I rested and slept on and off—mostly on—for three days.

Angus and his many children—along with their nannies and housekeeper—took care of me while I recovered from the shocks I’d received to not only my body, but my mind. My spirit.

I had to adjust to the changes, and I needed rest to do that. I needed sleep. But during the times I was awake, the supernaturals visited me. Clayton would stand in the shadows of the room, awaiting Miriam’s command.

I couldn’t look him in the eye.

Part of the reason was because I was ashamed of how I’d behaved, but some of it was because I didn’t want to see him go back to being Miriam’s thing.

I’d seen him as the man he was.

Angus had hemmed and hawed while explaining to me that it wasn’t my fault that I’d gotten hot and bothered and naked and jumped Clayton. Miriam had laughed, but when she glanced at Clayton, I saw him flinch from the corner of my eye.

“She won’t allow it, Trinity.”

Had she punished him because of my lack of control? Because I’d been naked in his arms?

I hadn’t cared at the time—I’d been too far gone on lust lotion. What had he called it? The Foam of Aphrodite. But now…now I cared very much.

They hadn’t explained anything other than the fact that the lotion was a forbidden substance in the supernat world, not because it affected them—it didn’t—but because it would get them all exterminated by the human government.

Because the foam affected humans.

But it even more intensely affected those humans who were…different. Humans with a little something extra inside them. Humans like me.

The supernaturals minded their manners for the most part. They controlled themselves. They didn’t kill humans. They went out of their way to offer something that would make them accepted in our world—protection, money, entertainment.

That’s why they were accepted.

Not the vampires, of course, but that was a whole different thing.

The Foam of Aphrodite would change all that, and it wouldn’t matter which supernatural or group created it.

For that reason, it was more dangerous to the supernat community than it was to the humans.

And they had to figure out who possessed it, and they had to contain the situation.

It wasn’t like the foam was readily available, sold in supermarkets or restaurants and handed out on Halloween. It was nearly impossible to find or create, and not even my little group of supernaturals knew exactly how it was made, though they tossed uneasy glances at each other when I asked.

They might not know how to make it, but they knew more than they were telling me. I got the feeling sex had something to do with the process. Big surprise.

“The question is,” Miriam had said, tilting her head quizzically, “why you? Why does this man want you?”

I’d shrugged. “I’m a fun girl.”

But I had no idea why the stranger had attacked me.

I’d woken up that morning pretty much back to normal, so I’d gotten dressed, gone downstairs for breakfast, and then, it being an unseasonably warm and sunny day, I’d walked out into the large, fenced backyard to sit on the patio and watch Angus’s kids play.

Miriam had joined me half an hour later.

“You’re up early,” I said. I glanced behind her, automatically searching for the hulking shadow of Clayton, but he didn’t appear. That was unusual, as Miriam rarely went anywhere without him at her back.

“I know,” she said, grumpily, and took the chair beside mine. “But we have to sleep less and work more, now that we’ve got this foam hanging over our heads. If word of this gets out, we’ll be rounded up and…” She shuddered, and it took her a minute to continue. “Bad things will happen to us. We have to gain control of the situation, Trinity. Human women are being murdered, and now this.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you really know?” Her eyes blazed. “Because you’re one of us now. They will take you, too. Your sad story won’t sway them, not anymore. You’ve left the city and moved to Bay Town. You’re not only working with us, you’re living with us. And when they decide to persecute the nonhumans once again—and they will—you may not be immune from their hatred and fear.”

I swallowed the dread I felt at her words. I was one of them. I’d been stabbed by a magical sword, chomped on by a mad master vampire, and…

“No,” I realized, suddenly. “You’re wrong. I’ll be vital to the humans once they understand what I can do. I’m a hunter. I can kill vampires. I can kill them. No one else can do that.”

“That,” someone said behind me, a bit dryly, “isn’t entirely true.”

I twisted in my chair and craned my neck to look up at the speaker, startled.

“Trinity,” Miriam said, “meet Shane Copas. He’s the hunter I told you about.”

I stood and automatically held out my hand, giving Miriam’s former brother-in-law a nod hello as I looked him over. That would have been impolite except he was doing the same to me.

His grip was hard and firm, not the gentle squeeze most men were inclined to give me, and he didn’t hold my hand a second longer than necessary.

He wore a thin black jacket, a black shirt, and a pair of faded khakis. His boots were dark brown and very scuffed, and he wore a holstered gun at his side.

His hair was dark and very short, and his eyes were beautiful—light blue, ringed with a darker blue, and shot through with bits of silver—but a person had only to look into those pretty eyes to know Shane Copas was a man who used his fists a lot…and liked it.

Scars, mostly small and old, decorated his face. One at the edge of his right eye, like a tiny, silver crescent, a small, almost perfectly round one over his temple, a thin slashing line of scars over his left cheekbone, and a jagged chunk of scar on his chin.

He had a healing cut over the bridge of his nose, a cut dissecting his left eyebrow, and a fading bruise covering his right cheekbone. The knuckles of his right hand were battered, broken, and mottled.

“I guess I should see the other guy?” I joked.

Shane’s cold stare went right through me. “She’s not a hunter,” he told Miriam. “She’s a liability. Find someone else to protect her.”

Shocked by his rudeness, I took a quick step back. What the hell was his problem? He didn’t know me.

“Shane didn’t want to help us out,” Miriam told me. She kept her voice light, but it held a note of eagerness, as though she were spoiling for a fight. She settled back into her chair. “I had to twist his muscled arm to get him to agree to meet you.”

I curled my lip and grabbed onto my anger. “I don’t need his help or his protection. I have my sword, and I have the ability to give the true death.” I turned away, dismissing him. “This man can go home. Or to hell,” I added, snarkily, “for all I care.”

She laughed. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Shane turned and strode away without another word.

“Hey,” Miriam called. “Where are you going? Shane!”

But her former brother-in-law was not her golem, and he didn’t pause. We watched him until he disappeared through the kitchen doorway, and then I turned on Miriam. “You shouldn’t have brought that banged-up thug here.”

“I knew you two wouldn’t get on,” she said, airily, “but that’s not important. The important thing is that he doesn’t let you die, and you…” She shrugged. “Maybe you don’t let him die, either.”

I left her there with the children and the sun and stomped back into the house. Copas was nowhere in sight when I got there, and I figured I’d probably never see him again.

I slipped my fingers into my jacket pocket and felt for Silverlight, breathing easier when I touched the warm sheath. I’d rested long enough. The urge to hunt was growing stronger, making me impatient and fidgety, and I needed to get out of the house and get some exercise.

And kill.

Maybe I was a little uneasy at the pleasure that thought gave me. Maybe I wasn’t. I wanted to kill the creatures who stole the very blood from unwilling bodies. There was nothing wrong with my need to end them. And if I were a hunter born, then wanting to kill vampires was coded into me—Amias’s attack had just awakened it.

“Tonight,” I whispered, squeezing the sword as I ran up the stairs to my borrowed bedroom.

That night I would take my sword, and I would do what I needed to do. What I craved. I would kill vampires.

I would hunt.