The next day, Bo received a package containing a hermetically sealed vial with a swab inside, along with a note written in elegant script informing her that the swab held the DNA of one Isabella Marie Swan and requesting that she get it tested against hers at the earliest opportunity.

"Dang, that was fast," Kenzi muttered. "I didn't even know international overnight shipping was a thing."

"It was sent from Vancouver," Bo replied, holding up the packaging to show her the postmark, "which, if I remember my high school geography right, is practically right across the border from Washington. I guess Edward must've taken it across himself so it wouldn't get held up in customs, then had it overnighted here."

"Sounds like this guy wants answers even more than you do." Following her conversation with her potential sister's boyfriend the day before, Bo had gone straight to the drugstore, purchased a home DNA testing kit, and sent her own sample to the address Edward had provided before Kenzi even woke up. She did spring for expedited shipping, but she'd stopped short of personally ferrying her package over the border to speed up its delivery.

"So now that you've got this, I guess you'll have to pay Dr. Hotpants a visit to get it tested," Kenzi continued. "What's up with you two these days anyway? After she spy-banged you, you froze her out so hard I could practically feel the Arctic blast, but last time we saw her before you faced off with your mom, I thought I detected a hint of thawing in the permafrost. So is there any climate change there or what?"

"I'm not sure," Bo admitted, running a hand through her hair. "Right before you and I went to get that chi-binding amulet from the Ash's trophy room-"

"Ah, you mean when you suffered a moment of critical brain failure and stealth-cuffed me to a shelf in a futile attempt to stop me from having your back?" Kenzi interrupted, narrowing her eyes at her best friend.

"Yes, for which I've apologized repeatedly. Anyway, before that, I promised Lauren that we'd finally sit down and talk things out, clear the air about that whole mess with her trying to keep me away from Vex, and I thought she wanted to – I mean, she kissed me-"

"Huh? What? There was kissing?!"

"Yeah, but since then, nothing. I tried calling her a couple times yesterday, but it went straight to voicemail. I guess she's busy with all the people that were hurt when Aife turned her thrall into a suicide bomber, and the Ash being on life support and all, I just…" She paused, then said quietly, "I haven't heard from Dyson either, and the one time I was able to get hold of Trick last night, he told me to stay home and, I quote, 'keep my head down'; then he hung up before I could tell him about the call from Edward or anything. Have you talked to Hale?"

Kenzi shook her head, a worried look in her eyes that she wasn't quite able to hide. "Nah, I know he's probably got a lot on his plate with the mass evac, or maybe they're un-evacuating now that Aife's pulled a Gone Girlif she's really gone – but still, the radio silence is starting to freak me out a little bit. Like, minutely, because I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. Our friends are probably fine…right?"

"There's only one way to find out," Bo declared, grabbing her leather jacket off the back of the couch and sticking the vial into one of its pockets before shrugging it on. "I'm going to the lab."

###

Security at the Light's headquarters was tighter than Bo had ever seen it, but by being extra careful and stealthy (and using her powers of persuasion on the two guards she wasn't able to dodge) she eventually managed to get in. Under her influence, one of the guards told her that Lauren was in her office, which was a stroke of luck; at least it was more private than the area where she saw patients and conducted her experiments.

Bo found her poring over a bunch of medical charts, though her head snapped up when the succubus entered. "Bo! You shouldn't be here."

"Well, I'd say I wouldn't have had to come if you'd answer my calls-"

"I'm sorry, Bo," Lauren interrupted, sounding frazzled. "I've been absolutely swamped here with a dozen patients still in critical condition, and I have to give a report on the Ash's prognosis in three hours…"

"Whoa, hey…" Bo stepped forward and took hold of her shoulders, halting her frenetic movements as she turned the blonde to face her. "Stop. Breathe. How likely is it that anything big changes with the Ash in three hours?"

"Not very," Lauren admitted, relaxing by small degrees. "I've done everything I can, but until the intracranial swelling goes down, there's no telling what the long-term outlook will be."

"Then you can take a break," Bo said firmly. "You've earned it. Besides, I want to have that talk I promised you…although I do need to ask you for a favor first."

"On to the next case already?" Lauren asked, her eyebrows rising slightly.

"Actually, this one's personal." Bo pulled the vial out of her pocket. "I need you to run this DNA sample against mine."

Her curiosity piqued, Lauren took it. "And what am I looking for?"

"I need to know if the person this belongs to is my sister."

"Your sister?" Lauren looked up from the vial, her eyebrows drawing together in a frown. "Bo, that's…highly unlikely, to say the least. I don't know if you're aware of this, but succubi with more than one child are-"

"Like unicorns, I know," Bo interrupted impatiently, fed up with the naysaying that seemed to be all she'd heard from everyone (except Kenzi, of course). "Trick told me all about it."

"Actually, that's not a great analogy. Unicorn mares produce an average of three foals in their lifetime, which is significantly higher than the statistics for succubi. There's some speculation that unicorn birth rates may have risen slightly over the last three hundred years to compensate for poaching that took place before stricter penalties were enacted in the late 1800's…" Her voice trailed off as she noticed the bemused look Bo was giving her. "But you're not here to talk about unicorns."

"As much as I loved unicorns when I was five, no. Look, I know me having a sister is probably what you'd call a statistical anomaly or an outlier or some fancy math term like that, but even Trick – who it turns out is my grandfather, by the way – says I did have one at one time, although he thinks she died when she was just a baby. Aife thinks different, though, and I'm a little more inclined to take her word on this than yours or Trick's. Neither of you were there."

"That's true," Lauren conceded. "All right, I'll run the test. I already have your genetic profile on record, so I don't need anything from you," she added when Bo opened her mouth to ask. "It'll take about forty minutes."

"Plenty of time for us to have that talk, then."

When Lauren came back from initiating the test, however, they found themselves sitting in awkward silence, neither knowing what to say to begin unraveling the tangle of bruised feelings and resentment that had built up between them.

At last, aware that their limited time was ticking away, Bo decided to just dive right into the middle of it. "You really hurt me, Lauren," she began while trying hard not to sound accusing. "I thought we had a real connection-"

"It was real," Lauren blurted out, before dropping her gaze just enough to break eye contact. "At least, it was real to me."

"Does that mean you still would've slept with me that night if the Ash hadn't told you to?"

"I don't know if I would've done it right then…but I'm sure it would have happened eventually. I wanted it to."

Bo took a moment to process that, then: "Well, that's something. You know, there were times when I wondered if you would ever have wanted to go that far if the Ash hadn't pushed you into it, if I was an unwitting party to him pimping you out…"

"It wasn't like that," Lauren said quickly. "In the five years I've worked for the Ash, he's never ordered me to offer anyone sexual favors; he only suggested it then because he knew we'd been spending time together, and I went along because…because I really do care about you, Bo, and I thought it was the best way to protect you."

This declaration sparked mixed emotions in the succubus; on one hand, she was glad to know Lauren's feelings for her were genuine, but that happiness was accompanied by a stab of irritation at once again hearing that someone she'd trusted had lied to and manipulated her 'for her own good', as if caring about her gave them the right to decide what was best for her. Didn't anyone trust her to make her own choices?

"I appreciate that," she said at last, still striving to keep her voice level. "I didn't ask you to protect me, though. How could you even be sure I needed protecting anyway? In case you haven't noticed, I've been in some pretty rough scrapes before and so far I've always come out on top."

Lauren was already shaking her head before Bo finished. "You don't understand – it wouldn't have been like any fight you've ever had with individual fae. Vex is a high-ranking member of the Dark. If you'd killed him, the entire Dark Fae faction would've been out for blood, and they wouldn't have stopped until you were dead. You couldn't have withstood that kind of onslaught forever, Bo."

"So you think I should just give in? Not try to fight back against an unjust, oppressive system?" Bo took a step closer, her dark eyes burning with an intensity that made the doctor's breath catch in her throat. "Didn't it mean anything to you, what I said when I explained why I couldn't just let the whole Lou Ann thing go? The way they punished her for not letting them tell her who she was or wasn't allowed to love was wrong, and if I took out their assassin-"

"They have plenty of others," Lauren murmured, still transfixed by Bo's gaze.

"Maybe, but at least I would've sent a message that what they did to her wasn't okay, maybe made them think twice before doing it again or inspired somebody else to stand up to them too…and if I ended up dying for it, that wouldn't be such a bad way to go out, would it? Dying for what you believe in has to be better than giving up and living your whole life under the thumb of a bunch of control freak dickwads," she said softly.

"Except you'd still be dead," Lauren pointed out, her eyes now sparkling with unshed tears. "I couldn't let that happen."

"It wasn't your choice to make," Bo countered, gently but firmly. "It's my life; I'm the only one who gets to choose what's worth me fighting for, or dying for if it comes to that." She took another step forward, leaving less than a foot of space between them, and reached out to take Lauren's hands in hers. "If we're going to have any chance of moving past this, I need to know you won't try to undermine me again, that you'll respect my decisions even if you don't agree with them. Can you do that, Lauren?"

The blonde's lips parted, her brown eyes fixed on Bo's face, her breath coming faster as the succubus stared at her, waiting for an answer. "I…"

Before she could finish – not that she was entirely certain what she would have said anyway, with Bo's proximity making it so hard to think clearly – her computer chimed, making both of them jump. "That'll be your test results," she muttered, dragging her gaze away from Bo's with an effort. "Let's see…"

She bent over her desk, clicked the mouse a couple of times and hit a few keys, then sucked in a sharp breath when she read what appeared on the screen. "It's a match," she announced, sounding stunned. "Bella Swan is your sister." She then moved aside so Bo could see for herself; there was a lot of medical jargon the succubus didn't understand, but the graph that showed the key similarities between her DNA and Bella's seemed clear enough, as did the line in the write-up that said a full familial match was indicated.

"Wow. So this…this is really happening." Bo let out a breathless little laugh, an ecstatic smile spreading over her face as the truth sank in. "I really do have a sister… She's really out there, alive… I've found another piece of my family! This is amazing! Thank you, Lauren!"

She spun around and grabbed the doctor up in a hug that nearly lifted her feet off the floor, which Lauren returned as best she could with her arms pinned to her sides. "I'm happy for you, Bo."

Still, Bo couldn't help noticing that her voice was strangely flat, and when she pulled back to look into the other woman's face, her expression was almost sad. "What's wrong?"

"You're leaving, aren't you? Now that you've found your sister, I'm sure you want to meet her."

"Well, yeah…" Some of Bo's exhilaration seeped away as it fully hit her for the first time just how far away Washington's Olympic Peninsula was, how after ten long, lonely years of drifting from one town to the next, always trying to stay one step ahead of her body count, she would have to leave behind the first place she'd found that truly felt like home. And yet… "I have to. I've spent all these years searching for my family, so now that I've found another part of it, I can't just ignore that. I have to know who she is."

Lauren nodded, ducking her head as she felt her eyes prickling again. "I understand. I hope you find what you're looking for, I really do…and I'll miss you." It felt like she'd been missing Bo for weeks already, ever since their falling-out, but despite the emotional distance between them, at least Bo had still been in the same city, where Lauren got to see her occasionally and there was some hope that they could eventually work through their differences…which obviously wasn't going to happen if Bo left for some far-off locale.

Bo's face fell further as the realization of their impending separation dawned on her as well; then, acting on impulse, she took hold of the doctor's hands again. "Come with me, Lauren. We can get away from the Ash and all this crap about him owning you – you can be free, and with no bullshit fae rules standing between us, maybe you and I can get back to where we were before, or maybe…maybe we could even be more than that. We can give it a shot, anyway, see where things go. What do you say?"

Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the idea of freedom was so tempting that for one wonderful moment, Lauren let herself get swept up in the fantasy; she didn't know where they would go, but in her imagination it was somewhere beautiful, with no fae (except Bo's sister) around to look down on her or dictate the terms by which she lived her life. She could be her own woman again, on equal footing with Bo, and there would be nothing stopping them from exploring the unexpected yet undeniable attraction that had sprung up between them…

Then reality came rushing back, obliterating that lovely daydream like a wave crashing down on a sandcastle. While it was true that there were places with very low populations of fae, there was nowhere on the planet that was completely beyond their reach, nowhere they wouldn't eventually find her…if she could even get out in the first place. As the Ash's primary physician, she was under more intense scrutiny than ever before, as the entire Light Fae organization held their collective breath while they waited to see if their leader would recover. With Bo's help, maybe she could escape the compound, but it wouldn't take long for someone to notice her absence, and when they did, they wouldn't even need to track her down in order to punish her.

Her heart clenched as she thought of Nadia lying in her life support pod, insensible to everything going on around her, helpless… There was no way Lauren could take Nadia with her, and if she left her behind, how long would it take for someone to pull the plug?

Of course, there was an argument to be made that Nadia was already more dead than alive; in five years, she had never once shown the slightest sign of regaining any cognitive function, nor had Lauren been able to make any progress toward curing her of the virus that had rendered her comatose in the first place…and yet, she was still breathing, her heart continued to beat…and Lauren still loved her just as much as she had on the day she signed away her freedom in exchange for a chance, just a chance, at saving her.

In the years that followed, there were times – more of them than Lauren liked to admit – when her dreams of the day that Nadia finally opened her eyes, when she would get to see her smile, hold her in her arms and kiss her again, were all that kept her going…so could she really throw all that away now? After everything she'd sacrificed, the years of servitude she'd endured for Nadia's sake, how could she abandon her to run off with another woman?

It wasn't like she'd intended to develop feelings for Bo, of course; in fact, she'd felt tremendously guilty when she first realized she was starting to like the succubus as more than a friend, had spent several sleepless nights wrestling with the question of whether it counted as cheating when her girlfriend had been in a coma for five years, with the chances of her ever waking up growing more remote day by day…

Lauren still didn't have an answer to that, because no matter how many studies she read on the long-term prognosis for patients in Nadia's condition, those statistics didn't mean anything to her heart. The one thing she did know was that even if Nadia never improved, her conscience couldn't bear the weight of actually signing her death warrant…so she reluctantly pulled her hands out of Bo's grasp and took a step back.

"I'm sorry, Bo… I can't."

"Why not? You don't like the Ash treating you like his property, do you?" Bo asked incredulously.

"No, of course not, but I… It's hard to explain."

"What's hard about it? If you're scared of what they'll do, don't be. I'll protect you."

"There you go again, thinking you can take on the whole system and change the world all by yourself," Lauren said with a slight shake of her head and a bittersweet smile. Bo's determination to right every wrong she encountered really was admirable, if not particularly realistic. "But even if you could – which is a big 'if', because even though the Light are generally more humane than the Dark, they're just as ruthless when it comes to putting down challenges to their authority – that's not the only issue. I have obligations here that I can't just walk away from, people I can't leave behind."

"People who are more important to you than me, you mean," Bo inferred, her voice growing very quiet. "I see. I don't understand it, but if you'd rather stick with the jerk who enslaved you than find out what we could've had together, I won't force you to come with me. I won't take your choice away."

Throat too tight to speak, Lauren could only nod – not that there was anything she could've said that would have made a difference. Bo was right, after all; she was choosing someone else over her, even if it wasn't the person Bo assumed, and revealing the truth probably wouldn't make anything better, because somehow she doubted Bo would take kindly to learning that she already had a girlfriend, that she'd had one the entire time they were growing closer and falling for each other. Even if it changed her feelings a little to know that Lauren was staying for love rather than because she'd accepted slavery as her lot in life, the outcome would be the same: Lauren couldn't go, and Bo couldn't stay.

Moving closer again, she pressed her lips to Bo's for one last kiss. Bo froze for the briefest instant before quickly shaking off her paralysis and responding in kind, their lips moving together in a slow, tender caress that stretched out over several long moments, neither one wanting it to end even though they both knew it had to.

It was Lauren who finally broke away, summoning the detached, unflappable facade she'd perfected during her years among the fae to keep her emotions under control. Even so, she couldn't stop her voice from cracking when she said, "Goodbye, Bo."

Never one to hide her own feelings, Bo's inner turmoil showed clearly on her face; she still couldn't believe Lauren wanted to stay instead of fighting for her freedom, couldn't begin to fathom what reasons she could possibly have for making a decision that was totally incomprehensible to Bo, nor could she deny that it hurt to know that even now, Lauren's loyalty to the Ash came first. Lauren showed no sign of wavering, though, and Bo knew she had no choice but to do what she'd asked the doctor to do for her – to respect her decision, even though she didn't agree with or understand it.

"Goodbye," she said softly. Then, before she could change her mind, she turned around and walked out of Lauren's office, never letting herself look back.

###

After taking some time to recover from her disappointment, her next stop was the Dal, where she found Trick furiously pacing the floor of the still-deserted bar while talking on the phone. Not wanting to intrude on his conversation, she hung back until he put the phone down, then approached and filled him in on everything that had happened since their last meeting, starting with the call she'd received from the enigmatic Edward Cullen and ending with the DNA test which had confirmed that she did indeed share a set of parents with Isabella Marie Swan of Forks, Washington.

"See? I told you she was alive!" she finished, unable to keep a certain amount of smugness from creeping into her voice.

"That's wonderful, Bo," Trick replied, but though his smile seemed sincere, she couldn't help noticing that it didn't quite reach his eyes, which looked more harried than happy.

"What's wrong? Who were you talking to just now?" Although she had tried hard not to eavesdrop, Trick had raised his voice enough that she couldn't help overhearing a couple snatches of what had sounded like a pretty heated discussion, which she suspected had a lot to do with his distracted, beleaguered demeanor.

"One of the Light elders. There's going to be a full inquest into Aife's attack," he explained with a sigh. "I tried to warn the Ash about her, so naturally they have questions. They want to know how much I knew of her plans, how I was aware of her status as an active threat when most of them have come to think of her as a legend, a cautionary tale…if I could've done more to stop her."

Bo took a moment to digest this, then asked in a hushed voice, "You're not in trouble, are you?" Trick had always been the guy with all the answers, the person she could turn to whenever she was in a tough spot, so it was hard to wrap her head around the idea that he might be the one who needed help for a change.

"I'll be fine," he assured her with a forced smile that looked more like a grimace. "Honestly, it's you I'm worried about."

"Me? Why?"

"Plenty of people saw me helping with evacuations in the aftermath of Aife's attack, but your movements that day are largely unaccounted for. There's some speculation that you were in league with Aife."

"What?!" Bo sputtered. "That's ridiculous!"

"I know, but you have to understand that there hasn't been an attack of this magnitude on the highest levels of fae leadership in centuries, not since the days of the Great Wars. The elders are angry and scared, and they're looking for someone to blame. Since Aife seems to have vanished without a trace-"

"Being her daughter makes me the next best thing."

"Unfortunately, yes. It also doesn't help that you've been a thorn in both the Light and Dark elders' sides since the day you refused to pick a side," Trick continued grimly. "It was a grievous insult, an affront to the whole system that has kept our world in balance for hundreds of years. They were forced to swallow it because you had already passed the tests they set before you, but they've been watching you closely ever since, waiting for you to commit an infraction severe enough to give them an excuse for ordering your execution."

"…Wow. So all those times the Ash looked the other way when Dyson or Lauren helped me out on cases, he was really…what, giving me just enough rope to hang myself?"

"More like watching to see if you would choose to hang yourself. You haven't crossed the line yet since all your disputes with other fae have either been written off as self-defense or curtailing activities of theirs that risked exposing us, but with the way you insist on interfering with what most people see as natural behavior in order to protect humans, you've come too close for comfort more than once." Holding up a hand to forestall Bo's remonstrations about how protecting humans from getting eaten or otherwise taken advantage of by supernatural predators shouldn't be a crime, Trick went on, "Still, all of that pales in comparison to the cloud of suspicion you're under now. They don't have any solid evidence against you-"

"Because there isn't any!" Bo broke in, unable to keep quiet in the face of the outrageous accusations she was only now learning had been leveled against her.

"I know," Trick said wearily. "Given time, I'm sure I'll be able to clear your name, but if you want to travel to where your sister lives… Right now, I don't think it would be a bad idea if you left town for a while."

Bo was silent for a moment as she processed this; when she spoke again, her voice was much softer and less heated. "But you're coming with me, right? She's your granddaughter too."

Trick sadly shook his head. "I know. I hope I can meet her one day, but right now I'm needed here. You and Kenzi were right when you pointed out that the situation with Aife is entirely of my making, so it's only right that I do what I can to help repair the damage, and to ensure your safety. I meant what I said before, Bo – I won't lose you."

"But it could be weeks before we see each other again," Bo protested while fighting to keep her voice from breaking. "Months, even."

"I'm sorry," Trick replied with such obvious regret that she couldn't doubt his sincerity, "but it's just not possible for me to leave now. Please try to understand, Bo – it's because I love you that I have to stay, so that when you're ready to come home, it'll be safe for you."

She did understand, but that didn't make it suck any less, and as she hugged her grandfather goodbye, she couldn't help thinking, Everybody's ditching me today.

###

Luckily, there was one person she could always count on to stay by her side through thick and thin; when she told Kenzi about the test results, the other girl started packing without hesitation.

"Uh, Kenzi… You know this won't be a quick trip, don't you? It'll take a few days just to get there, and when we do…it might be kind of an extended vacation." Bo was a little reluctant to point this out in case it made Kenzi change her mind, but she barely blinked.

"Okay, better take the whole boot collection then – I know some people who'd be all over them like vultures on roadkill if I left them unattended more than a couple days – they'll all fit in your trunk, right? Oh well, if they don't, that's what the backseat's for. And maybe I'd better go back to the store tomorrow and nab that sweet new pair I've had my eyes on just in case they sell out before we get back. Then we'll hit the grocery store to stock up on our fave road trip staples and-"

"Actually," Bo cut in before her friend's plans got too elaborate, "I was hoping to get an early start tomorrow."

Kenzi froze in the middle of her packing frenzy, then slowly turned to face Bo with an apprehensive expression. "Just how early are we talking here, Bobo? Like, 'get up before noon' early?"

"Afraid so," Bo confirmed with a slight smile. "Apart from the whole thing where some people are apparently trying to make me a scapegoat for my mother's attempted coup, I don't want to put this off. This is my sister we're talking about."

"Right, I know how important finding your family is to you." Kenzi paused, examining today's pair of boots as if they were the most interesting things in the world. "I just thought, with Hale and Dyson still being incommunicado, you'd want to wait till we heard from them. Just to make sure they're okay."

"I'm sure they are; they're pretty good at taking care of themselves, you know. Besides, Trick would probably know if anything had happened to them."

"I guess," Kenzi reluctantly acknowledged, before nodding as if to reassure herself. "Yeah, Trickster's always plugged in, so if he's not worried about them, we shouldn't be either." This cheered her up considerably, but she still had to ask, "What about that fresh start you said you wanted with our favorite wolfman, though? And are you really giving up on Lauren just like that? Is the whole triangle over – kaput, defunct, deader than a dodo – or is this just a hiatus in your very own fae Bachelorette show?"

"Honestly…I don't know." It wasn't a subject Bo particularly wanted to discuss – not without several large tubs of ice cream, anyway – but when Kenzi continued eyeing her with avid interest, she heaved a deep sigh and tried to find the right words to explain her feelings.

"It's hard to think about walking away, not knowing when or maybe even if I'll see them again…so damn hard…but I gave Lauren a chance to come with me, and she said no. I don't know if she's really that loyal to the Ash or if she was just scared, but if she doesn't care about being free enough to fight for it, it probably wouldn't have worked between us anyway. I mean, I'm no expert on relationships, but they generally go better when both people want the same things, right? As far as me and Dyson… Starting over takes effort from both sides. I appreciate whatever he did to help me with Aife, but since then he's totally ghosted me. When he finally pokes his head out of whatever wolf den he's hiding out in, then we'll see where we stand, but I'm not waiting around for him, Lauren, or anybody. If either of them ever want to give things another shot, the proverbial ball's in their court now."

She paused to catch her breath after her rant, giving Kenzi an opportunity to slap her on the back. "Damn straight," she said enthusiastically. "They're the ones who mucked things up in the first place, so if they want to fix it, they need to do the work – and if they don't, screw 'em…or, you know, don't. You should totally focus on you right now."

"Thanks, Kenzi. I'm really glad you're the one taking this trip with me; you're the only person I've always known I can absolutely trust to have my back, no matter what. You're the best friend a succubus could ask for." She gave Kenzi a hug, then went off to begin her own packing.

Kenzi smiled as she watched her go, but her mouth slipped into a more pensive set once Bo was out of sight. Something had been bugging her for a while now, like an itch she couldn't scratch, and it was only now, when Bo called her 'her best friend', that she'd finally put her finger on it.

When Aife first dropped the bomb that Bo had a sister, Kenzi had been too overloaded to process how she felt about it; it was only later, when Bo told Trick how she intended to bring her family together again, that she noticed the first echoes of the emotions she'd experienced when Bo first met Aife in the guise of Saskia, and had been so thrilled to meet a fellow succubus at last that Kenzi was left fighting unfamiliar feelings of jealousy and insecurity while wondering if she was being replaced.

Of course, that hadn't lasted long once Bo realized 'Saskia' was more interested in convincing her that typical carefree succubus hedonism was the way to go than in helping her solve her case of the week, and Kenzi had resumed her rightful place at Bo's side while the interloper made an exit stage left. Now, however, there was a new player in the mix – one who, if she didn't turn out to be crazy, might be a permanent addition.

The fact that she was Bo's biological sister only made the whole thing more complicated, because it was only when she heard Bo repeatedly use that word in reference to the as yet unknown quantity that was Bella Swan that Kenzi fully realized that, somewhere in all the wacky adventures they'd shared, all the times they'd confided in one another and faced bizarre, life-threatening, or even just plain icky dangers together, she'd started to subconsciously think of Bo as her sister…except she wasn't.

Kenzi knew Bo would never buy into that fae bullshit about her being a pet or piece of property, yet there was no getting around the fact that they lacked that all-important blood connection…and now it turned out that the place Kenzi had thought she'd carved out for herself in Bo's life belonged to a stranger.

Not too much to say about this chapter except that it got some necessary stuff out of the way, and now Bo and Kenzi are finally hitting the road. We'll check in with Bella in the next chapter, and then I expect to have her and Bo meet in chapter 9.