Iro moved to the wall she’d already climbed over once and got Arwen to the top of it probably on adrenaline alone. She repeated the movement she’d made with the ladder, and once on the other side of it, she carried Arwen through the yard and to the gate that would lead to the front and not a back alley. That was good. She’d parked her car a block away, and it was closer from this house. She hadn’t thought about what it would look like to be carrying a dead woman over her shoulder to get back to her car, though, so she thought about waiting there, hidden until Arwen woke up, but their smell would get them discovered where they stood. She really had no choice. She used everything she had in her to scoop and carry Arwen, figuring she could tell people that her girlfriend had had one too many at a bachelorette party and she was just taking her home. At least, that looked better than carrying her like deadweight over her shoulder.

  The sidewalk was empty, but she carried Arwen down a side street instead of the main one. It took her longer, but it meant that fewer people would see them. When a couple walked on the opposite sidewalk and seemed to pay attention to her, Iro looked down at Arwen, whose face was away from the couple, and laughed as if Arwen had just said something funny.

  “Next time, you won’t insist on wearing cheap heels that only hurt your ankle,” she said and laughed again before she looked up at the couple and shook her head as if they were all in on the secret that the woman in her arms had hurt herself, which was why she was carrying her.

  When the couple finally turned away, Iro found her car parked on the street and managed to get Arwen into the back seat. She looked around and saw that no one seemed to be following her, and the couple had turned a corner and was no longer in view, so she got into the driver’s seat and turned on the car.

  “Iro?”

  Iro’s heart jumped. She looked up in the rearview mirror and saw Arwen with her eyes open, shifting in her seat. She was looking around the car, clearly confused.

  “Hi,” she replied, breathing both a sigh of relief and one of anger because Cassia had done this to her. “Everything’s okay.”

  But Arwen’s eyes closed, and she was probably asleep again. Iro recalled her own experience of being reborn a vampire and how disorienting it was. The last memory she’d had was of Cassia killing her, but when she’d woken at first, that had been a difficult thing to remember. Her brain had struggled, and she’d passed back out a few times before she had woken for real and could remember it all. Then, she’d been terrified. Her goal now was to get Arwen back to her house before that fear hit her, because if she screamed right now, while Cassia might not be able to hear it from this far away, if she had anyone patrolling the area, they would.

  “It’s okay, my love,” she said more to herself than to Arwen. “We’ll be okay.”

  She pulled out into traffic and turned away from Cassia’s house as soon as she could, headed toward her own.

  ◆◆◆

  As she carried Arwen up the concrete stairs, she noticed that the thin, stained-glass window next to her front door was broken. Iro knew what that meant, but she had been smart: wherever she moved, she always made sure to include silver in unexpected places, and that stained glass came with slivers of silver embedded in it, as did many of the ornamental windows in this house. She had gotten used to taking precautions like that because of Cassia, who had made more than enough enemies over the centuries, and while none of them had ever made a move when Iro had been with her, she didn’t want to chance someone coming after her just to spite Cassia.

  Her alarm app hadn’t notified her about any intruders, though, which meant that someone had been smart enough to disable the connections from the outside. Iro hadn’t had the chance to have the cameras she wanted installed, having gotten so caught up with Arwen right after moving here, but there was no need to waste precious time kicking herself for that now. Wherever they landed soon, she would just have to put up the cameras first and hire security to patrol around the clock until she could figure out what to do about Cassia.

  First, she had to do something about Arwen while she went inside to check if whoever had broken in was still there, or they’d come and gone with Zara. Her car had tinted windows, so she put Arwen back in the back seat and locked the car, hoping Arwen would stay asleep and protected from the sun until she returned. Then, she withdrew a silver knife from the inside of her vest and slowly opened the front door of the house.

  “I can hear you,” a voice said, and it was a familiar one. “Where are you, Iro?”

  “I’m not hiding. I’m right here,” Iro replied and moved into her living room. “Where are you?”

  “Oh, I’m here. And I know Cassia said you weren’t to be harmed, but I’ve been sitting here on your bed, smelling the sex you obviously had with someone who isn’t your wife, and I can smell something else, too.”

  “What’s that?” Iro asked, heading toward her bedroom slowly.

  “Love. It’s all in the pheromones, isn’t it? And it’s all over this house. Maybe not upstairs. I didn’t smell it there as I went through every room searching for you and Zara, who I couldn’t find, by the way. I can smell her, though, so I know she was here. She must have run, like the coward she is. How could Cassia put her above me? I don’t run.”

  “Gigi, you don’t have to do what Cassia wants.”

  “Yes, I do. I love her.”

  Iro closed her eyes at that, opened them, and said, “That might be true, but that doesn’t mean that she owns you and that you have to follow her every command.”

  “Following her every command would mean leaving you unharmed, but I’m not sure that serves my interest. I’m no puppet, Iro. I love her. I follow her, yes, but I also want her, and if you’re alive, I’ll always have to share her with you. I’m done sharing her with Zara, the coward who ran, and I am definitely done sharing her with you, the woman she can’t seem to be without, for some reason I’ll never understand.”

  “You’ll still have to share her with all the women she wants.”

  “She only wants you,” Gigi argued as Iro slowed beyond the open door to her bedroom. “She wants sex and loyalty from the rest of us, but she only wants you for everything else. She needs you like it’s some sickness. I don’t understand it myself. You don’t seem all that special to me. But if you’re gone, she’ll be mad, yes, but we live forever. She’ll get over you eventually, and I will rule at her side.”

  “Rule? Rule her mansions and villas? What are you talking about?”

  “You know I can hear that you’re right outside the door, right?”

  “Yes,” Iro said.

  “Then, stop being a coward like Zara and show yourself so that we can finish this, and I can take my punishment from Cassia before she forgives me and we move on from you together.”

  Iro kept the knife in her hand but thought something else might help here instead. She’d only have one shot at it, and she slowly pulled it out of her vest.

  “Oh, come on, Iro… Let’s just fight this out like good little vampires.”

  “Do you know why she picked you?” Iro asked as she readied herself.

  “What?”

  “Years ago, when she turned you and Miranda, do you even know why?”

  “She found us and wanted to fuck us.”

  “That’s not why, Gigi. For Miranda, yes. Cassia writes me letters when we’re apart. I don’t write back. I don’t always read them, either. Most of the time, I don’t, but one night, I was contemplating things, so I read a letter she had sent me right after she turned you. She wrote that when she saw Miranda, she was immediately attracted to her, and she turned her because she wanted to fuck her. She turned her first.”

  “So what?”

  “So, she didn’t want you,” Iro lied, hoping that it would work. “You were there, though, and she was bored. She told me you turned out to be a decent fuck, so she kept you, but the real reason Cassia turned you was that she was bored. She thought you might make a good playmate for Miranda when I came back, so that she would be occupied and wouldn’t do something stupid like getting discovered. That’s what Cassia told me: she’d still use you whenever she wanted, but it was really Miranda whom she wanted to pass the time with until I returned. She doesn’t love you. I keep all of her letters, if you want to see the proof. I’ll show you myself right now.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. I wish I were. I don’t think Cassia is capable of love, Gigi. She never has been. She’s only interested in taking care of herself, serving her own self-interest, and she loves her possessions. You and I should be on the same side here. We’re both simply possessions to her.”

  “Once you’re gone, things will change,” Gigi said.

  “No, they won’t. And I’m sorry,” she replied.

  “What are you–”

  Quickly, Iro moved until she was standing in the open doorway, and she fired from the single-barreled pistol she’d picked up at an auction over a hundred years ago. It was old, yes, but she kept it clean, and when she pressed the trigger, a silver bullet entered Gigi’s body. It didn’t have to hit her heart to cause real damage, giving Iro a better chance in their fight, but it did. The bullet must have hit Gigi in the heart because she flopped backward, and soon after, her body turned a pale blue, the shade moving from the center of her body and out to her feet and hands. Iro still held the knife in her hand just in case as she approached and saw Gigi’s eyes go distant and pale.

  “I am sorry,” she said again. “But this wasn’t ever going to end any other way.”

  She pulled Gigi’s body down to the floor and went to her closet, where she pressed the button and looked around the small, hidden room, figuring out where Zara had gone to the moment Gigi said Zara had run. If Zara had run, Gigi would’ve been able to follow her scent, but not in the room that was one step away from being hermetically sealed.

  “Zara?”

  “Oh, thank God,” Zara said when her head popped up from behind the bed.

  “You’re safe. You can come out. I have to get Arwen.”

  “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s not, and I want you to leave before she wakes up.”

  “Wakes up? You–” Zara paused and stood. “She’s…”

  “She’s becoming one of us now, yes. I got there too late. And when she wakes up, I need to be the one to tell her that I failed her, so I need you to be gone.”

  “I want to talk to her to explain myself,” Zara said and moved around the bed and out into the closet with her.

  Iro shoved her into the wall, making the hanging clothes bang and fling around them, and she held the knife to Zara’s neck, baring her fangs as she growled.

  “This is partly your fault. You led her to this.”

  “You led her to this,” Zara argued. “Had we not met you that night, she’d still be human.”

  “And I will never forgive myself for that, but you led Cassia to her. You made it easier for Cassia to get what she wants, and I am determined to never let Cassia get what she wants ever again.”

  “I’ll help you,” Zara offered.

  “You’ll leave,” Iro replied and stepped back. “Before I do something else Arwen will never forgive me for.”

  Zara looked terrified as she stood up fully.

  “Where can I go? Cassia knows where I live. She’ll just send someone else to kill me.”

  “Go to my office and stay there for now, until I figure out what I want to do with you. I want to talk to Arwen first. As much as I want to…” Iro shook her head. “I’m not doing anything without discussing it with her. She’s already had the biggest choice of her life taken away from her. I’m not going to do that to her again. There’s a door concealed in the wall by the bathroom in my office. I’ll call security and tell them to let you up. You can hide there from Cassia and whoever else. I have animal blood in the small fridge in there, too. It won’t taste good, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Zara looked down and saw blood.

  “I smelled it, but I thought it was Gigi’s.” She reached for Iro. “You’re not healing.”

  “I will. Now, go. Stay there until I tell you, Zara.”

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  “And, Zara?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know how she’s going to feel, but she… might not want me after this, once she realizes what I’ve brought into her life. I hope that’s not the case, but it might be, and I won’t put my own needs over hers. I… She might need you.”

  “I’m a vampire, too,” Zara said. “I helped Cassia.”

  “Yes, but she’ll ultimately forgive you for that in time. It’s easier with friends; harder with–”

  “One true loves?” Zara guessed. “Is that what you two are? Why it happened so quickly between the two of you? How you were able to push Cassia aside so easily?”

  “I hope so. I hope she’ll forgive me,” she said. “Now, go. I’ll text you the address. Take the subway. Stay sharp and look around for anyone who might be following you. Turn off your phone once you have the information to get you there. I’ll have someone in security leave you a new one on my desk. It will have my number and only my number programmed into it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Zara answered.

  “Cassia doesn’t like technology all that much, but she’ll use it if she’s determined to find you. Be smart, Zara.”

  When Zara nodded and left the closet, Iro took a deep breath, walked out, and saw Gigi’s dead body on her floor. She would have to figure out what to do with her later, but for now, she needed to get Arwen out of her car.

  CHAPTER 29

  Arwen

  Arwen’s eyes opened again, and she remembered being in a car, lying in the back seat. Did she remember Iro driving her somewhere? She never drank so much that she blacked out, and she knew she’d been at the café with Zara, drinking coffee. Unless that coffee had been spiked with something else, there was no way caffeine alone would black her out like this. Then, it hit her. It hit her all at once, and not like just a ton of bricks, but all the bricks in the world. She bolted upright.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Arwen, it’s okay.”

  Arwen turned and saw Iro sitting in the chair by the bed, but almost as quickly as Arwen had jumped, Iro was now at her side.

  “It’s okay,” she said, cupping her cheek.

  Arwen pulled away from her and asked, “Why am I in your bedroom? What happened?”

  “What do you remember, love?”

  “I was at the café with Zara, sitting outside, and I went to the bathroom. Someone grabbed me.”

  “Gigi,” Iro said.

  “Who’s Gigi?”

  “She was a close friend, if you will, of my ex-girlfriend.”

  Arwen swallowed and looked into Iro’s dark eyes.

  “So, it’s all true; what Cassia told me?”

  “Oh, I highly doubt that.”

  “Wait. Where’s Zara? Did she get–”

  “She’s fine. She’s safe.” Iro took her hand, but Arwen didn’t have the strength to pull away again. “Arwen, I have things I need to tell you, and I know Cassia told you things as well, but I need you to trust me.”

  “You’re a…”

  “Yes,” Iro confirmed.

  “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “Never,” Iro said confidently. “Never, Arwen.”

  “She said you wanted me to be like you.” Arwen’s eyes went wide. “That you wanted her, not me, or something like that. It’s foggy. Everything is so very foggy right now.”

  “Arwen, I need you to know something before I tell you anything else, okay?”

  “What?”

  “I love you,” Iro said.

  Arwen hadn’t been expecting that. She felt her heart race inside her chest, but she said nothing. This was not how she had wanted to hear those three words from Iro. Things had progressed so quickly between them, and she knew she felt it, too, but she thought they would wait a while before saying the words out loud to one another.

  “I can’t explain it,” Iro added. “We haven’t known one another long, but I’ve never felt so strongly for another woman in my very long life, and I once thought I’d lost the love of it.”

  “Cassia?” she guessed.

  “No, Cassia isn’t the love of my life.”

  “She’s your wife. She said that, I think.”

  “Arwen, I loved another once, and she died. Cassia found me heartbroken, and she turned me into this, into what I am now. I’ll tell you the whole story later, but sweetheart, Cassia isn’t the love of my very long, eternal life. It has taken me far too long to realize that I’ve never really loved her, and she’s never really loved me. She used me, and she uses others to get what she wants.”

  “But you were with her.”

  “Yes, on and off for years.”

  “How many years?”

  Iro squeezed her hand and said, “I was born in 1666 in London, just after The Great Fire, and I was turned when I was thirty-one.”

  “You’ve been the same age for… three hundred years?”

  “Yes,” Iro said. “I lost the accent a long time ago, but some of it remains, and when I’m living in the UK, it comes back at times. Cassia turned me, and I thought we loved each other. We’ve been together on and off ever since. When I met you, we were off, and she had just asked me to return to her. I declined. She didn’t like that, and she followed me here to DC, where I met you.” Iro smiled at her softly. “Arwen, I love you. When you walked into that bar, something clicked inside of me that had never clicked before. It told me to pay attention and that you mattered, and I told Cassia that she and I were finally done; that I didn’t want to get back together ever again.”