Chapter 22

Even I know what this means for the professor and his bear. I am not completely unfeeling, but there is nothing I can do for them now and nothing to be gained by me staying to witness his last loving goodbyes with his family.

Family.

It has been so long since I had one, I don't remember what it felt like.

Vampires don't have families. We have nests. Kin. Blood bonds and primal ties that keep us together. But I learned a long time ago that when vampires exist like that, too close for too long, they become uncontrollable. Their urges merge and amplify and they cannot resist the base instincts that drive them.

My entire existence relies on my ability to resist.

To say no to the desires that scratch the darkest crevices of my insides.

I have to be able to rise above them.

That is how I was able to kill Zephyra – despite the bond between a sire and his child. Centuries of practice enabled me to push my feelings aside – not just my feelings – the throbbing base instinct that tried to stop me even as I held her neck between my fingers.

I killed her.

I killed the one who sired me, and the one I sired.

I killed everyone I ever cared about because I knew it was what I had to do in order to keep this city under my control.

There is only one person I would not be able to kill.

Luna.

As I walk away from Nova and her mates, my thoughts drift to the bookstore. To her blond curls and her wide blue eyes. Her nervousness. The way she almost shimmers with the promise of being more, with the unacknowledged parts of herself that are desperate to bloom from between the cracks in her fragile armor.

She lit up when she talked about shifters. When she was reading over my shoulder, and her warm breath touched my cold skin, she was alive with intrigue. I wanted to grab hold of her in that moment and kiss her until the world dissolved around us. I wanted to ravage her. To show her exactly what it's like to be desired.

Behind me, Kim does not speak. He simply follows wordlessly as we head toward Miranda's quarters.

I was going to speak to her this evening about Luna.

Tanner told me something that made me feel… I don't know what it made me feel. It twisted my insides in a way I haven't felt before. At first, there was rage. I was enraged that he had seen inside her head. He had entered her in a way I never would.

But then this other feeling crept into the pit of my stomach and lodged itself there.

He told me she was in pain. He sensed that she was sick, that her softness and her smile hid pinpricks of pain, a throbbing ache in her muscles.

He could not tell me why.

I was going to ask Miranda to find out for me, and to make something that could be slipped in to Luna's coffee to ease her suffering.

I would do anything to ease her suffering.

The thought occurs to me as I push open the door to Miranda's quarters and observe the scene Sam and Nova left behind.

He would have done anything to save her. He thought nothing of his own safety. Werewolf or not, he dived into the fight with the Solaris and he tore it apart. He didn't know his bite would be fateful, he knew only that he would willingly give his life if it meant saving hers.

On the floor by the sideboard, upon which there are bottles and potions and tools I have never properly studied, is a large tar-like stain. The demon is gone.

Miranda's body, its shell, lies in two discarded halves.

There is no blood, no muscle. It is like she was a Miranda suit, made of plastic instead of flesh and bone.

I reel back through my memories trying to pinpoint the night on which it must have happened.

Kim is kneeling down, trailing his index finger through the tar. He raises it to the half-light of the lanterns and squints at it. Something has changed inside the demon hunter, that much is obvious. When he bit into Zephyra's heart, and managed not to vomit onto his brown leather shoes, I saw it in his eyes; he is ready to embrace his destiny.

He is going to fight back against the urge to be normal.

He is a fool.

He has a choice the rest of us don't; we are what we are. We cannot choose to be less. He can. He can choose to be human. He can run to the furthest corner of the world and hide there, away from his destiny.

But it seems he has developed a taste for destruction. Ending the Venatrix demon made him feel superhuman. And I suppose now he needs a new purpose.

It has always surprised me that humans are so purpose-driven when they are here for such a short time. Perhaps it is because they are here for such a short time.

I don't know.

All I know is that Kim is not the same man he was when we first met.

I point to the remains of the demon. "You know much about the Solaris?"

Kim shrugs and stands up. "I know they stun their host, then enter through the mouth. The teeth on their tentacles sort of scrape the insides of the person out. They eat them as they go, taking over their body so they can wear it like a suit." He blinks apologetically. "Sorry, she was your friend."

He hesitates over the word ‘friend'. I don't blame him. I am not the type to have friends.

But I do not correct him.

I suppose, if I were to have had a friend, Miranda would have been that person.

But we both knew the limits of our relationship.

"I didn't sense anything different when she returned from Zephyra's clutches," I mutter.

"It must have happened before she was taken." Kim tilts his head. "A while before… around the time the scepter went missing. Maybe even before that, if the Solaris didn't want you to suspect anything."

I pace the room, trying to recall what Miranda was like over the past few months. I did not pay attention. I was distracted. Yes, she was a little vacant. A little robotic perhaps. A little wary of me, even? But people are always wary of me. I was grumpy and intolerant, aware that I'd soon need to do something to thwart Zephyra's attempts to widen her FHB empire.

And I was spending too much time watching Luna.

She met Steven six months ago. Quickly, he became a fixture in her life, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on the man that he was going to be trouble.

I growl and lick my fangs.

I let this happen. I did not watch Miranda closely enough. Perhaps I am not watching Luna closely enough.

"Where is the scepter?" I ask, refusing to enter into a debate about how long Miranda was missing for.

This creature was the one that engineered the whole thing. It took the scepter from me and used its disappearance to lure Nova here so it could drain her blood. The scepter was insignificant, but it would have wanted to keep it safe; it knew that allowing it into the wrong hands could spell the end of all of us.

"I don't know," Kim says. "But it can't be far. It wouldn't have risked letting it out of its sight."

"Then search the room. Quickly."

I move fast. Like lightning. There is still the whisper of Nova's blood lingering in my veins. I wonder whether she might leave me with some when she goes, and then I hate myself for wondering such a thing. I do not need phoenix blood in order to rule this city.

But it was so very strong…

I find the scepter with barely any effort at all. When I pull it out of a small wooden chest at the foot of Miranda's bed, I raise it up into the air and laugh. Utterly ludicrous. All this time, it was here under our noses and we had people on the other side of the world trying to help us find it.

I hold it tightly in my hands.

The familiar rush that always takes hold of me when I"m close to old objects settles in between my fingers. I flex them, brushing the cool metal. "I need to get this back to the archive." I stride toward the door. Kim is still looking at the stain on the floor.

"What is it, demon hunter?" I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Solaris aren't that bright." Kim is scratching his chin. "It surprises me that it put this plan together itself. They really don't usually think too much. They absorb their hosts for survival, not for?—"

"What has this got to do with the whereabouts of the scepter?" I snap, annoyed by his suddenly all-knowing tone.

"Nothing," Kim scrapes his foot on the floorboards. "Nothing," he repeats. "It's just…" He meets my eyes. "Aren't you worried this is part of something bigger?"