Lost in troubled thoughts, I was unaware of anyone following until I heard the crunch of frozen earth underfoot. I whirled at the sound, my nose coming within inches of Josiah's chest. "What are you doing here?" I demanded, irritated that I'd been so easily taken off guard.

He looked down at me, his eyes filtered grey in the muted tones of early-morning light. "I could ask the same of you."

Turning on my heel, I continued down the path, confident my sire would follow as he always did, but half hoping he wouldn't. "I wanted to be alone. I assumed no one would find me here."

"You are not difficult to track," he said.

"Maybe not for someone who's obsessed."

Josiah grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. I tensed, though I did not turn to face him. "I will not deny my feelings for you," he said. "Not any longer."

Closing my eyes, I breathed in the crisp December air, so deep my lungs felt like they would burst. I forced myself to relax under Josiah's firm grip, and he finally let go.

"What is on your mind," he said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.

I glanced at him over my shoulder, supposing there was no harm in telling him. "My parents' party."

He nodded. "I felt your unease."

"Then you'll understand I don't want to talk about it."

Margaret had made me compel my friends, family, and guests, further testing my loyalty to the Abernathy family. By the end of the evening, I was begging to stop. Needless to say, John and I had not continued where we left off earlier that evening by the pool.

"There is something else on your mind," Josiah said when I continued to stand there.

"Not that you care," I replied, "but John is worried about Ian. A part of him thinks Ian abandoned him again."

Josiah raised his chin. "John does not need to wonder. I sent him away."

I gaped in surprise. "You sent him away?"

"I am a Watcher. It is within my right."

"But . . . why? Do you have any idea what his absence has done to John, not knowing where Ian is or why he left?"

"John has been without his sire before. He will survive."

"Ian was working for Mr. Abernathy and yet you sent him away. Margaret compelled my ex-boyfriend in an attempt to get me to confess where he had gone. Do you realize she could have seriously hurt him, just like she did Olivia?"

Josiah's jaw tightened but he said nothing.

Stepping off the path, I leaned against the trunk of a soaring pine and stared out across the expanse of Beebe Lake, which had begun to ice over with the official start of winter. Land and sky were mostly barren as warm-blooded creatures took refuge from the icy fingers of the north wind. Many of the resident students had gone home for the holidays, leaving the whole of Cornell's campus feeling lonely and deprived, with only the roaring water of the falls to break the otherwise silent morning.

A solitary jogger approached from down the path, his controlled breaths coming out in small exhalations of white. Josiah raised a hand in hushed greeting, and the man nodded as he passed, his retreating footsteps pounding out a rhythmic one-two, one-two as he continued on his way. The trees seemed to swallow him whole, and soon he disappeared altogether.

"Given John's tendency toward melodrama," Josiah said, not a little critically, "I had hoped some reassurance from his maker would put his mind at ease."

"Some reassurance," I said, confused as to what he was talking about. And then I remembered. "Did you have something to do with the note that John found?"

"Obviously the message served only to further fuel his anxiety and send him on a fool's errand of ferreting out his missing sire. I assure you that Ian McAvoy is nowhere anyone who is looking for him will find him."

I massaged my forehead, trying to mentally decipher what he had just said. "I think I liked you better when you barely spoke to me. Are you saying you know where he is?"

"I will not say," he answered, his lips hardening as he clamped his mouth shut.

Returning my attention to the water, dark and serene, I mulled over his words. For some inexplicable reason, Josiah had sent Ian away. Still, he'd been concerned enough for John's welfare, knowing he'd be riddled with anxiety over the whereabouts of his suddenly absent sire, to get some sort of a message to him.

"Josiah," I said carefully, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. "Exactly whose side are you on?"

"I am on the side of justice," he answered. "Always."

"Good grief," I replied as I sank to the ground.

Surprisingly, Josiah sat down next to me with a soft thud. Removing his hat from his head, he ran a hand through his hair, momentarily releasing the aromatic fragrance of citrus and cloves. I sniffed delicately before the wind carried it away.

"I knew Conrad Abernathy for what he was," Josiah began. "A vampire. Even before I became one myself. His intentions toward the human population have never been altruistic."

"And yet you work for him."

Josiah rubbed a thick knuckle against his chin, rasping the stubble at his jaw. "Yes," he said simply. "I do."

"But you're not happy about it," I guessed. "If you ever were. You've been with Mr. Abernathy a long time and yet something happened to upset your allegiance to him. What was it?"

"You," he answered.

I blinked. "Me?"

"I could not have any more blood on my hands."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It is in the past," he said, looking away. "Do not make me open old wounds."

Josiah held his hands at rest on his thighs, as though in silent supplication. Casting differences aside, I slipped my right hand into his left. After a moment, his long fingers slowly curled around mine, as though I were a bird, and any small movement on his part might cause me to take flight.

"I won't make you tell me anything you don't want to," I said. "But don't you think I have a right to know what you're talking about?"

Josiah had never volunteered any personal information, at least not to me. Still, we had forged a tentative bond despite everything. I hoped he could see me now as something more than a nuisance, an obligation that had been thrust on him.

"I may be young, Josiah, but we are in this together. Maybe we should start acting like it."

A terrible shudder passed through him as he seemed to release some of the tension he wore carefully tucked around him like a perpetual cloak. "I once spoke of my wife," he began, his voice no more than a whisper.

"Not in any great detail."

He brought up his legs and braced his forearms on his knees, repeatedly flexing his fingers and curling them into fists. He did not look at me as he spoke.

"I have watched you grow, Blake Ehlert. I have witnessed your transformation from a small child into a young woman. Andrew Larsen detected the uniqueness of your blood, even as a human. He realized you had the potential of becoming a powerful Compeller and gave that information to Mr. Abernathy, as was instructed should he come across someone like you. I was tasked with keeping watch over you until you came of age and could be turned."

"Are you telling me I was marked to become a vampire all along?"

"I was never going to let that happen," Josiah replied.

I laughed. "Well then you pretty much failed on that account."

Selecting a small, smooth pebble, I turned it over in my hand several times before hurling it angrily at the lake. It skittered over surface ice before disappearing with a quiet ploop to the depths below, never to be seen again.

"You didn't want me to become a vampire," I said. "And yet here we are."

"Yes."

"How many humans do you know whose lives have in some way been touched by a vampire?"

Josiah glanced sharply at me, a suspicious slant to his eyes. "Why do you ask such a question?"

"I'm curious."

I could tell he was warring between being honest and sparing me the truth. "Too many," he finally answered, turning his gaze away once more.

"And did you ever try to interfere on their behalf?" When Josiah didn't answer, I went on. "Why did I matter? Why did you want to save me from becoming a vampire?"

Josiah didn't answer for several minutes, and then he finally said, "I had a child once. A daughter."

He rose then and strode toward the water. Dumbfounded, I stared at his back—straight and rigid—and the breadth of his shoulders. I tried to imagine his arms wrapped protectively around a family of his own making, the soft cheek of a child pressed against the warm familiarity of her father's, a wife's warm lips seeking the comfort of her husband's.

"Josiah, I'm sorry. I had no idea—"

He turned to me, his gaze unwavering and his eyes speaking of an unfathomable loss. "That I was capable of love?"

"No," I said gently, rising at once and going to him. "I had no idea you had a daughter. That you had a family."

"I will always have a daughter," he replied. "Just because she has been dead and buried these many years. . ." He shook his head, as though unable to comprehend his grief. "As a child," he said, "you reminded me of her in a way."

Slowly, he reached out and fingered a lock of hair curling at my temple. I caught the scent of citrus and cloves at his wrist, at the spot where his pulse beat strongest. "She was dark-haired, just like you. A good thing, too," he added with a self-deprecatory laugh, casually touching his own chestnut hair, which shone deep mahogany in the morning light.

"It's not so bad," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say. "Lots of girls pay good money for hair that color."

The corner of Josiah's mouth lifted. "She was a spirited child, always running and climbing and falling."

He took my left hand in his and turned it over, exposing the palm. With his thumb, he traced the remnant of a small scar at the fleshy base of my hand. "Do you remember how you got this?"

It had been late spring, the weekend of the town festival, and the square was packed with people. A group of older kids was skipping along the perimeter of the fountain, laughing and shoving and daring one another. Breaking free from my parents, I had run to join them. Only three years old at the time, I'd had more confidence than coordination. One of the bigger kids accidentally pushed me, and I went sprawling to the ground on my hands and knees. Despite the small shard of broken glass embedded in my hand, I had refused to cry.

"You helped me up," I said, surprised at the memory, or that I'd had no recollection of him until now. "You told me that even the bravest people cry sometimes."

"I had been given strict instructions to watch and observe, but never to intervene unless you were in imminent danger."

"And you thought that a little fall and a bloody hand required an intervention?"

Josiah realized I was teasing and smiled, a gesture that completely transformed his face. But then he turned serious once again. "I would have protected you from all your falls," he said. "I should have been there to protect you from—"

"It's okay," I said, knowing what he was going to say next. He should have been there to protect me from Ian.

We lapsed into silence after that and continued on a slow walk, watching the ascent of a struggling sun, partially obscured by oppressive, slate-gray clouds. More snow was imminent. I could almost taste the crisp, clean flavor of it on my tongue.

"Answer me this," I said at last. "How could you have been watching me all this time if the Abernathys only just moved to town four years ago? I thought you came here with them."

"Conrad Abernathy is a deliberate man. Every move he makes is carefully calculated, their lives meticulously constructed. Andrew and I were chosen to establish ourselves and form connections here and to call for the rest to come when the time was right. They can never stay in one place for very long, as you well know. When Andrew informed Mr. Abernathy that he had discovered a potential Compeller, we were given orders to watch over you."

"And if I happened to become friends with two teenage vampires when I eventually got to high school," I said, "all the more convenient."

Josiah didn't answer. And honestly, I didn't know what to think. Apparently, my life had never really been my own. Mr. Abernathy had been grooming me to become a vampire, essentially biding his time until I could be recruited and used for his own purposes. I had a sudden sinking feeling that his revolt against the established vampire rules had been a long time in the making, and not something that had come about recently, as we originally suspected.

I'd been the missing piece . . . and now he had me.

"Was it always going to be you?" I asked. "The one to change me, I mean."

"While I had no say in your becoming a vampire, I was firmly opposed to changing you myself. Andrew volunteered, having no progeny of his own. He seemed . . . eager."

"Eager," I said, making a face. "That's revolting."

Although Andrew Larsen and I were on more equal footing now that I was a vampire, he'd shown just a little too much interest in me as a human. I thought he'd had some inappropriate feelings for me, when in fact it had been something infinitely more complicated than that.

"As I said," Josiah went on. "I had no intention of allowing you to be turned. Still, Andrew was the best option if it did, indeed, come to that. We were of a like mind regarding Conrad Abernathy, each of us with our reasons for disliking the man. With Andrew as your sire, he would see to you until we could leave and take you with us."

"You really did have it planned out. To heck with what my parents, right?" Another thought entered my mind. "Exactly how did John factor into this plan of yours and Andrew's?"

Josiah drew in a deep breath. "John realized Mr. Abernathy's plans concerning your eventual transformation, though he did not know for what reason. He was instructed to get close to you, to gain your trust."

Josiah's eyes narrowed. "Unfortunately, John is a born romantic and at times too noble for this life. He agreed to recruit you as a Donor, knowing you had a compatible blood type but refused to play any part in you becoming a vampire."

"That sounds about right," I said with a snort of amusement. "John Kelly, my knight in shining armor. Well, something obviously happened to change his mind."

"John did not change his mind. Margaret compelled him."

"Compelled him to do what exactly?" I said, my heart beginning to beat an unsteady rhythm.

"To fall in love with you. To make you fall in love with him," Josiah answered.

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. "Are you saying that what John and I have isn't real, that it's just some by-product of Margaret's compulsion?"

"You have feelings for him. He has feelings for you. They are real enough."

"I swear I'm going to kill Margaret Abernathy if it's the last thing I do."

Josiah exhaled with a sound of forced resignation. "I understand your anger."

"I'm so stupid," I said. "John Kelly spoke barely a word to me in three years, and all of a sudden he was cozying up to me, laying on the charm. I broke up with Zach for him! I should have known it wasn't real."

Josiah said nothing as I fumed.

"So what happened? How did you end up turning me if you were so firmly opposed to the idea?"

Josiah cleared his throat, as though that was a story he didn't particularly want to tell. "As you grew older, the resemblance to my daughter faded. You were not a little girl, anymore. You had become a woman. You had become . . . her."

"Her?"

"The woman I fell in love with many lifetimes ago. My wife."

"Josiah, I—"

Quite suddenly, my face was between his hands. Stunned, I could do nothing but stare into his eyes. Josiah leaned in, so close his breath floated across my cheek. His lips brushed mine as he spoke, though he did not kiss me.

"My beautiful wife."

The urge to wrap my arms around him and yield to this unexpected desire was overwhelming. I pulled away with effort and put as much distance as I could between us, though it wasn't nearly enough to restore the blood to my shaking limbs.

"Tell me about her," I said instead.

At first he didn't respond, and I thought the moment had been lost for good. Then he began to speak.

"Marjorie was the light of my life. She was but eighteen when we married. Together we had our one and only child, Rebecca."

Josiah stopped then, hanging his head and slowly shaking it back and forth. His swallow was audible. Speaking about his deceased wife and child was not easy for him. I wondered if he'd spoken of them at all since becoming a vampire.

"Talk to me," I said. "I want to know."

"I was sheriff back then," he said. "Much as I am today. Ours was a small town, no more than a thousand souls banned together. We knew of vampires, or at least suspected their existence. We had heard the stories. Vampires are little more than myth these days, discredited by modern science or explained away as the product of human violence, but they were real enough back then, just as we are now."

He was right. At one time I had thought of vampires as nothing more than the fictional monsters of books and movies. Not once had I imagined they might be real. To hear that Josiah had known of vampires, accepted them as part of his own time and existence, made me realize just how close-minded humans had become to things that were different from them.

"There had been several reported attacks," Josiah went on, interrupting my thoughts, "consistent with what we knew of the beasts. Twin puncture marks to the carotid artery at the neck, or the femoral artery on the inside of the leg. Bodies were discovered drained of blood. Desiccated. People feared for their lives."

My mind unerringly conjured images of the men who'd recently been found murdered, and I repressed a shudder at the knowledge that the horror Josiah had lived through as a human was happening once again, in my own time and town.

"I and a few others discovered them," he continued. "A family of vampires. They appeared civilized and could have passed for humans but for the fiends we knew they were. We tried meeting with them, explaining that they could not hunt in our town. When they refused to leave, we threatened to expose their hiding place. We could not rest easy with them so close."

"But that didn't work," I guessed. "Meeting with them, I mean."

Josiah's jaw hardened. "No. It did not."

A chickadee's cry pierced the air, its loud bi-dee-dee-dee sounding from somewhere overhead. Its mate's answering call followed directly.

Josiah breathed in deeply through his nose, his chest expanding. "One night after a patrol, I came home to find my wife and daughter dead. Slaughtered in our family bed. Slain by a vampire."

I squeezed his arm. "That's awful."

"They were stark white," he said, his gaze somewhere far away as he relived the horrific experience yet again. "They were cold to the touch, completely . . . lifeless." He clasped his hands tightly, unconsciously rubbing them together as though to erase the memory of how Death had felt against his fingertips.

The quiet stretched on, but Josiah straightened himself once more, coming back to the present moment at last with a vigorous shake of his head. Through clenched teeth, he said, "I swore I would never let another soul under my care come to harm. We waged war on the vampires, but they were strong. I could not protect my people." He pounded his fist against the ground, but said in a hushed, strained voice, "I could not protect them."

"How many vampires were there?"

"Far less than our able-bodied men, but still enough. I was taken prisoner."

It was difficult to imagine Josiah as anyone's prisoner, as strong and formidable as he was, but those had been different times. He had been a different person. He had been human.

"What did they do to you?"

He gave me a pointed look, speaking the words even though he didn't have to. "They made me what I am."

"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. "Of course. You don't have to tell me anymore if you don't want to," I added when he didn't seem inclined to go on.

"It has been too long since I've told my story. It needs to be spoken if only to keep the memory of my family alive."

I nodded and he went on.

"I was given a choice: my life or theirs. I could leave town and give the vampires free rein to terrorize the people I had sworn to protect, or I could sacrifice myself for their safety and join them."

"So you sacrificed yourself."

"As I recall," he said, "you made the same choice."

While I hadn't sacrificed myself for the sake of an entire town, I'd become a vampire to save John.

"You, um . . . you said I remind you of them. Your daughter and wife. That's why you didn't want to turn me, isn't it, why you didn't want me becoming a vampire?"

"Yes," he replied. "When Ian McAvoy bit and infected you, I thought it a blessing at first. I would have regretted your death, but at least you would not be forced to live a cursed life."

"And the reason why you were such a jerk to me when we first met . . . it wasn't because you hated me."

"I have never hated you," Josiah said, not looking at me. "My feelings for you are complicated, but hatred was never among them. I could not protect my wife and child from falling prey to the vampires, but I would do everything in my power to protect you, even if that meant letting you die. Being forced to turn you was the worst punishment imaginable."

I had always assumed Josiah couldn't stand me, but I'd been wrong. He had wanted to spare me. The truth changed everything.

"Who made you a vampire," I asked.

Josiah's shoulders stiffened. "Her name was Eliza," he said.

I felt an inexplicable spurt of jealousy hearing that Josiah had been turned by a female vampire. The sire-progeny relationship was complex. Although the bond was strong, it wasn't necessarily romantic. Still, that didn't stop me from feeling strangely possessive of him.

"Where is Eliza now?" I said, wondering when they had last seen each other. It wasn't easy to be far from one's maker for very long. Try as I might to avoid Josiah, our bond always brought us back together.

"Eliza is dead."

"Dead?" I said, thinking I hadn't heard him correctly.

"For many years."

"Did you . . . did you kill her?"

Josiah allowed a small grin at the question. "No, and do not pretend that the thought of killing me has never crossed your mind. Given the chance, would you not slit my throat?"

"Absolutely not," I said, taking offense that he could think me capable of murder.

He raised a ruddy brow, weighing the truth in my words, before turning back to the icy waters stretching out before us. "I am relieved to hear that."

"So then how did she die?"

"Her sister killed her," he replied. "In a fit of jealousy. The same sister who admitted to killing my wife and child, who gloated about the deed."

I swallowed hard, thinking how awful it would be to find my own family dead. It could very well become a reality if we didn't stop Conrad Abernathy, and soon.

"What did you do?"

Josiah stood and punched the hollow space of his hat before returning it to his head. "Nothing," he replied. "Yet."

*****

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