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  “What do you want with me?”

  “I haven't figured that out yet,” he said, and panic replaced the fear in my blood. “Would you come somewhere with me, Brooke?”

  “Hell, no.” Like I had a choice.

  “I am going to ask you nicely if you will come somewhere with me. You can make this easy or hard. You pick.”

  I'd tried everything. Maybe lulling him into a false sense of trust was my next best move. It was worth a shot.

  “Okay.”

  He nodded and started walking. I thought about running, but even though I was fast, he was faster. I started following him, which was the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my life, and I'd done a lot of stupid things. Troubled kid and all that.

  “Are you coming?” He turned and walked backward, grinning at me. He had one of those smiles that promised trouble. With a capital T. What had I gotten myself into?

  “You're not from around here, are you?” As I said, nearly everyone in Hartsville, New Hampshire had been born and lived here their whole lives. Strange guys didn't just show up.

  “No, I am not. The accent gives it away, doesn't it?” Well, duh. “I am from a little town in England you've never heard of.”

  He veered around a house and out into the woods. I hesitated at the tree line, knowing that if I crossed it, something bad was going to happen. Deciding freedom was worth one last shot, I went for the house. Maybe someone would take pity on a girl being attacked in the middle of the night. I never made it to the porch. The world went out from under me as he threw me over his shoulder.

  “I like you, Brooke. I really do. But I don't want you to make this difficult for me. I've already been quite nice.” He slapped my ass and I screamed in frustration.

  I figured what the hell and start pounding on his back, kicking and screaming for help. I was sure most people were asleep in bed, but maybe someone would hear me.

  “Stop screaming, no one is going to hear you.” With a swift movement I had no idea how he accomplished, he flipped me over and covered my mouth with his hand. His skin was cool to the touch and felt strange. That wasn't the most important thing to focus on, but it was another thing that added to the insanity of this moment.

  His front was pressed to my back, and I tried to move, or gain some leverage or something.

  “You've got fight, I'll give you that.”

  With another flip of his hands, he had me over his back and was running. No, he wasn't running. He was flying. His feet made no sound as they touched down briefly. Leaves, branches and trees spun past me, and all the blood rushed to my head. I was going to pass out any moment, and then he set me down. My knees buckled and I fell onto a carpet of leaves. We were deep, deep, deep in the woods. I was absolutely screwed.

  “I thought this would be more private, don't you think?”

  “What do you want?” I hoped he just wanted to rape me and leave me. That would be the best-case scenario. He'd said he didn't know, but he definitely did.

  “Mostly your blood. I haven't decided on anything else yet.”

  “My blood?” Jesus, this was the end. He was some sort of lunatic that was going to drain my body for some sort of ritual that the people in his head had told him he had to do. Some hiker would find my body in the woods in a few months. My mother would just assume I had run away, and that would be the end of me.

  “You see, love, I am a vampire.”

  “You're a vampire?” I couldn't help the sarcasm that dripped from my voice. I had no filter, even when my life was on the line.

  “It's what you humans have come to think of my kind as. I don't know why I'm telling you this.” He shook his head and looked at the moon that dripped down through the trees. It was full and bright, almost bright enough to read by.

  “Please let me go. I won't tell anyone, I swear.” I still hadn't been able to get off the ground.

  “Don't worry, love.” He crouched down in front of me and I flinched back. He cupped my face with one hand. “Tell me something about you. Anything.”

  “What do you want me to tell you?” What did he want with me? That was what I needed to know.

  “Anything.” He tipped his head to the side, as if I was a painting he was studying to try and find the meaning of. I heard somewhere once about a girl who was kidnapped and gained the trust of her captor. Maybe if he had sympathy, or felt like he had something in common with me, he'd let me go.

  Just maybe.

  I said the first thing that came to my mind.

  “I hate my mother. I know you're supposed to love her and all, and I probably do, deep, deep down. But honestly, you'd have to dig really deep to find it. I can't remember the last time she said she loved me. But she meets some random asshole at a bar and she's in love. They hook up for a while and get drunk and high and whatever, and I have to put up with it because she's my mom. I hate it. I hate it so much, but you can't talk about things like that. You can't say you hate your mother because that makes you a horrible person. So I guess I'm a horrible person.” The words came out in a flood, and I was helpless to stop them.

  He stared at me as if I'd ripped off my clothes and danced around naked.

  “Sorry.” I wasn't sure why I was apologizing. He was the one who'd dragged me into the middle of the woods to do something crazy with me.

  “You remind me of a girl I knew once. Her name was Josie. You look remarkably like her, in fact. Except her hair was a bit longer, and she was a little bit taller. But you have her eyes.” His fingers traced across one of my eyebrows. My eyes were brown. Just plain brown.

  “Tell me something else,” he said.

  So I did. I talked and talked and talked. I talked because I was scared and lonely, and once I started I couldn't stop. I told him so many things. I told him about my mother and how I didn't know who my father was. Probably some loser she just hooked up with once. I told him about Cara and even about Dillon. I talked until my voice was hoarse and I'd forgotten about the part where he said he wanted my blood. I forgot about everything but him and me and the moon. No one had ever listened to me like he did. The entire time he stayed completely still, barely even blinking. Like he could listen to me talk forever. I finally stopped and realized the early light of dawn was peeking over the horizon. I'd been there all night, and I was exhausted and hungry, and I had to pee. Reality set in and I realized this might be the end for me.

  “You think I'm going to kill you now. I can see the wheels turning in that lovely head of yours.”

  “Aren't you?”

  “I might. But then I might not.” He smiled at me.

  “What can I do to change your mind?”

  “Ah, now that is the question.” He stood up and walked around me, as if he was evaluating me. “There is one more thing I need to know before I decide.”

  “What's that?” I said, my mind reeling with the possibilities.

  One moment he was behind me, and the next his face was right in front of mine, our noses touching. His eyes were different colors. He stared into me, as if he was looking for something he'd lost down a well. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to ask a question, but then he dove forward, crushing my lips with his.

  I froze for a moment, my brain trying to catch up with the ambush. No one had ever ambush-kissed me before. No one had ever wanted to kiss me that bad. His hands cupped my face, and he kept going, opening his mouth and asking me the question he couldn't say with words. That was the moment I stopped thinking and started kissing. And kissing. And kissing.

  It was like all the kisses before this one had been practice. Not even that. Those touches of lips couldn't even be called kisses. They were an embarrassment to kissing. My hands found their way around his back and into his hair and all over him. My lips answered his, telling him more things about myself. About what I'd always wanted and never gotten. About things I never knew I wanted until he gave them to me.

  My lips opened and admitted him. Let him in completely and totally. He could have tak
en whatever he wanted from me. I would have given him anything. Anything at all. Even my life.

  He pulled back, and I tried to follow him with my lips.

  “That was what I wanted to know.”

  I was completely out of breath, and most of the blood had left my brain and redistributed. My lips were sore. He'd ravaged them. He'd ravaged me.

  I'd let some creep kidnap me, take me out to the middle of the woods and assault me with his lips. Granted, I hadn't put up a fight when it came to the kissing.

  “What was that for?” I asked, but he had wrenched my arm out, baring the skin under the moonlight. “What are you doing?” It took a moment for my kiss-addled brain to understand that he had my arm, and he had a knife.

  “Stay still.” Oh hell, no. I tried to move, but he just threw himself on top of me, pinning me with his body. “The more you move, the more it's going to hurt, love. Soon you won't have pain. It will only be a memory.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” The words were out before I could stop them.

  “No, I'm going to show you how to live forever,” he said as he sunk the knife into my arm.

  Three

  Ava

  I wake a few hours later when a feather tickles my nose and I sneeze.

  “Bless you,” Peter says, handing me a tissue. Oh thank God, he's still here. “I kept my promise.” He doesn't smile, but he doesn't have to. It's enough that he's here.

  “I see that.” I also see that it's time for me to get up. My head is groggy and slow to work, as if it's been stuffed with something squishy.

  “I can't believe I slept that long,” I say, yawning. My body feels heavy, but not as painful as it did last night. I do get a little twinge when I turn my head from the wound on my neck.

  “You were tired,” Peter says.

  “You're hiding something from me, which isn't unusual. You might as well tell me. You know I don't like secrets.” I feel the lie slip away. Or at least this one.

  “I gave you sleeping medication instead of aspirin,” he said without hesitation. Wow, that was easy. Most of the time, it's like pulling teeth to get him to admit he's hiding something. That worries me because it means he's hiding something even bigger. God help us.

  “You sneaky boy,” I say. I'm not mad about him drugging me. I probably should be, but it is such a small thing, and I do feel somewhat better. Less like I've been hit by a truck and more like I've had a rough weekend with lots of alcohol consumption, which I hadn't done in a while.

  I'm surprised my mother hasn't already come up to see if I'm awake. It's pretty late.

  “Your mother thought about knocking, but she went back downstairs. She is a very perceptive woman,” he says as if he read my mind. He probably did.

  “Yeah, she is,” I say, turning my head. I have an awful crick in my neck, but I don't want to move from my present position.

  “Your phone has been 'blowing up,' as Texas says.” Peter hands me my phone and I see that I have a bazillion messages from her. I hit call under her number.

  “Oh my God, you're alive,” she says, picking up after one ring.

  “So are you. What happened?”

  “It was batshit crazy, Ava. Like, I don't even know. We need to meet so we can discuss this. Viktor's here. Don't worry; he's not going to do anything.” The last part she says a little breathless. Oh, dear. If it was anyone but Viktor, I wouldn't trust them, but Peter trusts him, and there seems to be some sort of master plan for all this crazy. I don't ask her about the new bind and the fact that now Viktor has to kill me. It might put a kink in our friendship.

  “My parents are at the store today. Want to come over? I really, really need to talk to you,” she says.

  “I really need to talk to you, too.” About Thing Three and potentially Four. God, this is getting complicated. How many Things could one person take? There is Thing One, my mother's terminal cancer diagnosis, Thing Two, which is Peter, and then the additional Thing Two-and-a-half, the Claiming. More than enough for one person.

  “Come over as soon as you can. Bring your noctalis,” she says.

  “Will do,” I say and hang up.

  “Looks like we have a double date. I'm going to take a shower. You just... don't go anywhere.” I put my hands up as if he's a dog I'm asking to sit and stay.

  “I would not,” he says, brushing my shoulder as I get up.

  I so, so do not want to be away from him, even if I'm in the next room. I hold onto the key to the trunk that sits at the end of my bed. It’s the only thing of his I can hold onto right now.

  I glance at my neck in the mirror, slowly peeling back the gauze. I have a Peter bite. Mom is definitely going to notice. I can't wear the scarf again or else cause everyone to be suspicious. I'd told her about Peter being a noctalis. She knew about the first time when he strangled me and she knew that he craved my blood, but the mark of his teeth on my neck is shocking, even to me. Did he really need to be that dramatic?

  Surprisingly, it doesn't really hurt. I toss the gauze, which is stained a rusty red from my blood, and undress the rest of the way. My clothes are absolutely filthy. I'll have to sneak my laundry in when Mom isn't looking.

  “Come talk to me through the door,” I say as I turn the shower on. Even a few seconds away from him is too much. He's going to be attached to my hip from now on.

  “How are you feeling?” he says.

  “I've been worse.” Yesterday was much worse, I think while shampooing my hair and trying to keep the bite away from the hot water and soap.

  Images of last night run through my mind. The one that sticks out more than any other was Peter's face as he came toward me. In that second, I thought he was going to do it. To kill me. He didn't, but I thought he would. I'm never going to tell him about that. I don't want him to know I was scared of him that way. You couldn't be scared of someone you truly loved, could you?

  The hot water does little to wash away my guilt. I can't believe I lost faith in him.

  “Talk about something stupid,” I say.

  He's been quiet. Probably listening to my thoughts or something.

  “I am not sure what you consider stupid.”

  “Oh come on, anything that doesn't have to do with blood or binds or promising things or your mother.” Anything other than that.

  “How about we talk about books?” God, I love him.

  “Did you ever finish 1984?” I meant to ask him that a long time ago. In addition to current bestsellers, I've been putting him through the classics, too. He'd gone through most of them in his existence, but that's one he missed somehow. I don't know how, but there you have it.

  “Yes, it was beautiful and tragic all at once,” he says.

  “Exactly.”

  I finish my shower as we talk about the book. I knew it was one he would like. Dark and raw and real. To be honest, that book scares the bejeezus out of me because it seems like something that could actually happen. Hell, I'm in love with an angel vampire. Totalitarian governments aren’t that far-fetched.

  Damn. I realize I forgot to grab some clothes before I stripped down. Well, there is no way I'm putting the dirty clothes back on. Weighing my options, I decide to just wear my towel. It's less embarrassing than Peter picking out my underwear. Not that I'm ashamed of it or anything... I just don't want to deal with things like that just yet. I just got him back. Putting the moves on him seems a little weird.

  “I'm coming out in just a towel. Just to, you know, warn you.” I didn't know what he'd think, but I can feel something start to rage in him and in me as soon as I say it. There it is again, like a black satin ribbon that wraps around us, dancing and teasing.

  Desire.

  Really? We've just been through hell, almost lost each other, and now we want to be all sexy? Really?

  I push the door open slowly, hoping he's not going to tackle me or something equally crazy and also kind of hoping he will.

  There he is, waiting for me. My own version of the perfect man. The t
hing is that Peter isn't perfect. He's far from it, but I love him anyway. I love him from the tips of his wings, to his mismatched eyes to his hair that's always in his face. I even love his dirty feet. I love him even though I thought he was going to kill me last night.

  He looks at me as if he doesn't know what to say. The steam from the shower pours out of the bathroom, and my hair drips down my back. Neither of us can move.

  “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. In my human life or in this one.” Peter finally steps forward, putting one hand on my face. He leans in, kissing my shoulder. “I adore the way you smell.” I should tell him to stop, that we have more important things to worry about, but I can't seem to find the air to even breathe, let alone speak.

  His nose brushes back and forth, as if he's savoring me. I stay still, shaking just a little because I want to kiss him so badly. Yeah, he adores me now that I'm clean. He always smells good. I don't know how that is, must be a noctalis thing. I swallow as his tongue licks moisture from my skin. It doesn’t escape my notice that it would be really easy for the towel just to slip off. My hands are inches away from the button on his jeans. I could just...

  “Ava. You are making this difficult for me. You should put some clothes on,” Peter says, a tiny growl in his voice. Oh, hell.

  He pushes away from me, and it's almost like being slapped. I know he has to, I know he should, but still. I want him so much that it hurts anyway.

  “How can you want me so badly? You make it nearly impossible to stop,” he says, putting his hands behind his back and stepping away. I've left a damp patch on the floor, but I don't care.

  “Close your eyes while I get dressed if it bothers you.” I don't mean to snap, but I'm getting irritable with this Peter. The Peter who says no. I just want him to say yes, even if it's wrong. Even if this is the worst possible time ever to make out and do other things.

  I know it's dangerous, being physical with him. I worry every moment that he's going to crumble to ash in my arms, because he will if he starts loving me, but what if he never does? What if I live my whole life as his Claimed and nothing ever happens? Wouldn't we always wonder?