Now in the kitchen, Amelia slipped two warmed bags of blood under her shirt. It’s a hot water bottle, she told herself over and over, as the blood sloshed around against her stomach. She stayed to the wall as she passed through the main room, trying not to be noticed by all the people milling about. She let out a pent up breath when she reached the steps to the dungeon, and she pulled the bags out from under her shirt.

The stone steps seemed longer than she remembered, and the damp air seemed moldier. As Amelia made her way down, the only thing she could think about was Mitchell. It all seemed somewhat laughable—or maybe that was just exhaustion taking over—Amelia wasn’t entirely sure. But really, to think that all of this started because she had loved him so much … It was just funny, especially since she had spent so much time fighting him.

If I ever get us out of this mess … But that was the problem, wasn’t it? For hundreds of years she had been trying to get herself out of a mess, and the funny part about it was that it was her own mess to start with.

She began ticking off the events, counting them off on her fingers as she made her way down the dark tunnel. One: Mitchell was killed by a vampire. Two: I cast a spell stripping all vampires of their souls. Three: Mother Nature fixed my screw-up. Four: Given the gap in age from when the spell was set, Mitchell must have been reincarnated numerous times over several hundred years before he was turned into a vampire. Five: I was burned for being a witch after the bond connected us together. Six: I created vampire hunters to kill Mitchell. Seven: Mitchell retaliated, killing the vampire hunters. Eight: I made more hunters and created a hybrid mate for myself. Nine: Mitchell finds me. Ten: Josh finds me. Eleven: The bond is broken.

Amelia ran over the list again, and then sighed. “How did I get myself into this mess?” she mumbled to herself. “And how do I get out of it?”

“You look conflicted, and you really need a shower,” Luke said, as Amelia rounded the corner and his cell came into view.

“You think?” she replied testily. She shifted the warm bags of blood, cradling them in one arm, and then took one from the top, handing it through the bars to Luke. He snagged it so quickly that Amelia jumped and almost dropped the other one.

The sound Luke made when he bit into the plastic made her gag. It was somewhere between a moan of ecstasy and a purely animalistic snarl, and the sounds just didn’t match. He tore into the bag, the thick, red liquid splashing up onto his face, but he didn’t stop. It was as if the blood was controlling him, as if he couldn’t stop until the last drop was gone. And even then, he licked up every bit, using his finger as a squeegee, sliding it along his cheeks, chin, and forehead, licking up the drops until he had ingested every last bit.

When he finished, he looked at Amelia and gave her that familiar big brother smile he always used with her and said, “I may be wrong, but I’m guessing you saw Mitchell.” Amelia couldn’t answer. She was scared that if she opened her mouth the bile that was trying to escape her throat would spew out, so she nodded, just a small bob of the head. “This is what you made him, you know,” Luke pointed out. His hazel eyes looked just as inquisitive as always, and it sent a chill over her skin. How could he be so different and yet so the same all at once?

“I know,” she sighed in response and wandered down the hall towards Eric who was thankfully curled up in a ball on the cold, hard floor, snoring softly. She thought about waking him, dying to see his grin, but then the image of Luke eating popped into her mind, and she tossed a bag in for him and then scurried away in case he woke up, because her stomach seriously couldn’t handle watching that again.

“You can’t have it both ways, kiddo.”

“What are you talking about, and how do you already know everything?” she snapped, glaring at him. Was he just trying to get under her skin? Was he playing mind games, hoping to distract her? Dammit! Amelia’s conscious screamed in frustration. She needed them right now, and it was her own fault that she couldn’t trust any of them.

Luke tugged on his earlobe. “Enhanced hearing,” he smirked. “I’ve been listening, and yes, I heard you and the hunter last night.”

Amelia felt the blush flaring in her cheeks. “It was nothing, Luke.”

“You can’t lie to me, kiddo.” He chuckled. “I can smell it, and right now you’re starting to sweat, and you have a sharp scent. It’s sweat and guilt, and it’s running off of you like a flood.”

“It was just a kiss! It didn’t mean anything.”

Luke turned serious, the smirk vanished, and his eyes darkened with thought. “Do you want us all to die?” he asked, and then kept talking, not waiting for an answer as if it was a rhetorical question. “I remember that you hated us, but I also remember you loving us.” The way he said it was as if he was reading facts from one of her textbooks. There was no emotion behind the statement. They were simply just words.

“I do love you guys.”

“I remember loving Lola. It’s so weird.” He ran his fingers through his hair roughly. “I remember what it should feel like, but all I can actually feel now is a restless emptiness. It’s crazy, but I want to feel whole.”

“Oh, Luke,” Amelia whispered. She wasn’t sure what to think. She reached her hand between the bars, wanting to touch him, comfort him.

He watched her hand pass through, and his eyes washed red as he stared, fixated on her wrist. “Amelia, don’t come any closer,” he snarled, his fangs sliding into place.

Amelia jumped back, and her heart jumped forwards as if it was trying to beat right out of her chest.

Luke slapped his hand to his mouth, hiding his fangs, and the red vanished from his eyes. “Oh God, you have to fix this.”

“I will,” she promised, although she didn’t have the foggiest idea how.

Luke gave her a weak smile and then he turned his back on her, took a few steps and dropped down on the hard stone bench within his cell. She stood there for a moment, searching for something to say, and hoping that he would look at her because she really didn’t want to leave yet, but he didn’t. Holding in a frustrated sigh, she finally left, making her way through the dark and damp hallways, feeling worse than she had before she had seen him.

When she made it to her room, Amelia figured that Luke had been right, and she probably really did need a shower, especially since she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually had one. Before shutting herself in her room, she grabbed a handful of power bars and scarfed them down.

It was in the shower that she had started to think—really think. There was something about the hot water, the curling steam, and the pear-scented shampoo that helped clear the fog from her brain.

So far, she had been listening to Madame Crystal. Amelia realized that she hadn’t tried to fix the bond because the psychic said she didn’t have the power. That’s when Amelia remembered the last time she had blindly listened to Madame Crystal. Even though she had been helpful—kind of—Madame Crystal had also caused a huge mess with her visions and spells, and Amelia had to admit that she really hadn’t been all that right in her assumptions when it came to Amelia’s powers.

Now, wearing clean clothes and with wet hair, she sat on her bed in lotus ready to dive in and figure out a way to fix the bond. Amelia was certain her plan was fail proof. Watch the memory of her past, write down the spell Mother Nature had used, and fix the bond—simple.

She had replayed the memory over and over. The first few times all she could see was Mitchell. She had searched every inch of him. His hair had been longer, curlier, darker brown. His skin was tanned and bronzed from hours of working in the sun. But other than those few differences, it was Mitchell. His sculpted jaw line, chiseled muscles. His lips, so full and soft. And Amelia was certain that if his eyes had been open, they would be that wonderful cerulean, just like a clear summer sky.

Once she finally wrapped her head around the idea that it really was Mitchell and that she had loved him before, other things started to come into focus. After watching the scene for the fifteenth time, Amelia had managed to jot down the spell Mother Nature had used. She had been about to try it, figuring that it couldn’t hurt, and had just summoned up her power, when Josh found her.

“Holy crap, this is your bedroom?” he said, as he opened the door and then shut it behind him. He had changed and showered as well, Amelia noticed, and she also didn’t miss the fact that he was wearing one of Mitchell’s green and gray striped button-down shirts. And on closer scrutiny, she was also pretty sure the blue jeans were Mitchell’s as well.

“Go away, Josh,” Amelia said, trying not to notice how well he fit into Mitchell’s clothes. The jeans hugged him perfectly, and she was pretty sure he left his shirt unbuttoned on purpose.

He didn’t go away. Instead, he padded over to her, taking his time climbing the few steps to her, with a lazy grin spread on his face. “I had an idea,” he said, plopping down beside her. “What if we don’t fix the bond at all?”

Amelia took in a deep calming breath and closed her eyes, trying to pretend that she was focusing, but really, she just couldn’t look at his delicious chest any longer. He’s a hottie, she thought. As soon as the thought surfaced, Mitchell’s accusations came flooding back, and it made her feel all kinds of guilt. “Josh, I don’t have time for your crap,” she said hastily.

“Just hear me out, okay?” He slid closer to her, mussing up the comforter. Amelia looked at him and opened her mouth to tell him to go, but he stopped her before she could get it out. “You could just give the vamps back their souls. You took them away in the first place. Why not just break your original curse?”

His words left her speechless. Amelia let the idea bounce around her brain, and when he put his hand on her knee, rubbing small circles on the inside of her thigh, she didn’t pull away, hardly even noticing it. She was too busy trying figure out why she hadn’t even thought about just giving them their souls back. An image of the slithering darkness and the wildly dark power came back to her and she shivered.