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Could you be in a lasting romantic relationship with someone whose politics you disagreed with?This question is too vague, because some political issues are secondary and some are primary. I don’t want a partner who agrees with me 100% of the time, but some political disagreements would be too big to ignore in a relationship.

The test did then ask a few political questions. Leslie bit her lip again as she read his answers to those, but…wow. They agreed about the most important issues.

Maybe there was more to this test than fodder for a dare. She kept reading. A few true-or-false added even more variety, and here he’d had no opportunity for commentary.

Sometimes revenge is justified.True.

Sometimes a white lie is justified.False.

At a social event, I…

…would rather tolerate bad food than bad music.False.

…am half-hoping no one starts to dance.False.

…am the one giving the toast.True.

Life is chaos.False.

Life is a gift not to be taken for granted.True.

I’m more than the sum of my accomplishments.

Odd. He’d left that one blank. It was the only blank on the entire test.

The final question, a return to the mini-essay, made her blink. Ryker had written alot.

Describe your ideal date.Oh man, this one’s tough. I don’t think I have an ideal for myself. I like being active, up for just about any physical challenge. I like using my head too—escape rooms, dinner theater, stuff like that. I’d enjoy dinner and wine and talking, or dinner and a movie, or whatever. Really whatever. As long as she was enjoying it too. I can handle black tie and I can handle trail gear and I’m really happy with either or with anything in between. I hope she doesn’t read this and roll her eyes. I’m not trying to play chameleon here. I just enjoy a lot of different experiences, and besides the most important thing on the first date isn’t what I’d have fun doing but rather showing up to be worth the second date.

Where had Laurence Ryker Gould Maddox come from? Some alternate universe?

Leslie stood up, paced around her room, then flopped onto the bed again, pages still clutched in one hand. This could be real. This could be worth it. Her bones knew. Her senses thrummed with the knowledge. Everything sharpened around her—colors and angles, scents and sounds. She closed her eyes against the brightness of the ceiling light. She stilled her breathing and listened to her own heartbeat. Slow and steady, a normal thirty beats per minute. Outside her window, a stray cat darted overthe grass and up a tree, its claws gripping and scratching bark. Beyond the cat, insects rasped and chirped. A pickup truck coasted down the street, some small unsecured item rolling around in the bed. Leslie smelled the feline odor, the truck’s exhaust. She focused her senses and found other aromas seeping around the seal of her bedroom window. Flower beds, mostly.

She forced herself up off the bed and changed into a pink sleep shirt covered with a shooting-stars print. She turned out the light and crossed the room in what humans called “the dark,” a pleasant monochrome that Leslie couldn’t understand as darkness. To her, darkness existed only when she closed her eyes. In her bedroom, blackout shades drawn, everything was visible. Only color was missing. She hadn’t been born with night vision; her memory could vaguely bring back the day she’d first experienced it, a few weeks before she turned twelve. But her brain had so fully adapted to her vampire senses, she was mostly incapable of remembering what the world had been like without them.

She crawled beneath her duvet and let her body sink into the comfort of her bed. Nearly ten days was a long time to stay awake, and now that she’d lain here a few minutes, muscles relaxing, pulse slowing…she was tired.

She’d done a lot today. Sold a lot of art. Chatted with a lot of humans (and one wolf). Met her backup husband.

Her heart gave an extra beat, and she pressed her palm there. Tomorrow she would sell more art, chat with more people. Tomorrow she would see Ryker again. She’d be rested this time. Ready for their second date. For possibilities that had been nowhere on her horizon this morning.

Five

When Ryker slid his key card over the reader and let himself into his hotel room, the clock had passed four in the morning. He hadn’t seen a single human on his way from the lobby doors to his room. He shut the door behind him and pocketed the key card. His eyes darted to the mini-fridge as though by a magnet.

He had forgotten to slake.

As always, the realization seemed to unmute his body’s demands. His left hand latched onto his throat as he darted across the room and opened the fridge. The hotel staff had done their job, filled the fridge with enough blood packs to last him a week. The rich, salty scent was like a sucker punch. His thirst increased almost to the level of pain. He snatched up one of the bags and popped the seal so fast he nearly tore the bag. He brought the little nozzle to his lips and drank. It tasted like heaven. His fangs descended in response. Unobserved, he guzzled. He groaned as the thirst lingered for a moment, punishment for ignoring his needs, but as he finished draining the blood bag, his body gave him a break. The thirst faded.

Ryker sprawled across the stuffed chair in the corner. The thirst was no big deal for him, never had been even as a young adult—until he failed to notice it thanks to some task or interest that absorbed his attention too long. His hands shook a little as he dug his phone from his pocket, but he’d be fine in a minute. Ingested blood hit a vampire’s system in anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes; and in addition to his ability to ignore the thirst for hours at a time, he’d always had an extra-quick metabolism. His fangs retracted as he dialed his best friend and set the phone on the table. Out of curiosity he’d once tried to hold it to his ear the way humans did. He’d nearly blacked out from the unbearable volume that pierced his head.

“Well? Did you meet her?”

“Yeah,” Ryker said.

“What’s wrong with—? Right. You forgot to slake. Again.”

Ryker rolled his eyes. It was one of the few things a vampire couldn’t hear over a phone line. “I was preoccupied.”