"Cute scarf, Kat," Maryn tells me one I meet the circulus downstairs to go to Dorian's.

"Thanks Mar." I smile slightly at her while Killian stares at it, his eyes consumed with guilt.

Knox narrows his eyes. "It's hot outside." Ugh, Knox is annoyingly observant, always looking for inconsistencies to poke holes in.

"I get cold easily," I shrug. Killian's jaw clenches.

What? It's not a lie.

"We're going to be late," Gabe mutters, looking at his watch and pacing.

"Human clock," Layla whispers to Kage, who grins at her, his shadows scattering slightly.

Killian flicks his hand and opens a portal, and the rest of the circulus goes through, but he doesn't move.

I grab his wrist and tug, but he doesn't budge.

"Killian, let's go," I whine.

He just stares at my scarf.

"You're so annoying, Killian," I say, irritated. "Let it go. Notice how I literally do not care at all? Take notes."

He puts his hand on the back of my neck. "Let me make it up to you," he says softly. "Or make up for it as much as I can."

I roll my eyes. "That's really unnecessary."

"Chicken nuggets and movies tonight," he says, his voice firm.

I sigh. "If I agree, will you let this go?"

"No."

"Fine. But quit staring at my neck or I'll bite yours again," I tell him playfully, and his eyes widen.

"You— I..." he shakes his head, but a small smile tugs on his lips. "Quit flirting with me. Let's go."

And we go into the in between.

I don't feel so in between anymore.

****

We're sitting around the conference table, and once again, Killian forced me to sit to his right, and pulled my chair closer to him, which I pretend to not notice.

"Alright," Dorian begins, sighing. "We've eliminated werewolves and vampires as being the ones responsible, but who does that leave left?"

"Hunters?" Jae suggests, dark circles framing her eyes. She hasn't slept more than a few hours a night for the last few weeks, though it's not anything she would ever admit to the circulus.

"Where was the most recent confirmed hunter attack, closest to us?" Killian asks Gabe.

Gabe immediately responds, "50 miles South from our current location coordinate."

"50 miles? That's not too far," Adon says thoughtfully. "Close enough to be able to come often to steal our people, far enough so they think we may not suspect them."

"What would hunters want with vampire and werewolf blood?" I ask, my eyebrows furrowing. This doesn't seem right.

"Maybe it's a unique form of torture?" Layla suggests.

"Hunters don't torture," Gabe interjects. "They just want to annihilate our kind as quickly as possible; they wouldn't care about torturing them."

"Unless if they thought the people they took would know something," Knox says slowly.

"Did you find any kind of link between the vampires of yours they took?" Killian asks Dorian. "Something that connects them besides that they're in your coven."

Dorian considers the question. "It appears to be random, but a lot of our strongest members were the ones who got taken." He frowns, his gaze resting on Jae. "That's interesting," he murmurs. "Your Gamma was taken."

Her fists clench tightly under the table.

"They want higher ranking members," Kage says quietly. "They probably have targeted everyone in this room and failed."

"How could they have failed?" Maryn asks. "It doesn't seem like it's hard for them to take vampires and wolves they want. Why would they be deterred from taking us if they wanted to?"

Nobody answers.

"Because I would have Seen it," I realize with a start. "My Sight taps into all of your futures. If they tried taking someone I knew, there's a greater chance I would have Seen it coming."

"You think this is about you?" Mila asks, sneering slightly.

The shadows swirling around Kage darken and radiate further from his body, and Knox reaches for one of his hidden stakes that Killian definitely doesn't know about.

"I think this is about them wanting high ranking wolves and vampires," I say calmly, not particularly caring to call Mila out on her bitchiness when there are more important things at hand. "And I think they know that I have the Sight, and that I'm trying to help find them."

"They're playing with the holes in your Sight," Killian mutters.

"How would they be able to do that?" Dorian inquires.

I pause. "I haven't met them, so that decreases the likelihood of me Seeing their futures. I would be able to See more if they left more objects behind that I could draw Sight from, but they're careful to not leave too much behind. I think that-"

Suddenly a wave of nausea hits me, and immediately, I start puking up pure blood on the ground. My vision blurs as blood pours out of my eyes.

"Shit, is she okay?" Adan asks, standing up in his chair. My Sight, seemingly better focused after the little bleeding incident, shows me with shocking clarity that Dorian's Second is genuinely concerned about me. It surprises me, that someone who doesn't know me at all can be worried about me. At Iron Claw, when I started to slip into a vision and bleed and convulse, they all pretended not to notice or moved in the opposite direction.

I wave my hand dismissively, and cough a few more times, nearly hacking up a lung in the process. I'm weak today, seriously weak. My death is getting so close, I wouldn't be surprised if soon, I was too weak to get out of bed.

Killian hands me a cloth, and I use it to wipe my eyes, but even after the blood is out of them, my vision is still blurry. My body is starting to shut down completely— and it would only get worse swiftly.

Killian disappears, and reappears a moment later with a bottle of water, which I can't drink too much of without feeling like I'm going to vomit again.

"We're going to have to cut this meeting short today," Killian says curtly. One of his hands rests on my knee.

"No," I protest immediately. "I'm fine."

Killian glares at me. "You just threw up blood everywhere. Obviously not."

I ignore him and at Dorian sheepishly. "Sorry about the carpet."

He looks at me, looking deeply disturbed. He opens his mouth to talk, and I'm relieved when Knox interrupts.

"Why does her blood not bother you?" he asks suspiciously. "If werewolf blood is appealing to vampires, why don't you seem... affected?"

Dorian's eyes flash in panic.

"Because nobody wants blood I threw up," I say jokingly, Knowing that whatever the reason was, it was related to my death, which was why Dorian didn't want to answer.

Knox's eyes narrow at me. "Blood came out of your eyes, too, and they didn't even look mildly bothered by it. I read that vampires have a hard time controlling their bloodlust. It shouldn't matter where it comes from."

"I also read that," Gabe confirms, looking just as skeptical as Knox. I can See that it bothers him that he doesn't know why the vampires are unaffected by my blood, and he begins to mentally comb through every word he's ever read on vampires to try to figure it out.

Mila looks confused. "It's because-"

"It's because we're older vampires, so we have an easier time ignoring our urges," Dorian says smoothly, and I Know he's lying. Mila and Adan look at him in confusion, trying to figure out whether he knows the real reason and is choosing not to say it, or can't see what they can.

Killian looks at me cynically. "Is that true?"

"Yes," I answer quickly, much too quickly, and I know right away that it's suspicious.

"Did I leave a red book here?" I ask Dorian suddenly, changing the subject.

He looks taken aback. "Uh— yes," He says, recovering. "I can go show you where it is." He's trying to talk to me alone.

Killian glares at him, his eyes colder than I've ever seen them. "You can go get it, and Katrina will stay here," he says venomously. "And if you need a buddy system to get a stupid book, then I'll go with you."

"He wants to talk to me alone," I say, deciding that honesty mixed with a lie is the best way to get away with lying. "He has a personal question to ask me, unrelated to the missing wolves."

Dorian nods, a little too eagerly. I Know that he's not typically such a bad liar, but he's so deeply disturbed right now, he can't focus on crafting a decent enough story. "Um, yes. It's just something I'd rather ask her not in front of people."

Killian glowers at him, his mouth twisted in a hard scowl.

"You trust me, right?" I ask Killian quietly, my stomach knotting from guilt, knowing I'm taking advantage of it.

His jaw clenches. "Fine," he says through his teeth. "Five minutes. If you're not back sooner than that, I will find you."

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, yeah," I mutter, and Dorian and I leave the conference room, both the werewolves and vampires left extremely confused.

Dorian leads the way, going into his office. The book is on his table.

"You're dying," Dorian says, his voice terse.

"Yeah." I don't understand his point. We've been over this. "I already told you that."

"Do you know why we don't want your blood, Katrina?" He asks lowly.

"Um, no?"

"Because it's dead," he hisses. "We can smell how close you are to dying because your body is decaying."

"I know that, Dorian," I say harshly. "You think I don't?" It's why I have to leave Crimson Shadow— soon. Before Killian's concerns about me can't be brushed off the way I do now.

"How much longer do you think you can do this?" he asks angrily. "How much longer do you think you can get away with keeping this from Killian?"

"He's not going to find out," I say calmly. "I have Killian handled."

"You think I don't know that? You think I don't see how easily you lie to him about it, and how easily he believes those lies because he trusts you entirely?" he snarls, and the depth of his anger surprises me. "You think I haven't seen all of your conversations at night in his bed? It's all he thinks about during the meetings, replaying them nonstop in his head."

"That's not your business," I say coolly, but my chest tightens with guilt.

"Yes, it is. You saw how he shut down when he thought you were taken, imagine how bad it'll be when you're dead. I need him focused to find our missing people, your death will destroy him."

"Telling him will only make his focus weaker," I insist, my words just as forceful as his. "He won't let me help if he knows that using my Sight is killing me. And my Sight is the only chance we have at finding them."

He shakes his head slowly. "You're too young to understand that secrets have a nasty way of coming out at the worst possible time. You can't hide it from him forever."

"I don't need forever," I snap. "I only have a handful of weeks left. Keep this to yourself or you may as well sign off on the death of every vampire in your coven."

His face softens. There's something... distant about the look in his eyes. "Katrina, it's not just that. You don't understand what it'll do to him if he believes he could have stopped your death. That kind of guilt lasts forever. You don't understand what it's like to blame yourself for losing the person you love."

My face twists. "Killian doesn't-"

Suddenly, Killian appears in the room, landing right next to me.

"Time's up," Killian practically growls at Dorian, and wraps his arm around my waist.

I smooth my face, keeping it neutral. "Sorry, Dorian. I really wish I knew who your beloved is."

Confusion flashes in his eyes before he reads my thoughts, knowing that I said that to convince Killian that the conversation wasn't about anything bad.

He looks torn, looking between Killian and I, and I plead to him through my thoughts not to say anything about what we talked about. If Killian knows about the curse, he won't let me continue to push my Sight the way I have been lately. Even though I find Killian hard, nearly impossible, to predict, I know that for an absolute fact.

Finally, he grinds his teeth and says, "That's disappointing, Katrina. I wish you would have been able to tell me something so important."

The double meaning is clear.

Killian growls at him. "Are we done here? We have a meeting to get back to."

"Yes, we're done talking," I say quickly, before Dorian can change his mind. I can See that he's on the edge, deeply conflicted about what to do. "Let's go back."

Killian narrows his eyes. "The book?"

Dorian hands him the book. "I'm sorry," he mutters to Killian, shaking his head slightly. He's decided not to say anything. He can read my mind, and he knows that nothing good can come from telling Killian about the Curse.

"For what?" Killian snarls. It's strange, seeing him like this. I'm so used to Killian being anything but serious, seeing him so angry is jarring. I've only seen him his angry once before, when Dorian took me from his territory.

Dorian looks at me, and once more, I beg him mentally not to say anything. It's not necessary; he knows the wolves won't get found without me, and Killian will take me out of the equation entirely if he knows what's happening to me, missing wolves or not.

He shakes his head again, his eyes filled with remorse. "For not paying attention to the time," he mutters, and I hold in an exhale of relief. I can See how much he hates this.

We go back to the meeting, but as Killian pulls me into the in between, I can't stop thinking about what he said.

You don't understand what it's like to blame yourself for losing the person you love.