Page 70 of Vampire's Hearth

“My mother wants to find the vampire so his power doesn’t grow. She’ll finish this. She’ll finish them all,” hissed my cousin.

“But without the Cure... We were guided to the lineage for a reason. We were guided to the O’Cillians and to Mac for areason.” I felt the crackle of power in my fingertips. “Our path is to understand what that reason is.”

Lyra’s expression hardened. “You really think we’re going to trust him? One of them?” Her voice dripped with contempt as she spit out the words.

Fury boiled beneath my skin, and magic hardened my spine, a heat surging up my forearms. I had to fight the urge to unleash it as my breath quickened in anger. I closed my eyes as my hands balled into fists again, filling my lungs with air before looking at her. “I’d trust him over you any day.”

For a moment, there was a flicker of something in Lyra’s eyes—surprise, maybe even doubt—but she quickly masked it with a sneer. Her voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “You’re going to regret those words, Aurora.”

Without another word, I brushed past her, heading for the door. Lyra stepped back, her gaze filled with ice. Jade followed me, glancing over her shoulder at Lyra as we stepped inside the house.

Once inside, my anger boiled over. I slammed the door shut behind us, my hands trembling with the effort to keep control, my breathing ragged.

Jade looked at me, her eyes pleading. “Does the coven really exist to protect the Cure?” Jade asked softly, softer than usual, sitting down on the edge of the couch.

I let out a shaky sigh and leaned against the door, the adrenaline seeping from my veins, leaving a hollow ache in its place. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Mac says we do. I can’t let Lyra get into my head. We need to focus on what’s important—finding the Cure and protecting him. After that, we can figure out how to restore the balance between the hunters and the vampires.” I rubbed my temples, trying to keep focus.

Jade nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in thought. “Do you trust him?”

I stopped pacing and looked at her, my chest tightening. “Yes. I trust him. I have to.” My voice cracked as I spoke. My fingers went to my pendulum, my hand falling over the lynx, a calm in my chest. It wasn’t just love. It was something more, something unspoken that I couldn’t comprehend.

I sat next to her on the couch as she struggled to mask the worry etched into the lines around her eyes with a small, reassuring smile. “Then that’s all that matters.” She wrapped her arms around me in a warm, steady embrace that reminded me I wasn’t alone, regardless of how loudly the chaos screamed inside me.

As I laid my head on her shoulder, settling into her embrace, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was spiraling out of control. The secrets, the lies, and the looming threat of whatever Lyra’s mother was planning were all becoming too much. But there was no turning back now. Conall and his family needed me to keep the balance of power. The Cure needed my protection. And Mac needed me.

Or so I hoped.

Cormac

Hours had passed, though I wasn’t sure how many. Near darkness loomed around me, the quarter moon throwing a faint light across the pale grass. The air in the plantation’s vast forest was heavy with the lingering sweetness of rotting leaves and damp earth. Each step I took stirred the ground beneath me, releasing a musk that clung to my senses. I came to the old barn marveling at how unchanged it appeared. What was it now that the plantation no longer needed the animals that had once been housed there?

A cool breeze rustled the leaves, but it did little to chase away the heat of the night. I emerged into the clearing where it had all happened. The power of the coven radiated through the ground. This must be where they still held their rituals. The treesencircling it had grown thicker, their branches weaving together in an impenetrable border. I could almost see my brothers and me standing there once again, the light between us—blinding, consuming—something far more than just the glow of the moon. A shiver coursed through me, a memory crawling up from the depths of my mind. Something had happened that night—something I didn’t understand then and still didn’t. The ground beneath my feet felt different now, firmer, as if the earth had closed over a secret it didn’t intend to share. But eventually, I would need to uncover it.

For now, though, I had a more immediate problem. I pulled my phone from my pocket. I dialed Conall’s number, not caring about the time difference. My knuckles turned a sharper shade of white as I gripped the phone against my ear.

“Hello?” His voice was cheerful, and it annoyed me how light-hearted he sounded.

“Still at the manor?” I asked, skipping past pleasantries. I paced the clearing, stopping to kick at a ring of grass that had been burned in the past few weeks.

“Haven’t gone anywhere. Haven’t heard from anyone.”

I lowered my voice. “I may have run into a problem.”

“Great. What now?” Conall’s voice sharpened, amusement turning to attention.

“A vampire. Hunting. In Savannah.”

He laughed, and I could almost hear his grin. “And that’s a problem because?”

“I was lured there with a text,” I said, glancing at the dark tree line. “They left a body with obvious puncture wounds.”

Conall’s tone shifted. “Shit. Who would even have the number?”

I rubbed the back of my neck as I gazed at nothing on the ground. “I don’t know. Do we know who’s running Savannah these days?”

Silence hung in the air before Conall replied. “I don’t. Mother was the one who kept track of that.”

I nodded, more to myself than to him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I try to stay out of vampire politics, but sometimes they come knocking whether or not you’re ready.” I had once known the politics of our kind as well as my parents until that damn arrow punctured my brother’s chest. From then forward, Aiden reveled in the political game as I tried to keep his madness in check.

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