Somewhere near the top of a high-rise apartment building in Vale City, Azriel sat at a polished oak table contemplating his most recent failure. The aches and pains from his earlier encounter with the three fae had just about faded, but his wounded pride remained.

On the other side of the table, a blond man poured himself a drink. He could have been about thirty years old, or he could have been three hundred. He could have been older or younger than Azriel. It was impossible to tell with vampires, and it didn’t matter. Age was simply a number.

Without offering Azriel a drink, the man dragged a chair out from beneath the table, letting it scrape slowly across the floor. He sat. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass before placing it on the table. “I’m disappointed, Azriel. You came highly recommended, but I’m starting to doubt your abilities. After Leroy spotted her at that party and called you, I figured it was a done deal. What happened?”

Azriel folded his arms and took a calming breath as he stared out of the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows at the glimmering city lights. He didn’t appreciate being told off like a child, but it wouldn’t do to lose his temper. “It was a setup, Lev. Somebody wanted to catch me.”

“I see. Well, aren’t you special.”

Azriel’s hands clenched into fists beneath his arms. “Not particularly. I assume somebody wants answers, and they’ll take them from whoever they can get hold of.”

“Well, if it really was a setup—and who knows whether you’re simply being paranoid—then I can’t send you out again. This girl and her friends will recognize you. The only way we’ll make this work is if I send someone they haven’t seen before.”

“Like me?” The voice came from the shadowed doorway leading to the bedrooms. Azriel knew without having to look that it was Nik, Lev’s son. He’d met Nik several times when he first joined the Allegiant.

“Perhaps,” Lev said as Nik walked forward. With their matching white-blond hair, red eyes and unlined faces, they could have been brothers instead of father and son.

“Nik,” Azriel said, inclining his head in a brief nod of greeting. “How’s it going being experimented on?”

Nik rolled his shoulders. “To be honest, I’ve never felt better. Younger. More powerful. I wonder if this is what those insufferable fae feel like all the time.”

Azriel hated to show an interest, but he couldn’t hide his curiosity. “So it’s working?”

“Feels like it.”

Azriel looked at Lev. “If you’ve figured out how to do it, then why are we hunting down this girl?”

“I don’t know the complete method,” Lev said. “It’s possible I’m leaving something out. Something important. That’s why I need her. And I’d have her by now if you hadn’t failed three times.”

“I did find her,” Azriel reminded him quietly.

“True. That is something. But not enough, she’s currently still out there.”

Azriel decided not to argue. He was certain he could catch the girl if given another chance, but if Lev had other plans, that was fine. “Well, if you have no further use for me—” Azriel placed his palms on the table and pushed himself up “—then my work here is done.” He stepped around the chair and pushed it back into place beneath the table. He would have preferred to slam it, perhaps cracking both the table and the chair, but he didn’t need these people knowing they could so easily get under his skin.

“Don’t think you’re off the hook,” Lev said. He raised his glass to his lips and tipped the contents down his throat. Ice blocks clinked as he lowered the glass to the table. “You’ll be required here tomorrow night for another meeting.”

“Regarding what?”

“Azriel, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the meaning of the word allegiant.”

Azriel narrowed his eyes. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. My allegiance—” he bit the word out angrily—“is to the true king.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what tomorrow’s meeting is about. If it’s to serve your true king, you’ll do whatever’s required of you.”

Azriel let out a long breath. “Of course.”

Lev cocked his head, his gaze sliding down and settling somewhere near the collar of Azriel’s shirt. “You never did tell me about that tattoo of yours.”

“And I don’t intend to.” With that, Azriel strode to the door, yanked it open, and left the apartment. He allowed himself the duration of the elevator ride to wallow in the dark memories that had surfaced at Lev’s mention of the tattoo, but when the doors slid open, he banished them.

Out on the street, he was about to run when a familiar voice called his name. He turned back to face Alissa, his hands fisting at his sides. “How dare you get between me and that girl? Don’t you know who she is? I was so close. I almost—”

“Of course I know who she is,” Alissa answered. “That’s why I had to stop you.”

“You don’t know what you’ve cost us.”

Alissa’s red eyes glinted in the light cast by the street lamps. “Az, why are you still involved with these people? Their agenda is … it’s insane.”

“You know why. And as my sister, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I don’t have to be on your side when you’re doing the wrong thing.”

“Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong.” It was a stupid, petty thing to say, and it reminded him of a time many years ago when the two of them were children.

“I’m not,” she said, and as Azriel turned to race away, part of him feared she might be right.