“No. .”

“See?”

“But I didn’t have the same reasons to stay there as I do here,” he said. “Is the only way I can convince you how much I care to. .”

I waited. Maybe this was my chance to demand my need to be a vampire. But it had to be a decision he was ready for as much as I was.

“It isn’t something we need to decide tonight, is it?” he asked.

If I said yes and his answer was that he wasn’t going to turn me, what was I to do then? Normally I was daring.

Adventure ran through my blood just as much as oxygen did. But this kind of risk — the emotional kind — was far different than sneaking into rumored haunted houses or cemeteries. This was my love life.

I gave him a puppy-dog face. “Of course not. But I wonder if it is something you want,” I said with trepidation, “or is it only my fantasy?”

I waited. I knew Alexander had thought about it. We’d discussed it before. But as he said, he was going to be eighteen and me seventeen — and, most important, I was now being faced with watching other vampires bite. It wasn’t something we could put off forever.

“I can guarantee you it’s not just your fantasy,” he re-assured me. Then he glanced away, looking in the direction of the Mansion sitting atop Benson Hill. “You are so much like my grandmother. .”

“But wasn’t she lonely? For the rest of your family? Is that the fate you’d wish for me?”

Alexander faced me and stroked my cheek. “The only fate I’d wish for you is for us to be together.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Slowly and seductively he leaned me back on the blanket. I gazed up at Alexander, the starlight filling my eyes. He began tickling me.

When I’d wrestled with Billy growing up, I’d learned to relax my muscles, which resulted in my no longer being ticklish. My little brother would run off, disgruntled, and I’d claim victory. But Alexander was no Billy Boy. I squirmed in my vampire boyfriend’s powerful clutches and giggled like a little girl.