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eyebrows raised. “Ben?”
    â€œBenedikt is kind of a mouthful.”
    He smiled. “I know how old you are.”
    â€œI don’t even want a boyfriend, let alone to get married to you or whatever it is you Moravians do to get your soul back. I just want to be left alone. I just want to get through this summer so I can go live with my dad in the fall and go to school and not have to travel all over Europe with Mom tutoring me, like she’s threatening to do. Besides, you’re . . . you’re . . .” I stopped. I’d rather die than tell him that he was so gorgeous he probably had to pry the girls off him with a two-by-four, whereas I was . . . me. Okay, people didn’t actually barf when they saw me, but I was not gorgeous.
    â€œI’m what?”
    I shrugged. “A vamp.”
    He tucked one side of my hair behind my ear. It was an oddly intimate gesture, and left me feeling hot, then cold, then hot again. “I don’t want anything from you, Fran. The only reason I told you that you were my Beloved is so you understand that you can trust me. A Dark One can never harm his Beloved.”
    â€œOh, really? So if I had a stake and started pounding it on your chest, what would you do?”
    He pursed his lips as he thought it over. He looked so funny, I couldn’t keep from smiling. “Depends. Where would you be pounding?”
    â€œRight over your heart.”
    â€œThen I’d die.”
    My smile faded. “Really? The stake thing works?”
    â€œYes, it works. So does beheading.”
    â€œAnd you’d let me kill you? You’d just stand there and let me kill you?”
    He nodded. “If it was in your heart to see me dead, yes, I’d stand there and let you kill me.”
    Wow . Talk about a head trip. I decided I wasn’t ready to think about that and pushed it aside. “How about sunlight?”
    He made a face. “It wouldn’t kill me, not unless I was out in it for several hours, but I do my best to avoid it. Gives me a hell of a sunburn.”
    â€œHuh.” I looked him over. He’d taken his leather jacket off earlier and was now wearing a sleeveless black tee. His arms were tan. So was his face. He had a tattoo of words in a fancy script twined around in a circle on his shoulder. “So, what, they have Moravian sunlamps to keep you from looking fish-belly white?”
    He laughed. I liked it; it was a nice laugh. It made me want to laugh, too.
    â€œSomething like that.” He looked over my shoulder, then bent down to pick up the gloves I had dropped, handing them to me as he added, “Maybe we can talk about this another time.”
    â€œSure. I promise I won’t hit you again.” I meant it, too. It might be stupid to believe what he said about not stopping me if I wanted to kill him (as if!), but I did believe him when he said he wouldn’t hurt me.
    He started toward me, toward the exit behind me. I chewed on my lip for a few seconds before I blurted out, “Would you take me for a ride on your bike?”
    He was right next to me when he paused. His eyes were back to their normal dark oak color, the gold flecks clearly visible as he stared down at me; then they lifted to look beyond me. “If your mother says it’s all right, yes.”
    I turned to see what he was looking at. Mom stood in the entrance to the tent, dressed in her white-and-silver invocation gown, the layers of light gauze fluttering around behind her in the breeze. She had a crown of white flowers in her hair, ribbons trailing down her back. In one hand, on a piece of scarlet velvet, she held her silver scrying bowl; in the other was a handful of invocation candles. Davide sat next to her, his mouth open in a silent hiss at Ben.
    I sighed and plopped myself down in the nearest chair. Why did I even try to act normal when everyone around me was so weird?
    Â 
    Mom grilled me about Ben for the rest of the night and