“Hey.” It was still startling to see a human girl so very comfortable in a vampire’s house. She dropped down into a chair, throwing her legs over the arm and swinging her feet. Nicholas Drake sat across from her, watching her bite into the peach. It seemed intimate somehow, private. I looked away, wondering why I felt like blushing.

“I need to call my mom,” Chloe said.

“Kitchen’s free,” Solange offered.

“Thanks.” She paused in the doorway, cell phone in her hand. “Hunter, come with me?”

I followed, joining her at a harvest table with ladderback chairs. The kitchen was spotless. I couldn’t help but look for a jug of blood. Chloe’s foot tapped nervously as she waited for her mom to pick up.

“Mom?” she said. “I know you’re in the lab, this will only take a minute.” She paused. “Those vitamins you gave me are making me feel funny.” She met my gaze bitterly. “Yes, I’m sure. Yes, I’m taking the right dose. I don’t want to.” She listened for a long moment. She was going to tap her foot right off her leg at this rate. “But … I know … but … Mom? Mom? Hello? Damn it!”

She turned off her phone and put it back into her pocket. “She’s hiding something,” she said with grim certainty. Her chair scraped the floor when she stood up. “Kieran,” she called out. He came to the door, Solange at his side.

“Is there a computer I can use?”

He looked at Solange and she nodded. “Connor’s got a few in his room,” she answered. “I’ll show you.”

She led us up a wide staircase. “What are you going to do?” I asked Chloe.

“I’m going to break into my mom’s files and find out exactly what’s going on.”

“Good,” I said earnestly. “About time.”

Solange took us up to the third floor, which had a sitting room and rows and rows of doors. With seven brothers all living up here, it kind of looked like a floor on our dorm. Solange knocked on a door and pushed inside. Quinn looked up from his computer.

“Quinn, where have you—” I stopped, confused. “You’re not Quinn.” He had the same features, but his hair was short and he didn’t have that lazy smirk.

“His room’s next door.” Connor smiled. “And he’d tell you he’s prettier, but I’m smarter.”

I shook my head. “Twins,” I finally clued in. “Sorry, I’d forgotten.”

Chloe let out a reverent sigh. “Nice system,” she said. She took inventory and spat out a bunch of technological jargon that had no resemblance to English as far as I could tell. “Sweet.” She finally came back to words I understood. She cracked her knuckles. “Which one can I use?”

As she made herself comfortable in front of a computer on a desk made of a wooden door on blocks, I looked around.

“Where’s Quinn?” I asked when I couldn’t pretend not to care for a second longer. I did not like the look Kieran and Connor exchanged. “What?”

They both winced but wouldn’t answer me. Dread was a ball in my belly.

Solange was the one to answer. I tried not to react to the tips of her fangs poking out under her top lip. “Quinn’s hiding.”

I blinked. “He’s hiding? From what?”

“From you.”

My mouth dropped open. Then my eyes narrowed, remembering the way he’d begged me to run away last night, the way he’d licked a drop of blood off my hand, the way he’d ignored my text message.

“Well, that’s just stupid.”

Chapter 24

Quinn

I knew Hunter was in the house even before she started pounding on my bedroom door. I could smell her, taste her.

“Quinn Drake, I know you’re in there.” She knocked again, harder this time.

“Hunter, go away,” I said darkly.

“Like hell. I know what you’re doing. So just stop it.”

Silence.

I could feel her anger radiating through the door. She turned the knob but it only opened a couple of inches. The chain lock went taut at the top.

She craned her neck, glared at me through the small opening, and took a step back.

And then she kicked my door in.

Was it any wonder I was falling for her?

The chain ripped out of the wall, the snap of wood reverberating down the hall. She stepped through the doorway, glowering.

I shook my head, refusing to let her see how happy I was to see her. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“I can’t believe you’re hiding from me.”

“Hunter, you’re not Wonder Woman, for Christ’s sake. You’re a good hunter, no doubt about it, but you’re human. You’re fragile.”

“If you call me fragile again, I will personally break off your fangs and wear them as earrings.”

I stalked toward her. “But you are fragile,” I insisted, my hands closing around her shoulders before she could even see me move. I knew that to her I was a blur of pale skin and long dark hair and the glow of unnatural blue eyes. I pressed her against the wall, slamming the door with my boot at the same time. We were alone.

And I was just as pissed off as she was.

I had to make her understand. Even if she hated me for it. “You don’t like to admit it, but I’m stronger than you are, and faster.” I was so close that her legs, her hips, and her chest touched mine. Every time she took a ragged breath, it pushed her closer to me. “And I’ve tasted you now.” I leaned in, lips moving over her throat, aching to taste her again. She might have been the canary to my smug cat. She’d hate that. “And I can never forget your blood on my tongue.”