Ophelia had wanted to control Haven Hollow, to decide who lived here and who didn’t. She’d wanted to control what went on in the Hollow, and to keep as many humans out as possible. I wanted to welcome everyone—from all walks of life—supernaturals and humans alike. I wanted them to feel that in Haven Hollow, they belonged.

  And I was starting to achieve just that.

  Without a doubt, Hallowed Homes was my most impressive achievement to date.

  Or at least it had been, before I’d managed to absolutely destroy the entire array of Faerie politics for the foreseeable future, and it had only taken me one ill thought-out afternoon to do so. I couldn’t help but wonder if this newest blunder was going to completely handicap my business. I couldn’t imagine the Fae would look kindly on my big mouth. Fox had probably been the exception.

  As I sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench in the high school bleachers, stuck squarely between two royal Fae, heirs to two immensely powerful kingdoms, all I could do was desperately wish I was anywhere else.

  The vampires were sitting near us—on the bleacher just across from ours.

  “Olwen,” Fox said, leaning around me and trying to catch Taliyah’s eye, who was firmly ignoring him and had been since we’d arrived.

  I caught him in the ribs with my elbow, maybe a little harder than I’d intended with the way his breath left him in a surprised huff and he gave me an irritated glance. “Call her by her name,” I whispered to him.

  “Ah,” he said quickly and nodded before grinning at Taliyah again. “That is to say… Taliyah…” His brows pulled together, golden eyes flicking between Taliyah and me. Fox cleared his throat.

  “Chief Morgan,” he said, finally, with a ghost of his usual smooth tones. “Have you been in the Hollow long? And how are you enjoying it?”

  Taliyah kept her eyes on the field below us as if she were riveted by the game, which was impressive since they hadn’t even had the kick off yet and there were no players out there.

  “It’s fine.”

  Being a prince, and a pretty powerful Fae royal in his own right, Fox didn’t exactly wilt at her response, though his shoulders slumped a little before he rallied himself… yet again. “And how long have you held your position of Chief of Police in Haven Hollow?”

  Taliyah turned her head away, staring down at the hot dog vendor like she suspected him of committing a felony, and didn’t answer. It said something for Taliyah’s control that the frost in the air was only metaphorical, for once. Otherwise, I was pretty sure Fox would have found his backside frozen to the bleachers.

  I didn’t have magic. I was a demon, not a witch or a Faerie, but if I wished myself away hard enough, I was hoping I might somehow learn how to Astral Project.

  Why? Because this was, without a doubt, the most awkward moment I could remember. And that was really saying something because I’d gone through puberty with an Incubus and Succubus as parents. It was ‘The Talk’ from hell. Literally. Most kids didn’t have to suffer through their parents suggesting fun positions to try.

  I really did feel bad for dumping all of this on Taliyah without being able to warn her in advance. I mean, trying to warn her was what landed us all in this position in the first place. But sitting there, watching Fox Aspen desperately trying to talk to his prophesized betrothed and get shot down into whatever the ice equivalent of ‘flaming wreckage’ was, I really, really wished I’d just stayed in my own lane.

  Eventually the teams took to the field, and we had something to focus on—for that I was grateful. The Haven Hollow Tigers appeared in their black and orange, and the away team in their gray and blue. Even though I now had something to command my attention, I could barely focus on the kick off, much less the game that followed. I just kept staring forward until my eyes glazed over and everything became just a smear of color running back and forth. My leg bounced against the bleachers, heel tapping. If it annoyed anyone, I didn’t notice. At least the game made it harder for Fox to keep trying to talk to Taliyah, though he did give it a good try whenever the crowd was quiet enough that she actually had a chance of hearing him.

  And she continued to ignore him.

  It said something about just how hard I was trying not to pay attention to the mess going on around me when I almost missed the marching band taking to the field for halftime. At least when the drums and blaring horns section started up, Fox stopped leaning around me and attempting to make awkward conversation with Taliyah, so that was something.

  I got a text and glancing down at my phone, realized it was Roy.

  What are you up to? Working late? He texted.

  I didn’t want to tell him I was at the game because I was more than sure he’d be hurt that I hadn’t invited him. And I still hadn’t told him anything about how involved I’d gotten with this case. Yet one other thing I didn’t want to get into.

  Yeah, just busy with clients, I texted back. It wasn’t exactly a lie—I was busy with clients, but it was a lie of omission, I supposed.

  OK. I will leave you to it. Let’s try to get together soon?

  Yes please!

  I put the phone away and on the other side of Fox, Stefan suddenly leaned forward from his spot on the bench seating.

  “There.” He pointed. “That’s him. Viviana’s boyfriend.”

  “That’s him?” I repeated. “Which one?”

  “And we still don’t know his name?” Fox asked.

  “D-Derek, that was his name!” Stefan suddenly remembered, nodding. “He’s the one with the,” he gestured with his hands like he was carrying something very large, searching for the right word.

  “Tuba?” Taliyah supplied for him.

  He nodded. “Right. Tuba. The one with the tuba.”

  Taliyah’s face sharpened, her chin dipping down as she watched the band march by. It made her look a little bit inhuman, and a lot like a predator. On the other side of me, Fox stared at her like a man seeing the sun for the first time.

  This was going to be a long game.

  And as to Derek and questioning him, we could hardly go charging down to the field, in the middle of the show, to start questioning a teenager about his vampire girlfriend. So that meant we were forced to stay put and watch the band march around the field and finally take up position at the center line while cheerleaders did flips and stood on each other’s shoulders and screamed out cheer after cheer after cheer.

  I watched the tall, skinny young man with the tuba for a bit, and I had to admit, a little grudgingly, that he was fairly good-looking, for a teenager, anyway. He wasn’t someone I would have chosen, when I was a teenager myself, but he was still pleasing to the eye. Back in the day, I was into bad boys and a boy in a marching band just wouldn’t have done it for me. It seemed it had taken me a long time to break my bad boy attraction. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Roy actually did still fit that mold to a degree. At least on the outside. And as to my crush on Marty? I wasn’t sure where that had come from because Marty was about as anti-bad boy as they came.

  I frowned, thinking back over my various dates, boyfriends and lovers from over the years. It was a bit surprising, but I realized I’d actually never seriously dated anyone who was my age or older, even when I’d been younger. And now I was starting to realize men were a bit like wine. They needed to age and gain some complexity before I wanted to invite them to dinner.

  “I’m serious about you,” Roy had said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Just the memory of our conversation had me smiling, and I had to bite my lip to try and hold it in, since, hello, we were trying to track down a murderer here, so now wasn’t the right time to be smiling about anything. But that little spark was doing its best to turn into a bonfire, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold it back. It was just, with Roy, I had the chance for everything I wanted. For the first time in longer than I wanted to admit, I was hopeful. Even so, Roy’s behavior lately still left that little kernel of doubt in my chest.

  He had been avoiding me and he’d admitted he’d been avoiding me but I still didn’t know why. And it was a mystery I wanted to solve. Well, just as soon as we solved this one.

  Priorities, Fifi, priorities.

  After what felt like a small eternity, the halftime show wrapped up, and with a lot of pom-pom shaking and cheers from the crowd, the performers filed off of the field.

  “There goes the band,” Taliyah said quietly, her eyes never fully leaving her target.

  The way she watched Derek, like she was a hawk and he was a field mouse was a little unnerving. I was glad it wasn’t me she was after.

  When the band, off to the side, started stripping out of their dress uniforms and packing their instruments away, to either leave or join the rest of the audience, we all slipped out of our place on the bleachers and started trailing after Derek with his tuba case.

  We weren’t exactly inconspicuous as a group. But I did my best to chat lightly with whoever was closest to me, so we didn’t look like an eerily silent mob descending on a teenager, which I supposed was exactly what we were. But Viviana’s family weren’t really in a chatty mood, Taliyah barely gave me a grunt in reply, and while Fox put in a little more effort than anyone else, he was still more interested in watching Taliyah when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  We followed Derek away from the cheering crowd, past the crowded porta-potties the school always set up for big games, and around the corner of the maintenance building. He must have heard someone’s shoe scuff on the gravel or something, because Derek glanced back over his shoulder to look at us.

  And the second he realized who it was behind him, Viviana’s family, all the blood drained out of his face, leaving him chalk pale.

  He dropped his tuba case on the ground, and bolted.

  ***

  With a low throated growl, Stefan launched himself after the fleeing teen like a hunting dog finally let off the chain. The vampires acted so normal most times, other than their little quirks, that it was so easy to forget what they actually were: centuries-old predators.

  Watching Stefan crash into Derek and take him to the ground like a lion bringing down a gazelle before the rest of us had even made it halfway across the lawn, I was forcibly reminded of that exact fact.

  Stefan reared back, his face twisted into a mask of fury. He slammed his fist into Derek’s face, and I gasped at the sudden burst of blood when the boy’s nose broke. Derek fell back on the grass with a cry of shock and pain, and Stefan pulled his arm back for another blow. I glanced quickly at the rest of the vampires, afraid the blood might set them off, but Marius simply looked at me and shook his head, as if to say they had themselves under control.

  I noticed with interest that none of the other mundanes were paying us any mind and as I watched, I realized Mihaela was mind-controlling each person who looked over at us. As soon as they did, they simply turned away and gave us a wide berth, tending to other things. And that was just as well because the last thing we needed was a scene.

  Then autumn leaves swirled around the pair, and Fox was suddenly standing beside them. He grabbed hold of Stefan and dragged him off Derek. But Stefan quickly threw Fox away from him and dove for Derek once more. Fox had to fully lift Stefan off the ground in a bear hug then, to keep the vampire from going after Derek again.

  “The boy’s only human,” Fox snapped. “He can’t take a beating from a vampire! Control yourself.”

  Due to the fact that Derek was lying on the ground right there, conscious and fully aware of everything Fox had just said, I could only imagine Fox was planning on wiping his mind soon.

  Stefan lunged forward, straining against Fox’s hold. His lips pulled back off his teeth, fangs on full furious display. “Good! I hope I snap his neck!” A sound of inarticulate rage and pain boiled up from his throat. “She was my sister. You killed my sister!”

  Derek stayed where he was sprawled across the grass, appearing completely shocked and afraid, no doubt at the realization that Stefan was a vampire. I could only imagine he was trying to figure out if the same was true for the rest of us. When he met Stefan’s enraged expression once again, he raised up his hands. The blood on his face and shirt was bright under the moonlight.

  “I didn’t, I swear I didn’t. I would never hurt Viviana.” Derek’s face crumpled then, and tears rolled down his cheeks to mix with the blood from his nose. “I loved her.” His voice came out nasal, thick with blood and tears.

  “Loved her?” Stefan snickered, his fangs on full display. “How could you have loved her when you only knew her a few weeks?”

  Derek nodded, and his expression was insistent. “I know we’d only known each other a little while, but it’s true. We loved each other. She’s… she was so amazing,” he continued and the tears started coming fully, streaming down his face like little rivers of sadness. “Beautiful, and sweet, and nice and funny.” He reached up and wiped at his face, pulling his hand away and staring at the blood in surprise. “She was everything I ever wanted. And she loved me too! She said she would love me forever.”

  Stefan was listening, and not actively struggling, so Fox set him back on his feet but still kept a careful grip on his arm.

  “Would love you forever,” Taliyah said, her eyes sharp as she eyed Derek. “Did you know what she was?”

  Derek looked up at her, as though seeing her for the first time. “I did.”

  “You knew she was a vampire?” Fox asked, obviously surprised. Derek looked at him and nodded.

  “So, when Viviana said she would love you forever… what exactly did that mean?” Taliyah continued.

  Derek swiped at his nose, still oozing blood, and winced. “It meant we were going to be together for eternity.”

  “You were planning on becoming like her?” Taliyah asked, narrowing her eyes at the boy.

  He nodded again. “The night she… she died, we were supposed to start the process to make me like her,” he continued and I noticed Stefan’s eyes narrowing even further. “She was going to turn me.”

  Marius sucked in a sharp breath, and Mihaela smothered her cry with the palm of her hand.

  “That’s why she was in the panic room in the first place,” I said, not even realizing I was speaking the thought until it was already out and everyone turned to look at me. “So, the two of you would have privacy while she turned you into a vampire.”

  “Yeah.” Derek sniffed carefully, dabbing at his face. “She said the whole process would take a few days, but I didn’t care. I would’ve done anything for her.”

  Mihaela just kept shaking her head, her hand over her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut.

  Marius tucked his wife into his chest, his expression shattered. “Why would Viviana do that? She knew better.”

  Mihaela lifted her head with a little sob. “Being trapped as a teenager all zese years, it was so hard on her. I don’t understand vhy she vould inflict zat on anozer person zough. Especially after only a few veeks of dating!”

  My heart gave a painful little twist. “When you’ve been alone a long time, sometimes you start feeling desperate for closeness. For connection.”

  I couldn’t approve of what Viviana had planned to do to Derek. But I understood how being trapped as a teenager for eternity was a pretty terrible fate.

  How many doomed relationships had I thrown myself into, always searching for ‘the one’? Way more than I’d ever be comfortable admitting to out loud. And each failed romance had just made me look harder, put up with more than I should have, wanting my happily ever after so badly, it was all I could think about. How many red flags had I ignored, thinking that somehow, everything would just magically work out?

  The problem is, when you’re constantly living in rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. At least until you remove the glasses and by then, it’s usually too late to do anything about them.

  That was what had me so paranoid about my relationship with Roy. Because I was pretty sure Roy could be the one. Like, the one. He was everything I’d ever wanted in a partner. I could see a future for us, the home, the family, and I wanted that future so badly, I knew I had to be careful. Because if I got over invested, I’d ignore all the warning signs right up until everything blew up in my face.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I couldn’t help but feel bad for Viviana, no matter what she’d planned with Derek even though I definitely didn’t support the idea that she’d been planning to turn Derek. I mean, she should have known better. A teenager has no idea what he really wants in the world, no idea even what it’s like to live in the big, adult world.

  And as to Derek, I felt sorry for him too. Teenagers felt so much, so strongly, all the time, I couldn’t blame him for getting swept up by a mysterious woman and one who promised him everlasting life and everlasting love.

  Since it looked less and less likely that Stefan was going to murder Derek, the latter gingerly sat up, wincing as he did.

  “And where were you on the night that Viviana died?” Taliyah stepped up, her hands resting on her belt. It was a gesture that I recognized from her brother, the late Chief Morgan. Her hands were close to her service weapon, but it wasn’t a threat, at least not yet.

  “I,” Derek started but then swallowed hard.

  “Did you get cold feet and back out?” Taliyah asked in her professionally neutral tone. Her question wasn’t accusatory, necessarily, but it wasn’t exactly sympathetic either.

  Derek shook his head. “No, I wasn’t going to back out. I wanted to become a vampire, just like Viviana. I came to the house to meet her, just like we’d been planning.”

  “So, what happened?” Stefan demanded, his tone of voice still threatening.

  Derek breathed in deeply. “My sister came home from college and she wanted to come to the haunted house too, with a bunch of her friends.”

  He glanced down and seemed to notice the blood all over his shirt for the first time and appeared decidedly queasy at the mess.

  “So, you, your sister and her friends came to the house,” Fox said, looking at Derek with an expression that was impossible to read. I couldn’t tell if he thought the teen was telling the truth or not.