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“Sure.” Tai padded over to their piled gym bags and dug out his phone.

“Wait, why?” She hadn’t been self-conscious until this moment, but now…

“I want you to see yourself,” Ryker said, suddenly somber. “How you move. You’re beautiful, and I want you to see it.”

Oh… She blinked a few times against the emotion that rose inside. “Well…um… Okay, then. Go ahead, Tai.”

But she couldn’t get in a single hit now. No doubt she looked ridiculous up against Ryker’s skill. No doubt she’d cringe as she watched the video Tai silently recorded from the sidelines. No doubt Ryker thought she was laughable even if he didn’t say so.

“Leslie,” Ryker said without pausing his steady forward motion, crowding her toward the edge of the mat, “fight back. You were fighting back before.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, you do.” He batted away her measly attempt to hit him, then batted again. “You could hit me before.”

“You were letting me.”

“No, I wasn’t. Come on.” He chopped her upper arm with the side of his hand, but there was no force behind it. “Come on!”

Fine. She’d prove her incompetence on camera. She flew at him, twisted midair and hammered a roundhouse kick toward his face. He ducked, and her foot passed over his head, and with a hiss she launched into the air again, this time trying with both hands to pummel his chest. Ryker leaped back, and Leslie landed short, on her feet but still without making contact.

Now he took up defense. He let her keep coming and made no more attempts to strike. Which was also maddening. Leslie tried to remember how Tai had gotten hold of him. She watched Ryker’s moves, calculated when his feet left the mat in a forward spring designed to put her back on her heels. Instead she tried to imitate Tai’s feint and crouch. With a thrust of her arm she took out his legs at the ankles. Ryker gave a gasp of surprise and landed on his back.

Leslie was still in motion. He would be on his feet again in half a heartbeat, unless— She tackled and landed directly on his midsection, and Ryker grunted sharply.

“Oh!” Leslie rolled off him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Ryker wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close, and this time she landed half-sprawled across his chest and legs. He was laughing, the full musical sound she had grown to love so much.

“I didn’t hurt you?”

“If I were human, I’m pretty sure you’d have knocked the wind out of me.”

“Sorry.”

“Leslie, I’m fine. And you were fantastic.” He sprang to his feet and brought her with him, both on their feet in a moment. “Let’s watch it back, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

No, no, she wouldn’t. She bit her lip as Tai angled his phone toward her. His thumb tapped the screen, and the video began to play.

On Tai’s phone screen, two vampires sparred. The man was blond and gorgeous, skilled and smooth and strong. The woman had a silver ponytail and wore Leslie’s workout clothes, black leggings and a magenta top with a floral print. But she couldn’t possiblybeLeslie, because she moved like lightning when it danced among the clouds. Her kicks, her springs, the way her body left the mat as though gravity weren’t the last word for her. And then she ducked so fluidly the phone’s camera hardly kept up with her. And then she came at Ryker so fast, she really did become a blur.

The recording ended when Ryker drew her toward him. His laughter was cut off, and the image that went still on the screen showed his arms around her back, her head on his chest, their bodies sprawled in casual togetherness. A chill of pleasure danced in her chest.

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Told you so,” Ryker said. While she had watched the video, he had watched her.

“At first I thought I looked like someone else,” she said. “But no. That’s me. That’s all me.”

“Yep.”

And Ryker was right. She looked really good. Fully alive, unguarded, fast and strong and herself. Leslie Snow: Tennessee girl, diorama artist…vampire.

Twenty-One

“There’s one vampire perk that’s not talked about enough,” Leslie said as they sprang from one handhold to another on their way up the gym’s rock wall, “and that’s not having to shower after a workout.”

Ryker chuckled and vaulted his body upward to the next handhold, which was only a narrow slit in the wall. He held on with the tips of his fingers and enjoyed exercising his strength. “Except it is talked about.”