Andrea let loose a comfortable yawn and companionably wrapped her arms around my waist as I swallowed mouthfuls of her blood. It was surprising how quickly my thirst was slaked. Then again, there wasn’t much in the way of excitement to stretch the procedure out. It was cordial, efficient—like an ATM transaction.

I pulled back, watching a drop of scarlet run from tiny twin punctures I’d left on her throat. Andrea whimpered and collapsed back on the swing, rolling around like a puppy in high grass.

I lay back, too unsteady to stand. The comfy emotional distance I was enjoying evaporated as Andrea writhed and wriggled. Obviously, she had enjoyed the experience far more than I had. I felt dirty, like some married father of five walking away from an encounter at the Lucky Clover Motel. But at least I knew I hadn’t hurt her. At this point, I just hoped I hadn’t cultivated myself a dandy new stalker.

Andrea’s wounds began to close but didn’t heal completely. Just after the Great Coming Out, I’d read something about the proteins in vampire saliva speeding up the healing process in humans. It seemed only right that we helped them heal after drinking from them.

Andrea’s breathing had returned to normal. She sat up, stretching in a long, lean line. She pulled a prepacked alcohol wipe out of her purse and wiped at what looked like the mother of all hickeys. She tied the scarf in a jaunty knot at her throat and smiled. She looked like a woman who’d just spent an afternoon with a masseuse or possibly on a masseuse.

“Why would you do this?” I asked, wiping at my mouth.

“It’s nice to be needed.” She rose on wobbly legs. “And if you understood what it feels like to be on the giving end, you wouldn’t ask.”

She stood and fished a card out of her purse.

“I’m going to leave my number,” she offered, smiling. “If you’d like to see me again, just give me a call.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, you seem nice, but I don’t know if you’re…”

“Someone you would spend time with in real life?”

Open fanged mouth, insert foot. “No, I didn’t mean…This is so strange. I’m sorry.”

She smiled, her lips thin. “It’s going to be a little strange for a while. I’ll leave it here for you.”

She laid the card on the porch railing and walked away without as much as a look back. Humiliated, I flipped Andrea’s card between my fingers. She seemed so nice. And I hurt her feelings. I made her feel cheap. This was the sort of thing that was going to keep me cringing for days and then strike me at odd intervals over the next year.

Yep, I’m that kind of social neurotic.

If Gabriel would just leave me alone instead of treating me like some undead child, I could find my footing. I would stop making these weird vampire social gaffes. Who asked him to send take-out on legs to my house? Why couldn’t he just let me take care of myself? Smothering, overinvolved, toxically incapable of butting out. He was like Mama with fangs.

Please, Lord, let that be the only time I compare Gabriel to my mother.

I was running before the idea of confronting Gabriel was even fully formed. Still enjoying my newfound inner track star, I sprinted over to Silver Ridge Road at full speed. It was so much better with shoes. I passed a couple of cars, but if they noticed a woman running at sixty-five miles per hour in the dark, they didn’t make a fuss.

I reached Gabriel’s driveway just as I was hitting my stride. Even in my foul temper, I could appreciate the sight of Gabriel’s house. It was about as stately as houses get in the Hollow. Immaculately whitewashed clapboard, big wraparound porch complete with Corinthian columns, and a front door that covered more square feet than my first apartment. It still amazed me that Gabriel had been able to direct public attention away from this place. My mother and her historical society cronies would probably sacrifice their firstborn just to snoop through the root cellar.

And yes, I do realize that would be me. (Jenny had produced grandchildren, after all.)

I slapped the hood of my old station wagon in a sort of greeting, wondering idly if Big Bertha had behaved herself for Gabriel. It didn’t really prick my conscience either way.

Lifting the brass knocker, I was struck by a horrible thought. What if Gabriel wasn’t home? Or worse, what if he was home and had someone with him? Some vampire groupie/snack or another vampire? What if he was feeding? Ick. Or having weird vampire sex? Ickier.

I had turned on my heel and started to run back to my house when I heard Gabriel ask, “Where are you going?”

7

The bond between sires and the young vampires they create is sacred and should be respected.

—From The Guide for the Newly Undead

“Gah! How do you do that?” I yelped, turning to find Gabriel standing in all his noir glory just behind me. “Why didn’t I sense you or smell you or whatever?”

“I move faster than your young senses can detect,” he said, opening the door and welcoming me with a wave of his arm. “You will become more attuned to me in time.”

I chose not to respond to that, striding into the slate-blue foyer with my shoulders squared. He followed, hovering on the edge of touching me. His fingers glided millimeters from my arms, leading me through to the den.

“I fixed your car,” he said, tossing the keys from a jade dish on the little maple end table.

I palmed them and eyed him speculatively. “You fixed my car?”

“I have walked the earth for more than a century. I managed to pick up some skills along the way,” he said, before reluctantly adding, “and one of them is finding skilled mechanics.”

I smirked, leaning against the wall. “You almost had me there.”

“I supervised,” he insisted. He was adorable when he was all flustered and indignant. “That car was a death trap—”

“It’s a classic.”

“A classic with shot brakes, a fuel line that had been gnawed by rodents, and a carburetor that had been rebuilt using duct tape,” he said. “I don’t know what any of that means, but my mechanic said he couldn’t determine what made your car break down because it would have been much easier to look for what didn’t.”

“OK, so I’ve been a little lax in the automotive-repair department,” I said defensively. “And I shouldn’t have let a high-school student rebuild my carburetor. But that doesn’t mean you need to do things like this for me. It makes me feel obligated.”

“That wasn’t my intention. I liked feeling that I was doing something kind for you, Jane. I haven’t felt the urge to do something like that for a woman in a long time. And I thought you would appreciate the restoration of your vehicular independence far more than posies and poetry.”

I smiled, and, encouraged, Gabriel took a step toward me.

“Thanks. I mean, it’s not exactly a sonnet, but that’s really—wait. No,” I said, warding him off. “I’m still pissed at you, seriously pissed. That girl at my house, Andrea. You had no right to do that. Did it even occur to you that you had no right to do that?”

Unimpressed with my outburst, he replied, “You needed someone experienced to help you through your first live feeding.”

I jabbed a finger into his chest, backing him into his living room. “So why didn’t you just send over a hooker? Hell, why didn’t you videotape it? You could have sold it to Vampire Girls Gone Wild.”

He smiled that “pitiful creature, you amuse me” smile. “Jane, your innocence is one of the many things that make you so interesting. It wounds me that you would even think that.”

“First of all, I’m not that innocent. I shoplifted Bonnie Bell lip gloss from the Woolworth’s when I was eight. So there. And second, why are you so interested in who and what I eat?” I demanded, again with the jabbing. “And if you use that ‘I’m your sire’ crap, you will be using your vampire strength to pull a size-nine sneaker out of your ass.”

“Though it’s an entertaining mental image, that was truly vulgar,” he said. “Now, sit, please.”

I flopped back on a cozy tooled-leather couch the color of old wine. A toasty fire licked the hearth despite the midsummer heat. Even in my snit, I enjoyed bathing my face in the warm light. I hadn’t had a chance to appreciate Gabriel’s fine parlor while I was zipping toward freedom. It was just as welcoming and well decorated as the bedroom. Polished, honey-colored wood floors, a thick navy and maroon rug, deep cushy sofas and chairs. This was definitely a wine-and-cheese sort of room.

Watching my mood mellow to just south of truly pissed, Gabriel smiled, his canines gleaming in the firelight. He sat near but not next to me, giving me just enough room to feel comfortable but definitely aware that he could reach out for me at any moment. “So, how was your day?”

“It has been busy,” I admitted. “I drank some fake blood for breakfast, talked to my dead aunt, tried—and failed—to come out to my parents, discovered an unfortunate aversion to solid food, got stabbed repeatedly by my best friend, tested the various ways I can’t die, went to the grocery store, fed from a human—which was something I said I’d never do. You know, normal, everyday stuff.” I laughed far too shrilly. I was starting to sound drunk again. Great.

“Don’t worry about your parents,” he said. “They sounded very kind when I spoke to them on the phone. You’ll find a way to tell them, eventually. I could talk to them for you, if you’d like.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think that would help,” I said. “They don’t seem to remember things when you talk to them. But there is the tiny issue of my mother wanting you to come over for Sunday dinner.”

“She remembered me?” Gabriel’s gray eyes widened.

“You underestimate the mental acuity of the mother of a single woman.” I nodded sagely. “She remembers the vague impression of an available man.”

“Unusual,” he admitted.

“It’s a biological imperative.” I grinned. “Doing that mind-wipe thing over the phone is pretty impressive, by the way.”

“I do what I can. I’ve never tried it on a mother before. I’ll have to concentrate harder next time.”

“Exactly how often do you plan on mind-wiping my mother?”

“I suppose that all depends on you.” He chuckled, reaching out to wind a coil of my hair around his finger. “I’m glad you came by. I was hoping to see you tonight, but I understood that you probably needed some space. I wanted to call you, but I find myself feeling…awkward when it comes to you.”

“‘Awkward’ is the word du jour,” I agreed. “So, I make you nervous?”

“Not quite nervous,” he said. “Just unsettled.”

I wriggled my eyebrows and inched a little closer to him. “Unsettled, that’s even better.”

I reached for his hand and pressed it into mine. “Look, the life I had before I met you, it wasn’t much, but I could handle it. I could have lived that way forever. And now it turns out that I will live forever, only it’s a life I am completely unprepared for. I’ve never been without a plan, OK? I’ve never been without a purpose or a goal or a reason to get up in the morning. And now, I don’t even get up in the morning. I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified.”

Gabriel stared at me with an intensity that was unnerving and, well, mesmerizing. In my compulsive need to fill the verbal void that followed, all of the questions I’d been dying to ask spilled from my lips. After the whole “you sent a random stranger to my house” thing, I figured I was owed some answers.

“What do you do all day—night? Do you have a job? How is it that I’ve lived in the Hollow all of my life and I’ve never even heard of you? Do you feed from live—do we call them ‘victims’? Do you feed from Andrea? Or do you drink artificial blood? And where do we get those blackout curtains?”