And the vehicle stopped. Reversed.

Paul tried to drag himself farther across the road. He tried to call out because someone might still be on the radio. “Officer down! Officer—”

The vehicle—an SUV—hit him again. The tires rolled right over his legs, and Paul screamed. Everything went black and all he knew was agony. So much pain.

Too much.

Someone hit him. Punched him in the face. His eyes had been closed—had he passed out?—but Paul’s eyes flew open at that impact.

“You’re not dying, kid.” That voice. He knew that voice. Detective Chance had come back to help him. He must have seen the accident! He must have—

“I’ll let you live a few more hours.” Tanner Chance smiled down at him, and Paul’s blood iced. “But you won’t escape me for too long.” Then Chance drove his foot into Paul’s side. “That’ll f**king teach you,” the detective snarled, “to ever question me!”

Paul spat up blood.

Chance kept smiling. And kicking. And Paul realized Tanner wasn’t there to save him.

He’s the one. Only one vehicle was at the scene. An SUV. Tanner had come back all right.

The detective had come back to kill him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“So what happens now?” Marna asked. It was still dark, and she still wanted Tanner.

Wanting him was becoming natural for her. She didn’t think about it. Didn’t question it. She just . . . did.

“Now it’s our turn to hunt.”

She glanced at him. Saw the hard line of his jaw. “What do you mean?”

He was driving fast, his eyes on the road, not her. “It means we both know that vamp has info on what’s happening in this town.”

That vamp. Riley Kane. “You want me to give him my blood.” She hadn’t expected that. Marna swallowed. She didn’t know if she could do it. The guy’s teeth, in her flesh? “Tanner, I—”

“Hell, no.” He tossed her a fast glance that called her crazy. “We’re gonna track that vamp down to his hole, and we’re gonna make him tell us everything he knows.”

Oh, yes, she liked that plan much better.

His stare slid back to the road. “It’ll be daylight soon. We’ll wait for the sun to rise, then we’ll find him.”

Because vamps were always weaker during the day. So weak, they were almost human.

But weren’t they overlooking kind of an obvious point? “How do we find him?”

He laughed, and the deep rumble had her tensing. Had she ever heard him laugh before? Marna couldn’t remember him laughing. She liked his laugh. It made her almost want to smile.

“Easy, baby. All I have to do is follow my nose.” Shifter senses. She realized that he was taking them back to the Quarter. He’d circled down some narrow streets and was returning to the city. “I’ve got his scent. I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.” Anger roughened the words. A promise of retaliation. “All we have to do is follow the smell of blood and death all the way back to that vamp’s hiding spot.”

Then they’d find out what secrets the vampire held.

Two police cars raced past them, lights flashing.

Tanner frowned, but kept driving.

And Marna wondered just what they’d have to do in order to make Riley talk.

She’d seen plenty of tortures in her time, and they’d always made her . . . sick.

The other angels hadn’t seemed to care what they saw. They’d witnessed carnage. Hell on earth. Heard screams and pleas.

They’d been unaffected.

She hadn’t.

“Bastion, please, I don’t want to do this.” Her broken confession from so long ago. He’d been the only one she told. She’d turned to him because she’d thought he could help her. He’d been higher in the angel rankings. So powerful.

But there’d been nothing he could do.

“What, Marna? Do you want to fall?” He’d shaken his dark head. “Life down there, for us, it’s agony. You would never survive being earthbound.”

Her hands fisted.

They were snaking through the back streets now. Tanner had lowered his window.

The better to catch the vamp’s scent?

Shifters and their noses.

“What was Bastion to you?”

Marna blinked, surprised by the question—and the deadly intensity that had entered Tanner’s voice.

“He meant something, I could tell.” He wasn’t looking at her. “I couldn’t see the bastard, but I smelled him.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “And I recognized that scent. That one, he came to Cody’s when you were hurt.”