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We ascend the stairs together, hand in hand. When we reach the landing, knowledge materializes in my head with a certainty that’s almost frightening. I know that Wolrath is on this floor, that he’s in an office at the end of the hallway. I know he’s alone in the room but speaking on the phone.

I drag Victor over to the railing that looks down at the party below.

“He’s on the phone,” I breathe out.

Victor slides his fingers up the side of my arm, the bug eyes of his mask staring at me. “Told you that you had more Hunter in you than you realize.”

My chest tightens. Is this what it’s like? Is this how my sister always knows where her prey is? I think of the time she saved me and Chloe from an attacker when we were in college. How she just knew that we were in danger.

“Almost time,” Victor says softly, still running his fingers up and down my arm until goosebumps pebble the skin beneath my catsuit. The party rages on below us, the music thumping steadily, nothing but bass. I can hardly breathe behind the mask, and part of me wants to take it off, wants to take a big deep breath of air and run back down the stairs and just be human.

But I don’t move. Because that’s only a small part of me. The human part of me. The part of me that’s prey.

The air shifts, and it suddenly feels warm there by the balcony, hot and sultry like in a jungle. “Let’s go,” Victor whispers, grabbing me by the waist to pull me down the hallway. We pass other partygoers—a grim reaper, a woman in rabbit ears and a bikini. They look at us, but they don’t see us, not really. They don’t see what we are.

It’s exhilarating.

I know what door Wolrath is hiding behind. It’s made of dark, polished wood, and it’s shut against the party. I know he’s not on the phone anymore, that his call is over, that we only have a few moments to act. I taste copper in the back of my throat, burn with excitement between my legs.

“Last chance,” Victor murmurs, his gloved hand on the doorknob. “You can wait for me downstairs.”

I’m aware of the cool steel of the knife pressing against my skin. The knife with my name on it, the knife I used to initiate my sister all those years ago. And here I am, at another initiation.

“Open it,” I whisper.

And he does, pushing it hard so the door swings wide, revealing the dark tones of the office.

“Room’s off-limits.” Wolrath’s voice is deeper than I expect from the way he looks in his pictures, a low rumbling baritone. He’s not looking at us, though. He’s at his desk, staring intently at his laptop. “This isn’t⁠—”

Victor slams the door shut behind us. Wolrath finally lifts his eyes from the screen.

“Brad?” His gaze flicks over to me, then scans down my body. I grab at Victor’s hand in a snake-strike of rage. No. Nicholas Wolrath is not allowed to look at me like that. “Is this Kaylee? Go ahead and take her downstairs. I’m not ready yet.”

“I’m not Brad,” Victor says.

He doesn’t sound like the Victor I’ve spent the last few days with. He sounds like the Victor who shredded my tires and threw me in a cabin and told me to fight him.

My pussy clenches with a sudden flare of desire.

“Yeah, very funny.” Wolrath sounds bored. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway? Is that from a movie or something?”

“No,” Victor says.

I hold my breath. Victor’s fingers are tight around mine, reining me in. Not yet, I think, not sure if it’s my thought, his thought, or some whisper from the gods.

Wolrath looks over at us again, and this time, I catch it: a scent like oranges and cardamom and jasmine. I’ve never smelled anything like it before, and it fades as quickly as it arrives.

“Why don’t you take off that mask?” He tries to keep the question light, but there’s a wobble of suspicion lurking beneath. “It’s got to be uncomfortable.”

That’s when Victor acts. He flies across the room, his body a dark blur, and grabs Wolrath and slams him down against the table. He slides one hand over Wolrath’s mouth and squeezes his jaw shut. Wolrath makes a muffled grunt and squirms against the desk. I smell it again, jasmine and cardamom.

Fear, I realize. I’m smelling Wolrath’s fear.

For a moment, the room seems to spin around me.

“My girlfriend and I are going to kill you,” Victor says in that dark, throaty voice.

Girlfriend. The word buzzes hotly in my head. Is that what I am?