He was gone.

Chapter TWO

TY CROUCHED SILENTLY on a tree branch, his silver eyes unblinking as he watched Lily Quinn slowly make her way to her car. She still seemed dazed, though by the time she reached the parking lot, the wobble had gone from her step and she’d quickened her pace, throwing a final, fearful glance over her shoulder before getting in and driving off.

He couldn’t have seen what he thought he’d seen, Ty knew. It had to have been a trick of the light and his bloodlust-addled brain. Likely it was a birthmark, or even a tattoo, a wicked little surprise hidden beneath the classy wrappings. No mortal could wear a vampire mark, and Lily was most certainly mortal. But just as certain was that she was also… more.

Gods, had he ever reacted so strongly to the scent of a woman’s blood?

The memory of her pressed against him, the feel of her skin beneath his hands, threatened to send him running after her to finish what they’d started. Instead, Ty clung to what control he had left, sinking his claws into the wood beneath him, the fur along his back rising in response to the ancient struggle inside of him. He needed to feed, and soon—even though it meant he would have to force himself to drink from yet another nameless, faceless victim.

Leave it to him to want a woman he would never be allowed to taste.

With a surly growl, Ty sprang from the tree. By the time he hit the ground, he was a man again, stalking off in the direction of the town square. He ought to be grateful that something had stopped him from sinking his teeth into Lily Quinn. If he had, he would have ruined what was likely his only chance at fulfilling his mission.

Still, it would have been nice if he’d noticed he couldn’t catch even a hint of the woman’s thoughts before he’d gotten so close that he could think of nothing but her neck. That impenetrable mind was the undeniable hallmark of a Seer. Lily’s particular beauty was just a bonus, and an unfortunate one at that. To bite her would rob her of the ability he was in dire need of.

As the Americans liked to say, he needed to get his head back in the game.

Ty pulled his cell phone from his pocket and kept walking, his long legs eating up the distance with a speed that bordered on inhuman, and called the only woman he had any true allegiance to. His queen’s favor had elevated him far above what any gutterblood like himself could normally expect; she had drawn him into her trusted inner circle, where his kind would never have been tolerated before—though in truth, he was only barely tolerated by the rest and had learned early on to rely on subterfuge to get what information he needed.

Still, right now, even having a vampire queen on speed dial didn’t quite make up for the fact that he was alone. Again. And hungry in a way that he’d somehow have to assuage.

The phone rang only once before she picked up, and Arsinöe’s honeyed tones could do nothing to disguise her agitation. The hairs on his neck and the backs of his arms prickled with it, warning him to tread lightly.

The woman was a force of nature. And when she was angry, she was apt to destroy everything and everyone in her path.

“Tynan. Calling to tell me of another fruitless adventure, I presume?”

Her voice was a smooth purr, and Ty could picture her reclining on her chaise, her kohl-lined eyes narrowed, her long red nails tapping on the fabric. She had always been kind to him, in her way, though he had seen plenty of her cruelty. One couldn’t stay the ruler of the greatest of the vampire dynasties without it. But he had sensed a change in her lately, a strain and barely leashed fury that he attributed to the murders and her inability to stop them. Ty hoped his discovery of Lily could start to reverse that… provided she was, in fact, a Seer.

He could have been perfectly confident, were it not for that odd little decoration on her skin.

“Not this time,” he replied, turning onto the sidewalk and heading for the lights of the city’s old-fashioned downtown square. He slowed a little to give himself time to talk. No one else needed to hear this conversation.

“Tell me.” The change in her tone was instant, sharpening with keen interest bordering on desperation. He wondered what more had happened since he’d last spoken to Arsinöe. More death, likely. Ty found he couldn’t dredge up much sympathy. He doubted he would have attempted to get close to many of the Ptolemy even if they hadn’t given him a wide berth. His bloodline was known for producing cold-blooded killers, after all. The Cait Sith were gutter vamps, ruthless hunters with no leader and no conscience. This tended to give one an aura of unapproachability. Which was fine with Ty. Highbloods were a tedious lot, full of entitlement and fond of entertaining themselves by looking down on… well, on mongrels like him.

“There’s a woman here,” Ty said, keeping his voice low. “Her mind is closed to me. Can’t hear a bloody thing, and you know I’m good at that.”

“Yes, good, but can she See?” The angry snap in Arsinöe’s voice surprised him, as he’d expected at least a modicum of praise for all these months of searching. But then, much about the queen had changed since the Mulo had come. Maybe, Ty thought darkly, some of it was permanent.

Or maybe it was always there and you just didn’t want to see it.

He shoved the traitorous thought aside and focused on the situation at hand.

“I’m not sure yet,” he allowed slowly, glad to be so far out of range of Arsinöe’s stinging claws for once. “But she’s the first I’ve found like her.” He thought again of Lily’s strange mark and nearly mentioned it. But something held him back. In his mind’s eye, Lily’s face appeared, innocent, open, her eyes closed and lips parted in invitation. For the briefest instant, Tynan felt an urge to protect her in a way that was borne of some deeper, unfamiliar instinct.

The kind of instinct, Ty thought as he ruthlessly snuffed it out, that could get a vampire like himself killed.

Still, he held his tongue. Another look at Lily’s sexy little tattoo would doubtless reveal nothing. And if he was wrong… well, he would deal with that only if he had to.

“Tynan,” said the woman on the other end of the line.

The weariness in her voice did pull at him now. He and Arsinöe had known each other a long time. There was, despite the class separation, some modicum of affection there. And the gods knew he owed her a great deal for all she had given him.

“I’m glad, of course, that you think you’ve found something,” she continued. “But in the last week, we’ve lost fifty of our line, not to mention a number of priceless artifacts. The Mulo must be stopped, and I’m… concerned… that we are running out of time. I don’t want possibilities—I need facts. Be certain before you bring her. I’ve no interest in another pretty toy when my people are dying. How long is this going to take you?”

“That depends,” he replied. “Do you want her willing?”

“You should know by now that I don’t give a damn about that,” she said smoothly.

Again he felt that faint unease with the way things seemed to have changed back in the thick of Arsinöe’s court. Something felt off, but he didn’t know if it was her or if it was simply that he’d been out of the loop for so long now. It was one of the reasons he’d struggled with being chosen for this hunt: despite the way it had been presented, it felt like he was being eliminated.

She’d made a show of it, of course. Fawning over him, telling him how much more trustworthy he was than the others of his blood, how his skills were far better suited to finding this needle in a haystack than so many of her courtiers who had gone soft from easy living. Backhanded insults to his much-maligned bloodline that Ty was certain sounded like praise to Arsinöe’s ears… but, of course, he was used to that. All Cait Sith were. All her praise notwithstanding, he had stopped being called, stopped being included. After all his efforts to prove himself over the centuries in her service, he could sense that Arsinöe had begun to push him out.

And the Ptolemy courtiers, who seemed to have grown more bitter and vicious over the years he had spent among them, gloated openly at his departure. They cheered at the purge of the gutterblood who had somehow infiltrated their rarefied little club.

He worried less about himself and more about what would become of his other blood brothers and sisters in his absence. Arsinöe had softened considerably over the years in her treatment of the Cait Sith she had conscripted, especially considering how dark things had been at the time of his own siring. But though the queen was strong, she was hardly immune to the views of the highbloods closest to her. And, gods, but he was tired of the politics.

“A week. Two, tops,” Ty said after a quick canvass of his options. “I know nothing about her at this point. And setting people at ease isn’t usually my strong suit. But as I doubt she just sits around having visions all day, I’ll have to try and learn some people skills, I suppose.”

He’d meant it as a little joke, but Arsinöe was obviously not in the mood.

“It had better be less than two weeks,” she said, and Ty could hear the steel in her voice. “And if she is what you say, the woman will do as she is told. She will be well compensated, of course. Tell her she will be returned home. Tell her everything will go back to normal, will be set to rights if she does this service for me. For my people. And throw in an offer of money if that isn’t enough. That should do it. It always does.”

“You would let her go after this?” Ty asked, surprised.

“Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep her well. She may come in handy. One never knows. But it has little to do with you, Tynan,” Arsinöe said, a casual dismissal that cut him to the quick. It had been many years since she had openly snubbed him for being less than her own blood.

His months away began to feel like years. What had happened?

But she seemed to have no intention of telling him, instead shifting gears smoothly into the role she often played with both servants and courtiers: the playful seductress. Ty could actually hear the sly smile in her voice when she asked, “Is she pretty, this new discovery of yours?”