A chill breeze lifted Elle’s hair as she waited alone at one end of a bridge in Belgravia. Interestingly, this spot wasn’t far from the abandoned fairground where she’d woken up surrounded by vampires. Clearly they liked to hang out in this area. She wrapped her arms around herself as a winged creature—too big to be a bat, but nowhere near the size of a dragon shifter—swooped overhead and disappeared. Silence descended again. It was easy to believe she was truly alone out here. But Dex, Xander and Olly were hiding nearby, and hopefully the police had taken Dex’s anonymous tip seriously and weren’t too far away either.

A blur of movement on the other side of the bridge caught Elle’s attention, but when she looked more closely, it was gone. She squinted into the night, her eyes scanning the outline of trees, lamp posts, a warehouse in the distance, a manhole cover in the road. Then her breath caught and her heart stumbled over itself at the sight of the shape leaning against the railing at the other end of the bridge: a man. A man who hadn’t been there seconds before.

He peeled himself away from the shadows and began walking slowly toward Elle. She took a deep breath, clenched her shaking hands into fists, and moved forward. I’ll be fine, she told herself with each step. Dex was beneath the bridge, Xander was on the road somewhere ahead of her, and Olly was behind her. If Azriel grabbed Elle and ran, someone would stop him with magic, no matter which way he chose to go.

They were several paces away from one another when she realized the vampire coming toward her wasn’t Azriel. The lamplight behind him caught on the edges of his white-blond hair, forming a halo-like glow around his head.

Elle stopped. “You’re not Azriel.”

“No. My name is Nik.” He took another step toward her, and then another. By the time he stopped, he was close enough that Elle could make out his red eyes through the darkness. “You’re Estelle Winter, correct?”

“Correct. What do you know about my mother?”

“It doesn’t matter what I know. We want to know what you know.”

“Well I want to know what Azriel meant when he said my mother tried to hide me from you. Why did she do that? How was she involved with vampires?”

Nik looked around. “Where are your friends hiding?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know they’re here.”

“Where are your friends hiding?” Elle countered.

“I don’t need friends. I can handle this on my own.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He laughed. “Would you like to see what I can do?”

Elle shivered. She wanted to say no, but it wouldn’t make a difference, so she kept her mouth shut. Nik slowly raised his hands, palms facing upward. Elle took an instinctive step back. Another few seconds passed before she made sense of what she was seeing: gold dust—faerie dust—falling from his fingers. Not possible, her brain said, pushing back against what her eyes were telling her.

Gold light flashed away from him, shoving Elle backward and almost knocking her to the ground. But after several stumbling steps, she caught her balance. Magic rippled off Nik in gold waves, then zapped forward and wrapped around Elle. It tugged her right up against him, and for a moment all she could see was his manic grin. “I bet you taste delicious,” he whispered.

Then something flashed between them, and a strong wind shoved her to the side. “Run!” came Dex’s shout. Elle didn’t need to be told twice. A vampire in possession of magic? She was totally out of her league. As she ran away, Xander tore past her in the opposite direction. Thank goodness. Dex might be strong and powerful, but could he take down a vampire who might be even more powerful?

She raced off the end of the bridge and onto the road, heading for the empty car that was waiting a little further around the bend for her. She couldn’t drive it, but Dex had given her a transportation charm. The car would take her to whatever destination she thought of.

But why was it still so quiet out here? Where were all the cops who supposedly wanted to get to the bottom of the abductions? And where were the rest of the vampires she’d been expecting? Was Nik so arrogant that he honestly didn’t think he needed—

Her thoughts scattered as something slammed into her, knocking her into the bushes alongside the road. “Got you!” someone hissed in her ear as pain shot up and down her right side. She saw red eyes, dark hair, but it wasn’t Azriel. She kicked with as much strength as she could muster. Her combat boots would have done more damage, but she had jeans and sneakers on tonight, knowing she might have to run and that sneakers would be best.

The vampire swore at her and yanked on her hair. “You’re dead once we’ve picked everything out of your brain.” He tried to tug her out of the bushes—and then everything became a confusing blur. Shouts, lights flashing beyond the twigs and branches, a magically magnified voice telling someone to surrender, the crack of a gunshot. Elle shrieked and instinctively ducked further down into the bushes. On the other side of her closed eyelids, another light blazed—gold this time—and she feared this vampire was about to use magic on her as well. But the grip on her hair was gone, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the vampire lying motionless a few feet away on the road, and Dex was leaning into the bushes, reaching for her. She grabbed his hand and let him pull her up.

They ran in the direction of the car, but a crackling sound and a flicker of light told Elle something was wrong before they’d even rounded the curve in the road. “Wonderful,” Dex said, slowing to a halt. “Somebody set fire to my car.”

“The warehouse,” Elle said, pointing across the road. “We can hide there. Figure out what to do.”

“Yeah, okay.” They took off in that direction, and Dex used magic to aid them both in climbing up and over the fence. The main entrance into the warehouse had a protective charm on it, but after running around the side of the building, they found a smaller door that Dex was able to unlock with magic. They shut the door, ran up a ramp and into an office, and only then did Elle allow herself to sag against a wall and catch her breath.

“Holy stars,” she gasped. “He used magic. Magic, Dex! But he was definitely a vampire, right? I mean, he can’t be some sort of … hybrid?”

Dex shook his head. “Not possible for a vamp.”

“I know, I know, it’s just … how? How could he use magic like the fae do?”

“I have no idea.”

“Maybe it’s the result of a wish? There are no rules when it comes to wishes. At least, not the kind the Godmother grants.”

“I don’t know.” Dex began pacing. “Yes, maybe that’s it. I can’t think of how else a vampire would have Essence in his system.”

“Right, because even if they drink fae blood—”

“—they don’t get Essence,” Dex finished. “But the Godmother doesn’t deal with vamps. Would she really grant one of them a wish that would make him more powerful than he already is?”

“I don’t know. If the benefit was great enough to her, then maybe.”

“But if it’s something else … if there’s some other way this vampire got his magic …” Dex stopped pacing, leaned on the edge of a desk, and faced Elle. “He might not be the only one.”

“There could be more just like him,” Elle whispered.

“Fae have always been the most powerful. Vampires have speed and strength, but magic has always given us the edge. But vampires with magic … This would put them at the top. If there are enough of them, Elle, this could change everything.”

“I know,” she said faintly.

He rubbed one hand over his face, then exhaled a long, slow breath. His eyes moved over her as he frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask if you’re okay.” He pushed away from the desk and came toward her. “There’s blood on your hand—”

“Oh.” Elle looked down. “It’s just a scratch. I landed in the bushes. I’ve probably got scratches everywhere.” She raised her eyes to his again. “What was happening out there? Did the cops come?”

“Yes. Xander and I got out of the way as quickly as possible. I ran after you, but Xander went looking for Olly. I should probably—”

The squeak of door hinges interrupted Dex. He and Elle both looked in the direction of the door they’d entered through. Dex raised a finger to his lips, then moved to the other side of the office where a second door stood ajar. He pulled it open and motioned for Elle to follow him. They hurried along a passageway and into a large room with hundreds of boxes lined up on shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling. High windows allowed moonlight to filter in. On one side of the room, a metal staircase led up to a gangway and another door. Dex ascended, his shoes making barely any noise on the stairs, and Elle followed.

At the top, they slipped through the door into the next room. Even larger than the one they’d just left, this one was piled high with wooden crates. Elle looked back and saw Dex peeking through the crack of the almost-closed door. “It’s him. The vampire from the bridge.”

“What? I thought the cops would have him by now.”

Dex turned away from the door. “We need to get out of here. If a bunch of fae cops can’t restrain him, I’m pretty sure I can’t fight him on my own.”

“I’m happy to get as far away as possible.” Elle turned and faced the room. “We just need to find a way out past all these crates.” She assumed there must be another door somewhere, but after a hurried examination of the room—darting in and out of all the gaps and makeshift passageways between the towering piles of crates—it turned out they couldn’t access any section of the wall.

“There’s no other way out,” Dex said.

“Can’t you use magic?”

“I could make a hole in the wall if we move all these crates, which I could also do with magic, but he would definitely hear us.”

Elle swung back toward the door as she heard a noise. “I think he’s on the stairs. What do we—”

“We have to hide. Just be quiet, and we’ll be fine. Maybe he won’t even come into this room.”

They moved as far away from the door as they could get and squeezed into an impossibly skinny gap between two rows of crates. Elle strained her ears for any hint of Nik, but all she could hear was her thundering heart and her shuddering breath.

“You okay?” Dex whispered.

“Yes. Sure.” She wasn’t, though. Half of her was terrified Nik would find them, and the other half was hyper-aware of every point of contact her body was currently making with Dex’s. Shoulder, arm, hand, thigh. She swore she could feel his body heat emanating from him. Then his hand moved a little, his pinkie finger wrapped around hers, and if anything could have made her pass out right now, it was this. “So ridiculous,” she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut.

“What?”

“It’s like a scene from a movie,” she blurted out in a whisper. “The hot guy and the awkward girl end up in a confined space. You can feel the tension between them. Next thing they’re kissing, and that’s supposed to make total sense. No! Kissing should be the furthest thing from their minds! They’re about to be caught by a crazy magical vampire! Why aren’t they devising a plan to get out of there alive?”

Dex let out a sound that was somewhere between a choke and a snort. “There are so many things I want to say right now, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Unless one of them is a brilliant plan for how we get out of here alive, I’m not interested.”

A beat of silence passed before he said, “You think I’m hot?”

“Oh come on, you know you’re hot.”

“And you know you’re not awkward.”

“That’s definitely debatable.”

“You’re very … open all of a sudden.”

“Yes, well, maybe it’s the idea of impending death.”

“We’re not about to die.”

“You’re right. We’re probably about to be tortured. Apparently they want to pick my brain apart and then they’re going to kill me. Do you have anything else super helpful you’d like to add?”

“Yes. What terrible movies have you been watching?”

Elle sighed. “Not many, I’ll admit. But Sienna always seems to choose—” Dex silenced her with a squeeze of his finger around hers.

“He’s here,” he whispered into her ear, so quiet she could barely hear him over the pounding of her heart. She sucked in a breath and held it for as long as possible, listening for the sound of footsteps. Eventually, as she was breathing out as slowly and quietly as possible, she heard something. Though she couldn’t see anything beyond the crate in front of her face, she could track the quiet sounds as they moved around the room. Nik was searching, looking around every pile of crates, and eventually he would—

An irritatingly upbeat melody filled the air, startling Elle so much she was in danger of squeezing Dex’s finger right off. The noise stopped, and Nik said, “Yeah? No, but I’m pretty sure she ran in here.” He paused, and when he spoke again, he was closer to Elle and Dex than before. “Are you certain about that? Which side of the warehouse?” He paused again. “Was she with someone? Okay, that could have been her. I’ll head out that way.”

A sizzling sound and a flickering of gold light suggested Nik was using magic. Then came the sound of crates bumping together. Then there was silence. Elle and Dex waited until at least a minute had passed, and then Dex whispered, “I’m going to look.” He shuffled sideways to the end of the gap and peered out past the crates. “Wait here,” he whispered. He disappeared, and Elle spent the next few moments wondering what she would do if he never came back.

“All clear,” he said, startling her as he peered back around the crates.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. He made a hole right through several crates and then the wall. He must have crawled through and jumped down.”

Elle squeezed her way out before slumping against a pile of crates. “Okay, we’re not dead.”

“Nope. See, I told you.” Dex smiled.

“Remember the other night, at the party, when I said this was kind of fun? I was wrong. This is definitely not fun.”

“Yeah, I think I can agree with you on that.”

“Okay, so now what?” Elle asked.

“Now we …” Dex trailed off as a shadow flitted across his face. Elle looked up and around at the windows in between the crate piles, but whatever had cast the shadow was gone. When she looked at Dex again, he was leaning over, his hands pressed against his knees.

“Dex?”

“Damn,” he muttered, and then he collapsed onto the floor.

“Dex!” She rushed to his side and knelt down. As she rolled him over onto his back, a gasp escaped her lips. Dark shadow-like streaks rippled continuously across his skin. “Holy stars,” she murmured. “Dex, can you hear me?” She shook him, but he didn’t respond. She leaned closer and lifted one of his eyelids, then lurched back in fear when she saw his eye was solid black. “What on earth?”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone—but it was cracked down the middle and wouldn’t turn on. When had that happened? Did she land too hard on something when she was thrown into the bushes? It was all too much of a blur to remember.

She searched Dex’s pockets and found his phone. After pressing his thumb against the screen to unlock it, she searched for his recent contacts. “Xander or Olly,” she muttered. One of them would know what to do. Xander’s name was at the top of the call history, and she was about to tap it when she saw Cress’s name further down the screen.

Suddenly, she realized what must be wrong with Dex. This thing that was happening to him was probably the reason he needed a potion from Cress. Elle hadn’t overheard everything they’d said in the greenhouse, but she knew Dex needed that potion badly, and that Cress was worried he wouldn’t be okay without it. And Cress was a dragon shifter, which meant she could travel fast. Maybe she could get here faster than Olly or Xander, since they may have run off after vampires.

Without another thought, Elle tapped Cress’s name and brought the phone to her ear. With every ring, her chest grew tighter. “Please answer, please answer,” she muttered. Finally, the ringing stopped.

“Dex,” Cress said. “I was going to call. I just found some—”

“Dex needs help,” Elle blurted out. “Urgently.”