“I know what you’re doing.” Her voice was endearingly breathy. She swallowed.

“I’m just making my point.” I said.

“You’re being an ass.” But she tilted her head so I could continue nibbling. Centuries of her hunter ancestors rolled over in their graves.

“I could kill you, Hunter.”

“Mmm-hmmm. I could kill you right back.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

I seized her mouth, and for a long, hot moment there were no more words, no more warnings. Just tongues and tastes and lips seeking lips. I fisted my hand in her hair and hers hooked into my belt loops. And, as usual, it was over far too soon.

I pulled back abruptly, violent need and control twisting inside me. “I won’t risk you.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re trying to protect me,” she seethed.

“And that’s a bad thing?” I just didn’t get her sometimes.

She drilled her finger into my chest. “When you make decisions for me, yeah, you’re damn right it is.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing. I’m a vampire.”

“Duh.”

“And you’re not.”

“Again: duh.”

“I could hurt you. I could lose control.” I claimed her finger, my grip cool and utterly unbreakable. She’d have better luck snapping her own wrist in half than breaking my hold.

“If you were anyone else, I’d have kneecapped you by now.” She poked me hard. “So give me break,” she said. “You make out with girls all the time.”

“They’re not you,” I replied quietly.

“Kieran’s human,” she pointed out. “And Solange is even younger than you. She turned barely two weeks ago. Should I be worried about him?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Lucy?”

“I don’t know.”

She pulled back just enough to meet my troubled gaze. “Do you like me, Quinn?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Yes it is. Answer the question.” She looked horrified. “Shit. Unless this isn’t about protecting me but about not wanting to see me again. Am I just another girl to you? Shit,” she said again, going red. “I have to get out of here.”

“Yes,” I finally said, so softly it was a wonder she heard me at all. “Yes, Hunter, I like you.” She released the breath she’d been holding. “I like you a lot.”

I heard her heart lurch back into a proper rhythm.

And then she smacked me really hard in the shoulder.

“Ouch, way to ruin the moment,” I muttered.

“You …,” she sputtered.

I tipped her chin up. “You didn’t really doubt me, did you?”

“Hello? You locked yourself in your room to get away from me.”

“Only to protect you,” I defended myself. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

“It won’t be easy, you know. Despite how Solange and Kieran and Nicholas and Lucy make it look, this isn’t simple. It might even be dangerous.”

“You know I can look after myself.”

“I know.”

“And I’m way more terrified of my grandfather’s reaction than your puny fangs.”

“You’re hard on the ego,” I complained, but I was smiling again for the first time since I’d run out of her dorm room. “Your grandfather’s an old man.”

“Who could kick your ass.”

“I’ve got moves, Buffy.”

“I’ve seen your moves, Lestat,” she teased, kissing me. I gathered her closer, hands roaming down her back and over her hips.

“You’re not just a vampire, you know,” she whispered. “You’re the guy who let me cry all over you, when I never cry. Nothing makes sense right now—people at school are dying, my roommate’s on some kind of hunter steroid—but you make sense. Somehow, you make sense.”

Yup. I was totally, completely, and irrevocably into this girl.

A thump on the door had us both jumping.

“Hey, get off my sister,” Kieran barked from the other side.

“Get lost, Black,” I called out. “And she’s not your sister.”

“May as well be.”

“Well, you stop kissing Solange and I’ll stop kissing Hunter.”

Silence. I smirked. Hunter pulled away, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, where are you going?” I murmured. “We’re not done making up.”

“We’re in crisis mode out there,” she answered, reluctantly taking another step back.

“It’s always crisis mode in this house,” I said with disgust.

“Still. We should go help.”

I huffed a mock melodramatic sigh. “This is that Helios-Ra duty thing, isn’t it?”

“Afraid so.”

Chapter 25

Hunter

Monday night

In the room next door, Chloe looked exhausted. She’d pulled her hair out of its ponytail and it was a mess of tangled curls. Solange and Kieran were sitting on the edge of Connor’s bed and Connor was at his desk, tapping away at another computer. It was amazing how much he and Quinn looked alike. Quinn nudged me as if he knew what I was thinking.

“I’m cuter,” he informed me loftily.