I’ve only seen her this way a handful of times. Usually, it’s when her family members are in trouble and she’s trying to figure out a way to help them. She’s hearing from Patrick, I’m sure of it. I snuggle into her side.

“What’s happening?” I whisper.

She hesitates. Her slim body stiffens. “Stuart is going to be okay,” she says softly.

At first, I’m startled. I didn’t know Stuart was in danger. “I’m glad,” I say truthfully. However, I’m far less worried about their alpha shifter than I am my beautiful hunter. “What else?”

A few moments pass. The clock on Demeter’s mantle ticks so loudly, I wonder how I never noticed it before.

“Sloan is dead. They burned his body and scattered the ashes.”

Nodding against her shoulder, I can’t hide the relief in my voice. “I felt it as soon as it happened. It was like a heavy chain had been taken off my neck.”

“Yes,” she says softly. “You were his slave. We came here to set you free.”

I think about her words a moment. She’s absolutely right. Our entire reason for this trip—just between the two of us—was to find a cure for my hybrid state. Now it’s been accomplished, it seems, by my strong, beautiful, amazing man. He promised to save me, and he did.

Heat moves through my pelvis, and I close my eyes imagining what it will be like to sleep with him as a mere mortal. He was overwhelming when I was a hybrid. I can only imagine how my human body will respond. It takes so much to affect a vampire.

“When will they be here?” I hope my voice isn’t breathless. I imagine Elaine can read my thoughts again now that the vampire curse is off me. She must know how enormous my feelings are for him.

Her arms tighten around my shoulder, and she only holds me. She doesn’t answer my question. A flash of fear moves through my chest. For the first time all night, I consider she’s hiding something from me.

“Lainey?” I whisper. “What’s wrong?”

Exhaling a little laugh, she squeezes my shoulders again. “Nothing! Nothing.”

The hasty way she says it twice gives her away. Whatever she’s hiding is far from nothing.

As much as I don’t want to say the words, as much as I tremble at the thought, I must ask. “Is Derek… dead?”

“Oh, god no,” she tries to laugh more, but it’s unconvincing.

“Then tell me why you’re afraid. I can feel the fear rolling off you.”

Moving onto her side, she slides a cool palm against my cheek, moving my hair over my shoulder and back. “Melissa…”

It’s like a lament. I can’t take it anymore.

“Tell me what happened!” I almost screaming in a whisper, and it seems to do the trick.

Her chin drops and her voice thickens. “Derek was… changed.”

I pull back. “What? I don’t understand. Changed how?”

“Sloan overpowered him. He used some kind of mind control.” She’s speaking so fast, my brain and my emotions struggle to catch up. “Sloan knew he had vampire blood in his veins. Patrick said when he saw Derek had beaten him, he used his last moment to glamour Derek into biting his neck and drinking his blood.”

I’m off the couch and on my feet so fast, it’s as if I’m still a hybrid. A typhoon sweeps my insides. “What are you saying?” My head shakes, and now I’m speaking fast. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Repeat what you just said.”

She waits as I pace. I’m breathing so fast, I’m afraid I’ll hyperventilate.

Slowly, she reiterates the horrible words. “Derek is a vampire.”

My shoulders hunch as pain hits my stomach with the force of a cannon. No! Not my Derek! I drop to my knees and press my forehead against the thin mattress. Tears burn my eyes, and my fists are over my ears, and I scrub them, wishing there was some way to erase these horrible words.

Derek is a vampire. It’s all my fault. He wouldn’t have done any of this if it weren’t for me. I changed his plans. I took his life.

“Oh, god!” I cry into the mattress as my body trembles.

My friend puts both hands on my shoulders. She’s rubbing my arms, trying to comfort me—as if that’s even possible.

I sit back on my feet, tears blurring my vision. “Where is he? I have to go to him. I have to tell him how sorry I am.”

“I don’t know.” Elaine reaches for both my hands and holds them tightly in hers. “Patrick said when he realized what he’d done, he took off running into the night. Patrick tried to follow him, but Derek is too fast now. They can’t find him. They don’t know where he went.”

“No!” My voice breaks as panic sweeps through me. I’ll never find him. I’ll never see him again. Only I have to find him! He has to let me see him. He has to talk to me.

As fast as the panic comes, I feel the calm, problem-solver side of me kick in. When I was locked in the hybrid-vampire state, my emotions were so volatile. I would be lost on a train of thought with no way back on a moment’s notice. Now I can think again. I can strategize. It’s such a relief.

Clearing my throat, I wipe the tears from my eyes. This is no time for falling apart. I will find Derek. I will see him again.

When I speak, my voice is calm, professional. “I’m sorry. Please tell me exactly what happened.”

My friend shudders and looks down, clasping her slim arms over her torso. “Oh, Melissa,” she whispers, and her eyes clench shut. A lone tear drops onto her cheek.

“Elaine, please.”

“When Patrick looked up from helping Stuart, he saw Derek had ripped out Sloan’s throat with his teeth.” She pauses for a shudder, and I feel like someone is pressing a palm against the front of my neck.

“Did he…?” I can’t say it.

“He drank Sloan’s blood. Derek drank the blood, and he made his first kill.”

My initial feeling is pride. My strong hunter ripped that monster apart with his bare hands. Instantly my pride is replaced with grief at what has happened to my love, how he must be feeling, the shock and horror.

“I have to find him,” I say. “He did all this to save me. I have to go to him.”

“I don’t think that will be possible—”

“And why not?” I don’t mean to be indignant with her, but I need to see Derek now.

“Patrick says it’s too dangerous. Their ties were severed when the change happened to Derek. They have ways of checking up on him, but Patrick says we have to be cautious. He’s tracking him now.”

“I need them to find him, Elaine. If anyone knows what he’s going through, it’s me.”

She nods, holding my hands, her green eyes wide. “I know. I can feel the power of your love for him.”

I try to pull away, to hide my face. It’s too soon for love. How can we even know our feelings with all these terrors swirling around us?

“Yet you do,” she says softly, answering my question. She’s back inside my head. “You love him, and that’s why I’m going to help you.”

Derek

Realization burns through me like a brand. I’ve crossed the line. There’s no going back for me now. As Sloan’s control dies with him, the start of my new life races through my veins. The change is happening fast. The vampire blood overpowers my simple human flesh, and before the end of the night my humanity will be gone. I’ll be immortal.

I stand over the empty husk of Sloan’s body, and I know there’s no salvation for me now. I’ve lost everything. He won.

Star is sitting with her back against the wall. Her eyes are large, watching me. She saw everything, and either she’s too stunned to speak or she doesn’t know what to say.

Patrick has resumed human form, but he’s staying in a squat to hide his nakedness. He’ll shift again before they leave.

“I’ve stopped Stuart’s bleeding,” he says. “The healing process has begun, and he’ll be fine in a few hours.”

He looks up at me cautiously. I can tell by his tone he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know where to begin or what to think.

I by contrast, don’t care to think. I don’t care to speak. I take a few staggering steps backwards, away from the grisly scene then I turn and start to run. The change has progressed to the point that I move too fast for human eyes.