embarrassment kept her silent as she followed William to the room Paoli laid Amber in. After Paoli got Amber situated, he considerately pulled the plush blue chair right up to the bedside for Emily. She sat down with a fleeting smile of thanks, but Paoli’s demeanor kept her wary.
He seemed uncomfortable, and he was looming.
“We need to be honest with you,” Paoli said once she was seated. “We have to discuss some things you may not want to hear. But there are things going on here you must understand. You need to know the truth we’re all facing so you can make your own choices. Informed choices,” Paoli said.
Emily didn’t like the sound of that. She swallowed a lump in her throat and tried to sound normal.
“Like what?” she asked.
To her surprise, she managed to pull off merely curious. But she fingered the silver necklace under her shirt nervously.
“Like what’s going to happen with your sister.” Paoli’s voice was gentle and patient.
“What do you mean?” Emily asked, her voice growing stiff.
“The Coven said she’s to be executed,” William supplied from the doorway he was leaning against.
Emily sucked in an audible breath, but her voice was level when she spoke.
“What is ‘the Coven’?” she asked.
She’d only heard the term for a group of witches, but she suspected that wasn’t what they were referring to.
“The government of our world,” Paoli explained.
She nodded after a moment of thought. It made sense for them to have a separate government, she supposed. It wasn’t like a vampire could appear in a normal human court. But she got the distinct feeling there was more.
“OK,” she said slowly, trying to process the new information. “So, we need to keep her away from your government people until we figure out what to do.”
It seemed simple enough to her.
“It’s too late for that,” William said.
A long moment stretched out before he admitted, “I’m the Coven’s executioner.”
It felt like someone just punched her in the gut. She stared at him in disbelief for a heartbeat, then sprang out of the chair and to her feet. Far too much anger welled in her for any fear, and she stormed up to William and stood toe to toe with him.
“Did you bring us here for an easier kill?” she demanded. “Because if you expect me to stand aside and let you kill her, you’re in for a real surprise.”
She thought of the gun at her waist. Could she do it? Could she really kill a man, this man?
“No,” he said, and honesty shone in his intelligent, now‐gray eyes.
She hadn’t noticed his eyes had changed colors before. They were now a beautiful steel gray.
“But we can’t ignore orders from the Coven,” he went on.
His answer gave her some degree of relief. She didn’t want to find out if she could bring herself to kill him. But the relief was a fleeting thing. If they couldn’t ignore orders from the Coven, how could they possibly save Amber?
“Are you saying they never change their minds?” she asked.
She wasn’t about to just sit back and let some faceless group make the decision to kill her sister.
Paoli and William exchanged a heavy look but said nothing.
“What?” she demanded.
She looked at William, then at Paoli, and back to William.
“I saw that. What aren’t you telling me?” she pressed.
William gave her a hooded look, his face carefully expressionless.
“They reversed their decision once, but it came with a high price,” he said.
He took a step back from her, putting distance between them.
“I don’t care about the price. I’ll pay any price there is to save her,” Emily insisted.
Her purple eyes flashed with challenge and determination. She meant every word.
“You’re not in the human world anymore, young Emily,” Paoli interjected.
He carefully guided her away from William. It was something that didn’t escape her notice.
A glance back at William showed he seemed to relax subtly.
“I don’t care about human world or world of whatever you are,” she said.
She was beginning to yell, but she couldn’t stop herself. He wasn’t going to make it OK for Amber to die. Nothing could make that OK. Not after they gave her hope.
“Settle down and listen to me,” Paoli said calmly in the face of her anger. “You have no idea what you’re saying. There are prices you can’t even begin to guess at.”
“I don’t care,” she said stubbornly.
She really didn’t. There was nothing she wouldn’t do if it could save Amber, and she didn’t want to hear about the worst‐case scenario.
“Now, are you going to help her or not?” she asked, staring Paoli right in the eye.
“I’ll try,” he said. “But the point we’re making is her overall fate cannot be decided by either of us.”
“But if you can help her, she’ll have a chance, right?” she asked.
She needed to hear there was a chance. She couldn’t accept anything else.
Paoli held her hopeful gaze with a look of sympathy that worried her more than anything else.
“I won’t give you false hope. It’s going to take a miracle, but there is a very slim chance,” he said.
And just like that, Emily could breathe again. She squared her shoulders and looked at him levelly.
“It’s better than none,” she said.
For a moment, he just looked at her. His eyes showed something akin to respect. Then he gave her a nod of agreement.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said heavily.
He shot a look at William and left the room.
Silence stretched out, broken only by Amber’s constant moaning.
“He’s not like I would have pictured a vampire,” Emily said finally.
William gave a small smile.
“No,”
