Ty raked his fingers through his hair and looked to the heavens, a sky scattered with stars. She knew. Of course she did. The woman was ancient and had been born to rule, to manipulate people, to understand their motivations and use them. His three centuries on Earth, on the other hand, hadn’t given him much artifice. Usually he didn’t care, but he was surprised at how little he enjoyed having Arsinöe picking up on his interest. They had never been lovers, but she was a jealous creature by nature. She must be the only woman, even to her lowly pet hunter.

Easily done when no self-respecting vampiress would bed a Cait more than once.

“She’s all right, I guess,” he allowed, trying for noncommittal as opposed to a lie he’d eventually be caught in. No one could look at Lily Quinn and believe for an instant he’d thought her plain.

“Hmm,” was all Arsinöe said. “Maybe I should send someone along to help you. So you don’t get distracted.”

Ty frowned, knowing full well that her teasing tone hid truth. “If you’re going to send anyone, send Jaden,” he said, referring to his closest blood brother, a Cait Sith only slightly younger than himself. He wasn’t the most personable of vampires, either, but he was unusually trustworthy.

Arsinöe’s soft laughter again stirred the hair at the back of his neck. She seemed to have other ideas.

“You have been gone hunting a while, haven’t you?”

“Is something wrong?” he asked, gritting his teeth. He was in no mood to be played with tonight, and Arsinöe seemed to be in a dangerously changeable mood.

“You should ask Jaden if you see him,” she replied lightly—too lightly. “But I doubt you will. He’s left us.”

Jaden, you fool. No matter how the Ptolemy valued their services, he and Jaden were servants. And servants did not have the option of quitting. That was the same as choosing death.

Yet another thing for Ty to worry about. Later. All that mattered right this second was that he wouldn’t be getting help from any of his own blood—the only sort of help he might have tolerated.

As though she’d heard his thoughts, the queen continued. “I was thinking of sending along Nero. He’ll deal with her quickly enough, one way or the other.”

Ty’s eyes narrowed in the darkness, and he came to a complete stop on the deserted sidewalk. A number of pieces clicked into place. So, he thought. That’s how it is. Arsinöe had rarely taken lovers during his time traveling with the Ptolemy court, but each had presented some challenges. Nero, however, was more than just a challenge. Ty had long suspected the cold, calculating Ptolemy highblood wanted not just Arsinöe, but also the power she had at her disposal. And Nero had made no secret of his longing for the days when the Cait Sith were treated like slaves of the lowest order. For Arsinöe to bring him up this way could only mean Nero had finally caught her eye, which meant he had her ear as well. And whatever doubts she had already been having about Ty’s presence in her circle would have been bolstered, agreed with, and amplified. For months.

Ty suddenly felt ill.

“Why would you send a highblood? You made it very clear you wanted a hunter for the job, and Nero isn’t one to get his hands dirty,” Ty ground out, barely managing to hold his tongue and lash out the way he wanted to. The queen might tolerate some insolence from him, but there were places one did not go… and he was suddenly unsure of his limits.

“I did send a hunter,” Arsinöe snapped. “And months later—countless precious lives later—I have nothing to show for it. There are tasks better suited to noble blood, Tynan. I have begun to think this is one of them.”

His throat ached from all of the things he wanted to shout at her, things that would get a cat like himself killed in a heartbeat if said in the presence of a highblood—any highblood. But he had not made this world, he reminded himself. All he could do was survive in it. Which is what he would continue to do, no matter the unspeakable things it did to what was left of his pride.

“How long will you give me, Highness?” he asked hoarsely, reverting to the formality he hadn’t used with her in many years. That finally seemed to touch her, for the little it was worth.

“A week, Tynan,” Arsinöe said softly. Then with warmth she had thus far been lacking, “A week, and I give this to Nero. But I know you won’t fail me. You never have.”

He accepted what passed for an endearment, but when he ended the call and set off again toward the square, Ty was left with roiling anger and no outlet for it. He’d wanted to know what had happened in his absence, but in this case, knowing was no comfort to him. In a roaming court of bored vampire nobility who were as predictable as they were violent, one of the things you could always count on was the constant jockeying for position among the highblood hangers-on who served as Arsinöe’s courtiers, advisers, and, occasionally, lovers.

Looked like Nero had finally made it to the top. And Ty couldn’t begin to imagine how he might undo the damage the clever Ptolemy had no doubt already done.

Goddamn highbloods.

Tynan glared ahead as he zeroed in on a prime site for dinner, a seedy little bar called Jasper’s where the occasional patron staggered out into the cold night and mediocre 80s power rock drifted from the darkened interior with each swing of the door. His hunter’s mind saw all this, but the rest of his thoughts were consumed with Nero. He was well acquainted with the ambitious Ptolemy’s “methods.” Just as he had firsthand experience with Nero’s feelings on lowbloods and what, exactly, they had been put on Earth to do.

Just get the girl and get home, he told himself. Lily Quinn would either manage among the Ptolemy or would not. It was nothing to him. What mattered was making sure that the handful of his kind who still lived under the thumb of the Ptolemy dynasty didn’t end up like the rest: dead, or as good as.

As he stepped through the doors and was greeted by a blast of warmth and the scent of stale beer and cheap perfume, Ty allowed himself a moment, just a moment, to despise his own existence. He wished he had died that long-ago night. He wished his queen had never taken notice of him and left him to his fate.

But he had not, and she had. His lot was what it was.

And he had already been gone too long.

Hours later, at the time of night when the world seems to be holding its breath for the dawn, Tynan stood looking down at the woman who had already caused him so much trouble and who was, he feared, bound to cause him more before they were through.

His hunger had long since been sated by a homely little bleached blonde so drunk that she’d barely skipped a beat between the time he’d bitten her and the time he’d bundled her into a cab to go home. The blood, full of alcohol, had given him a pleasant buzz. But he found, with some dismay, that the scent rising from Lily’s skin was quickly renewing the knife’s edge of his eternal hunger. Feeding had done nothing to dull the odd effect she had on him.

He began to wish he had waited to come and find her here, asleep in the upstairs bedroom of the little old Victorian near the college where she taught. She had been so easy to find. He felt a moment’s pity for her, for the way her life was about to be upended—however long her life lasted.

Lily shifted and gave a long, soft sigh, as though agreeing with him. She was curled on her side, knees drawn up beneath the quilted coverlet, the shape of her body making an S. Small hands were tucked beneath the delicate point of her chin, and all of the thick, shining hair he’d so admired in the moonlight seemed to pulse with a life of its own, bloodred against the white of her pillow. Long lashes twined together, and her lips, a feature he had tried with no success to get out of his head all night, parted gently in sleep.

She was beautiful, Tynan thought with an unfamiliar sinking sensation. And he needed to find a way to draw her in as quickly as possible. That he would betray her, likely hurt her, was a given. He didn’t bother to rail against it much. If he didn’t do what he was told, he would die, and that was one thing he’d really rather not do. He was out of the habit.

Before he could consider what he was doing, Ty reached out one long, slim finger to trail it down Lily’s bare shoulder, finding her fair skin as soft as it looked. He sucked in a breath at the sensation that shimmered through his body at that small touch, curling through him, stirring him in ways that would prove very unhelpful if things continued this way. She shivered, too, as though sensing the direction of his thoughts.

He wanted her. But Lily, like so many things, was now forbidden to him.

With a frown, Ty lifted her hair away from her collarbone with a light, deft movement and bent as closely as he could without disturbing her. He didn’t really want to see—it was as though a part of him knew he hadn’t imagined it before.

A light green pentagram, entwined with a single snake, glittering faintly in the darkness.

Unconsciously, Ty lifted his other hand to rub at his own mark, the black Celtic knot of cats entwined with the ankh of the Ptolemy. When she had chosen him, the queen had branded him herself, allowing him but a single drop of her own blood on his tongue. She was so ancient, and so potent, that even a drop had been enough for him to manifest the ankh of the Ptolemy within his original mark, branding him forevermore as both minion and slave.

He was now the most fortunate, and most wretched, of cats.

Blood is destiny, Ty thought. The vampire creed. From the moment you were sired, your mark determined your path, the way you would exist, the circles you would move in. Your place in the realm of night, as fixed and immovable as the sun he would never see again.

There was no doubt in his mind now. Lily Quinn wore such a mark. But how and why and what it meant were all things he needed to have answered before he took her into the lion’s den. He would not risk Arsinöe’s wrath—not now, when he knew how much was at stake.

I will not have this woman torn to pieces because of my own mistake.

It was a foolish thought, rising unbidden and just as quickly pushed away with a faint feeling of embarrassment. Lily Quinn being ripped apart by a furious queen was the least of his concerns. And the gods knew he’d never try to protect humans again. Hadn’t turned out so well the last time, that was sure.