“Alright. I’ll catch you later,” Stacia said, turning on her heel and heading out on foot at a very fast walk.

Chris waited till she had disappeared before turning to Nika. “She knows she could get a ride, right?”

“Would you? If Tanya was acting as bait? Or would your feet send you running? And I can assure you she started jogging as soon as she was out of our sight,” the telepath said. She patted his arm. “Let’s go. I want Auntie time with the little ones while you stuff your face.”

He left off looking in Stacia’s direction and turned to the two guards standing by the SUV. Maybe, he thought, she’s got the same bad feelings about this hunt that I do.

Chapter 13

He came around the corner of the building, a tall, lean young man with messy dark hair and blue eyes, a modern messenger bag slung over one shoulder. He was over a hundred yards from where she was sitting, walking just behind a large group of laughing students, taking his time, in no particular hurry. Her preternatural vision brought her details as if he was just a few feet away.

Darkness had fallen and the hilltop campus was lit with pools of bright light from plentiful street and building lamps. It was early evening and there was still a great deal of activity and energy on campus, with dining halls in full dinner mode, late classes letting out, and students hitting favorite study sites in the student union and at both libraries.

Still, it might be an opportunity she hadn’t planned on. Her instincts, bred from eons of experience, told her not to use her standard approach with this male, and so she had turned to a different path. Well, truth be told, her instincts and the briefing of the Fae. But the patient hunter studies her prey and thus she had set up at her current spot, waiting and watching, knowing this was the likeliest path.

It had been so, so easy to get his class schedule, the young man in the Registrar’s office falling all over himself to hand it to her, all in the futile hope she would favor him enough to notice his advances.

Humans. Their incessant need to breed made them boringly predictable. Except this one. Maybe. The little fairy princess had warned her off from trying sex appeal, which was the Summer slut’s own favorite weapon. And so she had chosen a different primary approach, one that seemed to be bearing fruit. Truth be told, this primary way was all the more interesting for its novelty.

But why not take a shot here and now? He would pass within twenty or thirty yards of her position in a few moments’ time. Why not approach him head on, in this form, and stun him with her exquisitely crafted shell? Then hook into his mind and lure him into the dark.