“When are you coming back to work?” Derry asked, after giving me a hug. “I never see you anymore.”

“I live with you,” I told her, though that was about to change.

“Yeah but you’re never there. And you’re never here, either.” She scowled.

“You look so much like your father,” I told her, grinning. “Especially when you frown like that.”

“Then I’ll smile from now on.” She flounced away.

The place smelled so good I thought about sitting down and having a meal, but decided I’d talk to Angus first. If I still had an appetite afterward, I’d get an early dinner before Shane and I hit Raeven’s Road on our quest to track down Gordon Gray.

Captain Crawford had called me to offer up a few of his uniforms to help with the search, but I turned him down flat. Not only would the cops likely be killed by vampires, they’d only get in my way. And if I got excited afterward and jumped Shane again—not that I would—and they witnessed that…

I shuddered.

No. Just no.

I pecked on Angus’s office door, then pushed it open and stuck my head in. “Do you have a minute, Angus?”

“Trin,” Angus roared, as though he hadn’t seen me for a year. He half stood and waved me in. “Come. Sit.”

But I didn’t want to sit. I paced around his office. “Angus, I’m moving out. Rhys is going to show me some houses.” I stopped walking and looked at him. “I wanted to thank you for taking me in.”

He nodded. “What can I help you with? Furniture? Extra cash?”

“No, nothing.” I hesitated and looked around the room. “I won’t be coming back to work, either. I’m…” I shrugged. It felt strange saying aloud what I’d decided to do. To become.

“Of course you won’t be coming back to make pizza,” he said. “You’re a hunter, my girl. That job will be more than you can handle.”

“Thanks,” I said, dryly. “You have such confidence in me.”

He studied me soberly. “I do, honey.” He grinned and shrugged. “I don’t want you to stop needing me, though.”

Finally, I sat down. “I’m not one of your kids, Angus.”

His chair creaked ominously when he leaned back in it. “I told you I don’t think of you as one of my kids.” His eyes darkened, just the tiniest bit. “And when you’re ready, I’ll prove it to you.”

My face heated and I silently damned my tendency to blush at his slightest sexual innuendo. And Angus, who seemed to not so secretly delight in provoking such a reaction, wasn’t quite finished.

“I hear Shane Copas bent you over a pile of vampire corpses and had his way with you.” His grin was huge but the look in his eyes was just a little…heated.

I stood. “Okay, that’s just great. Goodbye, Angus.”

“Trin, wait. I have something for you.”

I stopped at the door, curious despite myself. “What?”

He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a small box, and then tossed it to me. I caught it automatically.

“Condoms,” he said, as though I wouldn’t know, and roared with laughter.

“Thanks, Angus. I needed these.” I stuffed the box into my coat pocket. “You know. For all the sex I’ll be having.”

He traded his smile for a scowl, and with a bounce in my step and a grin on my face, I left his office.

Putting a scowl on Angus’s face always buoyed my mood. But I remembered something I needed to do, and I slipped into a corner of the hall to make an appointment with my OBGYN.

I ate my dinner surrounded by Angus’s kids and a few regulars, relaxed and happier than I could remember being in a good long while. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to question it too hard.

Maybe it was the calm before the storm.

Shane came into the restaurant and sat down across from me, and just like that, my moment of peace ended.

“You want something to eat?” I asked him.

He eyed the two remaining slices of my fourteen inch pizza. “You eat a lot for someone so skinny.”

I shrugged. “Fast metabolism.”

“Enjoy it while you can, honey,” said a chunky, middle aged human sitting across the aisle. “It doesn’t last. I used to be almost as skinny as you, once upon a time.” Her gaze touched upon my chopped, uneven hair and my scars and she pursed her lips. “Or…are you sick, sweetie?”

The two women sitting with her leaned forward to get a look at me, and suddenly, it was like I had the attention of everyone in the place.

Two young women behind me giggled. “Ouch,” one of them murmured.

Embarrassed, I lifted my hand to self-consciously cover the scars on my face, but Shane leaned across the table and grabbed my wrist. Gently, he pushed my hand back down to the table.

“Fuck no,” he said.

Derry hurried toward me. “You okay, Trin?”

“I’m fine.” And I was. “But Shane needs a really big sandwich. My treat.”

Derry peered at him. “You want to order, Mr. Copas?”

“No.” He didn’t look away from me.

I was caught for a moment in the deep mystery of his eyes, in the gruffness of his voice. And I was caught also in the memory of his body, of the way his smooth flesh had felt beneath my fingertips, the way his skin had tasted, the way his lips had moved against mine. The way he’d grabbed my hips and shoved himself inside me, the way he’d scraped his teeth against the side of my neck, the way he’d hoarsely whispered my name when he’d orgasmed.

I drew a ragged breath, and when the look in his eyes went from slightly blank to knowing and hot, I jumped up from my seat, gave the surprised Derry a quick hug, then told Shane I’d meet him in a couple of hours. “We need to get Gray tonight,” I said.

It wouldn’t be full dark yet, but by the time we reached the woods, dark wouldn’t be long in coming.

I climbed into my car. The evening air was fresh and cold, but I didn’t bother with my heater. I needed the cold air to cool the heat in my cheeks. I squirmed in my seat. And not just the heat in my face.

The Thanksgiving Day Massacre memories weren’t the only things I’d suppressed. I’d had sex once in six years—an unsatisfying and juvenile fumbling in the living room of my date’s house. I’d closed down my physical needs because I hadn’t felt like I’d deserved the pleasure. I hadn’t even realized that fact at the time.

But now, those urges were rising up and taking over, and if I were being honest with myself, I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I was healing. There’d been times when I wasn’t sure I ever would.

I clutched the steering wheel, closed my eyes, and conjured an image of Amias Sato’s face. I found the cold lump of familiar, waiting hatred, and I watched it begin to warm, to send rising tendrils of rage into my mind, my heart.

Deliberately and methodically, I forced the rage to soften. It would always be there. I’d always hate Amias Sato. But it would not take me over. It would not own me.

Not anymore.

I started the car and drove to Angus’s house to prepare for the night of hunting ahead, and when the excitement came, I welcomed it. I was a bloodthirsty hunter filled with not only cold death, but hot desire.

I could live with that.