“You have until tonight,” Captain Crawford told me. “Then the offer drops by five hundred dollars.”

I could understand his frustration. “I’ll get him tonight, Captain. He’s in the woods off Raeven’s Road, and the place is full of vampires all wanting me dead. You can see how I’d be a little distracted.”

“Tonight, Sinclair,” he growled, and ended the call.

He was sick of my excuses, and I was sick of making them.

Before night fell I called the supernaturals for a meeting.

“I’ll need you all,” I told them, as we sat in Angus’s private basement rooms. “I need to capture Gray tonight—I’m never going to get jobs hunting if I can’t even catch a target like Gordon Gray.”

Shane nodded. “He’s not old. You’re just too distracted.”

“Sit this one out,” Miriam suggested, petting her long ponytail like it was an animal attached to her head. “Shane can get him, then split the money with you. And he can put the word out that you were in on the capture.”

Shane glared. “I don’t give my captures away.”

I stood, then paced in front of Angus’s desk, not really looking at anyone. I hadn’t been able to look them in the eye since I’d banged Amias Sato two nights ago. I hadn’t been able to look myself in the eye, either.

“No one’s giving anything away.” I silently groaned at my choice of words. “Shane and I are both going to track and capture Gray tonight. We need you all there to take care of incidentals while we do.”

“Incidentals,” Angus growled. “Might need a stronger word for those homicidal psychopathic rapists you call vampires.”

“He didn’t rape her.” Miriam was calm, but a bit gleeful. “He saved her sanity.”

“He enthralled her,” Angus shouted. He pointed at me but kept his stare on Miriam. “No way would she fuck that murderous piece of garbage otherwise.”

“It was the incubus,” Miriam said. “She’d have done anything to wipe out his dark influence.”

“Anyone would,” Rhys agreed. He leaned against Angus’s big desk, his body loose and relaxed, but his dark stare never leaving my face.

“Can we not talk about that?” I crossed my arms and looked at no one. “We have an hour before dark. Will you guys help us out or not?”

“Of course we will, darling.” Miriam clapped her hands, her smile wide. “I love the adventures we’re having. So much fun!”

Everyone looked at her, but only Rhys laughed.

“You bet your little ass we’re going with you.” Angus cracked his knuckles, then shoved his chair away from his desk and stood. “If we’re lucky, Amias Sato will make an appearance. Gear up. We’re heading out in twenty minutes.”

Clayton followed Miriam from the room, glancing my way as he went. “We won’t let the incubus near you again, Trinity.”

He seemed to be the only one of them who truly understood what my fear was. It wasn’t Amias showing up and potentially seducing me, it wasn’t the infecteds, and it wasn’t being unable to capture Gray.

It was Seth Damon, the incubus.

Amias had been right. The memories, the intenseness of vampire sex was fading. But what the incubus had done to me, what he’d created inside me, or left behind, or sucked out of me…what he’d made me feel.

Whatever that was, I would never forget what that had been like. Miriam said I’d have done anything to fix that. She wasn’t lying.

Angus frowned at me. “Are you okay, honey?”

I swallowed hard, my heartbeat rapid and light, and nodded.

But the truth was…no.

I would never be okay again. Not really.

I knew too much. I had no blissful ignorance. And I knew what lay beyond the shiny.

I’d live with it, but unmentionable things had happened in the woods two nights ago.

Powerful things, altering things, terrible things.

And I was not the same.

When I strode out of the room, Miriam and Clayton were at the end of the shadowy hallway. Clayton was on his knees before his dark mistress, his head bowed, his hands cupping his groin.

“I should have cut it off already.” Her voice was a low murmur, but I heard her anyway. “But if I did, I couldn’t torment you in quite the same ways, could I?” She laughed, a gentle, teasing laugh, but that laugh caused Clayton to shudder.

What the hell had she done to him?

I stood still and closed my eyes, making myself remember what he’d done to her. And then I walked toward them and right on by, and I minded my own business.

That was hard to do. Damn hard to do.

But I did it.

And as I walked away, I imagined I could feel his stare on my back, even though he wouldn’t have dared look at me, not with Miriam in torture mode.

“Miriam,” I barked, over my shoulder. “Let’s go. We don’t have all night.” Then I sighed at my weakness.

And finally, at dusk, when the sky was gentling into a pearly gray and the day began to prepare for the invasion of night, we stood on Raeven’s Road in a little group of hunters and protectors and readied ourselves for the search ahead.

“It feels different tonight,” I murmured.

Or maybe that was just me.

I brushed the bandaged wounds high on my thigh, and even though I could barely feel the touch, I shivered. The night before when I’d lain in bed trying to sleep, my fingers had wandered to those teeth marks.

When I’d pressed against them, there’d been an immediate and sharp pain, as though his fangs had broken off inside me. But worse than that had been the pleasure. It danced with the pain, breathtaking and tormenting and delicious, and I’d spent the next fifteen minutes with my eyes closed, one hand on the wounds and the other moving furiously between my legs as orgasms ripped through my body.

His tongue.

Oh, my god, his tongue.

Afterward, I’d fallen into a sleep almost as good as the one I’d had after I’d had sex with him. Amias. I’d had sex with Amias.

“Damn it,” I whispered. The aftereffects of that sex had been hitting me at odd, unexpected moments, and as horrible as that was, they chased away the memories of the incubus. They even chased away the memories of the massacre he’d caused.

I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about that.

Sex and violence.

I took a deep breath, then jogged into the woods with my supernaturals as we went to kill some vampires.

And hopefully capture one.

Then darkness fell, and I caught Gordon Gray’s scent.

“You got him?” Shane asked, resting his shotgun on his shoulder.

I nodded. “He’s just awakened, and he’s close.”

“Gather ‘round, people,” Shane said. “It’s time to catch this asshole.”

I wound a silver chain around my hand. “We need him alive, Shane. Captain wants to talk to him.”

Rhys laughed. “Talk,” he said. “Yeah.”

“We’ll see,” was all Shane would say.

Angus stayed glued to my side, his head swiveling, fists clenched. He darted his narrow stare, probing shadows, hoping Amias would show himself.

Amias would kill Angus. He would.

But Angus wasn’t afraid of anyone.

Finally, I sighed. “Angus, I can’t concentrate on hunting for worrying about you. Can you suspend your grudge until this is over?”

He gaped at me, his eyes bulging. “Worrying about me,” he snapped, outraged at the very notion. “Girl, if I see him, I’m going to snap him like a twig.” He hesitated, staring down his nose at me. “Grudge. Grudge.”

Heat climbed my cheeks and I looked away from him.

And then, I found Gordon Gray.

Not him, exactly, but his sleeping place. His hiding place. At least one of them. And he was there, so it was the only one that mattered.

I strode toward a brush pile heaped at the edge of a mushy swamp, and Shane was suddenly beside me, his gun ready.

“Close?” he asked.

I nodded. “He’s hiding in the swamps.”

“Not for long,” he muttered.

The others fanned out behind us, weapons out, silent and watchful. They had our backs. Ten minutes later, we got our first attack.

We glanced back once as vampires rushed from the thick trees, but Clayton, Miriam, Angus, and Rhys did exactly what they were supposed to do. They fought and distracted the enemy while my nose led Shane and me ever closer to the vampire we sought.

I crept through the underbrush, Silverlight holstered—I might be able to get close to Gray myself, but he’d see us coming from a mile away with the sword lighting up like a beacon.

Already, the number of vampires coming after me was less. Once they became noseblind to my hunter scent, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to hunt. I could track them and kill them much easier if they weren’t aware of my every move.

But it had already started to happen. They were losing my scent.

Worse, I smelled like Amias.

I understood that a split second after Gordon Gray rounded a corner, smiling with recognition. He skidded to a halt when he realized I was not who he’d thought I was.

“Master?” he asked, as though he couldn’t believe I wasn’t Amias.

“Not this time,” I murmured.

A flurry of emotions chased themselves across his thin, readable face. Relief, then confusion, then shock.

And then, he turned to run.

But we were ready for that.

I was ready for that.

And even as he turned, Silverlight was in my grip. She lit up, but she didn’t attach, and I drew back my arm and threw her like an axe at the retreating vampire.

She whirled through the air, leaving streams of silver light in her wake, and she caught him effortlessly. I hadn’t wanted to kill him—and she knew. Somehow, she knew.

She bashed him in the back of the head with her hilt, and he went down.

There was no time for awe, but I knew Shane felt it as much as I did. Maybe even more, because I’d been somewhat aware, even if I hadn’t known I was aware, that she could do more.

My first concern was for her, and I raced over the mushy ground to snatch her up, afraid that someone else might get to her before I could.

I caressed her for a second before sliding her into her sheath, then unwound the silver from my hand, wrapped it around Gray’s wrists, and stood back to look at Shane.

We stared at each other, and I was pretty sure my eyes would be just a little wide. “We got him,” I said. “Finally.”

He looked from me to the downed vampire, and shook his head. “That’s some sword, baby hunter. We all need one of those.”

“Shhh,” I said. “You’ll make Betty jealous.”

He gave me a wink, then patted his gun. “I’ve had a dozen before her. The silver fucks them all up eventually.” He eyed the sword. “I need a Silverlight.”

I was giddy with relief. I’d done it. I’d tracked and caught Gordon Gray. My first job as a hunter, and I’d done it—and I hadn’t even had to kill him.

Okay, so it wasn’t just me. Or even mostly me. But it felt damn good, just the same.

I was a hunter.

And a few seconds later, Gray woke up.

He began talking immediately. “I didn’t kill Lucy. I cared about her. I may be young, but I’m not so young that I’d try to turn her.”

“I’m sure you’re innocent.” I grabbed his silvered wrists. “Get up. You’re Captain Crawford’s problem now.”

“His property, you mean,” he said, quietly. “Look to her family for her killer. The captain won’t listen to me.”

“Listen to you lie?” I asked.

He changed tactics. “Let me go, and I will give you the incubus. I can tell you where he stays.”

“How would you know where the demon lives?”

The tiniest gleam of contempt sparked through his eyes, there and gone. “Every vampire in these woods is aware of the demon’s den.”

If that were true, I could simply ask Amias. If I could find him. If I could stand being face to face with him, talking to him like nothing had happened between us. Between me and a vampire.

I shuddered.

“Why wouldn’t Amias have told you?” Shane asked, as though reading my face.

“The master doesn’t want her facing the demon.” Gray didn’t look at Shane as he answered the question. “He’s afraid the incubus will…” Then he darted his stare away and let his words trail off.

He didn’t have to finish his sentence, really. Amias was afraid the demon would kill me. I wasn’t afraid he’d kill me. I was afraid of the dark despair he’d leave inside me.

“Release me,” Gray said. “Give me your word, and I’ll give you the demon.”

I guess he didn’t know who I was.

Why the hell did the vampires, the most depraved and cynical among us, keep thinking I was going to honor my word?

I glanced at Shane, who lifted his eyebrows. “If you don’t take him in, you don’t get paid. If you don’t get paid, I don’t get paid. Don’t make deals with the targets, Trinity.”

But I crouched beside our captive. “All right, Gray. You’ve got a deal.” And then I sat back and waited for him to tell me everything I needed to know.