I was in so much trouble.
“Look, Quinn, what are you really doing here? Do you have info on that pill I gave you?”
“Not yet. But I got your text about Will,” he replied, straightening. He only towered over me a little. “And I thought you could use some company.”
“You came for me?” Yup. So much trouble.
He nodded, touching my hair and tangling his long fingers in the ends, as if it was a fire and he was as cold as he was winter-pale. “What are you doing up here?”
“Retrieving personal property,” I explained, mesmerized by the feel of his hand as he tugged me a little closer, winding my hair around his wrist like a golden rope.
“From the coat rack?” he whispered, puzzled. He must have seen me staring at it.
I nodded, wondering why my voice felt like it had faded away completely. I cleared my throat. “Yes, but it’s stuck in the bottom.”
“Allow me.” He let me go so abruptly I stumbled back a little. He lifted the coat rack and turned it upside down, as if it weighed no more than a broom. The microphone tumbled out and I caught it before it hit the ground. He grinned, shaking his head. “Your personal property is surveillance equipment?”
I shrugged, slipping it into my pocket. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I peered out of the doorway, making sure it was clear before I started to creep back down the stairs. I paused on the landing. Quinn was right behind me.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m going with you.”
“I don’t remember inviting you,” I said drily.
“That’s a vampire myth,” he shot back just as drily. “I don’t need to be invited. I would have thought they taught you that here.” He winked. I rolled my eyes. He followed me and I let him. Gladly. The truth was, I didn’t think I wanted to be alone just yet. I was wired and exhausted and worried.
And I liked having him around. He was distracting. In a good way.
He paused, nodding to Chloe, who was still sound asleep on the common room sofa. “Want me to pull her hair?”
I grinned, shaking my head. He took a step forward.
“What are you doing?” I grabbed his arm.
“I’m going to sniff her.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You’re worried about those vitamins, right? I might be able to smell them in her blood and I might be able to tell if they’re messing her up.”
“They’re definitely messing her up,” I muttered, touching the bruise on my jaw. “But go ahead. That could help. Just don’t wake her up.”
“Hello? Give me a little credit. Vampire stealth, remember?”
“Vampire arrogance, you mean.”
“That too.”
It went against a lifetime of training to crush on a vampire and, worse, to watch him skulk toward one of my friends. My hands actually twitched. But I stayed where I was. I trusted Quinn Drake, despite the fact that I was the latest in a long line of vampire hunters.
He was graceful as moonlight, fluid and pale as he draped over Chloe. She slept on peacefully, utterly unaware. Not exactly proof of the effectiveness of our education. Then again, right now, neither was I. Quinn was a dark silhouette out of any standard vampire horror movie, leaning over, teeth gleaming. And I just waited trustingly, patiently, hopefully.
Grandpa would pop a blood vessel if he could see me now.
I pushed that out of my mind and watched as Quinn’s nose hovered along the line of Chloe’s neck, sniffing as if she was a fine wine. His fangs lengthened. I tensed, took a step, stopped. He inhaled, or whatever passed as a smell-seeking inhalation for the undead, and then recoiled sharply.
He didn’t speak as he approached, just jerked his head down the hall toward my room. Later, I’d have to ask him how he knew that was my room. Right now, I just wanted to know why he was wiping his nose as if he’d snorted pepper. I shut the door quietly behind him. The single lamp lit on my desk cast his face into shadows.
“Well?” I demanded.
“Those aren’t vitamins,” he said.
“I knew it!” I winced nervously. “What are they?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “There are vitamins in there—they have a very distinctive smell. But there’s something else too.”
I wiped my damp palms on my pants. “She’ll never believe me. When can you get the lab results from your brother?”
“Maybe tomorrow. I’ll make him hurry.”
“God, her mom gave her those.” I rubbed my arms, suddenly cold. “And she’s hidden a whole stash of them somewhere so I can’t even flush them. Well, maybe something here will convince her.”
“Is that why you bugged that room upstairs?”
I nodded. “I thought Will was going to get better. And that whatever he was into, some of his friends might know about it. I don’t know. But students keep getting this weird flu that doesn’t get better. Something’s just off.”
I fumbled the microphones out of my pocket and switched the first one on. The quality wasn’t very good; the scratchiness of the background was louder than the voices, but it was better than nothing. I’d set the motion sensor recorder to switch on and off throughout the evenings and late at night. I figured there was less chance of people whispering in the common room at lunchtime when anyone might hear them. It was mostly complaints about classes and people leaving milk out of the fridge in the kitchenette. I listened for about a half hour, fast-forwarding where I could. Quinn leaned against my door, patient in a way I hadn’t thought he was capable of being. He was usually teasing or taunting or eager for a fight. I was seeing another part of his personality, quiet and thoughtful but just as intense.
“Nothing,” I said, dejected. “I guess it was a stupid idea.”
“Wait.” He pushed away from the wall. “Let me hear that one again.” I handed it to him, showing him how to rewind. He held it up to his ear. “It’s faint but …” He listened harder and I suddenly envied him his supernatural senses. I’d never envied a vampire before. I was too fond of sunlight and spaghetti and ice cream.
“Got it,” he said, his eyes flaring triumphantly. He rewound again and repeated what he heard for my benefit. “Are you sure this stuff works? Shut up, you moron, someone will hear you. It’s pretty steep for a bunch of vitamins. I told you, they’re better than vitamins—watch it. Leave it, we’ll never get behind that TV. It weighs a ton.”
I shot to my feet. “They dropped some!”
He nodded smugly but stopped me from reaching for the doorknob. “Let me go.”
“What? Why?”
“For one thing, I can move an ancient TV that weighs a ton without making much noise.”
“Oh. Good point.” Use the tools you’ve got. It was a hunter motto. And it made sense, even if my tool, in this case, was a vampire.
He was only gone long enough for me to notice the flashing light on my answering machine and to press play. Grandpa’s gravelly whiskey-and-cigar-smoke voice rumbled out of the speaker. For some reason it made me feel like crying. I missed his confidence and certainty. It was in short supply right now. Even if I cringed at the actual words he was saying.
“Hunter, honey, I got a call from the school. Heard you did good. I know it’s hard, but you did what you had to do. That’s what hunters do and that’s what Wilds do. And you saved your friend’s life, the way I hear it. Your headmistress was making noise about seeing the school psychologist but I told her you don’t need that quackery. You be strong. You’re a good girl. I don’t want you going soft over a Hel-Blar. Vampires need killing, you know that.”
My bedroom door shut with a soft click. Quinn raised an eyebrow at me. I winced, knowing he’d heard every word of my grandpa’s message.
“He means well,” I said defensively.
“Okay,” Quinn replied with deceptive nonchalance.
“He raised me the only way he knew how.”
“Okay,” he sa
id again.
I frowned. I didn’t know why I was justifying Grandpa. He was a good man. So was Quinn. One wasn’t mutually exclusive of the other.
My head was starting to hurt.
“Did you find it?” I asked, changing the subject.
He nodded, sitting next to me and holding out his hand, palm up. The white pill looked innocuous. Hard to imagine that something so small was making such a big mess.
“It doesn’t look like Chloe’s vitamins,” I said, confused. “Hers are huge and yellow.”
“I know,” he said grimly. “These aren’t vitamins.”
I blinked. “Wait. So there’s two kinds of pills making the rounds now? What the hell is wrong with people?” I sat back, disgusted. “It does explain why we keep running in circles.”
Quinn was staring at the pill as if it were a coiled cobra that might strike at any time. His nostrils twitched, his jaw clenched.
“Okay, what?” I asked uncertainly.
“This thing’s poison,” he answered through his teeth.
“Seriously? Is that what made Will sick? Not just Hel-Blar?”
“It’s toxic to humans,” Quinn explained. “But it’s absolutely fatal to vampires.”
The silence felt charged, like a battery about to explode. I grabbed the pill off his hand, as if it might start leaking acid. He shook his head once. “It’s only fatal if ingested.”
“So people are taking vampire drugs now? Along with some weird vitamin? That doesn’t make any sense.” I wrapped the pill inside a tissue. “Can you get your brother to analyze this too?”
“Hell, yes,” he said, putting the little package in his pocket. “I want to know what this is. I’ve smelled it before.”
“Where?”
“That’s the thing, I don’t know. I can’t remember.” He sounded annoyed with himself.
I scooted back to lean against the wall, the blankets twisting under my legs. “Spencer wasn’t taking drugs or vitamins or any of that stuff. He barely takes aspirin.”
“Spencer was bitten by a Hel-Blar,” Quinn said, also moving back to sit next to me. “He’s not a mystery.”
“Then why is his stuff all gone from his room?”
“It is?” Quinn looked surprised. “Is he that sick?”
“Theo says Spencer’s badly off, but stable. The meds are helping him more than they helped Will. But his room’s empty, just like Will’s was. And there’s that flu everyone’s worried about.”
Quinn whistled through his teeth. “Look, obviously I’ve never really trusted the Helios-Ra, and maybe I’ve lived in Violet Hill too long, but this has ‘conspiracy’ written all over it.”
“I know. And I won’t let what happened to Will happen to Spencer.” My throat burned. “I had to stake him,” I added in a very small voice. “I had to.”
“I know,” he said softly, sliding his arm around my waist and tucking me into his side as if he was trying to protect me. It was kind of sweet. I let myself lean into him. “He was Hel-Blar,” he added. “He wasn’t Will anymore.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” His hand stroked my back up and down, softly, soothingly.
“It doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a betrayal. I couldn’t help him, Quinn. I’ve never felt so helpless.”
“Hunter, the last thing you are is helpless.” He sounded so sure. I couldn’t stop the first tear from falling.
“I don’t want Spencer to die.”
“He won’t die.” His lips were in my hair.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know about bloodchanges, Hunter. And Spencer is strong and healthy. He has a better chance than most.”
I wanted to trust the little bubble of hope in my stomach, but I couldn’t.
“Will didn’t even recognize me,” I said brokenly. “And it happened so fast. Why did he have to attack Chloe? Why did I have to be the one to stake him?” More tears fell and I didn’t try to stop them this time. I cried because I couldn’t not cry anymore. Quinn just held me, not saying a word. His hand cradled the back of my neck, running through my hair. I sobbed and trembled and sobbed some more until I felt weak and dehydrated. And a little bit lighter.
I sat up. Quinn’s shirt was wet. “Sorry,” I said hoarsely.
“Don’t be.” He touched my face, lightly skimming over my bruises so that I barely felt his fingertips. I wiped my nose on my sleeve, feeling well enough not to want to look like a disgusting mess.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
He leaned in, closing the distance between us. His eyes stayed on mine. I didn’t think, I just leaned in too. I kissed him first and his hands closed around my shoulders, pulling me closer. I slid my tongue along his, feeling warmth tingle throughout my body, melting the ice that had been creeping inside of me. He kissed me so thoroughly I felt naked, even though not a single button was undone. We were fully clothed and I had blades in the soles of my shoes and a stake in a harness in the small of my back but I’d never felt more exposed, or vulnerable. Still, I wasn’t scared. I wanted more.
It became a kind of duel fought with lips and tongues to see who could make the other feel more, need more. I made small noises in the back of my throat. His arms were lean and strong under my hands and his hair fell to curtain our faces, smelling like mint shampoo. We tried to get closer to each other but it wasn’t physically possible. We didn’t care. We were so determined, nothing else mattered.
Until we tumbled right off the bed and landed in a lump on the floor.
“Ow,” Quinn muttered. He rubbed his elbow. My shoulder shook. “Hunter. It’s okay. Are you hurt? Hunter?” He sounded horrified.
I was laughing too hard to answer. He tipped my face up, saw the soundless chortle, heard the wheeze as I tried to haul in a breath. His answering grin was quick, followed a chuckle of his own. And another.
And then we were laughing so hard we had to hold on to each other. I wheezed. It felt nearly as good as Quinn’s very wicked kisses. I’d been afraid it would feel like a betrayal of my friend who was lying in a hospital bed or my friend who was about to lie under the earth, but instead it felt like breathing again after being underwater for too long. Keeping the ability to laugh might be the only thing that would get my balance back. I couldn’t fight for them, couldn’t find out what was really going on, if I was crushed under sorrow and guilt and misery, which I could easily give in to if I let myself. But I couldn’t risk that. I had to kick ass. All sorts of ass.
Starting now.
I eased back, holding my aching stomach. I tasted copper in my mouth. “Ouch, I think I bit my tongue,” I said, wiping the tip of my tongue on my hand and seeing blood. “Yup. Gross.”
Quinn went very still.
I was an idiot.
I’d let myself forget what Quinn really was.
I think, maybe, he’d forgotten a little too.
And now I was kneeling on the floor with blood in my mouth and there was no forgetting for either of us.
“Quinn?” I said softly. I didn’t move.
It was just my luck that I finally got what I thought might be a real boyfriend, and now I might have to stake him.
Quinn was even paler than usual, crouched in front of me, his lips lifting off his fangs, which protruded as far as they could. I barely breathed. There were so many conflicting emotions chasing across his features, I hardly knew how to read them all. Most prominently I saw fear, violent restraint, desire, hunger. He swallowed and the movement rippled his throat. He looked like he was in pain.
And then he smiled.
And I knew real fear for the first time.
There was nothing more unpredictable than a young vampire. Nothing stronger or faster either. Or more hypnotizing. Speaking of hypnotizing, my vial of Hypnos was sitting on top of my pack at the other end of the room, where it did me no good at all.
I looked away from Quinn’s burning eyes, from the flash of fang.
“Qui
nn,” I repeated, sternly this time, like a cross librarian.
He flinched. Agony sharpened his smile into a humorless smirk.
“Hunter, run,” he begged.
I lifted my chin. “No,” I said, even though adrenaline was pumping through me like a sudden monsoon in the jungle of my insides. I was flooded with biological chemicals that made me want to bare my teeth back at Quinn like some caged panther.
“Please run,” he pleaded again, but even as I shifted my weight, barely moving, he was on me.
His hand clamped around my wrist and he jerked me up as he surged to his feet. I was practically plastered to his chest, even as I leaned back as far as I could. Only my head and neck and shoulders had any freedom of movement, and I felt like one of those half-swooning pale girls in a Victorian novel.
Not a particularly nice feeling, as it turns out.
Quinn struggled but the animal inside him was at the surface, scenting blood and prey. No one knew what beast slept inside the vampire; all we knew was that it had sharp teeth and an insatiable appetite.
And I had no intention of being someone’s supper, no matter how well they kissed.
Quinn lifted my hand to his mouth, closing his lips over the side of my thumb. His tongue moved over my skin, licking at the smear of blood. I would never admit this to anyone at any time, but it made my knees weak. It should have grossed me out. I was sure my heart was pounding because I was afraid. Not because of the way he was looking up at me, his eyes the blue of the hottest part of a flame, the part that burns the most.
“You taste like … raspberries.”
I swallowed. “No, I don’t.”
“You do.” He was staring at my mouth now. I clamped my lips together. The tiny cut on my tongue throbbed. It felt like a beacon, only it was calling the ship toward the rocky shoreline instead of safely away. I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to get rid of the blood.
“I can get that for you,” he purred.
I jerked back but I was still trapped in the cage of his arms. I narrowed my eyes. “Quinn Drake, stop it right now.”
“But I don’t want to,” he drawled. “I want more.”
“I don’t want to dust you.”
“I just want a little taste.”