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“I hope she does.”

Again he hissed, but his eyes began to dance.

Leslie angled her face up to his, and their kiss filled her with icy pleasure and certainty. She pressed her fingers tight to his back and murmured against his mouth, her voice at its fullest texture. “This is us.”

Ryker’s mouth hardened on hers. He pulled her closer to him in the near-privacy of their booth, and if someone happened towalk past and glimpse them through the glass…well, whatever. But then he pulled back. He pushed his fingers into her hair at her temples. He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “Us. You and me.”

She rested against him, and his heart give a single gentle beat. Her own heart beat a soft answer. Ring tattoos. Two homes. City adventures and country comfort. She felt it all from the deepest core of her being. This was who they were and would be. This was their beautiful future.

“Centuries together. That’s what we’re going to have, Ryker.”

“I believe it,” he said.

She pressed her palm to the heartbeat that was dearest to her in all the world. After a few more minutes, she felt sure he was okay. He seemed somehow lighter.

“So,” Leslie said as they finished their drinks, “I want to say for the record, if you ever need to talk through this again, you can. I’m here to listen. Okay?”

Ryker nodded. “Not today, though. Today I want us to…to get back to where we were before.”

“Before she so rudely interrupted? Let’s see. We were climbing the rock wall and enjoying ourselves and talking about…” Leslie walked herself back through the conversation directly before Ryker had remembered his dream. “Hey, you had a question to ask me.”

“I did?” His forehead crinkled, then smoothed into a slightly too blank expression. “Oh, that. Never mind.”

“What? Why? Go ahead and ask me.”

For a long moment, he didn’t. Then he said, “Have you ever seen your parents’ birth certificates?”

Twenty-Three

Leslie’s head swiveled, and she stared at him. “Excuse me?”

He might regret this. He hoped not. “Sometimes the things you tell me about what theydidn’ttell you… Relics tend to be cagey like that. They’ve lived so long and seen so much, a lot of them develop this weird secrecy. Even with people they trust.”

“Secrecy? I’m their daughter.”

“They barely taught you vampire-specific hygiene. They didn’t teach by example how to unmute your nature. They didn’t settle among fellow vampires—and yeah, our social scenes can be prickly on occasion. We’re not like wolves, all die-for-the-pack. But the way your parents isolated with you isn’t…”

“Isn’t what? Normal?”

The musical depth of her voice had begun to tighten, like guitar strings tuned too far. Ryker reached to take her hand, but she snatched it away from him and vaulted back to her side of the table, snatching her empty glass before it could tip and roll to the floor.

“My parents love me,” she said.

“I don’t doubt that.”

“They love our home. They love the mountains. They’ve lived in Harmony Ridge since before I was born.”

He nodded. He didn’t doubt those things either. But as friendly as they’d been to him, interested and approving, and as much as he’d genuinely liked them, their responses to certain conversation topics didn’t make sense. For weeks now, his brain had worked the puzzle of Leslie’s parents. By now he had a few theories.

“What?” Her tone was straining further, close to snapping now.

“I think you should ask them,” he said.

“Ask them what?”

“Whatever you want to know, everything you’ve wondered about for years.”

“Who said I’ve wondered about anything? Who said I have questions?”