Fiona walked into the dining room. Regina raised her brows and proceeded to dish up a plate of spaghetti. “Afternoon, Fiona.” She didn’t sound happy that Fiona had slept so late.

  Fiona glanced at Tobias, whose dark eyes consumed her while he leaned back in the chair at the head of the table and folded his arms. His dark hair was still pulled back in a tail, making his face appear even longer, more angled, and thinner if that could be possible. Instead of a turtleneck, he now wore a black satin shirt. It reminded her of her great aunt’s furniture, black and white, with the white being his pale skin. Though living under the often-overcast Oregon skies, she noticed most Oregonians didn’t have tans like Texans did.

  Clarissa was the exception with her golden skin, but not so much from tanning, Fiona suspected. Her nationality probably had more to do with it. As beautiful as the night before, Clarissa wore a shocking pink halter-top and matching jeans, which was way too cold for an autumn day. She set a glass of water on the black tablemat in front of Fiona and flashed her usual cheerful smile.

  Her dark curls cascaded over her shoulders, down her hips in satiny swirls of thick, to-die-for hair.

  “I heard voices last night,” Fiona said, gauging Regina’s reaction. Today, her great aunt was dressed in black denims and wore a sparkly spandex top of black and white swirls.

  “Did you?” Tobias spoke, his words dark, accusatory.

  Fiona faced him, surprised he would comment and not her great aunt, but his arrogance made her suspect he was used to running things. His brown eyes nearly turned to black, and she realized belatedly he waited for her answer.

  “Yes, I did. I’m a very light sleeper. Just about anything will wake me.”

  “And you heard?” He sounded like he was running the Inquisition. One wrong word, and Fiona would be history.

  “Weird stuff.”

  Fiona noticed that Clarissa’s smile had faded, and her dark eyes concentrated so hard on Fiona, it made her feel the girl was trying to determine if she was lying or not.

  Her great aunt took a seat opposite Tobias. “Eat and tell us what you think you heard.”

  Think? Did that mean the three of them were ready to denounce her ravings?

  Clarissa sat down across from Fiona, but none of them were eating. She glanced at the black-tile countertop. Clean.

  “We’ve already eaten, Fiona,” Regina said. “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing much, really. Do you know I sleepwalk?”

  Her great aunt stared at her like she’d sprouted horns and a barbed tail.

  Tobias shook his head. “She wasn’t sleepwalking.”

  “Who were you talking about?” Fiona speared a meatball and figured if they weren’t buying her sleepwalking story, she might as well start asking questions and put them on the spot instead. “I mean, the dangerous guy. Who is he?”

  All three stared at her, and again she really wished she lived with her brother.

  “Why were you wandering around in the backyard late last night?” Tobias asked.

  Regina must have tattled on her, but it annoyed Fiona that he thought it was any of his business.

  Tobias cleared his throat and asked again, “Why were you outside last night?”

  “I heard a scraping noise at my window. I wanted to see if there was a shrub rubbing against it.”

  Tobias exchanged looks with Regina. A hint of concern flashed across their faces. “I’ll be back. You know what to do.”

  “Tobias,” Regina said.

  Wasn’t Clarissa going, too? Fiona wished she would. The secrets they withheld from Fiona made her feel like an outsider.

  The front door closed on Tobias’s departure, then Regina said, “He danced with you last night at the Halloween party.”

  A sip of water went down the wrong way, and Fiona coughed and sputtered.

  “He’s a bad influence.” Regina ran her long-tapered shimmering white fingernails over the black satin tablemat.

  Great. Now her great aunt would lecture her about guys too. Here Regina had never shown any interest much in Fiona before. How had Regina known about him? Was someone at school spying on her for her great aunt? Things just couldn’t get any creepier.

  “How did you know?”

  “One of your teachers called me this morning to see that you got home safely. She said a boy followed your girlfriend’s car out of the parking lot. He was kicked out of school a year ago.”

  Her heart fell so hard, Fiona couldn’t hear it beating any longer. “Kicked out of school for what?” Wouldn’t you know, some troubled teen would be interested in her.

  “For stalking another girl. At first, he was really sweet and considerate. Then he became possessive and domineering. The girls’ parents had to get a court order to stop him from following her everywhere. Three months after their first date, someone murdered her. Though they questioned him, they could never pin the crime on him, nor did they ever find someone else who might have killed her.”

  Fiona’s blood chilled. “What kind of a car did he drive?”

  “A black sports car.”

  Great. But then she wondered why she hadn’t seen the car park somewhere behind them, or even pass them by. She’d looked because she’d hoped they could flag down someone to help them when Emma ran into Ruric.

  “Clarissa’s going to attend the rest of the school year with you. She has decided she would rather do that than homeschool now.”

  “Oh?” Instantly, Fiona became suspicious.

  “Yeah,” Clarissa said, her cheerful expression back in place. “We can do homework and have lunches together. It’ll be great fun.”

  Fiona felt Clarissa was being assigned as an informer. Watch everything she does and report back to the head honcho. But Fiona wasn’t sure if that was her great aunt now or Tobias.

  “What do your parents think of you going to public high school?” Fiona asked, and finished the last bite of her spicy spaghetti. She had to admit, despite her great aunt’s other shortcomings, she was a great cook.

  “Tobias suggested it, really.”

  “He’s your dad?” Fiona couldn’t help the surprise in her voice.

  Clarissa giggled. “No, he’s my…uncle.”

  Right. Just like he was Fiona’s. Just too eerie.

  “Do you know anything about factorials, greatest common factors, or least common denominators? I’ve got some algebra homework to do.”

  “Sorry, I don’t have a head for math. I have to run. See you both later.”

  Clarissa fairly skipped out of the room, then Fiona faced Regina. She was chewing the inside of her cheek like she did when she was contemplating something.

  “What did you hear last night?” her great aunt asked.

  Back to that. “Some guy wanted some girl. The girl needed to reject him. If she didn’t, she needed to be killed.”

  For a second, her great aunt sat in morbid silence, then she laughed out loud. “Your mother always said you had a vivid imagination.”

  Her mother had never talked to Fiona or Justin, for that matter, about a Great Aunt Regina. Why wouldn’t she have?

  “Which teacher called you?” Fiona took her dish into the kitchen. She had to know which teacher was keeping an eye on her at school, just in case some nice guy got interested in Fiona, and she ratted on her to her great aunt about that too. Fiona felt as though she was living in some gigantic fishbowl and everyone was keeping an eye on her.

  “Mrs. Emerson.”

  Fiona sighed deeply. She didn’t know any Mrs. Emerson. “What subject does she teach?”

  “Not sure, dear. Here, let me clean the dish. You never do this right.”

  Fiona did just fine cleaning dishes at home. Not with Regina. Everything had to be done just so. Fine with Fiona. It got her out of doing the dishes.

  “I’ll just go and do my homework. Oh, and I would really like to have a blue comforter in my room.”

  “Why?”

  “Uhm, because it’s my favorite color? Besides green. But for my room I would love blue. I’m not that fond of black.”

  “Maybe later, dear.”

  That meant no. But Fiona wasn’t giving up.

  “Oh, and, Great Aunt Regina⁠—”

  “Regina, dear,” her great aunt said, her words biting.

  Between clenched teeth, Fiona said, “Okay, Regina. The guy I was supposed to avoid, what was his name?”

  Her great aunt stared at her as if she’d been hit with the strangest question.

  “I didn’t ask his name when he danced with me, and he didn’t offer it,” Fiona clarified, feeling like an idiot for not insisting he give her his name. From the sounds of it, she now had the reason why he had asked her to dance. He was bad news.

  Regina nodded. “Arman Powe. Let me know if you see him again.”

  It had been Arman! Had he been fixated on her since that day when she’d spilled her soda on him? But followed her all the way here? Two years later?

  “Sure.” But Fiona figured that was going to be Clarissa’s job.

  “And, Fiona.” Regina said it as a way to get her attention.

  “Yes?” Fiona paused at the kitchen entrance.

  “My nephew, who was supposed to be your father, wasn’t.”

  7

  Pacing across the living room of the house they had rented, Arman was still furious with Ruric for jumping in front of Fiona’s car and getting hit. Usually when he got mad at one of his friends, he would easily get over it. But he couldn’t help feeling a grudge toward Ruric. What if Fiona had fallen for Ruric instead? Arman was supposed to be taking care of her, not Ruric. “Why did you pull what you did with Fiona?”

  “I was trying to help you.”

  “I don’t need your help. Here you had the opportunity to grab her then and you didn’t.” Arman glowered at Levka. “Or you could have.” Arman sat down to have breakfast, Caitlin and Jasmine making ham and cheese omelets for them. Though the Scottish estate had a human chef, sometimes Arman and his friends swapped off on who made what meals for the day while the chef could go into town and buy supplies. And when they were on their own like this, they took turns.

  Levka said, “Fiona can’t be forced to do anything. If we had tried to get her to go into the house against her will, she could have screamed bloody murder and what a scene that would have made.”

  Arman had to admit Levka was right, though he wouldn’t admit it out loud. He glanced at Caitlin. “You look a little pale today.”

  “Yeah, I’m having a cocktail with my breakfast.”

  Arman nodded. That was the trouble with having a more newly turned vampire in their little group.

  “What are your plans for today?” Levka asked Arman.

  “I’m going to the high school as a new student,” Arman said.

  “Me too,” Stasio said.

  “Though going to school doesn’t appeal to me in the least, if Stasio is in, I’m in. Besides, a woman might be able to talk to Fiona when you guys could be seen as more of a threat,” Jasmine said.

  “Like I said, I’m joining you also,” Caitlin said. “It would be great if we could become Fiona’s new best girlfriends.”

  Levka swore. “I’m supposed to be Ruric’s older brother. I can’t go to school.”

  “We’ll protect Caitlin,” Ruric said.

  “Absolutely. All of us were watching her back during the overthrow of the old Scottish League,” Jasmine said. “Besides, I’m a vampire assassin. I can help. With Caitlin’s special skills, she can too.”

  Arman knew Levka wasn’t happy about the turn of events at all. He didn’t blame him, but Levka had decided to be the big brother for this mission and Ruric had already explained that to Fiona and her friend so there was no changing their minds unless⁠—

  Levka snapped his fingers. “I’m just one of you. I’ll change their memories of that moment when Ruric said I was his older brother.”

  “You can do that with Fiona’s girlfriend because she’s human, but Fiona is a hunter,” Arman reminded him. “So you won’t be able to change her mind.”

  “I’m going. I’ll come up with something else then. Ruric, get us enrolled in school,” Levka said.

  Not in a million years did Arman think he and his friends would be going to a high school as students.

  Ruric was on his computer, clacking away at the keyboard. “Okay, what assignments does everyone want to take?”

  “What classes is Fiona in?” Arman asked.

  “You can’t be in all her classes,” Jasmine warned. “We should split them up so some of us are in each of her classes.”

  Ruric smiled. “I’m on it.”

  “You’re not related to my nephew, Avery Wilder, you know,” Regina said again to Fiona, as if the words hadn’t sunk in, which they hadn’t.

  Fiona’s legs felt like they’d turned to boneless chicken, and she leaned against the doorjamb into the kitchen. Could her great aunt be losing it? Sure, she had the new face and not a bad body for being an older person, but there was nothing to turn back the aging brain.

  “Yep. My nephew was the town drunk. The only good thing he ever did was got plenty of life insurance to take care of you and your brother. But he wasn’t your father.”

  Fiona barely made it to the kitchen chair and slumped on the black velvet seat.

  “Your mother, well, how can I put this delicately?”

  Fiona’s heart thundered. Her mother couldn’t have had an affair with another man.

  “I don’t blame her at all. Avery was a difficult person to live with whether he was drinking or not. And Tobias, well, you’ve got to admit he’s a charmer.”

  A charmer. Fiona’s stomach churned with nausea. “You’re not saying⁠—”

  “He’s not your uncle. He’s your father. We just didn’t know how to break the news to you.”

  Fiona really didn’t believe this. “And Justin’s father?”

  “No. Justin really is Avery’s son. You’re Justin’s half-sister. Which means you and I are still related, if you have the notion we’re not."

  “Not by blood.”

  Regina cast her a hint of a smile.

  Then Fiona’s heart sank. “Tobias doesn’t want me to live with him, does he?”

  “I’m not getting any younger and he wants to get to know you better now that your parents are no longer here.”

  Fiona did not want to hear this. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?”

  “Your mother didn’t want to tell you or my nephew the truth. I’m sure you can understand why. And my nephew never knew the truth. Neither did your brother.”

  “So how did you know?” Fiona couldn’t believe her mother would tell Regina any of this. What if Regina had told her nephew and he had blown up at Fiona’s mother?

  “Timing. Avery was gone for two months to a rehab center, though it hadn’t done any good, and Tobias moved in.”

  “I don’t remember him.”

  Regina smiled. “You were being conceived. Your mother kept Tobias informed of what was going on with you over the years.”

  “Where does Tobias live?” Fiona still couldn’t believe it.

  “For now, you’ll remain here with me. But your father wants you to have more restrictions.”

  “More?” Fiona couldn’t help how shrill her voice had become. The Halloween party was the first time she’d been out since she’d moved here! More restrictions?

  She wanted to scream.

  “For one thing, he doesn’t want you going out with Arman.”

  “Arman? I’ve never been out with anyone since I moved here. You know that.”

  “The guy you danced with at the party last night?”

  “Oh.”

  “Your father doesn’t like him or his family. Arman’s attempting to see you to stir up trouble. Like I said, he has issues with stalking a girl if he gets obsessed with her.”

  Fiona knew it. There wasn’t any other reason for him to be interested in her. Now she wondered if he’d actually tracked her down here, but it had taken all this time to do it. “You don’t have to worry about it. He didn’t bother to tell me his name even. Now that I know he’s bad news, I won’t have anything to do with him.”

  “He’ll come back for you. It’s a long-standing feud. Without fail, he’ll return.”

  Fiona frowned. So she wasn’t truly some random girl he was interested in? Figured. “What’s the feud about? And what’s Clarissa’s relationship with…with…” Fiona couldn’t call him her father. “Tobias.”

  “He’s her…guardian.”

  Fiona didn’t believe it for a minute. “Where are her parents? Does she have any other family?”

  “All dead.” Regina smiled one of her pasted-on smiles. “Tobias is all she has. As for the feud, it goes back centuries.”

  “Centuries?”

  “Figure of speech, dear. Why don’t you run along and do your homework?”

  All Fiona could think about was Arman, the stalker, and Ruric, the guy they’d run over with Emma’s car, who she thought was a friend of Arman’s. Had all that been staged? Though, Ruric truly had been…well, nearly dead, and she didn’t think that could have been part of the plan to see her.

  The next day at school, Fiona had wanted to see Ruric and hoped he was still alright after they ran into him with the car and learn what was going on with him and Arman being here, if Ruric actually managed to change schools. Clarissa, however, accompanied her, and that really bothered her. It wouldn’t have if she hadn’t felt that the girl was going to report back to Tobias and Regina about all that went on with Fiona at school.

  Luckily, Clarissa wasn’t in Fiona’s first class. Fiona walked into history class, not thinking of anything really, except she had a test next week. That’s when she saw Tux—Arman—and nearly had a heart attack. He was sitting right next to her desk, as if he knew that was her assigned seat.

  “Everyone take a seat,” Mrs. Johnson said to Fiona, since she was the only student in class who was standing there, her mouth agape. She snapped it shut, felt chills creeping up her spine, and took her seat.