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  "Cass—"

  "And who's higher quality than Liam?"

  Nana glanced at the front door. Through the screen I heard someone whistling off-tune.

  I put up my hands. "Oh, no. No way. No. No. No. Not Gavin."

  "Why not?"

  "He's a moron."

  "Well, now, not technically. His parents had him tested."

  "But he doesn't know sh—he doesn't know anything about me."

  "That's because you've been joined at the hip with Liam all these years. You haven't given Gavin a chance."

  "Brendan can't do this. It ain't right!" I bit my lip. "It's not right. Daddy promised me to Liam."

  "Like it or not, Brendan's your daddy now."

  "I'm calling Mama." I slung my bag over my shoulder, then stomped into the kitchen. "After I get some brownies."

  * * * *

  I lay on my bed, listening to my mother's voicemail greeting for the third time. After the beep, I kept going where I left off the last message:

  "Liam's a master forger. And he's brilliant with online finance. Brendan thinks way too small—he doesn't get that computers are the future. All he wants to do is spray aluminum paste on people's driveways. Small, Mama, small." I poked my finger at the ceiling. "Gavin's the exact same way. Don't you want better for me? Don't you want me to be happy?" I finished in a whisper, my throat closing. "Like you were with Daddy?"

  I hung up, even though there was time left on the voice- mail. I stared at the ceiling, wondering what problems my country-folk classmates were obsessing over tonight. Scoring the mellowest weed? Finding the perfect flip-flops? I bet none of them was feeling their life slip away.

  Footsteps clomped on the roof over my head. I wished I could put my fist through the ceiling, make the roof buckle up and knock Gavin off. Not kill him, just make him a little less "high quality."

  My future husband.

  No. Way.

  * * * *

  I told my best friend, Bridget, the whole story while I helped her make centerpieces for tomorrow's reception. The theme was "Blood and Roses," probably the hundred-and-thirtieth time a vampire wedding has used it.

  The bright red drops of blood on the white rose petals were fake, of course. Real blood rusts once it hits the air, because it has iron in it. I pictured my own blood rusting in my veins if I had to spend my life with Gavin Mallory.

  "It's medieval," I said. "Marrying who your parents say."

  "You didn't think it was medieval when you got set up with Liam." Bridget frowned at the tangled mess of baby's breath on the table. "You told him yet?"

  "I'm not supposed to tell anyone until Brendan comes home and announces it officially." I leaned over to make sure Bridget's mom wasn't lurking on the basement steps. "But I'm meeting Liam tonight down by the creek. I'll tell him then, and we'll decide what to do."

  "What do you mean? What's there to do?"

  I shrugged and painted another streak of blood on the rose petal.

  She lowered her voice. "What, Cassie, elope? You do that, you can't ever come back."

  My hand trembled suddenly, almost as hard as Liam's, so I set down the rose. "We can make enough to live off of."

  "It's not about money. It's about family. You'll lose everyone you ever knew."

  "Including you?"

  "Of course not." Her eyes turned sad. "But I don't count so much anymore."

  "You count as much as ever to me." I wanted to put my arms around her, but since she'd been turned last year, she wasn't big on human hugs. She said we smelled too good.

  "You didn't answer my question."

  I held the rose up to the light, admiring my work. "I'd give it all up for Liam."

  "Cass, you got no idea what it's like out there." Bridget started pulling the little white heads off the baby's breath.

  My hand tightened, crushing the rose's soft petals. Bridget had only been fifteen when that nasty upstate vampire kidnapped her, turned her, and held her captive as his mate. Ever since my great-uncle Donal's posse killed her maker and brought her home, she never strayed far.

  I reached over and scooted the rest of the baby's breath away from her, before she could rip off all the heads.

  She jerked her hands back into her lap, then got up and moved to the vanity. "Must be nice, to be so sure about something. I can't even decide how to wear my hair tomorrow." She slumped onto the stool in front of the mirror. "If I was still human, I could go to the salon, but none of them are open after dark this time of year."

  "I could give you a French braid." I picked up a comb so I could start dividing her long dark hair into sections.

  "No." She swiped her hand over the charred-black, holy-water scar that ran from her left ear down past her collarbone. "We need to cover this as best we can." Her voice shook. "I meant, should I wear my hair curly or straight?"

  "It'll be hot and humid." I kept my voice normal. "So your hair'll curl whether you tell it to or not."

  "Curse of the Irish, huh?" She tugged up her blouse. "If it weren't summer I could wear a high-neck dress."

  "You don't need to hide your scar. Your groom'll have one, too, remember?" My cousin Michael had been part of Uncle Donal's posse. During the raid on Bridget's maker's coven, both Michael and Bridget had gotten caught in the holy-water crossfire.

  "And it'll heal one day," I reminded her. "Michael got one right after he was turned back in '93, right? Ten years later you couldn't tell it was ever there."

  Her eyes went far away. "Funny. That. . . one, he said—"

  Her breath hitched, and I squeezed her shoulder. She never told me much about her time in captivity, no matter how hard I tried to get her to talk. The few times she mentioned her maker, she just called him, "That. . . one."

  Bridget got her voice back, all hoarse. "He said holy-water burns never heal."

  "Well, that's bullshit." I lifted the veil from where it hung on the corner of her mirror. "Now put this on so we can figure out your hair. I don't know why you even care how you look. You're only marrying my sorry-ass cousin. He'll probably show up in ripped jeans and a Pearl Jam shirt."

  A smile broke over her face. "Michael will look so hot in a tux."

  "All vampires look hot in a tux. He's old."

  "He's not even forty in human years. And he looks twenty-one."

  "He still says 'rad.'"

  "And in fifteen years, I'll be saying 'epic fail.' I think 'rad' will outlast that." She put a hand to her mouth. "Do people still say 'epic fail' now?"

  "Sure, sometimes." My heart felt like it had been replaced by a stone. Vampires get "stuck" in the time they're turned, so they keep wearing the fashions and speaking the slang .they did right before they died.

  It's the same for all vampires, from what I've heard, along with flaming out in the sunlight and drinking human blood to survive. They can technically live forever, but they pick up some pretty weird habits after the first few years. I hadn't seen Bridget go crazy counting or sorting stuff yet, though Michael had certain things he had to do three times, like turn a light switch on-off-on whenever he entered a room.

  But Traveller vampires have their own rules, which keeps things simple and safe for everybody:

  No voluntary vamping—that counts as suicide for the vamped, which is a major sin. You can vamp someone to "save" their life, but it can't be the dying person's choice.

  No drinking from country folk—secrecy equals safety, for both Travellers and vampires.

  No drinking directly from Travellers, either. Blood gets donated, pooled, and doled out by humans (my great uncle Donal runs one of the "blood banks"). This way, the whole community supports them, plus the vampires don't know who it came from so they can't get a taste for any one person.

  In exchange, the vampires bring in a ton of money. Their magnetism makes them master con artists, and their stealth makes them beautiful thieves. Unlike us humans, the vamps don't keep the money they earn for their own families—it gets spread out over the whole community.


  Vampires and humans don't marry. Duh.

  Breaking any of these rules gets you kicked out forever.

  I don't know if other Irish Travellers (either here or in the Old Country) keep vampires squirreled away, but our little group has been doing it for generations. We don't talk about it when we cross paths with Travellers from Memphis or Texas or even the ones from up in Murphy Village here in South Carolina.

  We don't want them stealing our secret weapon.

  * * * *

  Down at the moonlit marsh, on a flat rock barely big enough to fit both our butts, Liam held me close while I told him how my stepfather was aiming to tear us apart and hand me over to Gavin like a piece of livestock. Through it all Liam stroked my back in big, soothing circles, not even tensing when I told him the worst parts.

  When I was done, I heard nothing but the chirp of katydids. "You don't seem too surprised," I said.

  "I always knew this would happen."

  My heart wanted to scamper out of my chest and drown itself in the creek. "So you accept it?"

  "Hell, no." He folded my left hand between his. "I always knew one day I'd have to fight to keep you. You and me were almost too good to be true."

  "Almost?"

  "Almost, because we are true." He brushed a curl off my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. "But still too good to be easy."

  He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out two driver's licenses. I examined mine in the moonlight.

  Cassandra Reynolds, age eighteen, of Little Rock, Arkansas. "Nice. And you are?"

  He flipped the driver's license with a flourish, like he was dealing three-card monte. "Your devoted husband, Daniel. Age twenty-one, so I can buy us champagne for our wedding night."

  "My Danny boy." I took his card and pressed it to my own, face-to-face. "Where'll we go?"

  "Up north. Somewhere they can't tell a South Carolina accent from an Arkansas one."

  "Somewhere they don't know about Travellers."

  "That, too." He squeezed my hand, so hard I couldn't feel his own tremble. "You really wanna do this? Leave everything and everyone we know, forever?"

  "It doesn't have to be forever. We go away, get married, and come back after I finish college."

  "If we leave, they won't let us back. They'll say they can't trust us."

  "You think if one day we show up on Mama's doorstep with her grandbaby, she'll turn us away? I'm her only child, and O'Riley women don't have many kids. So she's got lots of mothering left over."

  He ran his thumb over my engagement ring. "You won't mind not having a big wedding?"

  "I'd rather have a teeny tiny wedding with you than a princess's wedding to anyone else."

  I raised my face to kiss him, just as my cell phone rang. I gasped at the name on the caller ID.

  "Mama! Did you get my messages?"

  "I got all three of them, honey." Her voice was steady and soothing, giving me hope.

  "And?"

  "And I understand how you feel. Believe me, I do."

  My shoulders sagged with relief. "So you'll change Brendan's mind?"

  She got real quiet, making me nervous.

  "Mama, are you there?"

  "I'm here. Look, sweetpea, you marrying Gavin is not about you and Liam. It's a lot bigger than that."

  My throat closed up. She wasn't going to change Brendan's mind. She didn't even disagree.

  "What's bigger?" I choked out. "What could ever be bigger?"

  "Lots of things." Her voice hardened. "You've known all your life that who you marry is not about what you want. It's about doing what's right for the family, for our whole community."

  "But..." I rubbed my lower lip to stop it from trembling. "When Daddy and Liam's father set us up, they asked us first if it was what we wanted. They wanted us to be happy." I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the stone. "And how is it good for the family and the community if I'm miserable?"

  "You won't be miserable. A lot of girls would kill to marry Gavin."

  "They can have him."

  "You just need time to get used to the idea."

  I leaned against Liam and closed my eyes as he put his arms around me. I needed his strength on top of my own to say what I was about to say.

  "Mama." I spoke calmly, scrubbing the whine clear out of my voice. "I won't marry Gavin."

  There was a long pause, and the next time she spoke, it was with a whisper. "I'm sorry, baby. I always wanted better for you."

  She hung up. Mama was my last, best hope to help me keep my dream—me and Liam making a life here, with everyone we loved. But now, if I wanted the biggest, most important part of that dream, I'd have to steal it.

  I let the phone fall on the muddy ground beside us.

  "There's no choice now." Swallowing my tears, I slid my arms around Liam and held tight. "Luckily, I got an escape plan."

  * * * *

  Vampire weddings are pretty much like human weddings, except there's no priest, no talk of kids, and instead of kissing each other, they bite.

  To avoid Gavin at the reception, I stuck as close to Bridget as I could, playing the perfect maid of honor. Every time she tugged her veil to cover her burn, I got a pain in my heart, wishing for her sake the scar could have healed for the wedding. Maybe for their tenth-anniversary party.

  Soon it was time for the first dance, when she and Michael left the bridal table and glided to the center of the floor, hypnotizing the whole crowd. Even the dozen or so other vampires couldn't take their eyes off the blissed-out couple as they swayed to the bittersweet sound of Martin Finnegan's band.

  I headed straight for Liam, who was leaning against the far post of the open park pavilion. He was the only one watching me instead of the bride and groom—or so I thought.

  He tensed suddenly, his gaze darting to my right. I veered left, but I was too late.

  Gavin stepped in front of me, reeking of hair gel. "Cass, you look real pretty tonight."

  "Thanks." I tugged my sky-blue wrap tighter and tried to dodge him. "So do you." Not really—if anything, he looked ridiculous, with his curls pasted down and his tie all crooked.

  He put his hand on my arm to stop me. I gave him a deadly glare, which made him let go. Whatever else might be wrong with Travellers, we're not violent. Any man who beats his wife or kids will get a hundred times worse from the other men.

  Gavin shoved his hands in his pockets. "Will you dance with me? Please?"

  "Thank you, but I owe the first dance to my fiancé."

  "Your—" He looked behind me, where I could hear the thump of Liam's cane as he approached. Then Gavin gawked at the engagement ring still on my finger. "Didn't you get the message from your dad?"

  I gazed up at Gavin, my eyes wide and empty. "You mean Brendan? Nope. No message."

  His jaw tightened. "You sure?"

  "She said she didn't get it." Liam put his arm around me. "Is there something you want to tell us?"

  Gavin's teeth ground together, and I knew he wanted to shove the news in Liam's face, but it wasn't his place to tell. Until Brendan announced it to the whole family, it might as well not be true.

  Liam took my hand. "Cass, isn't this one of your favorite songs?"

  "Yeah, I don't want to miss it. Bye, Gavin."

  We turned for the dance floor, but Gavin grabbed Liam's shoulder. "You wait," he growled. "Your time is comin'."

  "Yep. Sure is." Liam slipped out of Gavin's grip and led me away with barely a break in his stride.

  "You act all smug, he'll get suspicious," I said as I looped my arms around his neck for the slow dance.

  "It's hard acting normal, knowing that in an hour we'll be on that highway together." He spoke low in my ear. "Knowing that, come Monday, we'll be married, and come Monday night..

  My fingers tightened on his shoulders. "We have to wait until nighttime? Can't we go straight from the courthouse to our motel?"

  "Whatever you want. Your whole long life, whatever you want." He gazed into my eyes. "
I'll steal the stars outta the sky for you, Mary Cassidy. Every last one."

  "I don't need them all. One or two might be nice, long as the sky's not using them."

  I leaned my cheek against his chest as we surrendered to the music. I wondered if we'd find a place up north where a man would play Irish fiddle like Martin Finnegan.