“Remind me to thank you later.”

There was the sound of engines approaching, loudly enough that I even could hear them. “Please just go.”

“Let me take you home,” he murmured. “I’ll hide if you tell them you’ve got a way home already.”

I met his eyes, could see the glitter of them even in the darkness. “Why?”

His mouth brushed my ear, sending shivers over my scalp and down my neck.

“Because you want to.”

The worst of it was, Quinn was right.

I did want to be alone with him.

Luckily the two vehicles stuffed with stern Helios-Ra agents screeching around the corner were rather distracting. Quinn was somewhere in the dark shadows of the warehouse district and I was standing alone with two bound vampires at my feet. I probably looked fairly impressive, especially for a student.

I just felt confused.

“Hunter Wild?” the extremely competent-looking woman asked as she slid out of the passenger seat of the first SUV. She had nose plugs loose around her neck and a phone earpiece wrapped around her left ear.

I nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Your call came in,” her companion added. He was very tall, with incredibly white teeth and a nose that had clearly been broken repeatedly and tilted drastically to the left. He would have looked scary to anyone else, especially with the scar tissue on his neck. To me, he just looked like family.

“Brandon.” I grinned. “Nice to see you.”

He grinned back and nodded to the vampires. “Nice job, kid.”

“I had help,” I hastened to explain. “There were five or six of us. The rest took Chloe back to school for stitches. I’m just the last on cleanup.”

“That would be us, actually,” the woman said, waving the others out to grab the vampires. “Good work, Wild. I see your family reputation isn’t just hype.”

“Thanks.” I shrugged one shoulder. I wanted to tell them Quinn had helped us but I wasn’t sure if that would just make everything more complicated. They’d definitely take me back to school themselves if they knew he was still lurking around. It was best to pass on the info to Kieran to pass on to Hart. “So what’s going to happen to them?” I asked as the vampires were tossed into the back of the van.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said grimly. “We know Matthew. We’ve been trying to find his nest for weeks now.”

I swallowed. I really hoped I hadn’t just handed prisoners of war over to an execution squad. “Brandon?”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. It’ll be fine.” Which wasn’t exactly an answer. He held the door open. “Hop in, we’ll take you home.”

“That’s okay,” I said, lying through my teeth. “We took one of the bikes and I should get it back. It’s just on Honeychurch Street.” Which was around the corner, near the cafe. I really hoped Quinn hadn’t been lying when he said he’d get me back. I didn’t have enough cash to call a taxi and I wasn’t looking forward to the hour-and-a-half walk in the dark back to school.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, trying to smile like everything was normal. He gave me a friendly salute.

“All right, get gone then. We’ll keep an eye on you until you reach the corner. Movie theater’ll be letting out the late show. You should be fine.” He winked. “Anyway, you got the bad guys already.”

“I guess so.” I walked away, casting glances out of the corner of my eye to see if I could spot Quinn. There were only squat gray buildings with broken windows and tall weeds growing between the cracks in the pavement. A raccoon waddled behind a garbage can.

The Helios-Ra SUV and the van idled until I reached the corner and waved, before turning onto Blitt Street. Sure enough, there were loads of people coming out of the theater and out of Conspiracy, which was closing its doors. I eased back into the mouth of the alley between a bookstore and an occult shop with crystals glimmering in the display window. Even closed down for the night it smelled strongly of Nag Champa incense. Spencer hung out here all the time, digging through herbs and stones and bronze statues, all in the pursuit of secret spells and magic amulets. I wondered, not for the first time, if the proprietor had any idea how many of her customers were undercover vampire hunters.

I also wondered where Quinn had gone off to.

I flicked my hair back and tapped my foot impatiently. Five more minutes and then I’d have to find my own way. I couldn’t wait all night. Not when it was Quinn we were talking about. He might have seen some cute girl and would spend the next hour flirting with her and forget all about me.

“In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, you clean up good, Wild.”

Or not.

I turned to see him drop down off a fire escape behind me. It was at least three floors up but he landed as gracefully as a cat, looking just as smug as one.

“Show off,” I said blandly.

He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t believe in hiding who I am.”

“Um, isn’t that kind of a requirement when you’re a vampire?”

“In general, yes. But you already know I’m a vampire, so why pretend otherwise? I won’t lie to you, Hunter.”

Damn, he was good at that smoldering thing.

My insides quivered a little, despite myself. Maybe I’d been reading too many romance novels lately.

“Come on,” he said softly. “I’ll take you home.”