“And that scares the ever-loving shit out of me.”

  I scoffed at that. “And you think my Blood Witch powers didn’t scare me? You put a spirit into a body, big freaking deal. I created Darla’s body out of nothing! You can decide which of those is the most freakish.” I laughed softly. “The point is, you aren’t alone. I know what this feels like. Betanya does too.”

  His expression softened with disbelief. “Then… you’re not kicking me out?”

  “No, moron, I am not kicking you out. I’m trying to drag your reactionary ass home so you can take care of our daughter. She’s going to need you.”

  He winced. “Daughter.”

  “That’s what she is,” I argued.

  “I don’t know,” he started but then I interrupted.

  “What would you call her?”

  “Damnation and demonology… How in the name of Hecuba are we going to explain that to Mother?”

  I bumped him lightly on the hip, smiling this time. “Oh, that one’s easy. You get around. Men who get around have at least one kid they never knew about. Tabitha won’t bat an eyelash if a witch happened to come out of one of your numerous one-night stands.”

  The words came out light and teasing, rather than dripping with disapproval. The concept of sexual shame was foreign to most witches. We celebrated life in all its wonders, revered the body, and encouraged pleasure-seeking. Sex was a natural part of life for most of us, and we didn’t see why so many other species made such a fuss where it was concerned. I’d frowned on Maverick’s obsession with me, not his sex life in general.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Sybil has the intelligence of a very sheltered ten-year-old, so that’s what we’ll spin her as. When we discover exactly who she is and what she can do, we’ll introduce her to your mother as a burgeoning witch. You’ll take charge of her education, and limit visitation until it’s safe for her to interact with the broader magical community.”

  He blinked. “You mean...?”

  “As far as everyone else is concerned, Sybil is your biological daughter, Astrid’s niece, and my second cousin.”

  “You don’t want to claim her?” he asked, frowning.

  Something in his voice made me look at him. The expression on his face was hard to decipher, an eclectic mix of confusion, frustration, and wonder. He scoured my face as though he could catch a lie hiding somewhere in the lines around my mouth. It was painful to watch as optimism crept into his eyes. For once in his life, he had something that was solely his. I wasn’t kicking him out, or wrenching Sybil away. More than that, I was depending on him to take charge of her.

  “It’s not about what I want,” I said. “It’s about what Sybil needs. Besides, it looks like I might not be around to claim her.”

  Maverick surged to his feet so quickly, the mud around us squelched. More filth speckled my jeans as he whirled toward me. “What the spell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’ve been out of the loop while off on your epic flounce, Maverick.”

  “Explain, from the beginning.”

  I took a deep breath and then nodded. “The sound that scared me into tripping over Hellcat was a letter rebounding off the window.”

  “And the letter was from?”

  “Lorcan’s adoptive sire, Rupert.”

  “Why would Rupert send you a letter?”

  “Because he’s been angling to have me turned fully since the beginning. Now he’s backed me into a corner.”

  “How?”

  “The letter contained an invitation, as well as the addresses of all our businesses and Astrid’s school.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The message was clear: Either I accept his invitation and turn, or he and his vampire pals are coming to Haven Hollow to kill us all.”

  What little color he had drained away as my meaning hit home.

  “That would mean the start of another Blood War,” he said softly.

  I nodded. “I have a feeling that might be Rupert’s goal.”

  Maverick swayed, one hand shooting out to grasp the swing set frame. He was shaking, and it had nothing to do with the cold. Astrid feared strange vampires in the abstract, having come inches away from becoming one of them. Maverick had real, concrete evidence of what a motivated bloodsucker could do to you. The impressions of Janeth’s teeth hadn’t completely faded and I doubted they ever would.

  “Don’t go to Rupert,” he whispered, eyes going wide. “You’ll die.”

  “I’ve surmised as much.”

  He continued shaking his head. “You can’t die.”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I’d climbed to my feet, crossed over to him, and wrapped my arms around his waist. He was soggy after so many hours in the rain, and a gentle squeeze had him oozing the stuff like a worn-out sponge. I didn’t step away. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to embrace him like this. Sentimentality? Maybe.

  “I’m damp enough already, due to your antics, Charmin,” I drawled. “I don’t need you blubbering on me too.”

  “You can’t go,” he repeated, taking a step back from me. “Mother and the rest of the coven are a few miles away. We can get there long before you have to meet with that son of a bitch. Everyone will fight for you. This isn’t the end.”

  I wasn’t sure that was entirely true. Many of my sisters would happily feed me to the vampires to avoid being caught up in another spectacle. Mother’s public shaming at the recent Assembly had hurt the entire coven’s credibility. The only reason they’d agree to kick off another Blood War would be for the chance to kick Tabitha into the maw of an oncoming vampire. I certainly wasn’t worth the trouble.

  But before I could point that obvious fact out to Maverick, my phone rang.

  It was a plucky beat that I’d selected from the pre-programmed menu and the annoyingly happy little tune seemed perfect for my irritatingly chipper gypsy neighbor. I reached into the pocket of my wool coat and withdrew the phone with a frown. It was the end of Poppy’s workday. Shouldn’t she be busy tidying up or chivvying her child to bed or something equally as menial? But a quick glance at the screen showed a series of texts I’d missed. Had I really been so absorbed in my conversation with Taliyah and then Maverick, I hadn’t felt the phone vibrate?

  I pressed the phone to my ear and muttered a cautious, “Hello?”

  “You need to come back now!” Poppy screeched. “You can’t just run off like a martyr, trying to save everyone. If you turn around, we can talk about this!”

  The strident cry had me wrenching the phone away on instinct. I jabbed the speakerphone button instead, airing her continued tirade to Maverick and Isis. Spell, for all I knew Taliyah was hearing it too, even through the bulletproof glass of the cruiser. Poppy’s voice could have doubled as a siren if I mounted the phone on the top of the car.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” I said, jumping into a second-long gap in her tirade. I was certain it was the only opportunity I’d get to speak. “Why are you screaming at me?”

  “Because you left!” Poppy said, voice only a fraction calmer than it had been a moment before. I had no idea what could have happened to work her into a lather.

  “It’s a free country,” I drawled. “I didn’t leave alone if that’s what you’re afraid of. Taliyah is here with me. We’re dragging Maverick’s sorry ass back home so we can figure out what, if anything, can be done about Sybil. I was going to call when we were on our way.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Poppy said, cutting across me. “You’re not going to Portland?”

  “I’m in Portland,” I answered.

  “You’re in Portland?”

  “Yeah. I thought I’d make one last attempt to track Maverick down before we made a decision about Rupert’s little soiree and with Taliyah’s help, I found him.”

  “Well, that’s good news but there’s still the problem of Rupert, Wanda.” Then I heard her whisper to someone else. “She’s with Maverick.”

  “I’m well aware, Poppy,” I ground out her name into at least four syllables.

  “It’s just the three of you and—”

  “Rest assured Rupert’s people wouldn’t dare enter this part of the city. The Crescent Circle Manor is only a few blocks away. And Rupert’s property barely rests within city limits. Failing that, Rupert wouldn’t piss off the Winter and Autumn courts of fae by attacking Taliyah. Or the police, for that matter. She’s a veteran cop from this area.”

  “What is going on?” Maverick asked, plucking the phone from my hand. I tried to snatch it back, but he held it infuriatingly far over my head. I didn’t have the proper footwear to win a battle of height. “I assume there’s a reason to squall at us at a time like this? Or do you enjoy pitching into fits of histrionics?”

  “That’s rich, coming from the man who’s been sulking in the rain for days on end,” I grumbled. “Give the phone back, Mav. I’m serious.”

  Poppy’s breath rattled over the speakers as she attempted to compose herself. “So, you’re not going to Rupert’s party tonight?”

  “She’s not,” Maverick said shortly.

  “I haven’t decided,” I corrected. “I’m leaning toward no. But all of this doesn’t explain why you’re bombarding me with texts and shrill phone calls.”

  There was static on the other end of the line, and then I heard a soft sniffle. Astrid spoke then, voice thick with tears. “Wanda?”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I don’t understand how you can say you’re with Maverick and Taliyah when I just saw you get into a limo twenty minutes ago,” she sniffed as my heart dropped and then started racing.

  “Oh, shit,” I answered in a haunted tone. “What was I wearing?”

  “That maroon, off-the-shoulder mini-dress you were making—the one with the sequin lace accenting at the bottom.”

  “The one I wouldn’t let you try on,” I said dryly as I glanced down at myself. I was very decidedly not wearing the maroon dress in question. Instead, I was wearing a sodden “Welcome to Haven Hollow T-shirt” and one of my less favored pairs of jeans. And that had to mean…

  “That was Sybil,” I managed. “Tell me everything she, er I, did before I left.”

  Astrid took a deep breath. “Louisa helped you look up a phone number in the phone book.”

  “What number?”

  “Rupert’s,” Poppy answered. She must have reclaimed her phone. “It was one of his people driving the limo.”

  No wonder she’d been calling and texting me like a crazy person. She’d thought I’d willingly gone with Rupert’s cronies.

  “There is only one person who could imitate me so perfectly, even a vampire wouldn’t be able to tell us apart,” I whispered.

  “Sybil,” Poppy said. Her voice was barely audible, choked by the horrific implication of what she’d just said. “Sybil is going to Rupert’s.”

  “What? Why?” Maverick burst out. “And why would the vampires think she was you? She looks at least a hundred and twenty years younger than you!”

  That remark would ordinarily have been met with a hex or caustic reply. Now I couldn’t even find the energy to snap at him. My hands were bony claws at my sides. I could hear the blood rushing behind my ears and the tang of blood at the back of my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue.

  “She’s a shapeshifter,” I whispered, needing to get Maverick up to speed pronto. “She can imitate almost any woman’s appearance, including mine. She’s been watching and listening to all our plans over the last few days. She must think… she’s helping.”

  His eyes widened, and a pale echo of my fear crossed his face. “They’ll kill her.”

  “Or worse,” I confirmed, seizing his hand. “Come on. We need to get dressed.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because we have a party to go to.” I turned back to face the phone. “Poppy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell Lorcan exactly what happened when he wakes for the evening. You should also tell him I want the entire Haven Hollow Vampire Clan to meet me outside Rupert’s estate in…” I checked my watch. “Three hours.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. She sounded just as breathless as I was. “What then?”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “Then we give Rupert a show.”

  “A show?”

  “So far as he knows, I’m becoming a vampire tonight.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  To his credit, Maverick accepted my plan without argument.

  He hadn’t said much of anything as Taliyah ferried us around Portland, visiting increasingly more expensive boutiques in preparation for tonight’s event.

  He was silent so long, I’d felt the need to check the back seat, just in case he’d pulled another disappearing act. But he never moved from the middle seat and Isis sat just beside him, as unmoving and silent as her master. Maverick stared down at Isis with a quiet sort of horror, mulling over the predicament we now found ourselves in.

  I’d expected a complaint about something—anything, but the first word out of his mouth when Taliyah dropped us off a mile away from Rupert’s estate was, “What’s she like?”

  I examined my reflection in Taliyah’s mirror, rubbing idly at a smudge of lipstick at the corner of my mouth before turning to face him. Coral wasn’t my color. Neither was the expertly crafted blonde wig, or the shade of tanner they’d doused me in. Altogether it looked fine and transformed me into someone unrecognizable to any but my closest friends. Still, it was disconcerting to shift from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark to Malibu Barbie.

  I’d always detested Barbie.

  Maverick didn’t look like himself either. He’d taken his disguise even a step further than I had. The coiffed haircut was real, even if the color wasn’t. The hazel contacts, yuppie haircut, and spray tan made him appear to be the Ken to my Barbie. His brows tugged together over his eyes, mouth mashing into a frustrated line.

  “Sybil. What is she like? I want to know, just in case…”

  In case she died. But neither one of us wanted to say the words aloud.

  “She isn’t going to die,” I said, trying to convince myself. “If this fails, I’ll just reveal my true self. That’s what Rupert wants. And if he gets what he wants, I’m sure he’ll leave Sybil alone.”

  “And then you’ll be dead and the rest of us will be trapped in a mansion with the vampire we tried to dupe,” Maverick retorted. “I don’t imagine that will end well… for any of us.”

  Damn him for trying to bring logic into this. Couldn’t he see I was taking a page from Poppy’s playbook? Wedging my head firmly in the sand left me too pleasantly dizzy to worry about what might be coming to take a bite out of my scrumptious ass.

  “Sybil’s not going to die because we’re not going to fail,” I said, running my hands down the slippery silk dress.

  “But—”

  “But nothing, Maverick. You’re going to have plenty of time to get to know our daughter. Unless, of course, you keep blabbing about her existence until someone hears you, in which case, we’re likely to be captured and turned or killed. So, could you slot a large key into your trap and keep our identities under wraps, please?”

  I meant the words to come off as glib or even sarcastic, but they were too strained to sound like anything other than what they were: the unconvincing pep-talk of a desperate witch. If I couldn’t even work myself up, there was no chance I was doing anything to boost Maverick’s confidence in the plan.

  “Fine,” he grumbled.

  “Good. Now hold out your arm.”

  Maverick offered me his elbow with a frown. I hooked my arm around his, nails coming to rest on the bare stretch of his forearm. The impressions of Janeth’s teeth were still visible on his skin, and goosebumps jumped in the wake of my fingers when I touched one of the marks.

  “I don’t understand why I’m wearing a sleeveless shirt,” he muttered. Though he didn’t mind that I was wearing a halter dress, if the grudging admiration in his eyes was anything to go by. “It’s Portland. It’s almost always cold. Why sleeveless and silk?”

  I winced. This had been the tricky part. If I’d explained my rationale to him earlier, he’d have balked, making this whole thing much harder than it had to be. There was still the chance he’d back out; in which case I’d have to proceed alone. Was the omission dishonest of me? Yes. But I hadn’t known what else to do.

  “Because it’s the uniform the professional victims wear.”

  Maverick’s knees locked, and a sharp sound caught in his throat. He turned his wide eyes to me, obviously questioning my sanity. When he could finally speak, he hissed, “Feeders? We’re going in as feeders?”

  I slapped a hand over his mouth before he could work up to a proper fit and hissed, “Yes, we’re going in as feeders, because they’re the only humans allowed at these events.” Posing as vampires would have been ideal, but we wouldn’t have been able to manage it on such short notice. Poppy had potions that could confuse a person’s sight and muddle their smell, but she couldn’t stop the undead from hearing our heartbeats. And last I’d checked, I couldn’t stop mine at will and neither could Maverick.

  Maverick glowered down at me in mute frustration but didn’t try to speak. He was listening to me for once. Good.

  “Lorcan and the rest of our entourage should be here soon,” I continued. “The worst that’s going to happen is that Erasmus or Vicente might graze us with their fangs to make it look convincing, but no one will be biting either of us.” Erasmus and Vicente were posing as our vampire chaperones, our lovers. I wasn’t sure how Maverick would feel about the fact that his disguise also included his being homosexual, but he didn’t say anything about it. And for that, I was grateful.

  A fine tremor ran over his skin. He tried to hide it, but I could feel it in the tension under my hands and read it in the lines on his brow. Maverick was scared. Scared in a way I’d only seen once before. I sighed, pushing up on my tiptoes so I could lean my forehead against his.

  “This isn’t like Newark,” I said. “I won’t let them tear into you ever again. I’ll end you myself before I let someone turn you.”