Alien . Vampire hearts beat just as hard as human hearts. I never thought they did before I became one.

I used to think that vampires were undead. But they aren’t. They’re just another kind of alive. Heartbeat mandatory to stay that way, otherwise what difference would that famous wooden stake make?

Hunter-boy was actually kind of cute. Probably in his early twenties, with fashionably shaggy dark hair, a thin but attractive face, and brown puppy-dog eyes. He wore a black leather jacket over . . . beige Dockers?

I could totally take him.

“Proactive?” He raised an eyebrow and shifted the stake to his other hand. The frozen air puffed out of his mouth with every breath he took.

I shivered, and it wasn’t just from the temperature. “Yeah, that’s acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty. I looked it up. It means that instead of running like a chicken with my head cut off—pardon the cliche—I will confront my attacker and deal with the situation in a calm yet forceful manner.”

“You’re smart for a vampire,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows at that. “Really?”

“A vampire who’s about to die.”

I tensed and curled my other hand into a fist. I’d been going to self-defense fitness classes with my best friend Amy for a couple of weeks. It was true that only a few hour-long lessons probably weren’t going to earn me any major ass-kicking awards, but I felt a little more confident about my current woman-in-jeopardy situation. Alittle .

Proactive with a capital P. That’s me.

Okay, now I was shiveringand sweating. I take it back. I wasn’t confident. Not in the slightest.

Hunter-boy was going to stake me. Easily.

“What’s your name?” I blurted out.

“Chad.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Is that short for anything?”