Alexander and I didn't even have time to discuss the event at the pool. We immediately whisked the nerdmates into the car and chaperoned them safely home. Once again Valentine had threatened my brother's safety and fled into the night. I wasn't sure when he'd reappear with another plan of revenge.

When Billy Boy and I returned home, I was forced to spill my guts to my parents about my brother's injurious actions. Valentine, like his older brother, Jagger, had a charm that was magnetic, if not hypnotic. The nerd-mates had fallen under the tween vampire's bewitching spell. The only way I could impede their adoration was by involving Sarah and Paul Madison.

"You did what?" my mother hollered at Billy Boy when I told her about the blood brothers ceremony. "Do you know how dangerous it is to stick a needle in your finger?"

"We used alcohol," Billy Boy protested.

"But you deliberately tried to mix your blood with your friends' blood," my mother argued. "I thought you were smarter than that."

"I remember back in my day, it was common for boys to become blood brothers," my dad confessed. "Like a rite of passage. However, times have changed, Billy. Now, what seemed like a harmless ritual can be very unhealthy, if not fatal."

"We didn't even touch each other," Billy Boy whined. "Raven jumped in between us."

My mother appeared surprised, then relieved.

"Raven has pierced every inch of her earlobe and she never gets in trouble," my brother argued.

"I take offense to that. I'm in trouble all the time!" I defended myself proudly. "I don't understand why I'm getting all the heat," Billy Boy said. "Alexander pushed Valentine."

"He did what?" my dad asked.

"Valentine tried to choke Alexander," I explained. "Alexander pushed his hand away, that's all."

"Maybe it's best you and Valentine take a break from each other for a few days," my dad warned.

"You can't do that! He's my best friend!" Billy Boy was enraged. He mumbled something unintelligible and stormed upstairs.

I felt this tense situation was going to get worse before it would ever get better.

Billy Boy's grounding meant that for the next week he would be safe from Valentine.

However, the next day I stewed in class. Valentine was pursuing more than my brother's thoughts in Dullsville's rec center pool. In addition, Valentine confronted Alexander head-on, not only declaring I was inadequate for my vampire boyfriend, but also trying to read his soul. With every sunset, Valentine was becoming more confrontational, as if he were a grizzly bear hunting for food in a family's backyard.

I couldn't shake the image of Valentine's hand on my boyfriend's neck. I wondered what Alexander's thoughts were. Was he imagining breaking up with me, now that he thought I was a coward? I wondered if he'd regretted his decision not to be with Luna.

Instead of longing for the sunset, I was dreading it. I wasn't sure how I'd ever be able to face my vampire-mate. At lunch, once again I was desperate to tell Becky everything.

"Why are you so long in the face?" she asked. "Prom is only a few days away."

I wanted to tell her my dilemma. Explain how Alexander had left Luna at their covenant ceremony because he didn't want to take her into the Underworld unloved. Reveal then that Jagger, who followed Alexander to America to seek revenge, met me in Hipsterville and followed me back to my hometown. And now Alexander and I were faced with Jagger and Luna's younger brother, Valentine, who was seeking revenge on behalf of the Maxwell clan. All the while, I was struggling with a big decision: whether to someday face my own mortality--or immortality--by bonding with my vampire-mate for eternity.

I was dying to spell out for my best friend how easy she had it, dating a mortal. Nothing more to decide at the end of the day than what music to download or what television show to watch.

"If I told you something," I began, "and I made you promise not to tell anyone...not even your family or Matt, could you do it?"

Instead of Becky eagerly nodding her head, she bit her red chipped fingernail and thought. And thought. And thought.

"This isn't multiple choice. It's a simple yes or no!" I snapped.

"Well, it's more complicated than that."

"How complicated can it be? You can either keep a secret or you can't."

"I'm just not sure." "I'm your best friend. You should keep a secret just because I asked you."

"I know...you're right, but--"

"I've told you a million things before and it was never an issue."

"That was before," she admitted.

"Before what?"

"Before Matt came into my life. I don't think it's healthy to keep secrets from him."

"This secret has nothing to do with him."

"What if it slips out?"

"It can't slip out. It's the most secretest of all secrets. Aren't you even curious?"

"I'd feel funny if I hid something from him."

I was slightly jealous of her sudden allegiance to Matt when it meant leaving me, her best friend, in the dark.

"You think he tells you everything?" I snipped. "From the time he rises to the time he sleeps? Every thought he has? Every song he listens to?"

"That is his choice. Besides, I believe he tells me everything," she said confidently, just as Matt joined us.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," Matt began, "but a few of the guys on the soccer team have booked a limo for prom."

Becky smiled and gave me a knowing glance.

She was right. I'd have to carry my secret to the grave. That evening, when I arrived at the Mansion's gate, my usually awaiting vampire was a no-show. I hiked up the long driveway in my Morbid Threads black-and-white-striped tank, black flowered embroidered skirt, black knee-high fishnets, and Black Kitty Mary Janes.

I rapped on the door with the serpent knocker. The Mansion door stood still, as if it were peering down at me, barring me from returning to see my vampire-mate.

I knew it--Alexander was having second thoughts about me.

I walked around the side entrance. The Mercedes was parked at the detached garage. I knocked again, but no one answered.

I returned to the front door and pounded my fists on the wooden entrance.

I could hear the bolts unlock, and slowly the Mansion door creaked open. Jameson popped his head out.

"Miss Raven, I'm surprised to see you."

"Alexander and I were supposed to meet by the gate."

"I thought you knew, Miss Raven. Alexander's gone."

Gone? My heart felt like it fell out of my chest and dropped between the weed-filled cracks in the Mansion's uneven front steps.

"He moved back to Romania?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"No, he went out for the evening. I thought he was meeting you."

"So did I."

Jameson seemed worried. "Alexander was behaving oddly this evening." "There's someone he visits when he feels troubled. I think I might know where he has gone," I said.

"Can I drive you somewhere?"

"That would be wonderful!"

Jameson drove the Mercedes as slowly as if he were pushing the car with his feet. I figured by the time we reached Alexander, I'd be as old as the creepy man himself.

Jameson finally parked in front of Dullsville's cemetery.

"I'll just be a minute."

I ran between the tombstones and straight to Alexander's grandmother's monument.

There, crouched by the memorial, was my boyfriend, placing a handful of wildflowers by the grave marker.

"Alexander--"

He glanced up at me, surprised.

"We were supposed to meet at the Mansion," I said.

"I lost track of time. I just came here for a minute to get some wisdom. My grandmother was a wonderful woman. She was different from our family but always longed to be one of us. You remind me of her."

"You don't want us to be together--now that you've heard what Valentine said."

"Now I understand why, when we were at the gazebo, you said you liked me for who I was. You were worried Valentine would say something."

I nodded. "It was just a moment in the cave. If I had known ahead of time, everything would be different." "Would it?"

"Don't you trust me?"

"I don't trust myself. I've let you into my world far too quickly."

"Please, don't say that."

"I never meant to frighten you."

"Me, frightened?"

"I don't want you to become like me. I've never asked you to join my world. I don't want you to be afraid that I will put you in that position."

I pulled him close. "Please, don't say such things. If more humans were like you, the world would be a much better place."

"Maybe we are deceiving each other--you thinking you can be a vampire, and me thinking I can be with a mortal."

"Please, this is exactly what Valentine wants. He's trying to take revenge on us by destroying our relationship. We were fine before he came."

Alexander's sullen eyes started to sparkle.

"You are right. I am playing right into his blood-reading hands." Alexander took my hand in his. "I would be nothing, in your world or mine, without you."

Alexander kissed me as Jameson flickered the lights on his car.