“You’ve come up in the world since we last met, if you’re working directly for your Grand High vampires. I’m betting they hoped that a ‘friendly face’ might help keep things calm.”

“People don’t come much friendlier than me.”

Amusement very briefly glinted in his eyes. “True.” Thorne shifted his gaze to Sam and Jared, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Now that the preliminaries are over” – yeah, that was about as polite as it was going to get between the two species right now – “you can tell me why one of my demons ended up in one of your brothels.” His rage seemed to thicken the air, but he appeared totally composed.

“It wasn’t our brothel,” denied Sam sharply, her distaste clear in her voice.

“But it was run by one of your kind.”

“And now it’s burned to the ground. We’re no happier about this than you are. We dealt with it as soon as we discovered its existence. And we won’t leave the matter unpunished.”

Cocking his head, Thorne narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you? You’re not like any vampire I’ve seen before.”

Sam’s smile was flat. “I’ll tell you what I am if you’ll tell me what you are.”

Apparently he wasn’t that curious, because he returned to the matter at hand. “What do you know about the owner of the brothel? My demon met her, but for some reason we don’t understand, she has no real memory of this female vampire. Why is that?”

“It seems that this vampire’s ability is to remain untraceable,” revealed Jared. “It protects her identity to the extent that a person is left with only a vague impression of her in their memory.”

“What about the staff? What did they have to say?”

“The only one we allowed to live is the keeper. Nothing she told us will help find this vampire.”

Thorne’s eyes seemed to bore into Jared. “You’re not telling me the entire truth are you, vampire?”

“Did you expect us to?”

“No. In your position, I’d deal with the matter myself.”

“So you understand.”

“I understand. It doesn’t mean I won’t track down the vampire responsible and give her exactly what she deserves.” Thorne’s eyes briefly bled to black: his inner demon was seriously pissed, and it wanted us to know that.

“We’ll find her, and we’ll deal with it,” Sam assured him.

“No, vampire. We’ll find her, and we’ll deal with it. We have our ways of finding things out.”

“Let us handle it.” It wasn’t a plea from Jared, it was a demand. “I can guarantee that she’ll pay for what she’s done.”

“I want blood, vampire. The only reason I’m not gunning for yours is that you saved my demon’s life and returned her home. But I will have vengeance on the person who deserves it. You don’t know the havoc I’ll reek to make sure she pays.”

Sam slowly shook her head. “We can’t let you have her.”

Thorne’s smile was pitiless. “I guess then, it will be all down to who finds her first. Don’t expect there to be anything left of her by the time we’re done.”

Due to it being a somewhat unproductive evening, nobody was happy as we later discussed the matter in one of the conference rooms at The Hollow. It was clear that both Salem’s squad and mine were feeling the pressure of finding the bitch before the demons did.

Having dismissed everyone at the end of the meeting, Sam called out, “Ava, can I talk to you for a second?”

I halted midway through the room while the others continued to file out. Salem unsurprisingly remained, the nosy bastard.

Sam smiled at him. “You can wait outside.”

I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing at the disgruntled look on his face. The fact that I was amused only seemed to aggravate him more. Such fun.

“We won’t be long,” Sam assured him, shooing him away with her hands. After a moment, he grunted and left, but planted himself by the door to wait for me. How cute.

Sam turned to a very amused Jared and said, “You too.” That wiped the smile from his face and, sighing heavily, he went to stand with Salem outside the room. Only then did Sam round the table and come to stand before me. “I just wanted to check if you were all right; that Gina hasn’t been bothering you.”

“Actually, I haven’t heard or seen anything of her.” Which had surprised me.

“Good. I can’t promise that will last. Some people seem to take extreme delight in taunting their exes’ new partners. It’s weird and pathetic, but it manages to achieve the desired effect and drive you insane. Gina had that same glint in her eyes that I often saw in Magda’s.”

“I heard Magda was bad.” She’d even given Sam up to her enemies, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons why Sam had eventually killed her.

“She was Jared’s Maker as well as his ex, so she thought she had a very big claim on him. She was determined to stop me from Binding with him out of sheer spite. I don’t think Gina sees you as a threat.”

“That’s what Fletcher said.”

“Then I must be right. The thing is, once she realises she’s wrong and that Salem’s serious about you, then you’ll have some problems. It will all be petty and vindictive crap, but it will often hit you where it hurts. If it gets too much, come to me. Personally, I think you’ll be able to handle it just fine, and that will piss her off much more than you coming to me.”

I smiled. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Then feel free to torment her in your own special way.”

My laugh was embarrassingly close to a cackle. “Oh, I will.”

“Nothing will piss her off more than you and Salem Binding.”

I snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”

She frowned at me…like I was a little slow on the uptake. “Why would you think that?”

“Um, because it’s true.” Did she even know Salem?

“It’s obvious that you two are serious. You’re moving into his apartment, aren’t you?”

“Is nothing private on this island?” I groused.

“Not much.” She cocked her head, her gaze now studious and daring me to lie. “Don’t you want to Bind with him?”