“I don’t understand. You lived. She lost, so just march over there and take back what’s yours. She doesn’t have the abilities and powers of a Master anymore. You do, so what’s stopping you?”
“An army of the Damned and a coven of vampires who no longer want me as their Master.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that. They could be missing you. They could feel held hostage by Jillian and the Damned. They—”
“They opened their hearts to her,” Dominic said, and the words scraped from his throat, each syllable taking its own slice. “It’s why I can’t feel their presence like the ebb and crash of an ocean tide around me, pulling me in multiple and often conflicting directions, sometimes buoying me up and just as often dragging me under, but always moving, ever changing, and constant. I am not linked to them anymore, not like I once was as their Master. And the few of us,” he said, gesturing at everyone in the room, “are no match against them.”
I bit my lip, the synapses in my brain firing, dismissing, and generating new thoughts faster than I’d ever imagined possible. “We’re no match against them,” I agreed after a moment, “but we’re not alone. We have Greta and her police force, Meredith, Dr. Chunn, and Rowens. We have more allies than just ‘the few of us.’”
“They’re human and nothing but a liability.”
“In a fight, sure, they’re a liability. So was I, yet you kept me around. Just because you’re the brawn doesn’t mean we can’t use their brains. We also have my brother, who is both brawn and brains, and Bex, who—”
“We don’t have Bex,” Jeremy said. “Not anymore.”
“Not that we ever really did,” Ronnie muttered.
“Yes, we did. We do,” I corrected myself. “She’s our ally, and when push comes to shove, she’ll have our backs.”
Ronnie looked away, a petulant skeleton. Jeremy, for all his snide bravado, didn’t reply, and even Keagan wouldn’t meet my gaze. Theresa and Logan hadn’t resumed their conversation, but they hadn’t joined ours either. They just watched, Theresa’s eyes darting between Dominic and me, cautious and wary, and Logan’s filled with something mutilated, like the remains of a Damned’s victim. Two Damned’s victims in particular, I supposed.
“Dominic?” I asked, gently at first, but when he wouldn’t meet my eyes either, I snapped “Why don’t we have Bex? What the hell happened?”
“Jillian happened,” Dominic finally said, running a frustrated palm down his face. “While we waited out the Leveling and your transformation here, Greta and her SWAT team raided 432 Park Tower.”
“Oh God, is she—”
“Greta is fine,” Dominic interrupted. He closed the distance between us and squeezed my shoulder, rubbing his thumb in comforting circles over my skin. Damn my body’s reaction to him. I didn’t know what I took more reassurance in: his words or his touch. “And so is Rowens and most of their team, but Greta and Rowens are the only ones who remember there was even a raid. When her team infiltrated the tower and confronted the Damned, the Day Reapers entranced everyone, protecting their goddamn secrets better than they protected anything else, even themselves.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What are you saying? I’ve seen them in action myself; the Damned are no match for the Day Reapers.”
“They shouldn’t have been, but when the Damned attacked, the Day Reapers couldn’t simultaneously fight the Damned and entrance the humans. With their efforts and focus divided, the Damned won.”
I covered my mouth. “Is Bex d—”
“I don’t know,” Dominic said. His hand tightened on my shoulder, but I didn’t draw any comfort from his touch this time. “More than likely, she’s imprisoned with all the other Day Reapers in the Underneath, the silver-lined crypt beneath the coven where I imprisoned Jillian during her punishment.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to let everything that had happened in the last seven days soak into my brain. It felt like a nightmare, unbelievable and unreal, but just because I hadn’t lived it didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Didn’t mean I couldn’t fix it. “Okay. I need to talk to Greta.”
“Greta?” Ronnie asked, her voice more an expulsion of air than actual sound.
“After hearing everything that’s happened, you want to talk to Greta?” Jeremy asked, his tone scathing, but just as full of disbelief as Ronnie’s.
I looked between the two of them and raised my eyebrows. “I’m sensing you have a problem with me talking to Greta. I’ve worked with Greta for years, and she—”
“She’s the reason the Day Reapers failed!” Logan exploded. He knocked Theresa’s fluttering hands aside and charged toward me. In another life I might have stepped back, but in this life, I calmly watched him approach. He was a large man, barrel-chested, muscular, and over six feet tall, but he strode across the room with human-slow steps. In this life, I was stronger and faster, and as I’d just proved to myself with Dominic, I no longer had to avoid a physical altercation. Strangely enough, the fact that I didn’t want to avoid it was what held me in check.
Logan loomed over me on the couch, using the full intimidation of his height to his advantage as he shouted, “If it wasn’t for Greta, the Day Reapers wouldn’t have been distracted. They would have won against the Damned and stopped Jillian’s ascent to power.”
I nodded and then tipped my head sideways. “And what would have happened to all of us?”
Logan froze in his hovering. “What do you mean?”
I spread my hands to indicate the barren walls around us. “Dominic couldn’t fortify this bunker against the Day Reapers because I’m a Day Reaper. So if Greta hadn’t interfered and the Day Reapers had won against the Damned, what do you think would have happened to us, considering that Dominic, not High Lord Henry—”
Dominic groaned.
“—transformed me?” I finished.
Logan pursed his lips.
Keagan raised his hand next to me.
I nodded at him. “Yes, Keagan?”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “We’re not in high school anymore, idiot. Still, you manage to become teacher’s pet.”
“Still, you manage to be an asshole,” Keagan shot back. To me, he said, “The Day Reapers would have attacked us and punished Dominic for transforming you. We might have been the ones imprisoned in the Underneath.”
“Precisely.”
Logan let loose a low growl, and Dominic, who had previously been watching this all play out without interrupting, growled back.
“Greta didn’t know what she was doing when she did it,” Logan said roughly, refusing to back down despite my logic and Dominic’s growl. “She planned a raid under the mistaken confidence that she could win against the Damned and protect the city. And look where that got her! She lost, the city is in ruins, and our only chance to overthrow the Damned is locked away, as good as dead!”
I shook my head. “Listen to what you just said. ‘Greta didn’t know what she was doing when she did it.’ She did the best she knew how under the circumstances. She did what she thought was in the best interests of the city. The Day Reapers, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were doing. They prioritized the secrecy of their existence over protecting the city from the Damned, and look where that got them!”
I took a deep breath. Knowing it wouldn’t loosen the pressure around my heart or calm my temper, I took it anyway. “Greta and I are a team. Together with our medical examiner, our environmental-science expert”—I tipped my head