I groaned and shook my head. “I know. He just spooked me.”

Aside from my spazzing out, the day had been nice. And I really did try.

But it was clear that this girl just wasn’t me.

Like being a girl who hung out only with the Drakes and never with Nathan and Linnet wasn’t me either, and neither was being monitored like a criminal by my own parents.

Besides, I had a better idea.

I just had to make one stop first.

“He spooked you?” Nathan snorted, oblivious to the conclusions I was making in my head. “It’s Violet Hill. Nothing ever happens here.”

Nathan dropped me off at my house around sunset. I didn’t go inside, just hopped right into my mom’s car and took off before she could stop me. I texted her to tell her where I was going and that I wouldn’t be long. When she called me back, the phone ringing insistently, I switched off the sound.

The drive to the Drakes’ was uneventful. I passed three guards on my way into the farmhouse. Solange’s uncle Geoffrey’s barn-slash-laboratory had all the lights on and the door shut tight, which meant he was hard at work on something scientific. The dogs raced up to greet me when I reached the house and got out of the car. They chased me up the porch steps, drooling on my knees. I knocked hard.

Nicholas answered the door. He still looked sleepy, his dark hair mussed, his shirt unbuttoned.

Yum.

I launched myself at him and he caught me with one arm, burying his head in my hair. “ ’Morning,” he mumbled. I clung to him for a long wonderful moment before reluctantly stepping back.

“Hey, where’re you going?” he asked. His serious smile had a wicked glint. “I wasn’t done.”

I smiled back, despite all the anxiety churning in my stomach. “Is Christabel okay?”

He shoved his hair back. “Too early to tell,” he said gently.

“Can I see her?”

“She’s unconscious,” he said. “What’s going on? You’ve got a weird look on your face.”

“You’re so romantic.” I snorted.

“And you’re being sneaky.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kissed him.

“Misdirection,” he said against my lips, smiling again. I kissed him deeply, slowly. He dug his hand into my hair. “Hey, what’s wrong? There’s something else.”

He’d known me long enough to read the brittle edge to my movements. I nodded. “First, how’s Solange?”

“Okay.” He lowered his voice, touching his finger to my lips. “Shh.”

“You know I still want to track that Constantine down, right?”

“I know.”

“What are you doing here?” Solange asked suddenly, coming down the hall toward us from the kitchen. She didn’t look drunk anymore, or even hungover. Just angry. At me.

I glowered back. “What do you think?”

“I want you to stop threatening Constantine.”

I blinked at her. “That’s seriously all you have to say to me?”

“Until you promise, yes.” She folded her arms.

“Solange, do you even remember what happened last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said frostily.

I laughed bitterly. “Too bad.”

Nicholas cringed and looked deathly afraid. He’d faced down crazy Lady Natasha with less fear than he had right now for his girlfriend and his baby sister. Not that I blamed him. I was as mad as Solange looked.

Well, almost.

She pointed to the door. “Go home, Lucy.”

I just crossed my arms, too. “Make me.” We hadn’t had a fight this immature since we were eight.

“Fine, I will.”

She leaned in closer. “Go. Home. Lucky.”

I leaned in just as close, until we were like two prizefighters, practically nose to nose. “Your pheromones don’t work on me, princess,” I taunted, even though the soles of my feet were actually itchy with the need to move. That had never happened before.

“But they work on him,” she said haughtily, angling her head in Nicholas’s direction.

“Hey!” He held up his hands. “Leave me out of this.”

She stared at him. “Nicholas, make her leave.”

He jerked as if he’d been stuck with a pin. “Solange, don’t.”

She was getting stronger for her pheromones to work not only on other vampires but on a member of her own family. Nicholas was struggling, the muscles of his forearms and across his chest rippled as if he were lifting weights. He was in pain.

I suddenly wanted to punch Solange right in the nose, and she was one of the few people I never wanted to punch.

“Leave him alone!” I tried to go around him to reach her, to get her out of his personal space.

She just lifted her chin. “Now, Nicholas.”

His hands closed around my arms and he walked me backward toward the door, forcing me when my feet dragged. His eyes were wild. He was still struggling but she was stronger.

“Nicholas,” I whispered, leaning into him, trying to unbalance him. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, his jaw clenched.

His gray eyes were still on mine when he closed the door in my face, leaving me alone on the porch.

I cursed all the way home.

I hadn’t even had a chance to tell Nicholas what I’d decided.