“If that’s true, it’s news to me,” Luka says, and somehow I’m genuinely happy to hear that. Not that I’m into slut shaming, but all this time I was picturing some Sarah Connor Terminator fanatic sleeping with whoever would put her up or help her out.

“Take anything you hear about your mother with—how do you say it—”

“Grave offense?”

“A grain of salt,” he says wryly. “There was a lot said about her, but from what I’ve heard, she moved in a very tight circle.”

“Are any of them still alive?”

“I don’t know. I was only given information pertaining to you.” I practically hear him grimace as he says it. “Another Progeny could get on this bus right now and I wouldn’t even know it, let alone anything about them.”

“Did you know Rolan before this?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve never known another hunter, other than my grandfather, who’s dead. Makes it impossible to implicate anyone but ourselves if we’re caught. Even if one of us tried to talk, what would we say? We’d be written off as conspiracy theorists at best, delusional murderers at worst.” He hesitates. “Audra . . .”

“What?”

“You can’t tell anyone like you what I am. Was. If they guess, for even a minute, they may or may not kill me, but one thing is sure: They won’t trust you. And you need them right now.”

We look out at the blue waters of the sea practically below us. The view is gorgeous, and I think if I’m going to die without family, at least I’ll do it in a beautiful place.

Assuming, of course, that Luka, with his heady gaze, doesn’t do the job himself.

His story’s been perfect so far. And I’m tired of triple- and quadruple-thinking everything. He’s telling either a very intricate lie, or the simple truth.

The problem is I don’t know which. And right now I need him.

15

Café Abbazia is a hole in the wall, boasting no more than eight tables in its dim interior. I take a seat near the back and apologetically explain that I don’t speak Croatian when a man I assume to be the owner comes to greet me. Even with the door propped open to let in the fall air and Luka watching the café from somewhere across the street, I feel both cornered and exposed in this cavelike place.

That’s not all I feel. There’s a strange buzz here—not from the speaker over the bar, which is silent, or from the floor, which vibrates with the jackhammer at work in the street outside . . . but from something in the air.

“Vino?” the man says, which still isn’t English, but is at least something I understand.