“It’s someone under my protection. A demon child.”

Priya’s face lifted. “Ah. I understand now.” His body crackled again, and this time he almost completely disappeared. “I must leave. I will come to you when I have information. I will not fail you again.”

“You didn’t fail me.” For the love of Pete.

Black wings snapped open to reveal an impressive span. Rather intimidating. Not an everyday sight, that’s for damn sure. Holding his marked hand over his stomach, he canted his head, then gave me another smile before both he and the black line connecting us disappeared completely.

And before I could process everything that just happened, my phone chimed inside my jeans pocket. I looked at the screen.

MSG FROM JUPE, 3:05 AM: DAD SAID YOU HAD EMERGENCY AT KAR YEE’S. ARE YOU BOTH OK? TELL HER I SAID HI. NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD TAKE ME WITH YOU. I CAN SLEEP ON HER COUCH.

Dammit. Lon managed to remove the blame from the whole “you leave or I leave” situation. That was . . . the right thing to do. And he went against his big honesty-or-death policy, telling a little white lie to make the peace. Just like that, I felt tender and weepy again. I sent Jupe a response.

SENT 3:05 AM: EVERYTHING OK. WHY R YOU STILL AWAKE?

MSG FROM JUPE, 3:06 AM: I FELL ASLEEP AND WOKE BACK UP. HEY, GRAMMA IS TAKING US ALL OUT TO EAT TOMORROW NIGHT SO BE SURE TO GET BACK HOME BY 5 EXACTLY. SHE’S A FREAK-A-DEAK ABOUT BEING ON TIME BUT I WON’T LET HER LEAVE WITHOUT U.

SENT 3:06 AM: PROMISE TO BE ON TIME. NOW GO TO BED, MOTORMOUTH.

MSG FROM JUPE, 3:06 AM: GOING! G’NIGHT!!! <3 YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Heart you, too, kid.

That wasn’t the only text I received. Before I went to sleep, Lon let me know that he’d found Noel Saint-Hill’s address—which was good, because Bob’s online search was fruitless. Lon volunteered to pick me up at Kar Yee’s the next day so we could check it out. I told him not to bring his gun. He told me I was awfully bossy.

Around noon, I got ready to meet him. I was worried the T-shirt I’d packed was too casual for Rose’s dinner plans, so I dressed in jeans and one of Kar Yee’s tops, a long sleeve striped blouse that cost a small fortune. It was sort of tight around my chest, but Kar Yee was a couple of sizes smaller. Normally she wouldn’t let me borrow clothes—no way, no how. But at the moment she was too hopped up on Bob’s happy pills to care.

I took the elevator down and stood outside the stoop of her building, scanning my surroundings. No dark sedan across the street, and no dark figure slinking in the shadows. No shadows at all, actually. It was one of those sunny days in California where the sky is so clear and big, it makes everything around you seem a little less crowded. I lifted my face up, soaking in rays and wishing the temperature was just a few degrees warmer as traffic whizzed by on Kar Yee’s street. After a couple of minutes, a luxury SUV slowed to a stop in front of me. The dark-tinted driver’s window lowered. A gorgeous Earthbound with a gold-flaked green halo and a dead-sexy smile draped his arm out the window.

“Need a ride, little girl?”

“Depends,” I said, stepping up to the car. “Where you going?”

His lazy gaze slid down my body. “Probably to hell. Wanna come?”

Why, yes—yes I did. And I was certain he could hear the zing of desire that went through me. “Sorry, my boyfriend doesn’t like sharing.”

“Is that so?”

“Besides, aren’t you kind of old for me? I’m not sure you could handle all this.”

“I have a feeling I could.” A breeze from his open sunroof lifted strands of golden brown hair. Good God, he was hot. Just beautiful, all golden and rugged, with those deep crescent hollows in his cheeks and his perpetually narrowed eyes. “And I don’t think I need permission to take what’s already mine.”

Goose bumps blossomed over my arms. “Did you miss me last night?”

“Get in the car.”

“In the front or back?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment as his gaze dropped to my breasts. They immediately felt swollen and overripe under his perusal. If he didn’t stop looking at me like that, I might bust a few seams in my borrowed top.

Then he said, “My seat goes all the way down.”

“What a coincidence. So do I.”

“Get in the car, Cady.” Oh, he was mad now. Not mad-mad, but impatient-mad, like he gets when I tease him too much.

I stood on tiptoes and leaned through the window to kiss him. It was just going to be a peck, but he tasted like the cinnamon gum he always chews, and I really did miss spending the night with him. Before I knew it, he was urging my lips apart—or maybe I was doing the urging, hard to tell—and his tongue was hot in my mouth, and I pretty much melted on the spot.

I didn’t care that pedestrians were doing double-takes as they strolled past on the sidewalk. I was ready to pull him through the window. But just when it started to get good, Lon pulled away. I moaned a complaint.

“That’s all you get,” he said, grasping my chin firmly with one hand. His voice was all deep and rough. “You think about it tonight when you’re trying to decide whether you want to sleep in your own bed or play nursemaid to Kar Yee.”

“No one at Kar Yee’s place is demanding I leave on account of my whorishness.”

“I like your whorishness. And that’s all taken care of. Situation fixed.”

I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to tell me how. Did he have a talk with her? What was his idea of “fixed,” exactly? Probably not the same as mine. If she hated me even more now, I was going to be pissed at him. “What did you do?”