can’t tell you, and I love you, too, but you need to listen to me. Are you listening?
Yes.
Do you know where the predator is? Right this minute?
Yes! He’s behind me. How did you—
Hide! her mother said. Ann glanced around the crowded lobby and spied a darkened hall. Not looking behind her, she walked toward it. It led to a series of conference rooms. She tried the first glass-paned door. It was open.
Okay. Using her animal vision, she walked through the darkened room until she found a chair. I’m alone.
Keep alert. I don’t want you near the predator until you’ve heard me.
I don’t want to be near the predator at all. I barely escaped just now. I wanted to—
That’s why I’m reaching out to you, but first you have to promise you won’t try to find me.
What are you talking about?
Just promise!
How can I do that?
Promise me.
Ann paused, not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to give up on her mother if she were in trouble.
Promise me, her mother insisted.
Ann pushed her selfish needs aside. What else could she do? I promise.
Thank you. Ann heard the softness in her mother’s voice, remembered the gentleness in it as she’d read her poems and sung to her. In that moment, she would have done anything to feel her mother’s arms wrapped around her, to feel like she belonged someplace.
Now listen to me. Her mom’s voice sounded intense now, no hint of lullaby. I don’t have a lot of time. The predators. I know how they seduce us—and you can stop it.
How?
You’re the only one who can do it. With your resistance, we can save all our kind.
How?
You have to go back to him. You have to get near him, search his pockets, his car, his hotel room.
What?
I’ve discovered their secret.
Their secret?
They’re just humans. They created a pheromone, genetically modified it from something. And they’ve bottled it in two small vials. Silver. They’re passing them among themselves. You have to find them.
Pheromones? That’s how they…seduce us? Shock poured through her. She’d always thought the predators were supernatural. They don’t have magic?
No magic, her mother said. They’re simply human men with a terrible drug.
They couldn’t be human. Her mind raced over the implications, seeking a flaw in her mother’s statement—and she found it. That doesn’t make sense. Whenever they seduced us, it drove them mad. They created something that was just as bad for them as for us.
That was fifteen years ago, Anemone. It was a trial run.
What are you talking about?
They’ve refined it. The pheromone they’ve concocted now—seducin, they call it—it lures us like rats to the Pied Piper. Apparently this new seducin doesn’t drive the wearer insane, but it’s just as much of an aphrodisiac as it ever was for us.
They’re human? She swallowed. Really?
Yes. Someone has designed a trap.
What for? What do they want with us?
I don’t know yet. She could tell her mother was distracted, could feel her peering over her shoulder. Listen, Ann. She envisioned the fear in her mom’s eyes. You need to find the vials and smash them, flush the perfume, destroy it.
Destroying the vials would break the predators’ hold on them, but would it solve the problem? Shouldn’t we destroy the lab first? They’ll just make more. We need to—
Don’t worry about the lab. I’ve got that covered. Can you take care of the vials?
Of course I’ll do it, Mom. To save her family.
You’re strong enough now—I know it. Now I have to run—
Be careful!
The predators, they’re coming as we speak. Don’t try to find me. Don’t use the mindlink. They can track us. I love you—
Her mother’s voice broke off.
Mom?
No one answered.
“Mom?” Her voice sounded so lonely in the empty conference room. “Mom?” she asked again, but Ann was alone.
She sat back in the chair. The residual thrum the mindlink left in her head almost felt like her mother’s arms. Ann could save them! She could free them from the predators, and when she landed that job at Harvard, she could run together with her mother and her siblings.
Then the daydream gave way to reality.
She realized what her mother asked. Finding those vials would take all her strength. She’d have to walk right up to the predator and touch his pockets…. Easier if she were kissing him.
Easier still if she asked someone else to help her. Daniel! Her lover would be immune to the pheromone, and he was strong. Maybe he could help her search for the vials.
Of course, that would mean she’d have to tell him the truth.
Ann stood and tried to tell herself she didn’t mind telling him her true nature. She tried to imagine Daniel at her side rummaging through the predator’s room. He’d help her. Especially once he knew what was at stake for her.
She opened the conference-room door and headed to the elevators, hoping the predator was gone.
He wasn’t. He stood by the far doorway, his eyes on her as she exited the dim hall.
With her chin high, she headed for the elevator. Students walked past him through the door to his right, but he ignored them. He leaned down and nipped his companion’s ear. With her lobe between his teeth, his deliberate fingers traced the woman’s shoulder and spiraled down her arm in slow circles. He caressed the woman’s breast, cupping it in his palm and brushing his thumb over the areola.
As she watched the scene, a jagged bolt of desire raced through Ann. The woman’s wide eyes were locked on something Ann couldn’t see—but beneath her pixie cut, her face flushed.
Ann pressed the up button for the elevator.
Across the lobby, the predator released his companion and walked toward the elevator, toward Ann. He moved like a panther. She saw that the predator wore an official name tag.
The urge to run shot through her veins, but the door pinged open and she went inside. She pushed the close-door button and stuck her key card into the slot for the concierge floor.
He gave her a seductive grin and raised one dark eyebrow. You haven’t escaped me yet, his expression seemed to say.
But she had—or, rather, she would.
2
Chiron crossed the lobby in three long strides, his fists ready. He had to stop Sutherland from getting into the elevator with the woman in the red dress.
The woman stopped Sutherland first, though. She quickly slid a key card through the reader and pressed a button. The elevator closed before Sutherland could get in.
Chiron caught a glimpse of the woman’s face as the doors closed. Beneath her austere ballerina bun, she looked scared, her eyes locked on Sutherland’s. Her hand clutched the skirt of her formal dress.
Chiron breathed a little easier—her fear was good. If she wasn’t ignorant of the danger, she