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Cinnamon toast, dinner rolls, French bread, croissants—all things I can no longer eat.

When I found out I’d entered the final stage of vampirism, I thought I’d miss cucumbers more than anything—but I was mistaken.

I miss bread. Passionately.

Don’t get me wrong, I would give my right arm for a salad. But I’d die for a donut.

My eyes linger on the fried and frosted confections as I pass the glass case that holds them, deciding the bakery is the most dangerous department in the local grocery store Noah’s family owns.

My stomach growls, protesting my new carnivore diet. I glance past the counter, into the back, where two employees chat as they work. Howell’s Grocery still bakes their bread in-house.

They’re baking it now. Right now.

Oh, help me.

“Be strong,” I murmur to myself, drawing in a deep lungful of hot, yeast-scented air as I leave the bakery and enter the deli.

In a cruel twist of fate, vampires have a heightened sense of smell, which has no upside that I’ve found. Bread smells amazing, but we can’t eat it. Cake smells amazing. We can’t eat it either.

The tired, sweaty construction worker who walks past me on his way to the forbidden bakery department does not smell amazing. Sadly, we can eat him. (Not that it’s legal, or that I’d want to. It’s not, and I don’t.)

The cost of immortality is high.

There are perks, however. My skin looks amazing. Blemishes? None. Pores? Microscopic.

I’ve also lost five pounds, maybe thanks to the virus, maybe thanks to my new carnivore needs. (It’s not a diet; it’s a lifestyle.) But most importantly, I’m now the same species as my boyfriend.

Okay, we were always the same—both humans, one of us a little more vampiric than the other. We’ve traded places, though. These days, I’m the night-dwelling monster in the relationship.

Noah can go in the sunlight thanks to the clinical trial of a daylight medication he’s taking.

I can’t, because they don’t let new vampires sign up.

And I am new—very new. I’ve only been in the final stage for a week now.

Which is just long enough to come to terms with my new life and enter a period of grief where I mourn all the things I’ve lost.

Like donuts, sunshine, and cucumbers.

And maybe even worse, I have to take the synthetic blood straight now. And while my body might crave it, my tastebuds do not. I miss smoothies.

“Hey, Piper,” Miguel says as I pass him in the produce section. He’s stocking bright red, forbidden tomatoes. “You looking for Noah? I was talking to him a minute ago, and Naomi called, needing change. He’s probably still in the back office.”

“I’ll look for him there.” I try to ignore the cute basil plants that are stocked on a stand next to the tomatoes. They make me think of spaghetti…which makes me think of linguine, fettuccini, penne, and tortellini.

Never mind. I don’t miss bread the most. I miss pasta.

Be strong.

I find Noah in the office, sorting through rolls of change. He looks up when I knock on the open door, grinning when he sees it’s me. It still makes my heart flutter.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Cassian was headed home, and I asked him to drop me off. You said you’d be done by eight, so I thought we could go out to dinner.”

He glances out the window at the dusky mountains. “I didn’t realize it was getting so late.”

It’s quickly becoming my favorite time of day—still light, but the sun can’t fry me to a crisp. It’s a brief stretch of time that doesn’t last nearly long enough.

“Yep, it's now safe for me to leave my coffin.” I watch him type something into a spreadsheet.

Right now, his parents are in Estes Park with his sister and her fiancé.

They’re meeting with the wedding planner and going over final details for the venue.

Noah has taken a few days off to fill in for them, watching the store in their absence while the assistant manager is off.

But she’ll be back tomorrow, and then he’s free for the weekend.

We’ll probably do what we did last weekend—hole up in the house and watch K-dramas. Which is great…but this hiding from the light thing is getting old.

“What about the farmer’s market?” he asks.

“Olivia declared it wasn’t safe to have me around all those vegetables and said she’d run the stand tonight.”

“That works for me. I don’t mind keeping you to myself.” He joins me and leads the way out of the office. “I just need to get these quarters to Naomi, and then we can eat. What are you in the mood for?”

“A salad. Maybe some pasta. An entire loaf of French bread.”

He gives me a look that’s laced with pity, but I smile to let him know I’m joking.

Or, you know. Mostly joking.

I pause just before we reach the registers, waiting for Noah to hand over the change Naomi requested. Shamelessly, I watch him go. Tall, trim, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, the man is pure temptation. (Which is not an easy feat in a green grocer’s apron.)

I’m not the only one who notices. Though Noah might be oblivious to the heart palpitations he’s giving the girls at the registers, I’m not. I wait with a wry smile as they attempt to flirt and giggle.

He doesn’t notice. Or if he notices, he doesn’t care.

I almost feel bad for them. Especially when he returns to me, pulls off his apron, and says loud enough for all to hear, “I’ve fulfilled my duties as a good son, and now I’m all yours.”

One of the customers is so busy watching him, she runs her cart into a stand of gift cards.

Startled by the noise, Noah glances over, but she’s already hurrying off, pretending she didn’t just collide with the display while drooling over the grocers’ handsome son.

Yep, I need to get Noah out of here.

I loop my arm through his just because I can, and we leave the store, stepping into the cooling mountain air. Once we’re outside, I say, “Next time we meet, remind me to wait in the car.”

He flashes me a smug look as he opens the passenger side door of his SUV for me. “You don’t like my fan club?”

“You did notice them.”

He chuckles as he walks to his side and slides into the seat.

“But no, that’s not the reason,” I say. “I just can’t pass through the bakery again.”

Noah grimaces as he starts the engine. “It’s rough, isn’t it?”

“Does it get easier?” I ask, acknowledging that I sound a little desperate.

“Yeah, mostly. Occasionally, a craving will hit you, but the longer you abstain, the weaker they become.”

Unlike other things, which are far more difficult the longer you abstain. I let my eyes stray to Noah’s neck, and my gums tingle where my fangs press into them.

“I can feel you ogling me,” he says.

“Maybe I’m just hungry.”

He gives me a knowing look. “Sure.”

We both know that my wanting to bite Noah has nothing to do with blood. A shiver runs down my spine, and I rip my eyes forward. I thought these weird urges to nibble on his neck would pass after I became a final-stage vampire, but no. They’re still here.

Which is fine.

I’m fine.

You see, Noah and I have already had this discussion, and we’re waiting. For biting. For intimacy. For all that.

Just like I said I wanted.

But that was then, and this is now, and between craving donuts, craving sunshine, and craving Noah, I’m about to lose my mind.

Be strong.

“You never said where you want to eat,” Noah reminds me, wisely directing the subject back to a safe place.

I’m about to answer when Noah’s phone rings.

“It’s Cassian,” he says and then hits the accept button on the vehicle’s dashboard screen. “Why are you calling me?”

“Sophia’s been kidnapped,” the vampire says through the car’s speakers, forgoing a greeting.

Noah sits a little straighter. “What?”

“I just got a call from an unknown number. They said they had her, and then they put her on the phone.”

The two-hundred-year-old vampire is trying to act unruffled, but he’s failing. Cassian’s tight voice and clipped words betray just how ruffled he is.

Noah pulls onto the shoulder of the road. “What did she say?”

“Just my name, and then the man she was with yanked the phone away from her.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t an AI recording?” Noah demands.

“I don’t know.”

“What did they want?”

“They told me I’m going to be announced amongst the nominees and warned me to turn it down. They said they’ll kill her if I accept it.”

Noah growls, closing his eyes like he doesn’t want to deal with all this right now.

The thing is, Noah thinks Sophia double-crossed Cassian—and he has a good reason. She and her guard disappeared right after she obtained her signed house pardon. But Cassian and I? We suspect there was foul play.

And maybe we’re right.

“For all you know, she’s in on this,” Noah reminds his friend.

“But what if she’s not?”

“You’re going to turn down the nomination anyway.”

The line goes suspiciously quiet.

Noah’s frown deepens. “Aren’t you?”

“I was.”

Was —past tense.

“Are you thinking of running for archduke?” I ask, my voice an exaggerated whisper.

“Someone is bent on manipulating this, and they’re not above extortion to accomplish it. If I let them, who knows what kind of leader we’re going to end up with? I’ve worked too hard to let someone destroy everything good that’s been established in the last century.”

Noah’s expression becomes grim, but there’s approval in his eyes—like maybe he’s wanted this all along. “We have just under a week before the announcements are made. We’ll find her. Did they give you any information?”

“Nothing. I don’t suppose you have someone tracking my phone, do you?”

“I didn’t know we needed to.”

Cassian curses in a foreign language, frustrated.

“Do you have the number they called from?” Noah asks.

“Yes, but you know they were using a burner phone.”

“Text it to me anyway. I’ll see what Daniel can do.”

I don’t really know Daniel, but Noah talks about him. He works in the administration office, doing who knows what. Tracking kidnapped vampires, maybe.

“We’ll find her,” Noah vows, sounding determined.

They end the call, and a text from Cassian pops up on Noah’s phone almost immediately.

“I need to send this phone number to Daniel,” Noah says to me, already moving it to another text.

“Do you think they’ll call again?”

“Maybe, especially if Cassian makes it known he doesn’t intend to back down.”

“Won’t that put Sophia in danger?” I ask, uneasy.

Noah sends the text. “That’s why we need to find her before the nominations are announced.”