Page 103 of The Girl in the Forest

Then I thought about Mosbach, sitting on a darkened deck. Offering to give the catalyst to the vampires, to the arsonists who sat back during the pack wars, picking winners and losers.

Perhaps it was time for the arsonists to burn.

“You see nothing wrong with what you do.”

“Why should we?” Barend’s shrug was elegant. “As I’ve said, we have need of a faille. We had one. Now we have two, although the first one’s pinned to the floor and isn’t much use to me.”

Laughter floated from the women still comparing the various shades of red.

“You’ve been buying girls.”

“Expediency,” he agreed.

I thought about his earlier irritation toward Set. She’d challenged him over creating an equal—a rival.

Then the pattern traced back to vampires who knew more about an ancient queen than they let on.

“Who is Amal?”

“Ah.” Light glittered in Barend’s eyes. “Amal is one of the originals. She is the blood queen who hunts you.”

I couldn’t do more than ask, “A… hybrid?”

“Yes.”

My mouth dried. I hadn’t expected him to be so honest. Admit what the vampires did… turned a queen… made her immortal. A woman who hated kings and their descendants.

Who hated Grayson.

“She believes she’s still a rightful queen,” Baren said. “She’ll take what belongs to her. Take it back from the wolves who betrayed her centuries ago. From the humans who have invaded her world.”

“You turned her?”

“Not me, personally. I’m not that old.” Barend’s amusement sickened me. “One of the original sires turned her, months after the great cleansing. Her king had stripped away her wolf, beat her. Left her for dead. A sire found her shivering, nearly frozen in the snow. Injured, dying. She pleaded for his help. He obliged. A queen, even stripped of her wolf the way Amal was, proved too powerful to resist. She became even more powerful as a hybrid. The perfect weapon.”

“Did she want to be your weapon?”

“Not at first.”

But her alternative had been dying—had Amal even realized she was asking a vampire for help? Had he never given her a choice?

“You created a monster.”

“Not intentionally.” The vampire shrugged. “She was an asset until she grew resentful. We lost track of her, but she has reemerged, and we find ourselves needing a… counterbalance.”

“You want me to be that counterbalance?” I asked, while my mind spun with a strange sympathy for Amal. Used poorly by her king. Then used by the vampires.

What happened to the part of her who ran free in the forest? Who laughed, or wanted children? Love?

“You will do it,” Barend said. “Or the girl on the floor behind you will, since she still belongs to us.”

Sweat stung in the damaged runes on my spine. “She’s a child.”

“Then protect her,” he countered. “Take her place.”

I thought it better if I didn’t answer.

Barend spread his hands while his smile thinned. “We offer the gift of our sires. The same gift that runs through our blood.”

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