Because no one cared whether I was safe, or healthy, or alive. No one but Serena. The sister of my heart, if not of my blood. And even though I’d been plenty alone, I’d never felt so lonely as after she was gone.

I wished I could cry. I wished for lacrimal ducts to let out this horrible terror that she’d left forever, that she’d been taken, that she was in pain, that it was my fault and I’d driven her away with our last conversation. Unfortunately, biology was not on my side. So I worked through my feelings by going to her place and taking care of her damn fucking cat, who showed his gratitude by scratching me every single day.

And, of course, by looking for her where I shouldn’t have.

I had the keys, after all. Because the key to everything is but a line of code. I was able to rifle through her bank statements, IP addresses, cell phone locations. Herald emails, metadata, app usage. Serena was a journalist, one who wrote about delicate financial stuff, and the most likely option was that she’d gotten embroiled in something fishy while working on a story, but I wasn’t going to exclude other possibilities. So I went through everything, and found . . . nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Serena’s poof had been quite literal. But one cannot move in the world without leaving digital traces, which could only mean one thing. One terrible, blood-curdling thing that I couldn’t even put into words in the privacy of my own head.

And that’s when I did it: I kneeled in front of Serena’s damn fucking cat. He was playing like he always did after dinner, pawing at a crumpled receipt in a corner of the living room, but managed to squeeze a couple of hisses into his busy schedule just for me. “Listen.” I swallowed. Rubbed my hand on my chest and then even slapped it, trying to dull the ache. “I know you only knew her for a few days, but I really, really . . .” I scrunched my eyes shut. Oh fuck, this was hard. “I don’t know how it happened, but I think that Serena might be . . .”

I opened my eyes, because I owed it to this asshole cat to look at him. And that’s when I got a good view of it.

The receipt, which wasn’t a balled-up receipt at all. It was a piece of paper torn from a journal, or perhaps a notebook, or—no. A planner. Serena’s incredibly outdated planner.

The page was for the day of her disappearance. And there was a string of letters on it, written quickly in black marker. Gibberish.

Or maybe not quite. A distant bell rang, reminding me of a game Serena and I used to play as kids, a primitive substitution cipher we made up to gossip freely in front of our caregivers. We’d named it the butterfly alphabet, and it mostly consisted of adding b- and f- syllables to normal words. Nothing complicated: even rusty as I was, it took my brain only a few seconds to untangle it. And once I was done, I had something. I had three whole words:

L. E. MORELAND

CHAPTER 4

They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

Sporadic bouts of teenage idiocy notwithstanding, I doubt a Vampyre has been in Were territory for centuries.

I felt it in my bones last night, as my driver sank farther past the river. Serena’s damn cat fidgeted in the carrier next to me, and I knew that I was really, truly alone. Being with the Humans was like living in a different country, but here? Another galaxy. Deep space exploration.

The house I was brought to is built on a lake, surrounded by thick, gnarly trees on three sides and placid water on the remaining one. Nothing cave-like or underground, despite what I’d have imagined from a wolf-related species, and yet odd nonetheless, with its warm materials and large windows. Like the Weres teamed up with the landscape and decided to build something beautiful together. It’s a bit jarring, especially after spending the last six weeks shuttling between the sterility of Vampyre territory and the crowded bustle of the Humans. Avoiding the sunlight is going to be an issue, and so is the fact that the temperature is kept considerably lower than is comfortable for Vampyres. I can deal with that, though. What I was really bracing myself for was . . .

In my third year as the Collateral, at a diplomatic dinner, I was introduced to an elderly matron. She was wearing a sequined dress, and when she lifted her hand to pinch my cheeks, I noticed that her antique bracelet was made of very unusually shaped, very pretty pearls.

They were fangs. Pulled from the corpses of Vampyres—or live ones, for all I know.

I didn’t scream, or cry, or attack that old hag. I was paralyzed, unable to function properly for the rest of the night, and only started processing what had happened when I got home and told Serena, who was furious on my behalf and demanded a promise from the caregiver on shift: that I would never be forced to attend a similar function again.

I was, of course. Many, many times, and I encountered many, many people who acted like that sparkly bitch. Because the bracelets, the necklaces, the vials of blood, were nothing but messages. Displays of discontentment for an alliance that, while long established, in many pockets of the population was still controversial.

I expected something even worse from the Weres. I wouldn’t have been shocked to see five of us impaled in the yard, slowly bleeding to death. No such thing, though. Just a bunch of sycamores, and the flutter of my new friend Alex’s rabbity heartbeat.

Oh, Alex.

“I know I said this is Lowe’s house, but he’s the Alpha, which means that lots of pack members come and go, and his seconds who live in the area are, um, pretty much always here,” he says, walking me through the kitchen. He’s young, and cute, and wears khaki pants with an improbable number of pockets. When I met Juno earlier today, she clearly wanted to shove me under a giant magnifying glass and burn me alive, but Alex is just terrified at the idea of showing a Vampyre around her new accommodations. And yet, he’s rising to the occasion: running a hand through his mop of light hair to let me know that “There have been, um, suggestions, that you might want to store your, um . . . things in the other fridge over there. So if you please could . . . If it were possible . . . If it isn’t a bother . . .”

I end his suffering. “Don’t keep my gory blood bags next to the mayo jar. Got it.”

“Yes, thank you.” He nearly slumps in relief. “And, um, there are no blood banks that cater to Vampyres in the area, because, well—”

“Any Vamps in the area would be swiftly exterminated?”

“Precisely. Wait, no. No, that’s not what I—”

“I was kidding.”

“Oh.” He pulls back from the verge of a heart attack. “So, there are no banks, and you’re obviously not at liberty to just walk in and out of our territory—”

“I’m not?” I gasp, and instantly feel guilty when he takes a step back and fingers his collar. “Sorry. Another joke.” I wish I could smile reassuringly at him. Without looking like I’m about to butcher everything that he holds dear, that is.