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“Mercy—”

I held up my hand. “I also remember the lies,” I said, hoping if I drove a nail into his heart, it’d make me feel better. Help him move on and let go of the past. “I remember the deception you showed me over and over again for your own selfish needs. Even if I could reverse this spell and feel something for you again, I wouldn’t. I don’twantto love you!”

Caleb slowly closed his eyes, and I felt shame flicker through me. Those words had to have cut through him like a knife. Those words may have been the worst thing I could have ever said. But I didn’t know any other way to get through to him. It had been a year. He needed to move on.

“We’re a coven, Caleb, and that is all we will ever be to each other. We will never have what we did over three hundred years ago. It’s done. We are done.”

I didn’t mean for the words to come off so harshly. My own pain was shrouded under a mask I wore to keep Caleb from believing there was hope for us. In the end, it would hurt him more.

Caleb was more than just a coven member to me. He was a friend and even as close as family, but it had been a year, and he still hadn’t stopped fighting for us to have what we had so long ago.

Caleb’s face was unreadable, his mouth set in a flat line before turning away from me as we heard the bathroom door open.

Sarah appeared from the bathroom, her brown hair curled in tight waves and her dress snug against her thin frame, with high silver heels. “What did I just walk in on?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Caleb was just leaving.”

He glanced at me, but only briefly. His eyes stayed on Sarah’s as if I were no longer in the room. “If the two of you don’t text me on the hour, every hour, I’m coming out there to get you.”

Caleb wouldn’t even look at me. My words had hurt him so severely that he couldn’t even respond to what I had just said. Instead, he stormed out, slamming the door behind him, which caused me to jump back.

“I really hurt him this time,” I said.

“Can you blame him, Mercy? Caleb’s been in love with you for over three hundred and twenty years. You only remember the beginning of falling in love with him when the two of you were kids in your previous life and what the coven bond made you feel a year ago. Caleb remembersbeingwith you, mind, body, and soul, during the gap of memories you lost. It’s not easy for him to let something like that go,” Sarah countered.

After Tatyana had rescued Dorian and the witches, all hell broke loose at the lair where Maurice had held me captive. Maurice and Kyoko fled and went into hiding. Rumors had spread across the supernatural world that he and Kyoko had taken off to the west coast. Many of the vampires who resided in that mansion found new clans to join, and the human captives were finally set free. Some, though, came for help to turn them back, using my blood to save them.

Dorian and Noah stayed together, and it took me several days to track them down. Once I found them, I’d looked Dorian in his eyes, just as I had with Caleb, and I’d told him what I had done and felt. He understood why I had done it, but I still hurt him. The only communication I now had with Dorian was a few text messages every month to check in with each other.

That was our agreement. Other than that, we’ve not spoken to or seen each other in months.

I had offered Dorian my wrist to drink from that night, but he refused. He said he wanted to stay a vampire so that if I ever needed saving, he could be there for me to fight by my side.

I eyed the clock. “We have to go; the club opened an hour ago. Roland had his friend Marcus put our names on the list, so we shouldn’t have a problem getting underground.”

“Okay, let’s go then,” Sarah said, grabbing my hand. “If anything goes south, I’ll turn you back so you can fight in your own skin and put the fear of God in those vamps.”

I smiled at her. “Damn straight, I will.”

CHAPTER 5

“HOLD OUT YOUR wrists,” the burly man said at the front of the line of The Black Horse. He was twice as big as Caleb, towering over Sarah and me, but he had a kind face, like a big teddy bear.

Before we arrived, I was confident everything would go as smoothly as planned, even though it rarely did. My nerves clutched my throat when the man reached out to wrap a black band around our wrists and stepped to the side to usher us in. Everything tonight relied on Sarah’s magic holding to conceal my identity and the two of us getting the answers before it faded away.

A smile reached my face as all the tension I had been holding in was released when I heard the music. I had to lean close to Sarah’s ear to talk to her, as the music was deafening.

“We need to find a guy named Marcus,” I told her.

“What does he look like?” she shouted.

“Middle-aged, black man, with a bald head. He told Roland he’d be wearing a gray silk suit and red tie. He’s Roland’s contact!” I shouted back in her ear.

“Is he a vampire?” she asked.

“Witch, actually.” I looked around the room. “Roland said we could trust him.” I raised one eyebrow.

“Ah, you don’t, do you?” she questioned.

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