“I’m not sure,” Allie said slowly, and frowned because that was true. She knew very little about the pack of vampires she’d spent the last four years running from. Just that they were other victims of the same vampire who had turned Stella and her husband, and that they would do whatever their “sire,” as Stella had called him, demanded. Stella had feared nothing more than that man getting his hands on her son. She’d been terrified he would turn Liam into a ravening, bloodsucking fiend like the people he’d turned, and she’d been determined to save her son from that. So much so that Stella had given her life to try to keep Liam safe.

Allie had done her best since then to uphold her promise and keep Liam safe as well. She’d given up her previous life, one that had been successful and stable and safe, for a life on the run. Although she doubted Stella had expected that. She’d probably thought that sacrificing her own life would convince her hunters that both she and Liam were dead, leaving Allie to raise him in relative peace and safety. It was what Allie had expected the night that Stella had died. But things hadn’t worked out that way.

“You really are safe here,” Katricia said suddenly, drawing Allie’s gaze. “Really. We would never harm you or Liam and want only to help.”

“Why?” The question was out before Allie had given it much thought, but it was the question that had been on her mind since she’d woken up here. Why were they here? Why had Tybo and Magnus helped them? What did they want from them? Allie hadn’t had a lot of help over the last four years. Any, really. She and Liam had been on their own.

Katricia was silent for a moment, considering her, and then she shrugged and said simply, “It’s what we do. We are responsible for keeping mortals safe from immortals and immortals safe from discovery.”

“So you saved us from those rogue immortals last night, and now . . .” Her mouth tightened and she got to her main worry. “That man said I was a bad mother. Will they try to take Liam from me?”

“He said what?” Katricia asked with shock.

“I said no such thing.”

Allie and Katricia both turned toward the door at those annoyed words. Lucian was leading the men into the room, a scowl on his face as he approached. “I said he is not your biological child and that you obviously have no idea how to raise him if you’ve been allowing him to feed off of you.”

“Oh, Uncle Lucian,” Katricia said with an exasperated sigh. “It is no wonder Allie pulled the hairspray on you. What were you thinking saying something like that?”

“The truth,” he growled, walking past them to open the fridge. “She needs to be educated in our people, our abilities, and our laws to be an effective mother to Liam or she could unintentionally raise him to be rogue. And no one wants that.”