I didn’t groan out loud, but it was close. A Law Guardian barging in? Things had gone from horrible to tragic.

“Veritas,” Mencheres said, his tone now smooth as iced butter. “Welcome.”

She gave him a look that said she knew she was as welcome as a festering case of herpes but nodded at the greeting. The pretty blonde might look like she was the same age as Tai, but she was older than Mencheres and almost as powerful. She also had the full weight of the vampire ruling council behind her. For her to show up unannounced mere hours after the leak meant that they were as freaked as Trove had hoped.

No matter what happened, I had to kill that demon for all he’d done.

Then the Law Guardian’s gaze landed on me. For a second, I thought I saw pity in her sage green eyes. Before I could be sure, whatever it was vanished, leaving nothing but granite resolve.

“You know why I am here,” she stated. “The council has already ruled, and their decision is final. Tell me where the child is. It must be destroyed.”

“It is a little girl who didn’t ask for any of this!” I burst out.

Her measured stare didn’t waver.

“Neither did you, according to the documents released, which is why you’re not under arrest for treason.”

I advanced forward until Bones’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“You’re saying the council would have considered it treason if I’d knowingly had a child when I was a half-breed?”

Now I was sure about the sympathy that flashed across Veritas’s face.

“People like you and I don’t get to choose our fates.”

A wistful note tinged her voice before it, and her features, hardened once more.

“If you don’t know that yet, in time, you will learn. Now, tell me where the child is.”

Even if she weren’t my daughter, even if she’d been brainwashed beyond repair and we would never succeed in hiding her, I couldn’t sentence her to death by answering with the truth.

“I don’t know.”

Katie deserved what she’d never been given before. A chance. I knew what I was risking by doing this, but what choice did I have? Maybe it was faith that made me believe God wouldn’t let our races destroy each other over not killing a child for the crime of being different.

Then I glanced at Bones, noting how tightly he’d closed down his aura and how stony his features were. He didn’t look at me, either. His gaze was all for the Law Guardian, whose stare grew pointed.