“A month ago, I would have agreed with you. But Mick explained a few things to me. Including what his reaction to you at the wedding meant. The concept of mates.” Father comes to stand in front of me, one hand clasping my shoulder. “Your usefulness truly knows no bounds.”

“You are unbelievable.” I shake his touch away, disgusted.

“Am I?”

“Yes. And mistaken.” I lean forward, taunting him, suddenly powerful in the heartbreaking knowledge that he’s wrong. “I’m not Lowe’s mate. Whatever leverage you think you have, it’s not—”

“Is she not, Lowe?” Father asks, suddenly louder. He’s still holding my eyes. “Your mate?”

I stare back, waiting for Lowe’s answer, waiting to see the disappointment in my father’s eyes. Hoping it’ll make the one I experienced earlier tonight less bitter. But time ticks on by. And Lowe’s reply just temporizes, hangs back, hesitates, and never comes.

When I turn to him, he’s at once blank and profoundly, indelibly sad.

“Tell him,” I order. But he still doesn’t speak, and it feels like a slap to my face. My lungs seize, and suddenly I cannot breathe. “Tell him the truth,” I whisper to him.

Lowe runs his tongue over the inside of his cheek, and then presses his lips together in a small, sad smile.

Something inside me trembles.

“Now that it’s settled,” Father says dryly. “Lowe, Mick informs me that no one but you knows where Liliana is hidden. I want her—don’t worry, not to dispose of her. Just like I didn’t dispose of Miss Paris when I had the opportunity.” He stops to give Serena a small smile, as if expecting gratitude. I envision her spitting on him and being promptly murdered by three enforcers. “All I want is assurance that Humans and Weres won’t join forces against the Vampyres. And that starts with not giving them a reason to believe they’re more similar and compatible than they thought.” Father turns to Lowe one last time. “Make arrangements to hand over your sister.”

Lowe nods slowly. And then asks with a genuinely curious tone, “And I would do that, because . . . ?”

“Because your mate will request it.”

Lowe exhales a silent laugh. “You know my mate very little, if you really think she would request anything like that.”

Lowe doesn’t get a verbal response. Instead Father reaches forward. He moves so fast, the air shifts with momentum, and the next instant something cold, shiny, and very sharp appears next to my neck.

He’s holding one of Vania’s knives. To my throat.

Lowe, Owen, Serena—even Mick, they all attempt to reach for me, but are restrained by Father’s enforcers, and when the tip of the blade grazes my skin they stop at once, with equally terrified expressions on their faces. The silence that follows is overstrung, filled by loud heartbeats and heavy breathing.

“No,” Father says calmly. The hand holding the knife is steady. “In normal conditions, she wouldn’t ask. But what if she had to choose between her life or Liliana’s future? What then?”

“He’s bluffing. He’s not going to kill me,” I tell Lowe, hoping to reassure him.

He remains expressionless, and certainly doesn’t seem relieved. The opposite, perhaps. I wonder if he already knows what’s to come.

“Won’t I? I did have you poisoned. Oh, don’t make that face. Yes, the poison was for you. I was hoping that the pain of losing a mate would distract Lowe enough for me to take Liliana. But Mick mixed up the doses, didn’t he? It made me angry enough to take it out on his son. And after that, Lowe was smarter than to trust anyone.” He moves even closer, his eyes a dark purple that’s nearly blue. Whatever was left inside me that bound me to my family, already cracked and battered, finally splinters. “I have sacrificed you before, and I will do it again,” my father tells me. There is no remorse in him. No conflict. “For the good of the Vampyres, I will not hesitate.”

I laugh, full off disdain. “What a fucking coward you are.” I should feel cornered, but I’m just angry. Angry on behalf of Ana and Serena. Of myself. Angrier than I thought possible.

And then there’s Lowe, and the way he’s looking at me. His calm fear, like he knows that nothing about this could ever end well. Like he’s not certain what he’ll do with himself afterward.

I’m sorry, Lowe.

I wish we had more time.

“Watch your language,” Father admonishes lazily. The blade nicks my skin. The single purple drop of blood sliding down my neck has Lowe thrashing to free himself, but the restraints Owen put on him hold.

“You love to purchase the good of the Vampyres by paying with the lives of others, don’t you?” I taunt Father. “Only a coward would put others in front of himself.”

“I will leverage what I can.”

“Well, I won’t. I’m not going to ask Lowe to choose me over his sister.”

“But there is no need, is there?” Father turns to Lowe. “What do you think, Alpha? Should I murder her in front of your eyes? I hear that Weres who lose their mates can sometimes go insane. That there is no greater pain,” he adds with relish.

Don’t be in pain, I think, staring him in the eyes over the glint of the blade. Whatever happens, don’t be in pain over me. Just be with Ana, and draw, and go on your runs, and maybe think of me sometimes when you eat peanut butter, but don’t be in—

“Misery,” Serena’s voice interrupts my thoughts. And then she says something else, something garbled and nonsensical that my brain takes a second to untangle. The enforcers look at each other, equally confused. Father frowns. Owen tilts his head, curious.

But she’s not speaking in tongues. There are real words.

“He’s wrong.” That’s what Serena said. In our secret alphabet.

Without looking away from Lowe, I ask, “About what?”

“About whether I can shift.”

I don’t immediately understand. But the corner of my eye catches a burst of movement. Her hand. No—her fingers.

Suddenly, her nails are long.

Unnaturally long.

Newly long.

I take a deep breath, mind racing. “Very well, Father,” I say. I hold Lowe’s gaze, hoping he’ll get this. “Since you’re going to have to kill me, if I may have some last words with my mate.”

I swallow. Lowe’s several steps away from me, and his eyes are . . . It’s impossible to describe them. Not with words.

“Lowe. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. And I would never ask you to put Ana before me.” My voice is little more than a whisper. “And if you ever put someone else before her, I’d love you a little less. But when you see her next, since I probably won’t, will you give her a message from me? Tell her that she’s as annoying as Sparkles. And that . . . that thing she isn’t able to do? She shouldn’t be sad about it. Because she’ll grow into it. And she’ll definitely be able to do it by the time she’s twenty-five or so.”

Lowe stares at me, confused—until the meaning clicks for him. His eyes dart from mine to Serena’s, and I wish I had time to savor how incredibly wrong, and fucked up, and just odd this is: the two people who make up my entire universe, meeting under these ridiculous circumstances.

I hope one day the three of us will be able to laugh about this moment. I hope this is not the end. I hope that even if I’m not around, the two of them will be there for each other. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Serena nods.

Lowe nods.

Understanding runs through them like a current.

“Now,” Lowe whispers.

All of a sudden, Owen steps forward. In a lightning-quick moment, Lowe’s restraints are undone, and his body begins to shift. Contort. Merge and turn and transform. I turn to look at Serena and find that she’s doing the same—the perfect, blindsiding distraction that none of the guards saw coming. Nor Vania. Nor Father.

“What are you—” he only has the time to say.