FEBRUARY 21, 1986/Boston, Massachusetts

This singer's voice is laced with a romantic huskiness that reverberates through my veins, tugging at some invisible, needy part of me. It makes me want to do wicked things, to chuck my carefully constructed life into the garbage.

Or maybe that's just the acute awareness of being inches away from a man with the most intense blue eyes I've ever seen. It's a feeling of desire, a sharp, visceral attraction. What I want is to turn and kiss him, to do something totally out of character for me. To follow my desire for once.

But I won't. I'm way too timid, especially with guys I'm interested in. Still, the way he defended me against those skinhead jerks was so freaking hot. And I did promise to buy the guy a beer. That was bold, at least for me.

I glance around at the crowd, hoping to see Kerri pushing through with our beers. My eyes alight on a tall woman with black, spiky hair who's standing next to the stage. Oh, there's Kerri. She's worshiping the lead singer, swaying without a care in the world, screaming her head off. Wait, is she blowing kisses at the singer? Yes, she is. I laugh out loud while watching her.

Since Kerri doesn't have our drinks in her hands—those are in the air, extended toward the singer—I figure she hasn't even gone to the bar yet. She's too enamored with that singer, and I know for a fact that she's been hoping to meet, and fuck, him.

There's that desire thing again.

It comes easy to Kerri. Everything does. As a hundred-and fiftysomething-year-old vampire, she's had plenty of practice. She's perfected everything on her own, from enrolling in college to getting a job at a blood bank so she always has a fresh supply of food, to seducing men to sate her sexual desires. She's independent to her core, and I worship her.

Me? I haven't mastered shit. Even though I've been a straight-A student ever since I started kindergarten, I still feel like I'm not living up to my full potential. Kerri chalks this up to my age and type-A behavior, but I know better.

It's because I've been surrounded by uniquely accomplished and incredibly brilliant people my entire life.

Take my parents, for example.

They were once vampires. Dad was born in Romania and was turned hundreds of years ago by Dracula himself. Mom is younger, only about a hundred years old, and from New York. She became a vampire when she was bitten by a jazz singer at the age of twenty-four.

She and dad met in the city at some poetry reading in the early sixties; back then, she was attending school to become a psychotherapist and dad was a celebrated English professor. Once they got together, they immediately knew they were soul mates—and promptly had my brother, and then me.

A stupid decision, in my opinion. In our particular vampire clan, once soul mates give birth to a child, they become mortal. They age like any other human, and they die.

The child is born a half-vampire, half-human. While us halfling children have some vampire traits— such as sharp intelligence, a fine-tuned sense of smell, and heightened intuition—we're still mortal. Which means we age and die like any ordinary human.

The ageing part doesn't bother me at all; I don't fear wrinkles or gray hair. It's the death thing that's the problem (Kerri laughed at me when I first said this).

When I was thirteen and staring at the stars one night at our summer home, a frightening thought occurred to me: I was going to die. Maybe not soon, but someday.

It seemed supremely unfair, especially considering that I had a heritage of immortality.

A normal lifespan isn't enough time to do all I want—namely, find a cure for a virus that kills vampires. It started killing our kind in the 1700s in Europe and has circulated ever since.

Perhaps my obsession with my ancestry, my vampire heritage, is why I've wanted to befriend them. Kerri was my first true vampire friend. There was also another cool girl our sophomore year, but Anya graduated from Boston University and moved to Hollywood to work as a journalist.

I've also met a few vampire guys since coming to college in Boston—my home state of Maine isn't exactly vampire central—but Kerri's always vetted and vetoed them, saying that I don't want to be turned by "just any blood sucking fuck boy."

Kerri's probably right, and that's why I'd begged her to turn me. She refuses, though, saying I'll eventually regret it. She says I should just get laid with a regular, human guy instead. Lose my virginity to some hot punk guy.

I glance at her again, and I can see her fully, her face in profile from where I'm standing. Somehow she's taken off her leather jacket and is only in a thin, black tank top. She's dancing with her eyes closed, swaying as if she's been hypnotized by the music.

Maybe she's right. Maybe I need to let loose for once and embrace my human side. Accept my desires. But that leaves me feeling emptier than ever, since my one desire is immortality. I can feel the march of time with each month that passes. Hell, this is my last year of undergraduate, and in September, I'm scheduled to start medical school at the university here.

Life goes by so fast.

I move a little to the beat, trying to mimic Kerri. Probably I look like a robot, or if I'm lucky, one of those women in Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love video. Trying to be casual, I slowly turn, pretending to look for someone so I can check out the guy with hot blue eyes again. Matteo. That's his name. So sexy.

He's directly behind me, so close that I can smell the leather of his jacket. He grins, a lazy, lopsided smile. Then he leans toward me. "Your friend's not back yet?"

I shake my head and sway to the music.

"You want a drink?" he asks.

I shake my head again.

Matteo raises a dark eyebrow. Holy crap, this guy is handsome. Not in a traditional way, but in a brutal, masculine way. He looks different than most guys my age, probably because his shoulders are broad and muscular. His jaw is a little too sharp and square, his flashing blue eyes are a little too cold.

There's something beyond his looks that's unsettling, but I can't put my finger on it. I'm both repelled and wildly attracted to him, and I don't understand any of what I'm feeling in this moment. All I know is that I don't want to turn around and look at the band—I want to stand here and stare at him for hours.

He leans in again to speak. The music's so loud he has to put his mouth against my ear, and the sensation makes little explosions go off in my brain and shower through my body.

"What do you want, Evangeline?" He has an accent, but I can't place it. The tone is foreign and sultry, heavy and low, and I want to indulge in more of it.

He pulls back and stares into my eyes. We're standing still in a sea of swaying people, while the music and the aroma of clove cigarettes and marijuana swirl around us. We're only about six inches apart, and I realize I'm breathing heavily. Panting, almost. I don't quite understand what this man is doing to me, or why I'm so affected. Those five words he just uttered seemed to tug at that same place the music did, as though something dark and delicious was pulling my insides tight.

What do I want?

Him. I'm dying for a kiss. I'm tired of playing it safe.

I lean up and press my lips to his.

He responds by wrapping a possessive arm around my waist and hauling me into his body, consuming me with his mouth. Oh. Whoa. He's serious with this kiss. It's a kiss that makes me forget everything. Med school, my difficult mother, the fact that we're standing in a crowd at a concert.

Every part of me aches, but most of all, that spot between my legs, the one I've never told anyone about. The one I touch in the dead of night, silently and filled with longing.

His other hand slides along my neck, partially trapping my hair between his fingers.

"This is what you want?" he murmurs against my mouth, and I almost spontaneously combust from how erotic it sounds.

"Y-yes," I stammer, breathless and probably unattractively geeky. I can feel my cheeks alight with heat, and I press myself against his hard body. Now that I'm close to him, I can not only smell the leather of his jacket, but a subtle scent on his skin. I detect hints of gunpowder and smoke, of a spicy incense and a twinge of a scarlet rose. It translates into an edgy darkness that I want to explore, but one that also makes me afraid of what I'm getting into.

"Fuck," he whispers, then goes in for another hard kiss. I catch a glimpse of his eyes, and before he lowers those long, dark lashes, I see a flash of red in his pupils. I gasp lightly, but either he doesn't hear, or doesn't pay attention, because he's still kissing as if he wants to consume me.

Maybe he does.

When he nips my bottom lip with sharp teeth, a thrilling thought flashes through my mind.

Matteo is a vampire.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Is Evan being too reckless? Hmm.

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