Chapter 3

“It’s not mine,” I said, too quickly. “I mean—the application. It’s a template.”

James’s gaze didn’t soften. He leaned against the dresser as if he had all the time in the world, as if the world would wait while he decided what to do with me.

“Whose template?” he asked.

“A friend’s,” I said. “A classmate. From—before.”

Before Morretti House. Before his teeth. Before the blood that tied me to a family that would never call me family.

James’s eyes narrowed. “You kept friends.”

I didn’t answer. If I said yes, he’d ask for names. If I said no, he’d look satisfied.

Silence stretched.

I exhaled. “It’s just a form. It doesn’t matter.”

It mattered. My phone, face down on my nightstand, held the real truth: the confirmation notice I’d tapped accept on while the party still echoed in the halls. The border institute didn’t care about Morretti House. They cared about utility. About sunlight. About a daywalker who could cross lines vampires couldn’t.

James stared at me for a long moment.

Then he folded the paper once, neatly, and slid it into his coat pocket as if he were putting away a problem.

“You’ll stay where I can protect you,” he said.

Protect.

The word sounded different on his mouth than it would on anyone else’s. For him, protection was possession in polite clothing.

He turned to leave, then paused.

“You should keep your head down,” he added, almost casually. “Especially right now.”

“Why?” I asked.

His gaze flickered toward the hall, toward the center of the house, where the Rossi guests had taken over rooms as if they were entitled to the air.

“Because you don’t understand what’s happening,” he said.

And then he was gone.

I stood there, shaking, not from fear but from the sudden certainty that there were secrets in this house deeper than my humiliation.

Later that evening, I went looking for water and found voices instead.

Soft. Intimate.

I stopped at the corridor near the medical suite—one of the few rooms in the estate lined with silver instruments and sterile glass.

The door was ajar.

Inside, Vicky lay back on a velvet-covered examination chair, her dress loosened at the waist. A physician—one of the old ones, the kind who didn’t blink when someone’s heart didn’t beat—adjusted a device made of polished obsidian and thin runes.

James stood beside her, coat removed, sleeves rolled up, his hand resting on the chair’s arm.

He looked… patient.

Not cold. Not distracted. Patient in a way that made my throat tighten.

Vicky reached up and brushed two fingers over his wrist. “Stop scowling,” she murmured. “You’re going to scare him.”

James didn’t pull away. “I’m not scowling.”

“You are,” she teased. “You always do when you’re worried.”

Worried.

I stared at him, at the way his attention stayed on her, steady and focused, like she was the center of the room’s gravity.

The physician spoke in a low voice I couldn’t fully catch. Words like “timing” and “stability” and something that sounded like “lineage.”

Vicky laughed softly. “See? Everything is proceeding perfectly.”

James’s jaw tightened. “Lower your voice.”

She pouted. “Why? It’s just you and me.”

And then the physician glanced toward the door.

His eyes met mine.

For a heartbeat, everything froze.

Vicky turned her head, and her expression changed as soon as she saw me—amusement first, then sharp annoyance, like I’d tracked mud onto a clean floor.

James followed her gaze.

The warmth—if it had existed—vanished from his face.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I—” My voice caught. “I was just—”

His tone cut like steel. “You shouldn’t be here.”

The words hit differently now, with the scene behind them: the secrecy, the low voices, the way his hand had stayed on Vicky’s chair.

Vicky smiled lazily. “Oh, don’t be dramatic. She’s just curious.”

James didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on me, hard and warning.

“Leave,” he said.

I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth and stepped back.

As I turned, I heard Vicky’s voice follow me, sweet as poison.

“Tell her,” she said to James, louder now. “Tell her what this means.”

James didn’t answer.

I walked away, my hands trembling, my heart pounding too fast for a half-vampire body that wanted to be calm.

In my room, I locked the door and stared at my phone.

The confirmation notice waited on the screen like a quiet exit.

FRONTIER INSTITUTE: ACCEPTED. ARRIVAL WINDOW: 72 HOURS.

I pressed my thumb to the glass.

Not yet.

Soon.

Down the hall, the medical suite door clicked shut.

And I realized something I hadn’t let myself admit before:

Whatever Vicky was carrying, it had nothing to do with love.

It was power.

And James was standing right beside it.