Free All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

she is right, I do not know.”
    “Like it or not, she’s one of our only leads,” Zachary said. “I
do
believe Kaleo will come for her, and even if he doesn’t leadus to our targets, removing him will make hunting them easier. We also need her in case Adia’s trip to the bookstore doesn’t pan out. After she gets home, she can decide what we do with this one.”
    “ ‘This one’?” Jay echoed. “You’re trying so hard to distance yourself from her mentally, you can’t even stand to see her as human, can you?”
    “She barely
is
human,” Michael replied. “After a couple hundred years, a bloodbond gets to be a lot more like a vampire. They get strong, and fast, and some of them even feel the bloodlust. If we give her a chance, she will kill us all.”
    “Not all bloodbonds—”
    “Shut
up
, Robert,” Zachary snapped.
    “Did Nikolas kill Sarah?” Robert asked, gaze level and nearly empty.
    Zachary nodded.
    “He’s got my sister,” Robert said. “I thought … I thought she was safe with him.”
    “The situation isn’t quite as clear-cut as it seems,” Jay said.
    “Shut up, Marinitch,” Michael advised. “We don’t need you playing shrink with us.”
    “I’m just trying to—”
    Michael stood abruptly, his chair clattering to the floor behind him as he grabbed Jay by the shirtfront and shoved him back against the wall. “Trying to
what
?” the Arun said, challenging him. “Make us realize how hard this is? Trust me, we’ve got that covered. Zachary and I have known Sarah all her life. We trained with her and fought with her. We have watched each other’s backs in fights none of us would have survived onour own. You and Sarah have barely even been introduced. You think this is hard? You have no idea.”
    He slammed a fist into the wall only inches from Jay’s head, as if his self-control was sufficient to keep him from hitting the other witch, but not enough to keep him from needing to lash out. Jay shut his eyes as plaster shattered, and then Michael dropped him, the argument abruptly forgotten as his attention shifted. It took Zachary a moment longer, but then he, too, sensed what had silenced Michael.
    The power was faint, even with the wards around the house acting like an antenna. The vampire was lingering at least a block away, not coming closer at that moment, but near enough that they could all feel her there.
    Her
. Not Kaleo. The power Zachary could sense was not nearly enough for the ancient Roman to be approaching.
    Was it Sarah? Could things be so convenient?
    It had to be a trap. He stretched his awareness, trying to find more of her kind but knowing it was pointless, since they could appear at any time with no warning. Did she think she could trick them into trusting her and letting down their guard?
    Had she come to turn herself in?
    He squashed the thought. The vampiric animal always sought survival. He had to brace himself, because he knew that the vampire outside would look like Sarah, and sound like Sarah. But it wouldn’t
be
Sarah; it would be the thing that had killed her.
    Maybe, it occurred to him, Kaleo had threatened her. Zachary hadn’t considered that obvious possibility before, thatthe other vampires might have turned on her. The twins were very protective of their sister, and the hunters had threatened her. Kaleo was incredibly possessive of the individuals he considered
his
. Maybe they had sent their newest fledgling here as a sacrifice to appease the hunters.
    Or it could be a trap.

C HAPTER 8
S ATURDAY , 7:29 A.M.
    G IVEN THE HOUR at which Heather had received her phone call, Adia was not entirely surprised to find that the Makeshift bookstore was connected to a twenty-four-hour coffee shop. The bookstore itself was closed, but the café had its own door to the street.
    Adia damped down her witch aura as she stepped out of the car, and as she crossed the threshold, she mentally donned a mask. Who should she be today? A college student, probably, on