“You’re not kareshta, but…?”

“There is something. Kyra feels familiar. Her voice sounds right, if that makes any sense.”

“Her magic feels the same as yours.”

“Yes, I think that’s it.”

Malachi hadn’t said anything, but he’d sensed the same thing. More, Kostas’s sister gave off the same nervous energy that Ava had been drowning in before she’d learned to shield herself from the soul voices of the humans around her.

He wrapped her in his arms, shaken by the truths they’d discovered that night.

For Malachi, it changed everything.

He was forced to see the Grigori in a new light. Yes, most or all of them were still victimizing humans, but they were also victims themselves. And some, like Kostas, appeared to be trying to change things. His black-and-white world had been thoroughly washed in grey. But in the confusion, his scattered mind focused on a kernel of hope.

If Ava had Grigori blood, how different could they be?

“You’re not kareshta,” Malachi agreed. “But it wouldn’t matter to me if you were. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She snuggled deeper into his side. “I can hear you.”

There was a dark edge to her magic. The visions that came to her were unlike anything Irina experienced. But Ava was good. Not perfect, but good. Her heart was warm and generous. She was protective. Courageous.

His.

She reached out with her magic, and it was as if small hands stroked him from head to toe. He shivered with wanting her, but Ava was too deep in thought.

“I think my grandmother must have been one of them. That might be why my father locked her away. Tried to hide her. Kyra said that many of the kareshta end up in mental institutions because people think they’re crazy.”

“That makes sense.” He’d come to the same conclusion, but he knew she needed to work it out in her own mind.

“Yeah, it makes sense.”

He felt her shoulders shaking before he heard her cry. “Shhh, Ava.” He stroked her back, pulling her so tight to his chest that he was worried she would bruise. Her pain was a stab in the heart.

“They’re out there,” she said. “Others like me. Those are the stars in Jaron’s vision. Out in the darkness, Malachi. So many of them. And so horribly alone.”

“I know, Ava.”

“We have to find them.”

Could finding the kareshta be a way out of this never-ending war? Could Grigori society turn into something like the Irin? Kostas had said that those Grigori who had contact with their sisters were more stable. Had more control. If they could find more of the female Grigori—teach them to protect their minds—would it change their enemies as Kostas hoped?

What was the alternative? Endless, blood-soaked war? Generation after generation caught in the same vicious cycle? His own son continuing the slaughter of a people Malachi was starting to believe were more like his own than he wanted to admit?

The Irin Council’s policy had remained unchanged for thousands of years. Scribes protected the human population from the Grigori, killing them any time they attacked. But with a few exceptions, the Fallen themselves were never targeted. Why? Malachi had always assumed they were simply too hard to kill. But could there be another motive for tacitly allowing them to exist?

What power would the council have without an enemy to fight?

“We need to go back to Italy,” Ava said. “We have to find my grandmother. I refuse to let Jasper stonewall me. If she’s like me, she’s been living with voices her whole life, Malachi. There must be something I can do.”

Ava’s conscience would never allow her to let another live in the torment she’d faced for over twenty years.

“We’ll go to Italy,” Malachi said. “We’ll find a flight to Genoa in the morning. I think it’s only six hours or so with connections. We can be there by tomorrow night.”

It was a good thing Max’s forger was competent. Their fake passports were getting more than a little mileage.

“Do you think my grandmother is in Italy?”

“Honestly? No. Italian hospitals are the first Rhys checked because your father tends to take his holidays there. None of them match the information we have. But we are going to Italy, and we are going to find her.”

“How—?”

“We tried getting information from Jasper and got nothing.” Malachi smiled in the darkness. “I think it’s time to talk to the man who holds his keys.”

Chapter Ten

THEY TOOK A FLIGHT to Genoa the next morning and were driving by late afternoon. Ava had a hard time sleeping. Part of her wanted to find her grandmother, but another part wanted to be back in Bulgaria. Only Kyra’s urging had allowed her to leave.

“Go. Find your grandmother. You know who and what she is now. You can help her.”

Ava had wanted to start lessons immediately. She’d wanted to find the old monastery Kyra had spoken of where thirty Grigori women hid from the world and the madness that lurked on the edges of their lives.

Kostas and Malachi had refused. Kostas, out of distrust; Malachi, out of concern.

It was too soon, her mate said. They needed to think. Needed to plan. How could they risk putting Irin knowledge into Grigori hands? Ava knew Max and Renata agreed, even though they clearly trusted Kostas and Kyra more than Malachi did.

Her brain knew he was right, but her heart had other ideas.

For Ava, meeting Kyra had been like looking in a mirror. It wasn’t her looks, because the woman’s angelic beauty was nothing like her own. In fact, Ava was almost resentful she’d gotten all the mental anguish of Grigori blood without the excellent skin tone.

Oh well.

It was her eyes. Kyra said all the female Grigori had gold eyes like their angelic fathers, but it was more than that. The pain was the same. The constant stress of hearing. The ache of being other. Kyra, like Ava, had lived most of her life alone, though she’d been lucky enough to have a brother. She spoke of Kostas with a fierce and protective admiration, as if daring anyone to think badly of him.

Ava didn’t think badly of the renegade Grigori. She didn’t know what to think.

It was hard not to be wary.

While Kostas’s men didn’t exude the voracious hunger of the Grigori that had stalked her and killed Malachi, they were still clearly the sons of the Fallen. The seductive features were there. The scent of sandalwood that lured her. Their hunger was in their eyes, even though it wasn’t layered with blind rage.

But they were also different from their brethren. Did they exude tension? Yes. But it was controlled.

“Ava?”

“Hmm?” She glanced at Malachi as he drove them toward Portofino.

“Why don’t you try to sleep?”

“I’m too wound up.”

“Try, canım. We don’t know what this day will be like.”

“More warrior lessons?”

He smiled, fine wrinkles appearing around his eyes. “Yes, like they taught us in school. Eat when you can. Sleep when you can. Fu—”

“I get it.” She reached over and slapped a hand over his mouth. “Bad man. They didn’t teach you that in school.”

“The professors might not have, but the older boys did,” he said as he peeled her hand away and kissed her palm. The smile fell from his face.

“What is it?”

“The Grigori have all this power—all this natural magic—and they have no control over it. I think it would be better to be human.”

“Do you have to make it sound like that’s the worst thing in the world? Being human? I was one, you know.”

He gave her a raised eyebrow. Oh, those eloquent raised eyebrows her man offered.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “If they were human, they’d have no magic, but at least they’d live a normal life.”