At one point, while the bus rumbled down the road, Lucas reached up to stroke my hair. I realized that he thought I was asleep—really, I nearly was—and somehow that made it even sweeter.

Mostly, though, we finally got some rest.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I pulled Lucas into the great hall of Evernight, which was decorated for the Autumn Ball. Candlelight softened the room into shadows, and the dancers moved easily through the steps of the waltz the orchestra was playing.

Lucas shook his head and tugged at the tie of his evening suit. “This is so not my scene. But seeing you like this—it’s worth it.”

I wore a strapless white dress that flowed from the empire waist to the floor, and I could see enough of my fading reflection in a nearby mirror that I knew I wore white flowers in my hair. Never had I felt so beautiful.

But that wasn’t because I’d dressed up. It was because I was finally here with Lucas.

“Do you know how to waltz?” I whispered to him.

“Not a clue. But if you want to dance, let’s get out there and fake it.”

Laughing, I let Lucas take me in his arms, and we spun upon the dance floor. No, he couldn’t waltz, but it didn’t matter that we didn’t fit with the other dancers. I watched them all around us—Patrice with her hand in Balthazar’s, Courtney snickering at Ranulf’s clumsy footwork, Dana neatly leading Raquel through a turn—and wondered why none of them danced the way they wanted to.

Then another figure appeared amid the dancers, a translucent figure that shimmered in aquamarine. The wraith came close to us and said, “May I cut in?”

“Of course,” I said, wondering how she knew Lucas and why she wanted to dance with him. But it was my hand she took, and I gave him a regretful glance as the wraith and I got lost in the crowd of dancers. I could see him watching me, but then the crowd swallowed him up.

I awoke with a start. Quickly I glanced around to remind myself where I was and rested my head on Lucas’s shoulder again. He mumbled something in his sleep before drowsily turning toward me, and I smiled, reassured.

We got to Philadelphia in the late afternoon. That wasn’t so much where we were heading as it was a place for us to go, a city large enough for us to get lost in. Better yet, Philly had no permanent Black Cross cell. It was less likely that they’d be able to mount a large-scale hunt for us there.

“We’ll stay here a couple of days at least,” Lucas said. “We can find someplace cheap. Lie low. Figure out our options.”

“Buy some more clothes,” I said, motioning to our bedraggled T-shirts and jeans, “so we look a little less homeless.”

“We are homeless,” Lucas pointed out.

I hadn’t thought of it that way before. “Clothes,” I insisted.

“Not a whole new wardrobe but some clean stuff. And toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant—”

“Yeah, I get your point.”

A trip to a big-box store took care of all that. I got a couple of cheap little sundresses, one in dark blue and one in a deep green, that looked cool and comfortable, a simple purse that would go with everything, and a pair of thong sandals that would see me through the summer. Lucas grabbed some khakis and a couple of black T-shirts. Then we went to the drugstore section to get everything we needed to be less stinky, more pretty.

We turned the corner and there, lined up in rows, were the condoms. I started to avert my eyes, the way I always did, because I’d always been slightly embarrassed just by the packaging. I’m that big a wimp. This time, though, I stopped.

“Maybe we should get some,” I said. I meant to sound womanly and confident, but instead it sort of came out squeaky.

“I guess.” Lucas gave me a long, hard look. “Bianca, you know there’s no rush.”

I played with the ends of my hair, which had become suddenly fascinating. “I know that. I do. It’s just—if we want—we should have them around. Just in case. Right?”

“Yeah.”

For a couple seconds, neither of us moved, but then Lucas took the closest box and dropped it into our basket. My heart turned over stealthily, surprising me with the warm glow that seemed to light me up.

I couldn’t make eye contact with the lady at the checkout counter. She didn’t seem to care, though.

We got a hotel room downtown, not far from the bus station. It was nicer than I would’ve expected, for the price—a coffeemaker in the room, a big TV, a nice bathroom with a blow-dryer and tons of fluffy white towels, and a very large bed.

“We should get some more rest before we get anything to eat,” I suggested. We were both so tired that, even with the condoms sitting there in their plastic bag, I couldn’t think of the bed except as a place to sleep.

Lucas seemed to feel the same way. “Yeah, let’s. There are some diners around here we can go to later on.”

“You know Philadelphia?”

“Been here a couple of times. That’s all.”

Together Lucas and I crawled into bed. Nothing was on my mind but sleep—until the moment we were under the covers, with him next to me.

We reached for each other at the same instant. Lucas’s mouth found mine, and we kissed desperately, like we hadn’t been together for years. His arms pulled me close, and I wound both my legs around one of his as our kisses deepened.

Within seconds, it felt like we were still too far away. I grabbed his T-shirt and started tugging it off him; he helped me with that, then pulled mine off. We kissed again, the touch electric with the feel of his skin on mine, but it still wasn’t enough. With shaky hands, I fumbled with my bra straps, pushing them down, then finally unhooking it.

I’d always thought I would feel embarrassed the first time a guy saw me undressed, but I didn’t. Lucas looked at me like I was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, and when he stroked me with one hand, the feeling was better than I’d imagined it could be.

I took his hand in mine and guided it down to my jeans. I wanted to show him all of me. I wanted to feel that beautiful all over.

Lucas helped me undress, then wriggled out of his own jeans and tossed them across the room. I’d never seen a na**d guy before except, like, in paintings and on the Internet. Somehow I’d never thought of the sight as beautiful, not until now. I liked how Lucas looked, how he felt in my hands, the gentle way that he touched me. Whenever I had a moment that I felt nervous or didn’t know what to do, he kissed me again, and all my fear went away.

Mine, I thought. It was the same kind of hunger that overtook me when I wanted his blood, but better, because this way I could drink him in again, and again, and again. The crazy need to bite him was gone, replaced by something else, something that had nothing to do with being a vampire—instead, it was part of being alive. At long last, after years of my wanting him, Lucas truly belonged to me.

Finally, when we were almost past the point of self-control, he whispered roughly, “Bianca, are you sure?”

“So sure,” I said, winding my hands through his hair. “This is how it’s meant to be.”

“Yeah.” Lucas kissed me again, and for the first time in months and months, I knew that, right now at least, everything was perfect.

The next morning, I stirred drowsily in bed, realized that I was actually in a bed, realized that Lucas was asleep next to me, that we were both na**d and then memory came thundering in.

My eyes went wide. Did I really—

Yes, I did really.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy about it, because I was. Even though I was a little bit sore—in places I hadn’t known I could be sore—I’d never felt so overjoyed or loved or sure.

Everything seemed so surreal, that was all. Me, in bed with a lover. I pulled the sheet around me tightly, grinning and silly, and it seemed like a shame to leave Lucas out of the joke.

I tickled his leg with my toes, and he shifted against his pillow. One eye opened groggily. Then he grabbed me so quickly it made me squeal with laughter, and towed me on top of him.

“Good morning,” he murmured between kisses. “I could get used to this.”

“Me, too.”

For a while we simply kissed each other, silly and messy and yet more and more intense. My body felt tingly all over, and I wondered if it was too soon to give it another try.

Before things got to that point, though, Lucas pulled back from me and smiled. “I think I’ve figured out what we’re going to do.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out, too, seeing how we’re na**d in bed together.”

“Not that, wanton woman.” He grinned at me in amazement. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“Something good.”

“That I knew.” Lucas kissed my hand. “What I meant was, I know what we can do next for cash, to get ourselves settled. It means taking another loan, which I don’t like, but at this point I figure we’d better deal with it. We’ll have run through the cash Balthazar gave us within a week at this hotel.”

I had no problems asking for help right now. We genuinely needed it. “You have a friend in Philadelphia?”

“So do you. Think about it.”

And as soon as I thought, I could envision the Phillies cap on his sandy hair. My face lit up in a smile. “Vic!”

Lucas called Vic and arranged for us to meet at one of the downtown diners for lunch. We walked there hand in hand, me in my new green sundress, holding Lucas’s hand. I imagined that people were looking at me differently—that somehow they knew—but I thought probably that was just me being silly. I felt exactly the same, only happier than I’d been in a long while. Lucas, too, seemed relaxed; I couldn’t remember another time I’d seen him completely at ease.

When we went inside, Vic was already sitting in a booth, Ranulf at his side. He raised one hand in a wave. “Guys! Man, is it good to see you.”

I hugged Vic tightly, then did the same for Ranulf. Although Ranulf remained rail thin, with his soft brown hair worn in a bowl cut, he was now wearing khakis and a Hawaiian shirt almost identical to the one Vic had on. I wondered if he’d borrowed it from Vic or whether he was simply buying whatever Vic bought, the better to fit in with the twenty-first century. Of course, dressing like Vic didn’t really mean fitting in, but Ranulf was still catching on to the modern world.

Once Vic was done hugging Lucas, he stepped back and said, “Lucas, this is Ranulf, my roommate after you up and ditched me. Ranulf, this is Lucas. I don’t know if you guys met at Evernight or what.”

“We spoke once,” Ranulf said helpfully, “in the library. I asked you who the saints were that some people spoke of in New Orleans, and you explained that they were not religious icons but a sporting team. It was very enlightening.”

“Yeah, no way I could forget that.” Lucas gave Ranulf a lopsided smile. Although he remained suspicious of most vampires, nobody could really be afraid of Ranulf.

“So what are you guys doing in Philly?” Vic said as we all took our seats in the booth. “Is this some big elopement drama? Do Ranulf and I have to be witnesses?”

“No,” I said. My cheeks felt warm, and I couldn’t tell if I was blushing at the whole idea of getting married or the fact that Lucas and I had sort of already had the honeymoon. “We’re just—well, we’re trying to get settled. And stay hidden.”

Vic looked unexpectedly stern. “Did you call your parents?”

“I e-mailed them,” I answered. “They know I’m all right.”

Lucas turned to me, suddenly tense. “You did? When?”

Oh, no. Too late I remembered what the consequences of that e-mail had been. I’d meant to tell Lucas the truth, but then Balthazar’s capture had distracted me. Although I hated doing this in front of our friends, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to confess. “The first night we were out on patrol. Remember when I slipped away to get something to eat?”