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When I pulled away, his eyes had returned to their usual brown.

“Call Dean,” I said. “Then talk to Logan before he does something catastrophically romantic.”

“That doesn’t narrow the timeline.”

“Good point. Call quickly.”

Mack reached for his phone while I looked at the two cases waiting beneath the workbench.

Logan believed that if Jacqueline came after him again, he would be on his own.

He was wrong.

Mack’s next call would make sure he knew it.

Chapter Five

By nightfall, I still hadn’t gone home. I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Carolina’s face: the way she’d looked at me like I was worth something, then vanished as if I’d never mattered at all.

And behind her, always behind her, loomed the shadow of her mother. The woman who’d destroyed my life with a whispered curse.

I needed to understand what I was up against. Mack had warned me away, told me to let it go, to accept my fate. But I was done accepting. Done being the punchline.

So I went to find the witch who’d cursed me.

The Arrhythmia Coven House sat on the edge of the historic district, a Victorian monstrosity that looked like it had been built by someone who hated straight lines and right angles. The walls leaned, the roof sagged, and the windows, dozens of them in different sizes, stared out at the street like unblinking eyes.

I stood on the sidewalk for ten minutes, gathering my courage. This was insane. I was a clumsy, cursed vampire with no allies and no plan, about to confront one of the most powerful witches in Arrhythmia. She could turn me into a toad. She could unmake me entirely. She could do anything.

“Are you going to stand there all night, Mr. Richards, or were you planning to actually knock?”

The voice came from above. I looked up to find a woman standing on the second-floor balcony, her silver-streaked auburn hair catching the moonlight. She was beautiful in the way that sharp things are beautiful: elegant, precise, and capable of drawing blood.

She looked exactly like Carolina would in thirty years.

“Jacqueline Fortman?” My voice came out steadier than I felt.

“The High Priestess,” she corrected, her tone making the title sound like a threat. “And you’re the vampire who’s been asking about my daughter.”

My stomach dropped. “How did you...”

“I know everything that happens in my town, Mr. Richards.” She descended the stairs with fluid grace, each step deliberate and controlled. “I know when you wake up. I know when you sleep. I know every humiliating stumble, every spilled drink, every whispered joke at your expense.”

She stopped three feet away, close enough that I could smell her perfume, something dark and expensive, nothing like Carolina’s wild jasmine. Her eyes were the same blue, but colder. Calculating.

“Why?” The word escaped before I could stop it. “Why did you curse me?”

Jacqueline smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. “Because you were rude.”

“That’s it? I was rude, so you destroyed my life?”

“You were more than rude.” Her voice dropped, losing its pleasant veneer. “You were arrogant. A newborn vampire, barely three nights turned, and you thought you could dismiss centuries of tradition. I offered you guidance. I offered you a place in our community. And you treated me like shit. I won’t ever stand for that type of disrespect from anyone.”

“I was scared,” I said, the truth surprising us both. “I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I was grieving, and angry, and I lashed out at the first person, other than Mack, who crossed my path. That just happened to be you. I’m sorry.”

The apology hung in the air between us. Jacqueline studied me, her head tilted like a bird considering a worm.

“An apology,” she said finally. “After a year of suffering. How convenient.”