“If you would just allow me to –”

  I kicked him under the chin and scrambled out of the room. I had to leave the phone behind. I had no idea where I was going. At least I had him recorded about what happened to Jon, about what he did to Jon and Jon’s men.

  I managed to get out of the bedroom before I heard my grandfather run after me. For an older man, he moved much faster than I would have expected. I had to give him credit for the way he took care of himself, even in his old age.

  Something cocked.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” he said.

  Slowly, I turned around. I lifted my hands in the air. My grandfather had a gun pointed at me.

  “I want it to be you,” he said, taking one step forward, then the next. “I want my blood to be the face of Project Moonshade. I want everyone to know I’m willing to make personal sacrifices. It’s not just what this country can do for me. It’s what I can do for this country. What can I give. What can I sacrifice. If I’m willing to kill Marines, why wouldn’t I be willing to inject the serum inside of you?”

  “It was never about Jon, was it?” I asked. “You were always after me. You want your family name on this so you can get even more of the glory.”

  My grandfather smirked again. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “I would have put down the dog no matter what.”

  I felt like such an ass. How could I have possibly believed a word he said, that he would be willing to consider curing Jon? Jon knew the whole time, while I let the thought of family, of how much Richard believed in his father, cloud my judgment.

  This was my fault.

  And I had to fix it.

  “I…I wanted to believe you,” I said.

  “I know you did,” my grandfather said. “You believe in goodness. And I’m hoping that, once you see that what I’m trying to do is for the good of us all, you’ll voluntarily come over to my side.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “You want to kill Jon. I don’t care if killing Jon saves a hundred lives, I would never ever want that.”

  My grandfather scoffed. “You are just like that damned uncle of yours,” he growled. “Too altruistic for his own good. Sacrifices must be made in order to perfect something. What is so damn difficult for you to see?” He waved the gun at me. “Now, come here.”

  I knew I had to do something. I knew he couldn’t kill me, not if I was going to be his prize.

  Which meant I had to do something about it. I had to take a chance or I would be injected. Jon would be killed. And things would unfold in the worst of ways.

  My heart tremored.

  I had to kill him.

  I didn’t know if I had it in me to kill anyone, let alone the only blood family I had alive. He was a monster, but he was still my grandfather.

  Except, could I make that argument? I didn’t even know him. I didn’t know him before this, before he turned into what he was the way Richard did. There was no excuse for me to pause. Because Jon had been right. I lived too much for other people. I lived too much in the past.

  I couldn’t do that anymore.

  “Well?” My grandfather waved the gun at me once more. “Come over here. Now.”

  My eyes narrowed in on the gun.

  I realized, with such sharp clarity it hurt, what I had to do.

  I didn’t think I could.

  I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to kill him. If I did, wouldn’t that make me him? I’d be making a sacrifice for the good of others. I would be killing someone. Wasn’t that God’s job? I couldn’t…

  I began to walk towards him. Every muscle was stiff as I made my way around the couch to him.

  And then I heard the sound of the car pull up to the driveway. I heard the car door slam shut. Unless that was my grandfather’s men – which I doubted, considering he seemed surprised by the sound as he turned to look – I realized this was my chance. For some reason, Jon had come back, and if I didn’t take this chance, they were at risk. Because I knew my grandfather would put them down without hesitation.

  I reached for the gun just as the door opened. I grabbed at it, trying to wrestle it from my grandfather. He was distracted, and I almost managed to do it –

  And then a shot went off.

  Jon immediately roared.

  I didn’t even know what happened. I knew I gripped the barrel of the gun. I knew that I didn’t feel any pain – but that didn’t mean I wasn’t hurt. Adrenaline coursed through my body and could be masking it.

  Jon appeared, seemingly from nowhere. He got in between me and my grandfather. One paw raised up and pressed down on my grandfather’s chest. It was only then that I realized he was the one who had been shot.

  My eyes widened. I looked down at my hands. The metal barrel touching my skin finally registered. It burned since firing the shot, and I immediately released my hands, only to realize both hands had held onto the gun. One finger managed to squeeze the trigger. Somehow, the gun had been pointed at him. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to have wrestled it away from him, but I must have caught him by surprise to the point where I was able to take advantage of him.

  I shot my grandfather.

  I shot my grandfather.

  I immediately pushed Jon aside. He was in his Lycan form, and I knew I also wasn’t strong enough to move him. He must have assessed the situation and deemed it safe enough to move.

  And when he did, I fixed my eyes on my grandfather, and I knew he was going to die.

  I should have felt guilty. Killing someone, even accidentally, should be something I should have no part in. But the guilt never came. If anything, relief swept over my body.

  It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.

  That was the only thing I kept repeating in my head over and over again. It wasn’t me.

  My grandfather clutched his stomach. Blood oozed from the wound, over his hand. His white t-shirt was stained red.

  “Grandpa?” I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to address him in this way.

  His periwinkle blue eyes flashed into mine. I could see the pain in there. No regret. Why would there be? He didn’t think he had done anything wrong. He took a chance and he lost. That was the end of this whole thing.

  “You’ll never…” He coughed, blood flickering on my shirt, my skin. I ignored it for the time being. “You’ll never…”

  The door opened and in dashed Robby and Gwen.

  “I told you he was here,” Gwen called to Robby.

  I didn’t even look at them, but their footsteps stomped on the floor, over to where I was. I was certain Jon was still behind me, protecting me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my grandfather. I knew he was dying, and I felt compelled to wait. To watch until he finally stopped altogether.

  “You’ll never be free,” he finally said.

  Jon growled in a low, quiet manner. It was as though he didn’t like hearing what my grandfather said, but out of respect to me, he didn’t make it a point to disagree loudly.

  “I’m sorry you think that,” I said. I leaned forward so I could cup his cheek in my hand. How desperately I had wanted to know this man, to understand him. How desperately I wanted to consider him family. But this man was a stranger, and that was all he was ever going to be. He didn’t care about me or Richard. He might have cared about my mother, but I didn’t even understand her or how she fit into this besides his claim that she worked for him. But it didn’t matter. What mattered now was starting over, was taking control of my life and finally living it for myself. “You’re finally free, Grandpa. Rest, now. I won’t leave you until you’re gone.”

  His eyes widened at that, like he was surprised I had any compassion for him. After everything he did, after all those he killed to further his agenda, I didn’t have compassion for him. I pitied him.

  As someone who believed in God, I tried to live my life the way that was reflected in The Bible. But I knew that the presence of God didn’t dictate a worthy life, an unhappy life, or anything else. We did that. My grandfather didn’t believe in God unless he got to pretend to be God. That was what he lived for. He thought the safety of his country drove him, but it didn’t. His own pride did. He wanted to be responsible for that safety, and he didn’t care who he sacrificed in order to achieve that.

  And now, he was gone.

  I dropped my hand from his face only to grab his hand and hold it. I was surprised Jon hadn’t tried to stop me or Robby hadn’t made a smartass comment. The cabin was silent, save for my grandfather’s labored breathing.

  I watched as his skin turned sallow, as pain flickered across his face each time he sucked in air. I didn’t tell him I loved him. I didn’t tell him I forgave him. I wasn’t going to lie to him to make him feel better.

  Slowly, his eyes closed completely.

  And then, his breathing stopped altogether.

  A moment passed, then another.

  “We gotta go,” Robby said. “I can’t believe Gwen was right to come back. I mean, there weren't any tracks. The dog must have smelled something.” He rushed to the bedroom while I dropped my grandfather’s hand.

  I stepped back.

  “May I?” Gwen asked politely, gesturing to my grandfather.

  I nodded even though I had no idea what she could possibly want to do with his body.

  I stepped back. Suddenly, my legs wanted to give out. I nearly collapsed but Jon was there, easing me to the couch. I should be crying, right? This was finally over. My grandfather was dead. This was over.

  But the tears didn’t come.

  “Lara.”

  I glanced up at Robby, who held the laptop in his hands. “What do you want to do with this?”

  I suddenly remembered my phone and I rushed into the bedroom. My phone somehow still had some battery, was still recording.

  “I’m going to finish this article,” I told him, taking the laptop from him. “And then I’m going to put it on my new blog you’re going to set up for me.”

  “And then what?” Robby asked.

  “We’re going to release Alex and the rest of them from that prison.” I looked at Jon. “Then…then we start living.”

  “Lara, there’s something I need to show you.” I was surprised when Gwen stood up with a vial in her hand. She must have gotten it from my grandfather’s body, but why he had it and how she managed to find it, I didn’t know.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “I’ll have to run a couple of tests, but do you see the lavender color?” I nodded. “I would bet that this is Nightshade.”

  I jerked back and glanced at Jon. His eyes stared at my own, but there was no accusation in his gaze. His head cocked to the side, as though he was just as curious as I was as to why my grandfather would have that in the first place.

  “Why…?”

  “I don’t know,” Gwen said, still looking at it. “Unless he knew he couldn’t kill Jon without curing him first. All he would need to do was put this liquid into a vial with a needle attached to it and inject Jon with it. Nightshade would work almost instantly, but the recovery time is just as quick. He would need to have given Jon the serum, watched as Jon transitioned from Lycan to human, and then killed him before Jon could do anything.”

  I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Now what?”

  “Now,” Robby said. “I call in a couple of guys. They clean everything up. And then we figure out what the next step is.”

  Robby’s men were in and out in under an hour. It was like my grandfather had never been here in the first place. Robby would pay them extremely well for their silence, and I knew they must have been people Robby trusted or else he wouldn’t have risked anything. He also hacked into my grandfather’s networks and was able to use the technology there to open the prison cells so anyone could leave should they choose to.

  I was in the room again, typing up the last part of the article. Robby had set me up with an untraceable blog, and it wasn’t long before the article was scheduled to post.

  My grandfather’s death would be noticed, but not publicly. He was supposed to be dead and Project Bloodshade hadn’t gone public yet. If Jon and I could disappear, we might actually be able to live a life.

  I walked out of the room and found Jon on the couch, staring at the vial in his hand. Gwen had managed to conduct a couple of tests with a few drops of the liquid, but she hadn’t officially determined anything yet.

  “Well?” I asked Gwen, glancing at her. She stood behind the bar, hunched over what looked like a cheap microscope. I should be surprised Robby had something like that here, but this was Robby, and he seemed to have everything.

  “I’m almost done,” she said.

  I took a seat next to Jon, careful not to touch him. I closed my eyes and leaned back. My grandfather’s body was gone, like he had never been here in the first place.

  “You came back,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I said it, but it was necessary. I needed to get this out.

  “The air smelled…wrong,” he said. “I needed to make sure you were all right. And Gwen insisted he was here. Her magic is…strange, but reliable.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I trusted him.

  God, I trusted him more than I thought I could trust someone, after everything I found out.

  “It’s Nightshade,” Gwen called from where she stood. “It’s definitely Nightshade.”

  Instead of looking over at her, I looked at Jon. I hoped he didn’t think I was trying to put any pressure on him. He could make whatever decision he wanted to because, at the end of the day, this was his life. It was his body. He had to deal with this.

  But I hoped…

  Jon looked at me. “Can I ingest it orally?” he asked, his eyes never leaving mine.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  I wanted to hope. But then…

  I held my breath.

  I waited.

  I pressed my lips together to make sure I didn’t say anything that might interfere. The choice had to come from him. Even if I thought I knew what was good for Jon, it had to come from him.

  “Yes,” Gwen said as she made her way over. “It doesn’t have to be injected. The transition might come slowly since it’s not being placed directly in your bloodstream, but it’ll still give you the full effect.”

  Jon nodded. I thought he might want to discuss it first. Maybe we could have figured out a pros and cons list. That might have been helpful.

  But without taking his eyes off of me, he brought the vial to his lips and downed the lavender cure. He didn’t even hesitate.

  “What the hell is Winter Haven?” Jon asked as we strode through the snow.

  The home was at the center of five acres, and Robby hadn’t been here in at least a decade. Somehow, everything was pristine, even under the perfect, pure snow.

  “Somewhere in Michigan,” I said, taking in the black sky, the bright stars. “Robby says the population is two thousand, maybe double that during the summer because people from Chicago come in and hang by the lake. But I doubt we’ll be bothered.”

  Jon grunted. I doubted he would ever give Robby credit for doing anything nice for him, even if he had given us one of his rental units completely free.

  We made it to the front door and I slid the key Robby gave us into the lock and let us in.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked as I shut the door behind us. My first priority was turning on the heat and flicking on the lights.

  “You asked me that fifty times,” Jon said. He managed to find the light switch much faster than I did, and he couldn’t see in the dark the way he had anymore. “I’m fine. I promise.”

  “I meant about what happened,” I said. I didn’t add the part where Jon didn’t kill my grandfather. I did. I wasn’t sure if it bothered him that I took that away from him.

  Jon frowned as I fiddled with the heater. The hum of the furnace kicking into gear was a good sign, though.

  Jon pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I’m just glad you’re safe,” he said. “I’m glad the truth is out there, thanks to your blog. And I’m glad that, even after everything, even after the awful things I’ve done, the monster I was, somehow I have this. I have you.”

  I wanted to tell him that God saw him for who he was and knew Jon wasn’t a monster. But Jon still didn’t believe in God and I wasn’t going to push.

  Instead, I gave him a long, lingering kiss.

  My grandfather was a smart man, but he had been wrong about one thing: Jon and I were finally free.

  ***

  Ready to jump into another gritty urban fantasy romance? Consider grabbing a free copy of Awaken, Book 1 in The Dark Paradise Saga. You can grab your copy, available on all major retailers, here, and turn the page for a sneak peek of chapter 1!

  Sneak Peek!

  Awaken

  Prologue

  He knew the moment she arrived in Onyx: she was special. She was different. She was the key.

  Not that she knew it.

  In fact, she didn’t know anything. Her parents brought her here after the accident because Onyx had most of the best doctors in the country. For the past year she had been in a coma. She’d be turning seventeen in a manner of minutes, according to the pocket watch he borrowed from the Ferry.

  He slipped the watch into the pocket of his brown slacks and turned his attention back to her. As clichéd as it sounded, he hadn’t seen anyone more angelic in his entire life, and he’d been around for a long time.

  His lips curled into a smirk. It was time.

  He was going to wake her up.

  Strolling over to her, his eyes took in her sleeping form. It was nearly midnight and the full moon’s soft glow seeped through the window, casting an ethereal aura around her. In all honesty, he hadn’t known she’d be this beautiful. It would make his job much easier.

  He had thirty seconds.

  His eyes traced her sculpted face: the hollow, high cheekbones, the short bridge of her upturned nose, the pale, almost sickly face, her pointed chin, and the blonde waves that invaded her forehead and tumbled past her shoulders to the middle of her chest. The silky strands glowed, attesting someone was washing and conditioning her hair for her even though hair upkeep wasn’t important for someone in her state.