"Walk straight," the vampire behind me ordered and I didn't have to turn around to know he still had his gun pointed at me.

I didn't reply, struggling to walk back toward the funeral home. Uncontrollable, full-body shivers wracked my body, unbidden. My heart pounded in my ears and goosebumps covered my skin. What was going on? Why was this vampire after Claude? What did he want with me?

I knew I had to collect myself, but the fear of the gun behind me made it hard. If guns were illegal here, how did he have one? I'd never even seen any of Claude's security with them. Were they perhaps working alongside hunters?

We entered the building again and the sound of chaos met my ears immediately. People were screaming, yelling, crying. Then what sounded like a gun firing multiple times and once again I froze up, my body refusing to move any further... until something cold and rough pressed against the thin fabric of my dress. Fear seized my lungs again and I found it hard to breathe, wondering what kind of scene I was about to walk into as I forced my legs to move.

We entered the main room of the parlor where a tense silence had settled after the havoc. My eyes scanned the crowd, a gasp being ripped out of me as I saw one, two, four, six, bodies scattered on the ground. Blood soaked the carpeted floor beneath some of them, and once again, the image of my father bleeding on the marble ground entered my mind. Bile rose in my throat and tears burned in my eyes as one of the injured on the ground groaned and tried to sit up, I quickly searched the room for Kaz before attempting to run over to them, to help, to save them before—

A rough hand grabbed at the back of my dress again before I could make it three steps. "You're not going anywhere."

"Let me go!" I said, my voice hoarse from my dry throat. "They need help—"

"The world will be a better off place without them."

I turned to look over my shoulder at the man holding onto me, his eyes cold and cruel, lips curled into a snarl. "What... what do you even know about them?"

"More than a piece of shit human like you do."

I tried to pull myself out of his grasp, hearing more groans of pain from the injured vampires. "Let me go!"

"I told you to stay still!" he snapped back, yanking on me hard, making me fall over backward. I didn't fall all the way to the ground as I lost my balance, his hold on my dress keeping me hanging, and then he roughly set me to my feet again. "Just shut up and don't move."

The crackling sound of a mic filled the room and drew my attention to the podium, where another rough-looking man dressed in all black and with long brown hair tied up into a ponytail stood. He adjusted the microphone stand, a sharp electronic noise coming rough, and making my ears ring. "Do we have everyone's attention now?"

No one said a word, and no one moved. Where once solemn and tear-stained faces stared up at the podium, now terrified and tear-stained ones did. A few stole glances at me— including Esin, whose face had lost all color, and I realized one of the bodies on the ground was the man who stood up at the podium early as they spoke about Esgi. My hand shot over my mouth. No... No. They already had enough loss. I had to do something. I had to— but...but what could I do?

"You all gathered here today after witnessing the cruelty and violence caused by humans, and yet some of you still want to defend them?" the man at the podium spoke harshly, moving his hand in a sweeping motion out toward the crowd. "Children, friends, family, all murdered by these disgusting creatures. Yet you blindly follow a so-called king who would rather protect them than his own kind?"

King? Was he talking about Claude? I stared at the man with the ponytail, confused. His eyes were shining in fierce determination and hatred. It made my skin crawl.

"We have struggled for decades with humans. We have watched as they hunted us down, as they terrorized our families, as they stole our territories, and as they got away with it every single time. They think of us as monsters. But what defines a monster? Is it not someone of extreme cruelty? Wickedness? Who goes against values one should hold dear? Shouldn't we hold our lives dear? Do we deserve such cruelness simply because we are different?"

"No!" the man holding onto me shouted, causing me to jump.

The ponytail man glanced over to us and gave a hard nod. "Exactly. We don't deserve this. And yet we now have a king that wishes to make peace with these enemies of ours. To forget all our pain and sorrow and bend at the knee to those who have shown us nothing but violence. He will even go as far as marrying a member of the family who caused us the most pain. The daughter of the Levant family."

At the mention of me, the man holding onto me shoved me forward, and I once again found hundreds of pairs of eyes on me. My body felt like led as I moved, anxiety weighing me down. Was some kind of revolt happening? Who were these people? Judging by their words, they were vampires, then why did they shoot at the other vampires in the room earlier?

I glanced out into the crowd again, and my eyes caught sight of white hair, and then landed on Felix's face. His eyes were narrowed and his jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle in his jaw from where I stood near the podium.

He was pissed. He'd been right. Felix was always right.

The man at the podium stepped away from the microphone, raising his voice as he walked over to me. "We refused to be led by a king who would rather take a dirty human lover than someone of his own kind. We refuse to bend to the will of humans anymore. The laws, the territories. Everything must change. Did we learn nothing from the last peace treaty? All of you hear lost someone dear to them. Because of this girl." I glared at the man with the ponytail as he stopped in front of me, a sneer on his face. He grabbed my jaw roughly, turning my head to face the crowd. "She made her way to the academy where we thought our sons and daughters were safe. She had a plan all along. Seduce the prince to rule over the vampires while killing as many as she could."

"Wha—" I tried to say, his grip tightening on my jaw as I tried to speak. My eyes widened in disbelief. What the hell was this guy saying? None of that was true!

"She even came to the funeral today to gloat. To take joy in your heartbreak. She should be rotting in prison, but our king allows her to be free. He is and has always been, a human lover. He has no right to lead us. To marry such an enemy to our kind is a betrayal of our kingdom and our kin."

There was a murmur in the crowd and it made my heart sink. No way was anyone listening to this vampire, were they? Nothing he was saying was true!

...But how did they have any way to believe that? The thought hit me and my hands curled into fists as I looked at the sea of faces. Some still looked scared, some looked mad, and some looked convinced.

"This is treason," someone spoke up from the crowd. "You're asking us to revolt against the crown."

The vampire finally let go of my jaw, turning to face the crowd fully. "So, it's wrong to betray those who betray us first? We must follow blindly as our king leads us to Hell? He prefers to save the lives of humans over vampires. He will never put us first.'

"Claude isn't like that!" I said quickly and loudly. "He is the one who wanted to put my father in jail for the crimes he committed against vampires! All he did was to protect vampires. He's never once valued human lives over—" The back of a hand slamming into my face cut me off, sending me sprawling to the floor.

The vampire who held his gun at my back towered over me, glaring down at me. "Shut up, whore. Don't speak to our leader like that. Know your place."

The one with the ponytail addressed the audience again as I pushed myself up. "You see? She spits out more lies to try and confuse everyone. She thinks we'd believe her. But we're not like our pitiable king or the others who'd believe such poor lies. She's a liar and a schemer. She wants us all dead and all the while puts on an innocent face."

"Would someone who wants peace shoot at innocent people who are here to mourn their children?" I shouted as loud as I could. "You're killing your own kind for even worse reasons than Claude—"

"You'd do best to shut your mouth," the vampire who smacked me said, kneeling down next to me, and grabbing a fistful of my hair in his fist. "Or you're the next thing I kill."

"I thought you said I was bait," I responded, challenging.

"You don't have to be alive to be bait. Your body will do just fine."

The ponytail vampire sighed and shook his head. "Even more attempts to fool us. We can't fall for this. She only wants us to trust in our king so she can control him more. She killed her father for this, as well."

The accusation shot through my heart, but before I could speak up, someone from the crowd did first. "You're wrong!" a feminine voice shouted, her tone filled with resolve. "Cleo truly wants peace! What you're saying will just lead us to more war!"

The pony-tailed vampire's gaze zeroed in on the speaker at the same time mine did.

Esin.

I scrambled to my feet, heart racing. This was dangerous. I shook my head, desperate to get Esin to stop speaking.

"You're speaking lies. Cleo never wanted anything like this to happen. She came to our academy for the peace treaty because she truly wanted peace. She worked hard for it! She even went against her family. She—"

"I see she brainwashed more than just our prince in her time there," the pony-tailed vampire said, holding out his hand toward the vampire holding onto me. "It's such a shame. We can't allow such illness to spread."

"What are you..." I trailed off, realizing a gun was being handed to the pony-tailed vampire.

"We have to start anew," he said, his voice rising again, booming, filling the entire parlor. "We must get rid of all vampires who have sympathy for humans if we want to get our revenge."

Get rid of?

He trained his gun toward Esin.

"I hope you all consider your actions in the future because this is the only path to peace," the pony-tailed vampire said, his finger on the trigger.

"No!" I screamed, jumping to get in front of Esin, panic taking over my limbs before my mind caught up. But it didn't need to. I knew this family had already lost one member, and now, maybe two, because of me. I wouldn't let them lose another. I couldn't.

"Cleo!" Felix's voice suddenly shouted, rising in alarm, and closer than he'd been before, just as the crack of a pistol going off split the air, followed by screams.

And then, all of a sudden, instead of moving forward toward Esin as expected, my body became top-heavy, and I pitched toward the floor at an alarming speed. There was no warning, no ability to stop myself. I slammed into the wooden floor, my face smashing against the oak flooring so hard I momentarily lost vision. All around me, I heard shrieks and thumps as body after body dropped to the ground.

A sharp pain radiated from my nose to my skull as I tried to lift my head, but found myself unable to. My breathing grew heavy as I fought to move any of my limbs, scared I'd become paralyzed somehow, but as I heard angry yells take over the hysteria of the other funeralgoers, I realized I was under the pressure of the Sway.

A swell of hope filled my chest. Had Claude come back? A hand enclosed around my upper arm and tugged on me, but I didn't budge, the weight of the Sway heavier than the force of the hand pulling me. "Shit," a voice I recognized as Felix's said above me, and a second later my body felt a thousand times lighter. Felix yanked hard on my arm, and I jerked to the side violently from the force, causing him to swear again as I landed on my back, startled.

"Let's go," he said, leaning down as I looked up at him, trying to process everything as he helped me to my feet properly.

"What—" I cut myself off, glancing around the funeral parlor at the layer of vampires now seemingly glued to the floor from the Sway. "Where is Claude?"

Felix leveled me with a hard look. "You think Claude did this?"

I gasped. "You? But—"

"Let's go," he said again, grabbing my hand, and pulling me in the direction of the back door. "I don't know how long I can keep this up. I don't even know how I did this. We're lucky it even worked in the first place."

"Wait, we can't leave everyone!"

"We can, and we will." He enunciated his word with a hard pull on my hand.

I tried to pull my hand free of Felix's. "We can't! These vampires are dangerous— they just tried to kill Esin!" As the words left my mouth, I realized that I didn't even know what happened to Esin. If I'd fallen to the ground, had the bullet gone past me? I looked wildly around me for Esin, nearly sighing in relief when I saw her squirming on the floor, seemingly unharmed. No blood surrounding her. No cries of pain. Just the force of Felix's Sway kept her pinned to the ground.

I turned back to look at the vampire who had tried to shoot her. He, along with the others he'd appeared with that I hadn't noticed, were all also collapsed on the floor, unable to move. The gun that had been in his hand had slid across the floor and out of his reach. "Wait," I said to Felix, trying to pull myself free again. "Just give me five seconds, then I'll go with you."

"Five seconds is more than enough for you to find your life in danger again," he said sharply.

"Let me just take their guns, please," I begged.

Felix pursed his lips, looking over his shoulder at the gun on the floor, and then let me go. "Fine. Take all their weapons. But be quick."

I nodded as he let me go and together we hurried over to the other vampires. My heart beat so hard in my chest I found it hard to breathe as I carefully picked up the silver gun with shaking hands. I hated touching it. How dangerous it was.

Felix's hand appeared in my field of vision again, taking the gun from me, and expertly unloading it. Once unloaded, he handed the pistol back to me. Then he proceeded to the other vampires, searching them, taking their guns, and doing the same. He pulled some daggers from them as well, piling up the weapons in my arms. I didn't say anything and just let him do his thing, knowing it was more effective for him to do it rather than for me.

Once satisfied, he walked back over to the vampire that had tried to shoot Esin. "Come after her again and I'll kill you next time."

The vampire let out a vicious snarl. "Who are—"

Felix cut him off by bringing his foot into the vampire's face and I flinched as a crunching noise met my ears, loud enough to stand out above the other commotion. Felix turned on his heel and marched back over to me, nodding his head toward the exit. "Let's go. I'll release the Sway once we're on our way out. At least I hope I will," he said, muttering the last part.

"Will everyone be okay?" I asked but still followed Felix.

"I'm sure Nadir has rounded up the royal guards. And if not, they are now weaponless, against hundreds of other vampires who know now they're a threat. It's also not your problem. Or did you want to try to kill yourself again?"

"I wasn't—" I started, but closed my mouth, deciding it wasn't worth arguing over. Not now. Not when Felix had risked outing himself as a member of the royal family to save me. I could only hope all the commotion kept his cover safe. Maybe everyone else would believe Claude had come back.

"I told you this was a bad idea," Felix said as we hurried through the back hallway. "I told Claude. I told Nadir. Not one of you listened to me and look what happened?"

I didn't respond, following behind him silently, letting him vent. There was nothing I could say that I hadn't said before, anyway.

"Prisoner or not, Claude should have never put you in danger like this. Nadir is not the king, yet he listens to Nadir's orders and doesn't consider your safety. And then runs off and leaves you alone when you're in danger. What the hell is wrong with him? There's no way he didn't see this coming." Felix kicked open the back door, nearly knocking it from its hinges as he pulled me outside, sending me a hard look. "Oh, wait. It's just that no one cared it was coming."

Once outside, I caught sight of a familiar black Cadillac. Felix bee-lined toward it, opening the back door, and basically pushing me inside. I lost my balance and fell onto the leather seat and suddenly a pair of hands shoved themselves under my armpits before I could right myself, manhandling me like a doll into the middle seat. Looking up, to my surprise, I saw it was San who'd pulled me upright. Felix slammed the door as he climbed in behind me and there was the squeal of tires on the pavement as the car took off and I jolted back against the seat.

"You okay?" San asked, his eyes searching my face as he helped me right myself. "She looks okay."

"Looks like Felix came in time," a feminine voice came from the front passenger seat and I looked forward to see Adora peeking around her seat back at us. "Smart to have a backup plan."

"This wasn't a backup plan," Felix said roughly, arms crossed. "I knew this was going to happen and it did."

San smoothed out my hair, eyebrows furrowed in concern. "Still, thankfully you're not hurt."

I stared at him, freezing. "San...?"

He smiled softly. "Hi, Cleo. It's been too long, hasn't it?" He leaned over in his seat and hugged me tightly even though I didn't move to hug him back. "Sorry it took so long to come to see you." He pulled back, his smile fading as a somber look replaced it. "And... I'm really sorry about your father. I promise I had no idea what Kaz was planning. I just wanted you to know that. I would have stopped him if I'd been there. I definitely would have. I'm sorry."