

Memories of his life flickered through Gabriel’s mind, and Ernst was a huge part of almost all of them. Many of the memories were good, but now they brought only pain. Gabriel loved Ernst, even now, even after what Ernst had done to Shay, even after Ernst had handed down a death sentence to him. And Ernst was killing him.

Gabriel was hyper-aware of each vein, each artery, each capillary. They were all throbbing. It was as if they were trying to cling to his blood. Trying uselessly.

I’m dissolving, Gabriel thought woozily. The ground began to do a slow spin underneath him, increasing his dizziness. Then he was free. He’d slid out of his body and was now hovering near the wooden beams of the ceiling.

He could see his body below him, bound to the dirt floor of the cellar. The body spasmed as Ernst continued to drink. Gabriel couldn’t see Ernst’s face—it was still buried in the throat of his body. His body. That thing down there. It didn’t feel like it belonged to him anymore.

Gabriel wondered if he could just leave it behind. Float up, and up, and up, out of the room—and to Shay. All he wanted was to be with Shay.

Ernst raised his lips. A crimson streak ran from one corner of his mouth. “It’s time. Luis, Tamara, join me in taking the last of his lifeblood.”

“Slow down,” Shay told her mom. “Gabriel’s close.”

And he was dying. There was almost nothing left of him in their communion. But love was still there, his love for her. Shay didn’t want to think about what it meant. She wasn’t trying to save Gabriel out of love. She was doing it because it was the right thing to do.

But she was following his love for her. Following it right to him.

Quickly, she finished the remaining blood from the cooler. She would need all her strength and power now.

A sudden spur of pain hit her, making Shay want to yell at her mother to go faster. But that wouldn’t help. They had been winding their way along narrow country roads for the past hour, pulled this way and that by Shay’s communion. She had stopped doubting it now, though. She was certain they were going toward Gabriel. His presence in her mind grew stronger with each mile they covered.

Shay’s mother brought the Mercedes to a creep on the curving dirt road lined with pine trees. The road was so narrow, and the tree branches so long, that it was like driving through a tunnel. Even during the day, Shay couldn’t imagine that much light made its way down.

As they rounded the corner, Shay put her hand on her mom’s arm. “Stop. That has to be it.” About three hundred feet away was an old wooden farmhouse. The feelings she was getting from Gabriel emanated from inside. She was sure of it. “Wait here while I go check it out.” Shay climbed out of the car. So did her mother.

“Mom, no!” Shay whispered.

“You don’t have a plan, not a real one. Which means you might need me,” her mother said.

“But you’re not—”

“I’m not letting you go in there alone is what I’m not,” Mom replied. “I told you, I’m not losing you. I just got you back.”

This was insane. What was her mother going to do against even one vampire? She had no way to fight or even protect herself. She didn’t realize how much they hated her. She—

Shay realized that her mother had started walking toward the house. She quickly caught up to her and took her arm. But the soft sound of a footstep on pine needles caught her attention. Shay whirled toward it. Someone was out here with them!

“Please wait here for just one second, Mom. Just please, okay?” Shay begged. Then she darted between two of the pine trees and into the woods. With her sharp eyes, the darkness wasn’t a problem, but she didn’t see anyone, not even in the distance. She took a tentative step forward. Crack.

The sound of a twig snapping was loud in the quiet of the woods. She looked up and saw Millie perched on one of the branches of a nearby tree. Their eyes locked, then Millie leaped toward her, the motion more like flying than jumping. She landed a few feet in front of Shay.

This is good, Shay told herself. I won’t have to fight them all together. She crouched down, tightening her hands into fists. God, she had all this strength, but no experience. She’d never been in a fight. Wasn’t there something about where you were supposed to put your thumb when you made a fist? Kaz used to tell her about it . . . but was it on the inside or the outside? No time.

Shay hurled herself at Millie, aiming for her knees. That should knock her to the ground.

Instead, Millie grabbed Shay before Shay even managed to touch her and spun her around, locking her hands behind her back.

“I’m going to Gabriel. You can’t stop me,” Shay threatened as Millie held her powerless.

“Fine. I’ll get some blood. If you manage to save him—and, honestly, I don’t think it’s possible—he’ll need it,” Millie answered calmly. She released Shay’s hands.

Shay turned to face her, stunned. “Why would you help me?”

“I don’t want him to die,” Millie said simply. “I don’t want to lose another brother just because he fell in love with someone Ernst doesn’t approve of.” Her body stiffened, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “You’ve got to hurry if you’re going to do this at all.”

Shay realized that almost nothing was coming through the communion from Gabriel. Was he dead? “Where?”

“Cellar,” Millie told her. “Luis, Tamara, and Ernst. I don’t know how you’re—”

Shay didn’t wait for her to finish. She raced toward the house, veering back over to the road because it was even faster.

“Shay!” she heard her mother cry.

“You stay there,” Shay barked at her.

She charged up the porch steps. The door was locked. Not a problem. She stepped back a few paces, then kicked it next to the lock, just as she’d done back at the lab in Tennessee. It worked better this time—she only had to do it once, and she was in.

Shay scanned the room. No stairs. Probably in the kitchen. She found it easily, and—yes!—a door opened to a set of wooden stairs. She clambered down them, taking them three and four at a time, with no idea of what to do when she reached the bottom.

She skidded to a stop when she reached the earthen floor, what she saw freezing her in place. Gabriel, naked, staked to the ground. Ernst drinking from his throat. Luis drinking from his left arm. Tamara drinking from his belly.

“Stop!” she shrieked. All three feeding vampires lifted their heads. For the first time, Shay had a good view of Gabriel’s face. His beautiful eyes were open, but they weren’t chestnut brown anymore. They’d turned almost entirely purple, and they were glazed, staring blankly up at the ceiling. A small smile played about the corners of his lips. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or already dead.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Ernst told her. Tamara and Luis rose to their feet. Ernst stayed in his position at Gabriel’s side. “What did you think would happen, you foolish little girl?”

“I don’t care,” Shay snarled. “I don’t want to be alive without him, and I’m not going to stand here and watch you kill him.” Yeah, good plan, she thought as Ernst sneered. But if she and Mom had delayed even a few minutes longer to gather hawthorn or other weapons, they would have been too late.

“Then we’ll kill you, too. Richard wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for you,” Tamara growled. She seemed eager for more blood.

“No one is killing anyone.”

Shay turned to see her mother on the stairs, and her blood ran cold with fear.

The other vampires stiffened, wary. Luis took a step back, away from the human. But Shay’s mother ignored them all, her eyes only on Ernst. Shay had never seen her so focused.

“You’re Ernst,” her mom said as she took her place at Shay’s side. “Sam’s father. Sam described you well. You—and Gret.”

Ernst let out a hiss at the name of his dead love. He rose to his feet and strode toward Shay’s mother. Instinctively, Shay moved in front of her, but her mom stepped to the side. She didn’t cower from Ernst. She went toward him.

“You have blood on your face,” she snapped. “Gabriel’s blood. He’s your son, and so was Sam. You’re stained with your own child’s blood.”

Ernst gaped at her, stopping in his tracks.

“Gret would hate you for that.” Shay’s mother lifted her chin and glared at him. “You’re killing her children.”

“Don’t you speak of her! You didn’t know her. You can’t say what she would feel,” Ernst bellowed, his voice tight with anger.

“I didn’t have to know her, because Sam did. He told me everything. We told each other everything, before you murdered him,” Shay’s mom retorted. “I know why you started the family. I know why Gret chose to end her life. How can you kill someone for falling in love with a human when you—”

Ernst let out a growl, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

“When you did the same thing,” she continued, raising her voice. “Gret was human when you fell in love with her. She was human when you got her pregnant.”

“That’s not true!” Tamara burst out. “Ernst would never . . .” Her voice trailed off. Shay knew that Tamara could see the truth on Ernst’s face. Just as Shay could. He looked stricken.

“What is she talking about, Ernst?” Luis asked. “You’ve always said there should be no secrets among any of us in the family.”

Shay realized she was holding her breath. Everyone stared at Ernst, even her mother. Shay had never seen Mom so strong before. This small human woman staring down an old and powerful vampire.

Time seemed to stand still.

And then Ernst deflated. His furious expression collapsed into one of grief, and his cold eyes filled with tears. Suddenly, he looked ancient, old and tired. “Gret . . . she lost the baby,” he said.

She got to him, Shay thought. Mom managed to get under his skin.

“She’s telling the truth? There really was a baby?” Luis said, his voice shaking. “A halfblood?”

“An abomination,” Tamara put in, staring at Shay.

“It was . . . it was gruesome. There was so much blood,” Ernst went on. “The baby was dead. I knew it instantly, though Gret kept calling and calling for it. She was getting weaker, paler. I could see her life draining away.”

“So you changed her,” Luis said. “Just the way Gabriel changed—” He didn’t say Shay’s name, just gestured to her.

“Yes,” Ernst answered. “I didn’t even choose to do it, not exactly. I simply acted. There was no choice to be made.”

“But she didn’t want it,” Shay’s mother said. “Sam told me she was haunted, always, until she finally went out into the sun.”

“She mourned so deeply for the baby. She . . . she blamed me for giving her life, because it separated them. She would rather have died, so they could move on to heaven together,” Ernst said.

He’s been thinking about this for centuries, Shay realized. I think he’s almost glad that Mom is calling him on it.

“I gave her children the only way I knew how,” Ernst continued. “We took orphans and raised them in our family. Gret loved me . . . she loved Sam. He was our first son.”

Tamara’s lip curled with revulsion. “You were in love with a human.” It didn’t seem as if she had heard anything else.

“Yet you killed Sam,” Shay said. “For doing the same thing you did. You killed your own son.”

Ernst fell back from her as if she had struck him. “After Gret sought the sun, I needed family more than ever. It was all that mattered to me, that I not lose anyone else I loved.”

“You were trying to keep us safe,” Luis said, but his eyes went to Gabriel and his voice shook with emotion. He doesn’t know who is right anymore, Shay thought.

“By killing his own children? That isn’t keeping the family safe,” Shay’s mother protested. She took another step toward Ernst. “You’ve twisted your grief into fear and hatred. Gret loved Sam. You murdered him.”

Ernst gave a wrenching sob. “You’re right. Gret would hate what I’ve done to Gabriel, what I did to Sam—” His voice broke on the name. “Love was the most important thing to her. She fought to stay with me for as long as she could, out of that love. But her love for the baby was stronger. She wanted to die, to be with our little girl.”

“You separated me from my father the same way,” Shay said. “By death. I’ll never know him. And if you’ve killed Gabriel, too . . .”

She turned her back on Ernst. He didn’t seem like a threat to her mother anymore. He seemed broken. Her eyes went to Gabriel. So still. That same small smile on his face. She left Ernst behind and went to him, kneeling to remove the chains from his wrists. No one objected. Tamara and Luis were still staring at Ernst.

“You’re okay,” she whispered. “I’m here.” But Gabriel didn’t respond.

“Richard was your son too,” Tamara said to Ernst. “Have you forgotten his death?”

“He died to save me. It should have been the other way around.” Ernst sounded defeated. Devastated. Shay paid no attention. She freed one of Gabriel’s hands and took a moment to stroke his cheek before she moved on to the next binding. She didn’t notice that Millie had arrived with the blood until Millie pressed the bag into her hands.

“Is he already . . . ?”

“No.” Shay ripped it open with her teeth, then gently parted Gabriel’s lips and poured the thick red liquid into his mouth. Most of it spilled back out, staining his pale cheeks. Shay pushed down her fear and tried again.

Gabriel’s violet eyes didn’t even blink.

Millie put one hand on Shay’s shoulder. “I don’t feel him anymore.”

Shay focused on their communion with every molecule of her being. He was there. Just a whisper of a whisper of him, but there. “I do.”

I feel him because of his love, she realized. He loves me.

She took some of the blood in her mouth, then leaned down and kissed him, letting the blood run from her body to his. It was as close as she could get to letting him feed from her.

“Shay. It’s too late,” her mother said. Shay looked up and saw Mom, Ernst, and Luis standing near her. Tamara hovered in the background. She took a step toward them, then backed up.

“He’s still here. I can feel him,” Shay insisted.

“No. He’s gone. I killed him,” Ernst said, his face ashen.

Shay shook her head. She gazed at Gabriel’s face. There was no flicker of life. No recognition. “Come back to me. I love you, Gabriel. I love you,” she told him, realizing it was true. No matter what he’d done, she loved him.

But his face remained expressionless, his body motionless.

Shay swallowed down the lump in her throat. How could she lose him now, when she’d finally figured out how she felt? She wanted to have a life with him, but instead, she faced an eternity of life without him.

Millie let out a sob.

Shay felt numb for a moment. She’d done everything she could, but Gabriel had suffered the same fate as her father. Dying for love. And Gabriel would never even know that she’d come back, that she loved him. He would die thinking she detested him.

“Gabriel,” she whispered, leaning down to his ear. There was something Gabriel needed even more than her love. “Can you still hear me? I understand how afraid you were for your family. I know that’s why you told Ernst about Sam and my mom. And I forgive you. I forgive you, and I love you so much.” She kissed him again.

Tears fell from her eyelashes down onto Gabriel. Tears of absolute joy. He was kissing her back. The movement of his lips was faint, but Gabriel was definitely alive. “Drink,” she murmured against his mouth. She pulled away ever so slightly. “I need you to drink all of this.” She tipped the blood from the bag into his mouth, and this time his throat spasmed.

“He’s taking it,” Ernst said. His voice sounded . . . reverent. As if he’d witnessed a miracle.

“And now what?” Tamara demanded, arms crossed. Her voice sounded harsh in the hushed room. “Is she going to bring Richard back from the dead too? And what about that woman?” She jerked her chin toward Shay’s mom. “She’s the one who started this all. Without her, Richard wouldn’t be dead. We’d all still be a family, Richard, Sam, Gabriel, all of us.”

“She didn’t kill Richard. Gabriel didn’t kill Richard. Shay didn’t either.”

The words stunned Shay. It was the first time Ernst had spoken her name.

“That man did. Martin,” Ernst continued, still staring at Gabriel.

“I’m sorry. I’m the one who told him about your kind,” Shay’s mother said. “I wanted to save Shay. I didn’t know what kind of man Martin really was.” She turned to Tamara. “I’m sorry.”

Tamara hissed in reply. Lightning fast, Luis reached out and grabbed her by the arm. Tamara spun toward him, fighting to free herself.

“You won’t attack the human,” Luis told her, holding tight. “There will be no more killing here tonight.”

Tamara stopped struggling, but her eyes went back to Shay’s mother, and they were filled with fury. Luis didn’t release her arm, and Shay felt a burst of gratitude toward him.

“That bag is gone,” Millie said, pulling Shay’s attention back to Gabriel.

As Gabriel drained the bag, Millie handed Shay another one. Gabriel still hadn’t registered her presence. She wasn’t even sure he saw the room around him. But he was coming back to her with every swallow of the blood.

Gabriel’s eyelids fluttered, then closed for a moment. When they opened, he looked at Shay, his eyes clear and filled with love for her. “Shay. I hoped when I died I would get to see you again.”

“You aren’t dead,” Shay told him. “Neither am I.”

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “About Sam. It’s the biggest regret of my life.”

“I know.”

“That was my fault,” Ernst put in. “I was the head of the family. I—”

“No.” Gabriel tried to push himself into a seated position. Millie had undone the rest of the ties that bound him to the stakes. Still, he had to lie back down. He was too weak to hold himself upright. “I was an adult. I’d been an adult for hundreds of years. It was my responsibility to do what I believed.” He reached up and squeezed Millie’s hand. “The way you did,” he told her.

With his free hand, he ran his fingers down the side of Shay’s face, brushing away tears. “And you. You came back for me. After everything.”

“I couldn’t let the same thing happen again,” she said. “Love isn’t supposed to be so tragic.”

He smiled at her. “You really are so much like Sam. He forgave me too—with his last breath, he told me that.”

“My mom—,” Shay began.

The sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs interrupted her.

Before Shay could even turn all the way around, Martin barged into the cellar. A trio of huge, unsavory-looking guys came down the steps behind him. Unlike Shay and her mother, they’d come prepared. They each held a tranq gun, and Shay was sure the guns were loaded with hawthorn.