Angling the rear-view mirror, I studied my reflection. Would they be able to see the truth in my eyes—the truth that I was, in fact, deceiving them? My life, and the lives of my friends and family—and quite possibly everyone in the entire town—depended on my ability to maintain a convincing lie. Rolling my shoulders, I muttered a quick pep-talk to my reflection: "You can do this, Blake."

Spending the afternoon with Margaret Abernathy learning the art of compulsion wasn't exactly my idea of fun, but it was something I had to do to convince her and her father of my allegiance. If Conrad Abernathy didn't believe I was committed to his family or personally invested in his plan of me becoming some great and powerful Compeller, those on the side of preserving the human-vampire relationship would eventually lose the fight. And then what?

I made my way to the front door, a two-inch layer of ice-encrusted snow breaking underfoot. A press of the bell, and soon the massive door swung inward.

"You're back," I said, surprised at the appearance of Mr. Abernathy's secretary June. It had been weeks since I'd last seen her.

Shivering against a blast of cold air, June beckoned me inside. "Just last night," she said.

Once provoked to cooperate out of the very real fear that crazy Margaret Abernathy would harm her beloved Thomas, June had drugged me with a direct IV of incompatible blood. I didn't realize her predicament at the time and wrongly accused her of turning against us, betraying us to Conrad Abernathy.

In truth, I'd been abducted and drugged not on Mr. Abernathy's orders, but on one of Margaret's many whims and her desire to punish me by making me watch as she attacked someone I loved. The memory of Margaret's vampire-sharp teeth sinking into the pale flesh of Olivia's neck, and of Olivia falling lifeless to the ground, was still fresh in my mind. I would never forget the moment, certain that I'd witnessed my best friend being killed.

Still, it had taken me a long time to forgive June for the part she'd played that night, even if she'd had little choice in the matter. Now she was walking a thin line, pretending to be nothing more than Mr. Abernathy's faithful human servant while at the same time reporting anything worth noting to us.

I shed my coat and handed it to her. "I heard about your sister. I'm so sorry."

June looked paler than usual, and there was a dark hue under her eyes, as though she hadn't slept well. No surprise. She was only human, after all, with a human's limited capacity for suffering.

She nodded somberly. "I'll let Mr. Abernathy know you're here to see him."

"Actually," I said, stopping the older woman with a hand on her arm. "I'm here to see Margaret."

"Margaret?" June gave me a questioning look. I could hardly blame her, given Margaret's and my history. She opened her mouth to say something more but was interrupted.

"The first rule of compulsion," came Margaret's voice from the top of the staircase, startling both June and me, "is believing you have the power to bend others to your will." She turned her eyes on June and said in a firm tone: "Bring us two pints of blood."

June turned immediately and walked away in the direction of the kitchen, my coat still clutched in her hand.

"See how easy that was?" Margaret commented as she descended the stairs, her pace so maddeningly deliberate that I was on edge by the time she had reached the bottom. "I suppose we will need sustenance if we are forced to spend the afternoon together," she said.

"I've been looking forward to it all day," I replied, infusing as much sarcasm in my voice as I could muster. Or dare.

Margaret came to stand mere inches in front of me, invading my personal space. She reached out, causing me to involuntarily flinch, and casually picked a piece of lint from my sweater sleeve. Her smile was angelic, though her eyes were full of unmistakable malice.

"My father says I am to help you hone your powers of compulsion," she said, carefully inspecting the lint before flicking it from the tip of her thumb. I watched the piece of thread float languidly to the floor, a tiny speck of twisted black and gray against the white marble.

"Apparently," I replied. "How long have you known that I'm a Compeller, by the way?"

One of Margaret's dark, thin brows arched. "I fail to see how that is relevant. You are here. I've been instructed to teach. That is that."

I shrugged indifferently. Two could play at this game. "Just curious. I guess I don't understand why anyone would keep it a secret from me."

Margaret continued to stare as I matched her gaze. "Careful, Blake," she said at last. "Some might take offense at your accusatory tone."

"I'm not accusing anyone of anything," I said in an attempt to diffuse the situation. The last thing I wanted was to get on Margaret's bad side. Aside from being concerned for my own safety, I was running out of friends she'd yet to harass. If I wasn't careful, she'd go after my parents next.

June returned with the drinks just then, rounding off the prickly edges of the moment. Margaret and I unloaded her tray and the older woman promptly left, presumably to do whatever she did to keep herself busy around here, despite how miserable she looked.

"June has been sullen since her return," Margaret commented, sniffing critically in the woman's direction.

"Can you blame her?"

Ignoring my question, Margaret upended her glass and drained the contents, still staring at the door through which June had disappeared. Then she plucked the undrunk blood out of my hand and set both cups on the foyer table. "Let's get started, shall we?"

**********

Half an hour later, Margaret shooed me aside and sank dramatically into a chair. "I need a break," she said, massaging small circles at her temples while turning an irritated eye on me. "Your ineptitude makes my head ache."

I would have laughed, seeing Margaret so flustered, but I wisely held my tongue. "Is there something wrong with me?" I said instead. "Some legitimate reason why I can't seem to compel others?" For once, I was truly interested in her opinion.

"You are a Compeller, Blake. It should not be so difficult," she said, echoing the same sentiment I'd previously heard Hannah mutter. She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at me directly. "Would you like my opinion on the matter?"

"Not really," I said, sitting on the edge of the chair opposite her. "But knowing you, I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway."

"Leave us," Margaret said to the poor maid who'd been volunteered to act as a guinea pig during our training sessions.

The maid turned and scurried at once from the room, not needing to be compelled or told twice.

"You are incredibly stubborn," Margaret said to me, once the door had swung shut. "Only time will tell if your obstinacy will be an asset or a total hindrance to the cause. More importantly, you are weak, subsisting on nothing but bagged Donor blood. June!" she yelled, making me jump in my seat.

On cue, June appeared in the doorway. "Yes?"

"Prepare the Donor. I believe Blake is hungry." June glanced in my direction but nodded her assent before disappearing from the room.

"I'm not hungry," I protested, remembering what had happened the last time Margaret had ordered June to prepare a Donor. I wasn't wild about the idea of a repeat performance.

Still, the thought of drinking fresh blood made my mouth water and taste buds tingle with vivid recollections of that first mind-blowing experience. For a moment, I had lived vicariously through the Donor herself, feeding off her memories. I understood perfectly well why it could be so addictive.

"Don't be ridiculous," Margaret chided. "There is no reason why you shouldn't indulge while you are here. Besides, I have a theory I wish to test."

"A theory?"

Margaret rose, pulling apart the heavy drapes at the floor-to-ceiling window with a muffled whoosh, admitting a view of the metal-grey sky and grounds beyond. It had snowed since my arrival, as evidenced by the fresh layer of unblemished white covering my car parked in the circular drive.

"I come from a family of influence," she said without answering my question.

"Tell me something I don't know," I replied, somewhat more caustically than I'd intended. She gave me a warning glare over her shoulder but then returned her attention to the scenery outside the window.

"What I meant is that my family has always been one of prominence, even when we were human."

I could only assume she had a point and would eventually get around to telling me what this theory of hers was. Until then, all I could do was keep quiet and exercise what limited patience I had left.

"My family emigrated from England to the United States—the colony of Georgia, to be precise—in the early eighteenth century. My father was to be governor. My sisters and brother, we were very much looking forward to the adventure, having lived a prosperous, though fairly secluded, life up until then."

It didn't escape my attention that she had referred to having sisters, and yet Thomas was the only sibling I was aware of. I sat up straighter in my chair, intrigued. What had become of them? Margaret rubbed unconsciously at the back of one hand with the other. She had a faraway look on her face, as though she was gazing at something in the far distance, from the time when she had been human.

"Little did we know of the horror that awaited us on board the ship," she said quietly.

"Vampires." My voice was no more than a whisper, yet she answered with a silent nod of her head.

"At first we thought the ship was merely infested with pox. Mother was terribly frightened for us children, of course. She tried to keep us locked away to minimize the risk of infection. We did not realize there was more than the pox to fear."

Her eyes, a chilling blue like her father's, met mine. "It is a long journey, you see, from England to America."

"I see."

And I did. If there were vampires on board the ship, as she was insinuating, no doubt they would be hungry.

"It was just the two of them," Margaret went on. "However, two vampires are a lot more powerful than even an entire ship of humans. One killed my youngest sister Caroline, drained the life from her body before our very eyes. Mother was beside herself, as you might imagine."

"Yes, I can imagine," I said, stunned to the core by the bluntness of Margaret's statement.

"I'm afraid she has never fully recovered from the shock."

I pictured Margaret's mother, small and seemingly frail, no more than a mute extension of her husband. Although I wasn't a parent, I could easily imagine how awful it must have been to have witnessed such a violent and gruesome death of a child.

"Were you afraid?" I asked, having a difficult time picturing Margaret being afraid of anything.

She looked at me sharply. "Of course I was afraid, you idiot. My sister had just been killed most brutally, and the same fate was presumably about to happen to me and the rest of my family. One would have to be insane to have no fear."

"But obviously you didn't die," I pointed out. "You are here."

She stalked to the other side of the room. "I might have been afraid, but I wasn't a coward. And I wasn't without courage. I was . . . enamored. I put my dread of dying aside and asked to be made like them."

I laughed, despite the gravity of the story. "That actually worked?"

Margaret allowed a small, brief smile. "Mother always said I had a natural talent for persuasion."

"So they made you vampires instead of killing you."

Margaret nodded. "Mother was in a state. She would have been happy to die along with little Caroline, but my father loved her too much to let her go. My remaining sister and brother stood quaking in their shoes, blubbering like fools. Thomas was a man, not a child. I can excuse my sister's behavior, she having a soft temper, but Thomas should have stood beside me."

At this, she stopped and sniffed disapprovingly, the corner of her mouth twitching in humor. "He and my sister are my mother's children, through and through. They have always had a certain weakness in them."

"Fear is not the same as weakness," I said.

"My father embraced the change," she went on, as though I hadn't spoken. "He admired the vampires for their strength, their ability to take whatever they wanted, and he wished to be like them. He was already thinking ahead to the future, imagining the influence he could yield as an immortal."

"And then what happened?"

She stared at me, her mouth slightly open. "With seven vampires on board the same ship, what do you think happened?"

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. "Oh. And the two vampires?"

"They went their way."

"You mentioned another sister," I said. "Where is she now?"

"No longer with us," Margaret replied, her words and tone clipped.

Before I could ask exactly what she meant, June appeared in the doorway once more, putting an end to our conversation. "The Donor is ready."

"Thank you, June," Margaret said with a charming smile. "That will be all."

The older woman nodded and promptly left, and I grabbed Margaret's arm as she was about to cross the threshold. "Why did you tell me this?"

She studied me for a long moment, my discomfort expanding under her gaze. "You are a Compeller, Blake Ehlert. It is time you started acting like one. Now, shall we put my theory to the test?"

Jerking free from my grasp, she continued on her way with me following numbly on her heels. Margaret didn't like me—the feeling was mutual—but it was clear that she put a lot of stock in her father's opinions and would do whatever he asked. It had always been evident that of all the Abernathys, Margaret and her father were the most powerful. That made them the most dangerous.

Still, the fact that Margaret had agreed to train me made it obvious they needed my contribution as a Compeller, no matter how unrefined my powers were at the moment.

"So what is this theory of yours, anyway?" I asked, watching as Margaret siphoned a glass of fresh Donor blood. When it was near the top, she brought the glass to her nose and inhaled deeply, the corners of her mouth turning up in a smile of appreciation.

"Laws regulating vampires' feeding did not come about until a hundred or so years after my rebirth, when stories of monsters that fed on human blood gained a foothold and became more prominent, spreading widespread hysteria. By that time, I had developed a taste for fresh blood, while those in power grew even more sympathetic to preserving human life. At the same time, the existence of vampires with heightened senses and abilities—Seekers and Compellers—became known, and it was determined that an orderly system of collecting and distributing blood would be best for all involved. Some vampires, like humans, crave organization."

"I take it you didn't exactly agree," I said, catching the disapproval in her voice.

"Like I said, I had developed a taste for fresh blood . . . and I'm not talking about pre-screened Donor blood. All vampires crave the hunt. Those who say otherwise are living in denial."

After siphoning off a second glass, she raised it in a silent toast and handed it to me. "What do you want me to do with this?"

She sighed explosively. "You are supposed to drink the blood, you nitwit."

I regarded the glass in my hand as though I'd never seen one before. "You mean now?"

"Yes, now."

I eyed the contents. "But I only drink bagged blood. You know that."

Margaret closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. "Shortly after the new laws came into effect," she said, opening her eyes once more, "I noticed that compelling others was not quite so easy."

"You mean your power disappeared?"

"I did not say it disappeared," Margaret corrected. "Only that it did not come as easily. It wasn't long before I concluded that something in fresh human blood elevated my powers of compulsion."

I glanced again at the cup in my hand, understanding dawning on me at once. "And you think fresh blood will do the same for me."

Margaret smiled. "That is what I think, yes. So—" She raised her glass to me. "Bottom's up."

******

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