I couldn’t help but look over the crowd with wide eyes myself. These people had abandoned the safety of their bunkers and fallout shelters—God knew no one had homes anymore—to come here in the hope that they could do something more than hide and die in the aftermath of the Damned’s attack. They’d found the courage to rise from the rubble, and most astonishing of all, their courage had been inspired by my article.
Everyone’s story was curiously familiar: night bloods whose siblings had been transformed; night bloods whose parents had been killed; night bloods who had vampire lovers; humans who had vampire lovers; night bloods who had been attacked by vampires; night bloods who hated vampires; night bloods who wanted to be vampires; humans who had been attacked and couldn’t remember by whom. The variations of the same theme were endless, and I couldn’t help but think of Dominic and me, Walker and me, Walker and Dominic, Bex and Walker. With the right push or wrong decision, similar circumstances could result in so many different endings.
Story after story, unique and yet exactly the same. I listened to people recount the last moments they’d had with their loved ones, jotted detailed notes, and tried not to feel too deeply, but it was impossible not to feel when I knew exactly how they felt—the fear that they’d experienced their final moment with their loved one, the anger that such tragedy could happen to their family, the denial that this could be their fate. I watched it play out for them like it had for me when I’d lost my parents and when I’d nearly lost Nathan. Their grief brought all my own padlocked emotions to the surface.
I still had a dozen people to interview before the night was out, but I needed a recharge. I locked eyes with Dominic. He was walking out of the lab with Ronnie in tow after having discussed the acceptable parameters of more tests with Dr. Chunn. I jerked my head to the side before he could sit. He looked around the room at the dozens of people still waiting for me, who had been waiting all day and would continue waiting all night—because who were we kidding, what else did anyone have to do but be here in this moment? It wasn’t like anyone had jobs or hobbies or television anymore—murmured a quick word to Ronnie, and walked with me into the privacy of an empty interrogation viewing room.
I waited for him to shut the door behind us before speaking. “How’s Ronnie?”
“Fine,” Dominic snorted. “Better than fine, obviously. Dr. Chunn is fascinated.”
“I’m sure. So are we all,” I said.
Dominic sighed deeply and looked out at the crowd through the window between rooms. “What a fucking disaster.”
I blinked. His was not quite the reaction I’d had while looking out over the crowd. “Come again?”
“We can blame Jillian all day and all night for the destruction of New York City. We can hate her for betraying me and cast her as the villain in the coming battle to make us feel better when we attack her—my brother’s love and my former Second—kill her and attempt to reclaim my throne, but the truth is that everything, from her betrayal to the destruction of the city, is entirely my fault,” Dominic said, his voice grave. He waved his hand at the waiting room. “And this is our proof.”
I frowned at “our proof” through the window. He obviously wasn’t seeing the same room I was seeing. When I looked over the dozens upon dozens of people who had read my article and come here, I felt a sort of bond, an affirmation that I wasn’t alone. My entire world had been flipped upside down since stumbling upon Dominic in that alley, and for the majority of that time, even while visiting Walker and meeting other night bloods, I’d felt very much on my own.
The other night bloods—Logan, Theresa, Keagan, Jeremy, and Ronnie—had endured egregious losses, just like me. They’d learned to survive in a dangerous underground world that human laws and law enforcement couldn’t touch, and they’d been willing to share that world with me. But they’d also viewed Bex and Dominic and all the vampires universally as monsters. I had at first, too—hard not to do when your first encounter with one is being shoved up against a wall in a deserted alley, clawed mercilessly, and then entranced to shut up about it—but by the time I’d met the other night bloods, I’d begun to question exactly who were the monsters and who were the men.
As I’d come to know Dominic, I’d realized that he wasn’t just a ravenous beast intent on slaughtering humans for the thrill of the hunt. He was a man with ambition and responsibilities and deep, carving emotions. As I’d come to know Bex, Rene, Sevris, Neil, and Rafe as people, too, I’d realized the truth: vampires were as unique as humans, created with genes and shaped by experience. They weren’t all emotionless murderers. They experienced an array of emotions beyond blood-lust, from hope and joy to despair and rage. They could hate and kill.
And they could love.
I opened my mouth and closed it again, still frowning, unsure how to express myself and everything this room of people meant to me.
“I don’t see what you’re seeing,” I said.
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
“This room isn’t proof of your faults. At the risk of sounding cocky, it’s proof of my success,” I said bluntly. “And proof that we’re not alone in this fight. All this time I thought night bloods were so rare, that our relationship was so taboo—a night blood falling for a vampire, betraying her kind, and being tempted into hell by the devil himself.” I gave a mock shiver.
Dominic’s other brow rose to match the height of the first. “Am I the devil in this analogy?”
“I’m not saying that what we have isn’t special. And in a city of millions, a few dozen night bloods are pretty rare,” I said, backtracking slightly. “But look at them. They’re us, and they’re willing to help us fight for our city, people we didn’t even know existed just yesterday. I searched for weeks for a credible witness to corroborate my article. Weeks. And now, here they are.”
“But that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it, Cassidy? You didn’t know they existed. I should have.”
I blinked at the bitterness and self-condemnation in his tone. “How could you? Humans are… how did you once put it? ‘Food you want to fuck, but food nonetheless,’ isn’t that right? Did you ever think you and I would really bridge the gap between predator and prey and—”
“From the moment I saw you, I knew you would be mine.”
“Let me finish!” I said, stomping my foot. The movement would have been childish except for the fact that I accidentally cracked the tile under my heel. “Did you ever think you and I would bridge that gap before turning me into a vampire?”
He hesitated, his mouth still open.
“Had Jillian not attacked me, torn open my throat, and forced your hand, I might still be a night blood, and we would be lovers as human and vampire. Considering that I wasn’t ready to willingly become a vampire, we might have continued in that relationship for some time.”
Dominic only shrugged. He finally saw where I was going with this, but judging by his expression, he still wasn’t convinced.
“Given our volatile relationship when we first met, could you have ever foreseen such a relationship between us?”
He cut his head once to the side in a negative.
“Okay then,” I said with finality, but I could see by Dominic’s mutinous expression that this debate wasn’t over. “If you couldn’t even foresee such a relationship between us, then how could you have possibly foreseen it developing between others? This,” I waved my hand at the crowd before us, “was completely unpredictable and unprecedented. You couldn’t have known it would happen any more than I could have known vampires existed before seeing it with my own eyes.”
“Jillian knew.”
His words were so soft that I might not have even known he’d spoken had I not seen his lips move. “What?”
Dominic’s face was still hard and inscrutable as his gaze swept the crowd. “Jillian knew that many of the vampires in our coven wanted to come out of hiding, and this w
as why. Vampires in love with humans, and those humans fighting and lying and dying to keep our secret. How many times did it nearly kill you, both physically and emotionally, to know the truth about the creatures in this city, to be at the same crime scene as Greta and know exactly what was causing those crimes, and know that you couldn’t say a word? That even if you did, not only would she not believe you, she’d be entranced to forget by the next day?”
I pursed my lips. “You know how much it killed me. You finally broke down and let me write my animal-attack article, knowing how much it killed me.”
Dominic nodded. “And imagine all these dozens upon dozens of lovers, friends, and family doing the same, keeping our secret, alienating themselves from their day-lives because they were forced to keep their night-lives secret. I’d always thought that the few who wanted to expose our existence to the public were just power hungry, and Jillian was using that weakness to her advantage to take control of the coven.” He shook his head sadly. “But there was a real need in my coven, one I knew nothing about, and this is the proof of my failure.”
“Failure is a strong word,” I objected. “You had the best interests of the coven at heart when you fought against Jillian. You knew that if vampires in your coven went public, the Day Reapers would come. And you knew if the Day Reapers came, they would take control of the coven, execute its leader”—I gave him a pointed look—“and mind-wipe the public into forgetting your existence.”
“The Day Reapers did come, and look how that worked out,” Dominic said drily. “But you’re right: without the Council’s support, going public would have immediately alerted them to our coven. They would have deemed our actions treasonous, and they would have executed swift punishment.”
I nodded cautiously, waiting for the “but.”
“Had I known about these people and how my coven was struggling under the burden of secrecy, I might have softened my stance. I still would have fought against Jillian’s betrayal, but I might have petitioned the Council. I could have made strategic moves to eventually sway their laws.”
And there it was. “You think that would have worked?” I envisioned High Lord Henry’s unyielding expression as he stared down at me like a spider does a fly caught in its web, and I couldn’t imagine that man allowing his stance to sway on anything.
“I don’t know. Probably not,” he admitted, “but at least I could have tried. As Master, it is my duty to lead the coven, protect it, know my coven’s heart, and represent it. And on every front, right before the Leveling when Jillian had the opportunity to seize my rule, I failed them.” He shook his head in disgust. “I didn’t deserve to continue as their Master.”
“As your Second, had she truly been loyal, she would have told you what was going on in the coven and helped you lead them, helped you approach the Council, if that’s what it took. But she didn’t. She—”
“She did! For years she told me that the coven wanted to reveal their existence to humans. She—”
“I heard her speech,” I interrupted him right back, refusing to give ground. “In all her raving and justifications for betraying you, never once did she say anything about this,” I said, indicating the roomful of morose night bloods and frightened humans, all worried about a missing loved one. “She talked a lot about being tired of hiding in darkness and feeling imprisoned by your secret existence, but never once did she mention that vampires were falling in love with night bloods and had families with humans. She told you what she wanted, but she didn’t tell you the truth. You might not have known this was happening in your coven, which was remiss of you—”
Dominic snorted under his breath.
“But she knew, and instead of representing the coven as she was meant to, she used that knowledge to rebel against you and usurp your power, and in doing so, she tore the coven apart. Look at these people, Dominic. She might have revealed your existence to the world, but these people aren’t finally with their loved ones like they’d hoped; their loved ones are missing.”
“I should have seen her deception and protected the coven against her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine! You failed them! You should have known Jillian was going to stab you in the back and betray you. You should have known that members of your coven were deceiving you, breaking your one sacred law, and allowing humans—loved ones, but humans all the same—to remember their existence.” I threw my hands up in the air, completely exasperated. “With everyone going behind your back instead of having your back, it’s no wonder you failed them. They set you up to fail them. But they still need you.”
Dominic met my eyes, his expression unfathomable.
“More than ever, now, since they’ve been betrayed by the woman they’d hoped would free them, they need you to save them from her rule.”
“Us,” he whispered.
I blinked. “What?”
“I can’t save them by myself. As you already said, I need something I’ve never had: I need someone at my back.” His eyes blazed with a deep, volatile emotion I recognized all too well. I no longer shook in fear of that emotion, but I could still feel my body tremble. “I need you.”
I cleared my throat. I couldn’t act on that look. We were at the morgue, in the makeshift interrogation viewing rooms. The thought of Greta or Rowens—or my brother, for God’s sake—walking in should have tempered the heat between us. But knowing that I shouldn’t tear the shirt from his body, rip off his pants, and impale myself on him made the desire to do so that much more poignant. I had to clear my throat a second time before I could speak. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’ve brought everyone together and why we have dozens of witnesses to interview. I’ve got your back, they’ve got my back, and together, we’re taking that bitch down.”
The heat in his eyes sizzled, and he closed the distance between us, taking the step toward me that I’d refused to take toward him. “Never in my very long existence would I ever have considered allying with the human police force and Day Reapers to regain my lost position as Master.” He smirked, and his lips tipped lopsidedly. A real smile. “But I’ve seen firsthand the things you’re capable of when you have a team behind you. I’ve seen firsthand the things you were capable of all by yourself when you were a night blood, confined to a wheelchair—”
“Scooter,” I corrected stubbornly.
“—and put your mind to do something, to saving someone. In the very short time that I’ve known you, you’ve saved my life and Bex’s life. You saved Nathan from a fate worse than death. You saved Meredith’s life, and you saved the many people Nathan would have continued to prey upon had you not transformed him. You saved the countless civilians Kaden would have continued murdering had you not been willing to play bait to help me stop him.”
I let loose an unprofessional snort. “That’s one sacrifice I wouldn’t willingly repeat,” I muttered.
“And yet you did. Over and over again you sacrificed your safety and sanity for the chance to protect this city and its citizens. You acted as bait to allow us to draw out Nathan when he was Damned. You stood up to the Day Reapers while I was being interrogated by them when you couldn’t even physically stand. You—”
“I get the point. I’m the sap who risks everything to save the day. What’s your point?”
Dominic blinked. “The sap?”
“Everything I’ve sacrificed—over and over again, as you so eloquently stated—and look at us. Look at the state of our city! It’s in ruins, and we’re all that’s left,” I said, shaking my head. The sight of so many people coming forward in reaction to my article had bolstered my spirits with a bolt of optimism, but the longer I spoke to Dominic, the more reality set in.
Dominic cupped my cheeks in his hands, forcing me to face him. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else to take what we have left and form it into the weapon we need against Jillian and her army.”
I eyed him warily.
“I’m right and you’re wrong?” I raised my eyebrows. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Let me finish!” he thundered.
I snapped my mouth shut and waited.
“You are more than all this, and I, no matter my seeming omniscience, could never have predicted what you would mean to my coven and this city, and most all, what you would mean to me.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
Dominic stared into my eyes for a long, lingering moment before growling—the sound low and rattling deep in his chest. His grip tightened on my face, and that was my only warning. Suddenly, his lips sealed over mine. His tongue swept into my mouth. His body molded to my body, and my body melted. The smell of chai and hearth embers—the scent of our desire—ignited from our collision, but I could sense something more from us, too. Everything he couldn’t find the words to express was in his kiss—in his hands, which burrowed under my shirt until they reached skin; in the goose bumps that flared over my body in heat instead of chills; in the urgency of his hitched breath—the hard evidence of his feelings for me surrounded me and illuminated me from the inside out, without the words.
Someone cleared her throat behind us.
I tore my tongue from Dominic’s mouth and snapped my head around to face Greta and Rowens, who were standing behind us. The fact that I hadn’t heard them approach spoke volumes about my level of distraction.
I would have detached myself from Dominic’s unprofessional embrace—I’d never been caught necking on the job before, ever (probably because I’d never necked on the job before)—except that Dominic didn’t loosen his hold. Forcing him to loosen it would involve kicking his ass and possibly a broken table, thrown chair, or shattered plaster. I didn’t want to cause a worse scene than the one we’d already been caught in.
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