Clearly there was another side to Connor.

He stood up, oblivious to the fact that I was apparently losing my mind.

He tilted his head as if he were listening to something I couldn’t hear, something beyond the chatter of voices, the crackle of the fire, and Lucy’s friend playing his drum.

“I have to go,” he said quietly and maybe just a little regretfully. “Stay by the fire.” He’d leaped over the bench and was prowling through the crowd before I could say anything.

“ ‘We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, Till human voices wake us, and we drown.’ ” I quoted T. S. Eliot again, feeling bewildered.

Chapter 5

Lucy

It was almost normal.

I was hanging at the beach with my boyfriend and he was holding my hand and he kept giving me those smoldering sidelong glances I loved so much. Not that I’d admit it to him, but he could probably hear my heart rate change. Sometimes having a vampire boyfriend had its disadvantages. He smirked, as if to prove my point.

We stayed at the edge of the crowd. I knew what it meant when he clenched his jaw in that particular way: temptation. There was lots of space, though, and the wind off the lake blew away most of the scents that made him hungry, like warm skin and blood and the sweat of the girls dancing.

My life’s just weird.

Still, it was a beautiful night. It was crisp and just a little bit misty at the edge of the water. The moon hung sideways, like it was going to fall into the lake and drown if the wind blew too hard. The stars glittered, too many to count. My friend Nathan caught my eye and made the face he always makes when he thinks someone’s gorgeous. He fanned himself dramatically. I just laughed.

It would have been perfect if my best friend would get over herself and get down here.

“So, Solange seriously isn’t coming?” I asked, disgruntled. “Not even for, like, half an hour?”

Nicholas shook his head gently. “Luce, she can’t. She’s not … subtle. She can’t even retract her teeth properly right now,” he added quietly.

“She’s really starting to piss me off.”

“Believe me, I know.” The muscles in his throat spasmed when he swallowed. “Could you do that weird yoga breathing your mom taught you to calm yourself down?” he asked, even as he dipped his head to nuzzle the side of my neck. I tingled all over, my breath going shorter—which was the opposite of calm yoga breathing. His mouth was soft, tickling under my ear. My knees suddenly felt wobbly. I shifted slightly; if I was going to go all embarrassingly mushy, so was he. I slid my hand up his arm, the cool muscles moving under my palm. He was in short sleeves as usual, since vampires rarely got cold. He only wore a coat out in public in winter so as not to draw attention to himself. As if that beautiful, serious face didn’t draw enough attention.

I touched his shoulder, skimming my fingers up to dig into his hair, smiling devilishly.

“It’s not a competition,” he whispered against my lips.

“Show’s what you know,” I whispered back, kissing him until he pulled me closer, his hands on my hips. His tongue touched mine and my smug triumph turned into something else entirely. He was yummier than chocolate.

Someone whistled, the sound piercing through the very tiny space left between our bodies. Applause followed. I opened my eyes to half my classmates watching us. Nicholas swore softly under his breath.

“So much for stealthy,” I said cheerfully.

He turned toward the cliff, tugging me behind him. His teeth gleamed.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Just give me a minute.” He was very pale, as if he were made of seashells and pearls. It was deceptive. Nothing cut deeper than a broken seashell, despite the delicate opal shimmer.

I put my hands in my pockets and turned on my heel, watching the fires gleam on the still lake and the elongated shadows of my friends in the sand. Nicholas was more private than I was, and he always wanted to do his vampire-struggle thing alone. I was finally learning to let him, even though it went against all of my instincts not to get right up into his face to see if I could help him. Or at least bug him until he was himself again.

I saw Quinn and Connor both detach themselves from the party and come our way, just as Nicholas swore again, differently this time. When I glanced back at him, his head was tilted, his eyes fierce. His fangs were fully out again. “Someone’s coming,” he said.

Quinn and Connor reached us before I could say anything. They both looked grim. Hunter ran through the sand behind them, scowling.

“I said, wait up,” she muttered. “Hey, Lucy.”

“Hey, Hunter.” She was wearing a short sundress and sneakers. She looked like any other girl at a bonfire, but I knew she had at least eight different weapons stashed all over her. I had a stake in my boot and two more in the inside pocket of my jacket. Nicholas’s nostrils flared.

“Hel-Blar,” he spat. “Coming down the cliff, behind that cave.”

I couldn’t smell the wet mushroom, green swamp smell of a Hel-Blar vampire, but then I had a regular, boring human nose and the wind was blowing off the lake. I smelled only smoke and water and, if I inhaled hard enough to make myself dizzy, a faint whiff of Hunter’s shampoo.

“Stay here,” he added. He and his brothers were gone in a blur of pale skin and pale eyes before we could answer.

“Yeah, right,” I said anyway, knowing he’d hear me.