Friday evening, Tristan and I rode to his house in silence. Thanks to Charmers practice running late, we, too, were running late, which I knew was driving Tristan nuts and making him even more nervous, though he didn't say anything.

He wasn't the only one nervous tonight.

What if I said something stupid and ticked off Mrs. Coleman? She already had plenty of reasons to hate my guts, since I'd basically taken her son from her and the Clann when I turned him.

I caught my thumbs drumming against the steering wheel and forced them to be still. Usually Tristan liked to drive my car, but tonight he had chosen to sit in the passenger seat instead. From the turmoil of his thoughts, I guessed he had too much to think about to want to pay attention to the road.

"It's going to be fine." I tried to reassure him yet again as we headed east toward his house.

He didn't say anything. Nor did he smile. He just sat there, staring ahead at nothing, his left knee bouncing so fast it was a blur.

I sighed. I couldn't wait to get tonight over with. Hopefully by the end of it, Tristan and his mother would have settled their differences, and we could all finally calm down and focus on the real challenge...getting through the daily life of being two hybrid vamps surrounded by humans and descendants in the heart of Clann territory. That was stressful enough without all this family angst thrown in on top of it.

I felt in my jacket pocket for my MP3 player, considering plugging it into the car's stereo. But then I spotted the entrance to the Coleman property a few yards ahead. Too late for music. Maybe we'd listen to it on the way home. With a sigh, I left the MP3 player in my pocket and focused on slowing down the car for the turn.

As soon as we turned onto the Coleman property, we felt it. Someone was using power, and lots of it. The wroughtiron gate was already open, the code box beside it smoking and charred.

Tristan hissed out a curse, the rapid-fire thudding of his heartbeat filling my ears. "Hurry!"

Oh, God.

I stomped on the gas, the car's back end fishtailing on the gravel before the tires caught and shoved us forward down the winding lane toward the Coleman mansion.

The two-story English Tudor quickly loomed into view. Once we reached it, I hadn't even shifted the car into Park yet when Tristan was out and at the house's front door, which, like the gate, someone had left wide-open.

I hurried to catch up in time to hear him calling out to his mother and sister as he entered the dark house.

The smoke hit me first, making me gag and my eyes burn and tear. From the stench of it, something seemed to be burning in the kitchen. Multiple smoke alarms pealed on both f loors, forcing me to clap my hands over my ears to save my eardrums from rupturing. Tristan and I ran in a crouch through the foyer, tripping over stuff along the way, until we reached the kitchen. He grabbed something off the stove that was filled with f lames and started to shove it into the sink.

I caught his wrist, stopping him just in time. "Use baking soda to put it out!" I had to shout over the screeching smoke alarms.

He left the saucepan in the sink to dart away somewhere and came back with a small box in one hand. When he poured it over the pan, the fire went out in a billow of powder.

Then we heard Emily scream upstairs.

"Emily!" Tristan yelled, running back toward the foyer while bent over to try to avoid some of the smoke. He disappeared up the stairs.

I grabbed the handrail to follow him. Suddenly a man dressed all in black appeared before me.

"Hello, freak," he said with a leer. "So glad you could join the party."

I glanced down at his hands. Each one held a stake.

So it was a staking party, huh?

My pulse took off, injecting my body from head to toe with adrenaline. The resulting rush was like nothing I'd felt before as time slowed to a crawl. Whole minutes seemed to pass between each of the man's heaving breaths, plenty of time for me to think. And to plan.

Even at the battle in the Circle between the vampires and Clann, I hadn't felt like this. I must have turned even more in the five months since then. Dad had warned that the evolution of my vamp side would increase every time I fed.

Was this how he saw the human world around him all the time, or only during moments of danger?

Upstairs I could hear small thuds, curses and explosions. Blue f lashes of light like cameras going off lit up areas of the smoke overhead as, I assumed, Tristan and Emily fought their attackers.

I read my own attacker's mind then gasped.

He was Clann.

"Did Mrs. Coleman set this up?" I asked him.

His face scrunched in confusion. "I don't understand you, monster."

I snorted. Speaking molasses slow, I repeated myself so his human mind could make out every word I spoke.

He grinned then made a tsking sound. "Nancy would be so offended. That is, if she were still alive."

Oh, no.

I stepped in close to him, moving faster than he could blink. It wiped the smile off his face. "You'd better be lying, or I'll be the least of your problems tonight."

His right arm bent at the elbow, rising in slow motion. If not for the sinking horror filling my stomach with dread, I would have laughed at his stupid arrogance. He thought to stake a vampire?

I easily grabbed his arm and wrenched it behind his back, then caught his left wrist before he could move it, too. Leaning into his face, I said, "Better stick with your spells, descendant, if you want to take out a vamp like me."

Sleep, I thought, shoving my will into it. Energy burst out of my hands into him, and he crumpled to the f loor, unconscious.

Then a second descendant tried to sneak up on me from behind.

Growling, I whirled to face him then darted forward and slammed my right palm into his chest, driving him backward into the entrance wall. The drywall cratered around him from the impact, and he was out. I let him drop to the f loor.

I had to find Mrs. Coleman.

First, though, I reached out with my mind and found Tristan on the stairs. The distance made the volume of his thoughts quieter, but the open doors in between us still allowed me to barely reach him with concentrated effort. I'm okay. Need any help up there?

No, he thought back. Emily and I've got them pinned. You okay?

Yeah. I'm going to look for your mom. She didn't order this, by the way.

That's something at least, he thought back. Be careful.

Right.

I held my breath and ran, again in a crouch, keeping my hands out to warn me of walls before I could hit them. I found what felt like a hallway, judging by the two walls my hands found at either side of me. I slowed down and opened up my mind, searching for the telltale thoughts of anyone on the first f loor. My left hand suddenly found empty space beyond it, and I stopped to mentally search the room. It was empty. Squinting, I continued forward down the hall, where the smoke seemed lighter and swirled away from me toward some kind of opening in the house. Open doors or windows maybe?

The room I entered was steadily clearing of smoke. My right hand found the coffee table just before I reached it, saving me from a bruised shin. But I wasn't crouched low enough for my hand to save me from tripping over something soft yet solid just to the side of the table.

I knelt there, half afraid to know, half sure I already knew.

Please don't let it be her.

I waved my arms frantically through the air, creating a small breeze to help the remaining smoke clear. When that still wasn't enough to see, I put some willpower behind it and thought wind blow. A stronger breeze whipped up and gathered the smoke as it encircled the room once, twice then a third time before running back out the smashed, open patio doors.

I dared a glance down then closed my eyes as stomach acid rushed up to burn the back of my throat.

It was Tristan's mother.

She grabbed my ankle, opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. So I read her mind instead.

Mac...it's a lie...Mac's the key! Tell them...

She made a gurgling, choking sound, her eyes rolling wildly, her hands clawing at the air.

"Oh, my God. Mrs. Coleman-" I took her nearest hand in mine. "Tell me what hurts. Tell me how to help you!"

I raised my head, intending to scream for Tristan and Emily. But Nancy distracted me, her hand gripping mine as if to get my attention again so she could tell me something.

For a second, her entire body convulsed, rocking and jerking as if she were having a seizure. She stiffened from head to toe then went limp, her eyes rolling to the side and staying there.

In total shock, I stared at her, mentally using all my senses to try to understand what was wrong with her and how to fix her. But even as I used my free hand to search her throat for a pulse, her eyes seemed to change, f lattening and going dull.

I couldn't find a pulse with my fingertips, so I tried to read her mind again.

But there was nothing to listen to...no heartbeat, no thoughts, no answering squeeze or twitch when I patted the back of her hand I still held within mine.

Nancy Coleman, leader of the Clann and, more important, Tristan's mother, was dead.

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