I’ll admit it, after that, I burst into tears. Coty promptly lit into Theo after that, ripping him up one side and down the other. Even Cormac looked uncomfortable—and guilty—at the things his female’s cousin had to say. 

But Coty effectively chased them away.

Then she sat there and put one arm around me until I stopped crying. “I’m sorry. I-I-I…I know he is just trying to keep me from getting my hopes up. I could feel his worry and concern.”

“But it was a completely boneheaded thing for him to tell you. Not much better than we got two days ago, either.”

She had already told me that she and her sisters had been informed of the same thing. 

None of us…are going home. “We’re going to be stuck here forever.”

At least…until death finally caught up with me. With Coty.

I had two choices now. 

I could just hide myself away in this hotel and hope I prolonged that inevitablity. Or I could do something worthwhile with my time. Make a difference.

Do something important. Something…like… Change things somehow.

“Come on. I want to figure out what is going on with Evalanedea while I am still alive to do something about it.”

She whooped quietly. “I guess we could go ask your new boyfriend why he wants you to stay away from anything to do with it? You can tell him thank you for the laptop. That one there…it didn’t come cheap.”

It was a brand new MacBook. I knew how much those things cost. It was far out of my budget. “I don’t know if I can accept it. It’s so expensive.”

“It was a gift. The way I see it, the guy broke into your room and scared you. He did owe you something for that, right? It’s not like you’re a paid lady, being kept by the hot guy or anything, after all.”

I still didn’t know what to think. And this wasn’t something I could ever tell my sisters about. Although…they would see the computer eventually when they visited. “I…don’t know…”

“Look…you can always give it back later? I know that if a seriously hot guy gave me something like that…I’d probably have his vampire babies willingly. I mean…wow. That is some apology.”

“But is it for him breaking in here…or something else? I mean…”

“What?”

“The only one who would be allowed to kill Olietus Black without the council’s approval…is Equan Black.”

“You think he left here last night and tracked the little asshole down?”

I nodded. That was exactly what I suspected.

If it was true, did that mean I had Olietus’s blood on my hands?

I just do not know.

Then again…if it had been Nalik Black, he was well within the law to mete out justice like that.

Even if that was one law that I would never be ok with.

Whoever had killed Olietus, had doomed the youth’s mate to an eternity alone. I never would have wished that on another.

I said a quick prayer to the goddess. A prayer that Nalik Black had not stained his own soul on my account, last night…