“I know. That’s why I’m asking. I mean?—”
She cut herself off, and for a moment, silence just hung there. “It’s just, well, I’m not supposed to say, but it’s not me who likes him. It’s Allie.”
My heart stuttered.
Allie?
Allie and Zane?
Were there signs? Had I missed signs?
How could I have missed signs?
I mean, sure, she’d pulled him aside after a sparring session last week, but I assumed she was correcting his form. And, yes, they talked at meals, but she talked with everyone.
Still, he had come out of his shell around her. More so than he had with most of the others, except Mindy and Ren.
How on earth had I missed this?
I backed away from the door before they could catch me, my mind racing. Allie had Jared. Jared, who loved her. Jared, who’d been patient and steady and everything she needed.
Jared, whom I’d finally come to terms with being an ageless vampire who was dating my only daughter. Was she really going to throw him away for the new kid with the charming smile?
Except of course, she was. She was seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds made spectacularly bad romantic decisions.
Okay, that wasn’t fair. I’d never regretted Eric. Not even after I learned all his secrets. Pissed, yes. Regretful, no.
Still, a hundred-year age difference raised a lot of red flags. I think any mom—or marriage counselor—would agree with that. But moving from Jared to Zane...?
Time for a mother-daughter talk. The meeting could wait five minutes. Some things were more important than apocalyptic revenge demons.
Okay, that probably wasn’t true, but I pretended it was as I hurried to the training room where I found Allie running through forms with her stiletto. She moved like weaponizedwater—fluid, precise, deadly. My daughter. The girl who’d closed the gates of Hell.
The girl who was apparently on the verge of making what we moms like to call a Bad Life Choice.
I paused in the doorway, watching her. She was so much like Eric that sometimes it made my chest ache. The same intensity. The same single-minded focus. The same inability to do anything halfway.
Hopefully, her silence about her Zane crush wasn’t a sign that she’d also inherited her father’s annoying habit of keeping secrets he shouldn’t keep.
“Allie. Got a minute?”
She finished her sequence and turned, barely winded. Her cheeks were flushed, her ponytail coming loose, and she looked so young I truly felt my heart squeeze.
Seventeen.How could my baby be seventeen?
I closed the door behind me, then moved to sit on the padded bench. “I wanted to have a mom/daughter talk.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Okaaaay. That’s not ominous at all.”
I put my hand on her arm, supportive yet firm. “It’s about Zane.”
Something flickered across her face—surprise, maybe that I had a clue about her crush—but I pressed on before I could lose my nerve.
“Look, I get it,” I said. “He’s new, he’s charming, he’s good-looking. And at your age, it’s natural to notice that.”
Her brow was furrowed, but she didn’t interrupt. I took that as a good sign, drew another breath, then dove back in. “The thing is, I know I was a little leery at first, but you have something real with Jared. Something most people never find. And I don’t want you to throw that away because you’re curious about the shiny new option.”
Her eyes went wide, and her cheeks bloomed pink. “Um, Mom? I mean, what is this?”
