A whole range of reactions slewed through my head – from tearful hysteria to uncontrolled laughing to simply crumpling to the floor and hiding under the table until someone told me this whole thing had gone away.

Rachel had warned me that war was coming, but I just...I hadn't...I never foresaw this. I'd known there was a bigger picture, something unfolding beyond Rachel's vendetta against me and my family, but the realisation that she was actually raising an army to fight against everything I believed in...I couldn't have imagined this. Whatever bigger picture I could possibly have imagined, it wasn't this.

Riley, standing close by, spread her palms for emphasis, accidentally smacking a female vampire in the back. "I get that the war part's bad, but unveiling vamps to the world? Is that such a terrible thing? I mean, think about it, K-girl. You're still planning to unite hunters and vampires, right? If the world knows about vampires, won't that help your cause?"

"No, Riley," I said, keeping my voice steady so I revealed none of the emotional maelstrom eating me up inside. "It won't. The whole reason people hunt vampires to begin with is because they don't know any better. They think vampires are evil – monsters, and it's hardly the first time in history that fear of the unknown has caused human beings to lash out."

I pressed my thumb and forefinger to the inner corners of my eyes, feeling the start of another headache. "I would love to show the world that vampires exist and have all of humankind welcome them with sunny smiles and open arms, but that's just not reality. Vampires would be met with anger, ignorance, and most of all fear. And it's fear that would be most dangerous. Humans have always feared and destroyed what they don't understand."

"Not to mention that Rachel would be the one doing the unveiling. She's hardly the poster-child for friendly relations between humans and vampires," said Luke, his voice grim.

"Rachel isn't going to reveal the existence of vampires to the world. She's going to drag them out of the shadows and set them on people like wild dogs. As far as she is concerned, vampires are top of the food chain and we're just blood-bags to be used and discarded," I growled.

Angry energy zipped up and down my arms, making me ache with the urge to punch something. I thought longingly of my old nemesis – the vinyl punch-bag, still hanging in the team's garage.

"I don't get it, though. Rachel's clearly nuts. What kind of vampire would want to help her?" Riley asked.

"Any vampire who has ever been persecuted by a hunter. Any vampire who has ever suffered at human hands. Any vampire who simply agrees with her belief that our kind shouldn't have to hide in the shadows anymore." Anna glanced at me as she said it, and something sour rose in my throat.

I might not hunt any more, but for years I had. Once upon a time, I had actively contributed to everything Anna was talking about. Some of those persecuted vampires could have suffered at the hands of Noah's team – could have suffered at my hands.

Even if I'd never directly hurt any of them, I had been part of a culture that hunted and tormented vampire-kind. The irony was that in hounding creatures that they thought were monsters, hunters actually created monsters. If vampire-kind had just been left alone, Rachel's only support might have been a few psychotically like-minded individuals. Not enough for an army. Instead hunters had pushed vampires to the edge, and now someone was showing them how to fight back against the injustices they'd suffered.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand why other vampires would fall for Rachel's spiel.

"And all the vampires who think it's safer to carry on living in the shadows will be dragged out regardless," Luke said.

The implications of what Rachel planned were terrifying. She wanted to unveil vampires to the world so they could assert their dominance over humankind. I wasn't under any delusions that humans wouldn't fight back – the war that ensued would be bloody on both sides. It would utterly destroy any hope that I had of uniting humans and vampires. It meant that innocent vampires like Luke and his parents would be hunted again, only this time it would be by the whole world rather than select groups of deluded hunters.

But Rachel either couldn't or didn't want to see the devastating consequences her plan would have on her own people. She didn't seem to understand that in her quest for vampire superiority, she could actually end up destroying vampires.

"Rachel has started to build an army," Anna went on. "Right now, I think our saving grace is that not as many vampires have been as receptive to her plans as she imagined. Not all vampires, even the ones who have suffered at human hands, want to start some sort of revolution. They'd rather keep their heads down; live their lives quietly and peacefully. And that's why we're here. You've proved that hunters can change. You've proved that they can be made to see the truth, and in doing so you have shown us the possibility of a world where humans and vampires can live at peace with each other. As soon as we realised what Rachel was planning, we started to raise our own army – a counter-army of vampires who would welcome an alliance with hunters if it paves the way for that world of peace."

The faces in the kitchen around me suddenly took on new meaning. These vampires had never met me, but they believed in my cause – believed it enough to fight for it. Emotion knotted my throat and my face felt strangely hot, like I was torn between crying and blushing. Neither seemed appropriate and neither summed up what I was feeling.

"Okay, I really feel like the stupid one here, but why now?" Riley asked. "Rachel's always hated humans, right? So why hasn't she done anything about it before now? What suddenly happened to make her do this?"

"Me," I said, dully. "I happened."

Riley opened her mouth, probably to console me or reassure me, but I rushed ahead before she could.

"It's because of me and the alliance that I am trying to build," I said. That headache was springing into fruition, a dull beat behind my eyes. "If I wasn't doing this, Rachel would never have tried something so drastic." The headache became an ice pick, stabbing into my brain. "This is my fault. Ava's death is my fault."

Riley promptly drew herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders. "Don't even go there, Kiara Morrow."

The force of her outburst caused Alice to take a step back, looking uncertainly between us like she wasn't sure if Riley was encouraging me or actually getting angry with me.

I knew the difference.

"Don't you dare blame yourself," Riley continued, her eyes flashing with passion. "Rachel is a sick bitch and she'd have got round to this eventually, with or without you."

Somewhere in the room a vampire made a noise of agreement, but I was too short to see who it was.

Riley levelled a finger at me. "If Rachel is planning on bringing war to Dalwick then we need you thinking clearly and not feeling sorry for yourself, capiche?"

Her words brought me up short. I had been through a lot of crap in my short life and I'd never thought of myself as self-pitying before. There wasn't time for me to start now. Yes, my determination to build a hunter/vampire alliance had pushed Rachel to make her own move, but Riley was right – Rachel was mad. She would have done this sooner or later. Maybe it was better to have nudged her in that direction – at least now we could meet the problem head-on.

I gave Riley a little salute. No more feeling guilty. The hollow space inside me that had been caused by the deaths of the people I loved was filled with a slow, steady anger.

Rachel was not going to win.

I was.

Much as I wanted to get started with a plan, the little army that Anna and Alice had brought were exhausted. They didn't specify how long they'd travelled to get here, but I suspected that Anna had initially taken her daughter as far from the clan as she could, in the hopes of leaving everything behind and starting again.

The delay chafed, but it wasn't fair to push these people when they'd only just got here. It was enough that they were willing to fight for us; we couldn't slave-drive them into the process.

There was no question about letting them stay with us. They had come all this way to help so the least we could do was put a roof over their heads. It wasn't as if they could all head to a hotel, where the windows weren't secured by black-out curtains.

Unfortunately we didn't have nearly enough pillows or blankets to offer everyone. The vampires assured us they didn't mind since it was only for one night, but I still felt bad about leaving them to sleep on the floor of the kitchen and living room, packed together like sardines, while Luke and I went upstairs to bed. Riley and Ethan were in the spare room, having moved several bundles of knives from the bed to the floor.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked, tracing the shape of my face in the darkness.

I nodded.

"You're not blaming yourself for anything?"

A little smile touched my lips. He knew me too well. "Cross my heart," I said, miming it.

"Good, because nothing that has happened is your fault. Rachel is a fanatic. She's the vampire version of Caleb, and you wouldn't have blamed yourself for anything Caleb did," Luke murmured. His voice was soft and strangely intimate in the shadowed room.

My hand slid up his arm, tracing the lines of muscles beneath his skin. "Except Sophie," I whispered.

Even now, weeks after her death, I couldn't help wishing I could have done something to change the outcome of that night. Rachel would always have wanted to kill Ava, but Caleb's killing of Sophie had been accidental. He was trying to kill me and she had got in his way. That part wasn't my fault, but if I had simply walked away from the team when I first realised I was in love with Luke, her death might have been avoided.

There was a bitter quality to hindsight.

The bedcovers rustled as Luke moved, propping himself up on one elbow. The room was so dark that I couldn't see his face properly, but his eyes shone like polished steel, cutting through the shadows.

"Don't," he whispered, his breath warm on my face.

I sighed, taking the pain over Ava's death and the guilt over Sophie's death, and bottling it away inside myself. Blaming myself for what happened was counterproductive. It didn't help anyone, and there was nothing I could do to change it now.

"I'm not blaming myself," I said. "But I think I should visit Sophie's grave tomorrow. It's been too long already."

Something sharp lodged in my chest as I realised that Ava would probably never have a grave. I would do something to remember her by, even if we never found her body.

"Don't go on your own," Luke said. His hand moved to my stomach, sliding under the vest I wore to bed and trailing gentle patterns on my skin.

I swallowed against the heat prickling inside me. "Rachel can't get to me during the daytime, remember?"

"I don't care." His hand moved higher, his thumb smoothing along the lines of my ribs. "You're the one who's always saying not to underestimate her so" – his lips briefly touched mine – "I'm not underestimating her." His voice took on a more serious note. "Please, Kiara, just promise me you won't go alone."

His face was a pale smudge in the darkness, capped by black hair. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through that hair, tracing the shape of his eyebrows, his cheeks, his mouth. I read his face like Braille, every tiny detail that made up this boy that I loved so fiercely.

"I'll take Ethan with me. Happy?"

Beneath my fingers, I felt him smile. His head dipped to catch my lips in a kiss, and I arched against him, pulling him tightly to me. He groaned against my lips, his hand stopping just shy of where I wanted it to be.

"Damn it, Kiara." His voice was a slow whisper.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. My heart pounded, my hands clutching his arms as he braced himself over me. There was only a thin layer of clothing separating our bodies...and that was how it had to stay – for now, anyway. There was a houseful of vampires downstairs, and Ethan and Riley were sleeping just a room away. It was hardly the privacy we'd longed for.

"Typical, isn't it?" Luke said, as if he was reading my mind. "We finally get our own space but we still can't be alone."

We both recognised that what was happening was more important than our sex life – or lack of – but we'd have to be saints not to feel just a little frustrated with the situation.

I sighed, my head dropping back on the pillow. "I just want this whole thing to be over with. I want to be with you and I'm tired of the whole stupid world getting in the way." I reached for him in the dark, lacing my fingers through his. "Haven't we gone through enough already? Why can't everyone just leave us alone? We're not asking for much; just to be together."

Luke shuffled closer, cupping my face with his free hand. "We will be. I know it looks dark now, but we're not alone. We have help now, and Rachel is not going to win. She is not going to get her war."

My response was to kiss him, to pull him back against me and burrow under the covers until the only sounds were the mingling of our breathing and our heartbeats. It wasn't quite what either of us wanted, but it was enough for now.