My words were choked with more than the difficulty of saying them with my chin frozen. Marie and the other vampires hadn’t found us by luck. Only Mencheres knew where we were going.

Veritas stepped forward, her white tunic rustling from all the supernatural energy in the air.

“Mencheres did what he could for you. In exchange for delivering the child to us, your lies will now go unpunished.”

“We didn’t ask for your bloody help!” Bones thundered.

Mencheres let out a heavy sigh.

“You did not, but as co-ruler of our line, I couldn’t permit you to drag our people into war. That is what would have happened, and the result would be the same. Now or later, the child would die. This way, only one life will be lost instead of untold thousands.”

“Please don’t do this.”

My voice broke from the hatred and fear roiling inside me. I wanted to slaughter everyone, not beg them, but with my body immobilized and my abilities exhausted, begging was all I had left.

“Please. We’ll take her away. You’ll never have to see her again, and there will be no war, I promise!”

Urgent grunts came out of Tate, his only way to voice his concurring plea. Mencheres had frozen everything on him, it seemed.

“There is no other way,” a council member who could’ve doubled as Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings said. Then he sniffed as he came farther into the room, bringing him closer to Trove’s body.

“The sulfur stench from that demon is everywhere.”

“You’re about to murder a child and what you find most distasteful is demon stink?” Ian’s tone was scathing. “You call yourselves protectors of our race, but all I see before me are cowards.”

“Silence,” the white-haired vampire ordered. Then he turned to the Law Guardian with the wild black hair and Mediterranean features.

“Thonos.”

The vampire withdrew a curved silver blade that was longer than my forearm. Then he strode over to Katie, grasping her hair. Veritas looked away, her mouth tightening.

“Don’t, please!” I screamed. My teeth tore into my lower lip, drawing blood, but though I willed Remnants to appear with all of my panic, nothing happened. Trove had drained too much from me.

Tears spilled from my eyes, blurring my vision with pink that quickly turned to scarlet.

“Wait,” Marie said.

Hope surged when Thonos paused, that wickedly long blade upraised. The Gandalf look-alike raised a brow but nodded in acquiescence.

Marie came over to me, wiping my eyes with brisk yet gentle swipes.

“You can’t cry, Reaper,” she said, voice so low no one but me would hear her. “You carry my power. If you cry, you doom your daughter to the same fate as your uncle. You must be strong now. This is the only thing you can do for her.”