“No, genius. It’s just so crammed full of texts from girls sending you smiley faces and x’s and o’s that it’s clogged up and buggy.”

“Can you unbug it?”

Now he did look at me, all affronted techie. “Of course I can debug it. Question is, can you stop getting girls’ phone numbers?”

“Hell, no. And why would I want to?”

He did whatever it was he did, hitting buttons, muttering curses, taking the innards of any technological implement personally until it bowed to his will. And then he grinned smugly, reaching for one of the bottles of blood in the bar fridge by his bed. He opened one for himself and then tossed me one, along with my phone.

“There. It’ll work but it won’t be completely reliable until you delete some of those contacts.”

I scrolled through the names regretfully. “You’re cruel, man.”

“I prefer Evil Genius.” He turned back to his computer.

“You should have more fun, twin of mine,” I suggested.

“Or you could have less fun and leave some for the rest of us.”

“There’s no such thing.” I left him to his machinations and went downstairs, trying to remember who Karin was and why she’d sent me a sonnet about my hair. The lamps were dim, the dogs snoring in the foyer. The front door opened and Logan and Isabeau came in, Isabeau’s wolfhound trotting at her side.

I waved at them but didn’t stop. I could hear someone’s heartbeat in the back corner where the library joined the living room and the kitchen. It was going a little too fast for my liking.

I went straight into the living room, narrowing my eyes at Solange’s back. Her arms were twined around Kieran’s neck. His hands were a little too clever.

“Black, don’t make me kill you,” I told him pleasantly. He jumped and pulled back, his ears going red. Solange sighed.

“Thanks, Quinn,” she said. “Way to ruin the moment.”

“I try,” I said, unrepentant.

“Someday, I’ll actually get to kiss you without one of my nosy annoying brothers barging in,” she whispered to Kieran.

“Don’t count on it,” Logan said as he and Isabeau followed me. Kieran’s phone rang inside his jacket. He looked relieved to answer it.

“You kiss girls all the time,” Solange pointed out to me. Lately the only girl Logan kissed was Isabeau.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” I made myself more comfortable.

“You’re not going away, are you?”

“Nope.”

Solange folded her arms. “Lucy and Nicholas are making out in the solarium. Go bug them.”

“But I like bugging you.”

“Quinn.”

“Solange, look at your eyes,” I said softly, too softly for Kieran to hear me. She frowned, then glanced into the art nouveau mirror on one of the shelves. A bronze woman in a flowing dress held up the reflection of Solange’s pupils, ringed in red. The dark pupils all but swallowed up her usually blue irises. She froze, shooting me a horrified look. Her fingers trembled slightly when she reached up to touch the tips of her fangs. They were completely extended, in full hunger mode.

She tilted her head down and stepped into the shadows.

“I have to go,” she told Kieran abruptly, and then bolted upstairs before he could answer. He flicked his phone off and frowned at me.

“Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine.” She just needed more blood and less human temptation. The hunger wasn’t easily explained, or easily controlled. Kieran would know that as a vampire hunter. But as her boyfriend, I wasn’t sure how much he really got it. He took a step, as if he was about to follow her. “Just leave her be,” I advised him quietly as Isabeau moved up the stairs, light as smoke.

He didn’t look convinced but he nodded once. “I have to go anyway. Duty calls.”

“Yeah? Who are we staking?” There was only a faint sarcastic edge to my voice. He was a vampire hunter, after all. And I was a vampire.

“Hel-Blar,” he replied, heading toward the front door. “Got an all-call alarm. They’re getting a little too close to town tonight.”

“Yeah?” I grabbed my coat, even though I rarely felt the cold. I had stakes and various supplies in the inside pocket. There was a dagger strapped around my ankle, under the ragged bottom of my jeans. “Sounds like fun,” I said, showing my fangs. “Let’s go.”

We were in the woods when the smell hit: mushrooms and mildew and wet, ancient decay.

Hel-Blar.

“Incoming,” I warned Kieran. He flipped a UV gun out of its hidden holster. I filled my hands with stakes, nostrils flaring as I tried to pinpoint which direction the stench was coming from. It was so thick and gag-inducing that it seemed to be everywhere. Kieran slipped on a pair of nose plugs. I knew what that meant and it had nothing to do with the miasma of rotting mushrooms and stagnant pond water.

“If you hit me with any of that Hypnos, I really will kill you,” I said darkly.

He didn’t have time to answer.

We were surrounded.

I didn’t know what they looked like to Kieran’s human eyes, but to me, even in the dark, they were bruise-blue and gangrene-black and utterly unnatural. Their teeth were all fangs, all contagious saliva, all feral, savage hunger. They even fed off other vampires, which no other vamp did. It wasn’t nutritious like straight human or animal blood. It was about the kill, not the feeding.