That last sentence came out harsh and raw and reluctant, as though he hadn’t wanted to add it but couldn’t help himself.

I laughed, the sound rusty and fake. “I’m not yours, vampire. If I were yours, I probably wouldn’t want so badly to rip out your heart.”

“You’re angry,” he said.

“Angry.” I widened my eyes. “Angry doesn’t begin to describe it.”

He shrugged. “You fought off the toxin in my bite, but even now, some of it remains. I imagine it always will.” He leaned forward slightly, then gave a tiny smile of satisfaction when I recoiled. “Humans are not meant to live through that damage.”

“How did you fight it off? If you were bitten by some toxic vampire, why are you walking the earth like a normal monster? Why aren’t you out there killing humans?”

He studied me, something secretive and dark in his eyes. Finally, he spoke. “I fought off the virus because I bit you. It took me a very long time, but I triumphed. I am no longer mad, Trinity, because of you.” His voice softened and became velvety and caressing and tender. “Essentially, you saved me.”

Suddenly chilled, I shivered. “Believe me when I tell you I did not save you on purpose,” I snarled.

He nodded. “I realize that, of course.” He hesitated. “I told you I need your help. This world needs your help. You can give the true death. You can stake vampires. You can kill us. I watched you with the vampire behind the bar. You killed him. The humans like to call your kind hunters. Exterminators. Butchers. But my people have a different name for you.”

“Yes?” I asked, curious despite myself. “What do you call my kind?”

“Death,” he said. “We call you Death.”

My cell rang again, and though I fully expected I was getting another call from an irate Angus, Miriam’s name was the one on the display.

I looked up when Amias spoke. “They will protect you,” he said. “Those in Bay Town. Let them surround you. With all of us at your back, you will be safe as we can make you.”

The cell stopped ringing as I held it, undecided. “Safe from what?”

“They will come. You killed one of us, and the news will spread rapidly. You will be hunted. In danger.” He walked to me, and even as I held up my hands and flinched, he knelt before me. “There is no happy afterlife for us, Trinity. Only a great, empty despair. This life is all we have and we cling to it with a greediness you will never understand. You can take this life from us, so we will try to kill you. For the rest of your life, we will try to kill you. You think you hate us? It is nothing compared with what we feel for you. For your kind.”

I was frozen in place. My heart slammed against my ribs and my breath whooshed from my lungs. I could not look away from the sincerity in his eyes. “We?” I squeaked.

He shook his head, impatient. “Vampires. I will not hurt you.” His jaw knotted as he clenched his teeth. “Can you possibly not know that yet?”

“What do you want from me?” I whispered.

He grabbed my hands. “For centuries, those of us who remain healthy immediately wrap the sick in silver and bury them deeply in the ground.” He paused, and when he continued, I heard the grief in his voice. Something even deeper and darker than grief. Something that I, in all my sorrow, had never felt. “But they are aware, even in their sickness. They lie there struggling, starving, alone. For centuries, in traps they cannot escape. But they do not die. I want you to kill the carriers. The diseased. It will be a mercy.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have added that last bit, because I had no desire at all to show mercy to vampires. But in killing them, I would also be saving human lives. It was a no brainer. Of course I’d kill them.

“I will kill them,” I said. I yanked my hands from his grip, and then rubbed them on my jeans, as though that might somehow rid me of the lingering feel of him. “I will kill the carriers, and I will kill the regulars.” I leaned forward and got in his face. “I will kill you all.”

“Trinity,” he said, mournfully, then with a fluid speed I could barely follow, he stood. “I left a gift on your bed. I walked through hell to steal it for you. If it accepts you, it will be the only weapon you will ever need. Its name is Silverlight. Guard her well. She will kill the world for you.”

Before I could process his words, he rushed to the window—without appearing to rush—shoved up the window, and was gone.

I was on the fourth floor.

By the time I got to the window, there was no sign of him. I realized he couldn’t have come in through the main entrance because I wasn’t the only one who lived in the building. He might not have needed my permission to enter my apartment, but he would have needed permission to enter the building.

I slammed the window shut against Old Man Winter, who was being quite the bastard, then cranked up the thermostat.

Somehow I doubted that would chase away the cold inside me.

I strode for the bedroom, intent upon seeing what Amias had left on the bed. A weapon, he’d said. A blade.

Silverlight.

My cell rang, and I dug it from my pocket, impatient. I put it on speaker, then tossed it to the bed beside the rather small, leather-wrapped bundle that lay there.

Amias’s gift.

“Miriam,” I snapped. “I’m fine. You don’t need to call every—”

“I’m not checking on you,” she said, her voice as impatient as mine.

I took a deep breath, not taking my stare from the package. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been in contact with someone who can help you. He’s a hunter, too, and one with a lot more experience. He’s coming to town and I want you to meet him.”

I groaned. “I don’t want—”

“He’s a sweetheart,” she interrupted. “But he has some…um…issues. It’s time he became a little more social. He’s also my ex-husband’s brother. You’ll hate each other, but that isn’t important. I’ll send Clayton.”

“Miriam—”

She hung up.

I needed nothing less in the world than another person added to the growing gang of people who wanted, it seemed, to control me. I didn’t need saved, I didn’t need taught, and I didn’t need handled. I just needed them to leave me alone so I could figure out my life…and kill vampires.

I had no idea what was coming or how I’d handle it when it did, but I was not about to let my supernatural friends turn me into a needy little bitch.

They had doubts about my ability to deal with life, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d let their lack of confidence affect me.

I already had, though, hadn’t I?

“No more,” I whispered, and untied the leather cord wrapped around the package.

I held my breath, then pulled back the edges of the leather.

Silverlight was a sword.

It lay gleaming on its leather bed, beautiful and deadly and somehow dark, despite its clean, sparkling brightness. The blade was double-edged and looked sharp enough to cut my eyes if I looked too long at it. I held a finger over the blade, tempted to touch it, but something made me hesitate.

The black hilt was surprisingly plain, laced with silver filament, which appeared slightly worn and soft, and though I didn’t touch it, I knew it would feel like butter.

There was a sheath beneath the hilt, a beautiful red sheath—so dark it was nearly black—and decorated with inlays of blood red stones and carved lines and squiggles that stood out in the darkness in which they were embedded. Words, I was nearly certain, but I couldn’t read them. More of the soft-looking silver filaments wound around the case, climbing it like strange ivy. The ends of the filaments trailed, lying around the leather like untied shoestrings. I couldn’t imagine what they were for, but then, I didn’t know a lot about swords and their sheaths, either. Next to the sword, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

But that sheath, though stunning, was so small it would never have held the sword.

I stared down at the gift, a gift from the vampire with whom I would be forever linked, the vampire I despised more than anything or anyone else.

And my mouth watered.

I wanted that blade.

Just as I wanted to hunt and kill vampires, I wanted that blade.

But I wasn’t sure if the blade would want me.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my shirt and finally, I grasped the handle of the sword. Tentatively, gently, I lifted it.

“You’re magnificent.” I ran my finger over the smooth silver, awed.

For a heartbeat there was nothing, then the sword...softened. The hilt changed, moved, and suddenly, I no longer held the hilt. It held me.

It wrapped around my hand like a leather fist, almost seemed to melt into my flesh, and coldness traveled up my arm into my shoulder, icy, painful, terrifying.

I screamed and tried to fling the sword away but it clung effortlessly, moving with me. Part of me.

The blade shrank—not in width but in length—and as I drew back my arm and slammed it against the wall, it turned toward me. It turned on me.

And then it took control of my arm.

I plunged the blade into my own chest, screaming as my flesh parted like water, then closed around the bite of the silver. The sword rippled as it drank, pulling my blood up its blade and into the hilt, contracting, expanding, breathing.

The sword was alive, but I was pretty sure I was dead.

Amias Sato had killed me after all.