I always went for a walk after dark. It was comforting, somehow, to let the cool folds of night wrap me in a gentle embrace. The only embrace I would ever get. Mother and Father didn't approve, but after much deliberation, had decided that I would fall asleep better (and I had a nine o'clock bedtime) if I had a walk. So I had as long as there was between dinner, bedtime, and the completion of my homework. Tonight, that was about three hours. I'd spent it all outside, walking far beyond our neighborhood. The park where I spent much of my free time in the summer was empty; the swimming pool was securely locked and gated but, for some reason, uncovered. Bats began to dart and swoop and I thought, irrationally, of course, Vampires. It was idiotic, vampires didn't exist, but… The truth, then.

In my deepest heart, I believed in the stories, all of the old stories. All of them. Fairies and unicorns (well, they were remnants from my childhood, but still) and dragons and elves and magic—and vampires. Of course vampires. I'd read Dracula when I was fourteen, and it stayed with me.

Stayed with me and terrified me. I couldn't sleep in a room with a window for a week, and this at fourteen. Mother and Father had been humiliated, of course, but there was nothing they could do about it. Vampires, creatures which I knew intellectually could not, could never exist, terrified me.

That didn't stop me from loving the night, particularly nights like these when the moon was slender and fragile yet shone day-bright and turned everything it touched a pale and ethereal silver.

My walk was almost over, my time almost up, when I saw a thing that could have ruined my faith in darkness for me for the rest of eternity.

Not really a shape, at first: a shadow. A part of the darkness. And a white-tailed deer galloped out from the little stand of trees (they clustered all over the park), and that in itself was unusual, because I didn't normally see deer at night. Then something else—whatever had been chasing the deer. The streetlight here was burnt out, and the only light came from the crescent moon—a toenail moon, I remembered calling it when I was little.

Light glinted off teeth. Off fangs. Knowing it was either the wisest or the stupidest thing I'd ever done or would ever do, I called out, "Who's there?"

"Leia?" It was impossible, but it was Dell's voice. A nice voice, a comforting voice, but what was he doing here? "Is that you?"

"Yes." What if he's some creepy stalker dude who uses the fact that he's so hot to—ooh, I wish I had stayed with karate! "What are you doing here?"

Dell stepped out of the trees, and though I couldn't see his face clearly, I could gather that he was startled. "I could ask you the same question. What are you doing here?"

"I'm walking. I'm allowed to walk, aren't I?"

"Yes, I'm sure everyone takes merry little jaunts through the most heavily wooded parts of public parks at night," he said sarcastically.

"My house is only five minutes away. Incidentally, did you have fangs just a moment ago?" The last slipped out without my meaning it to. Actually, everything I'd done or said thus far had been an accident.

"Fangs?" he asked, but instead of sounding mocking or sarcastic, he sounded worried.

"Yeah. You know, vampire teeth. Long, pointy, feature prominently in Dracula?" My parents would have been ashamed at the way I was acting, behaving as if the creatures existed.

"Nope, no fangs," he said lightly, coming further into the light and baring his (mostly normal-looking) teeth in a parody of a grin. I laughed in spite of myself, and he laughed with me. "No, seriously, you should go home," he said once he'd finished laughing. "There can be some unpleasant stuff out here after dark."

"I don't think you're really that well qualified to judge," I said, "seeing as I've lived here all my life and you're new." An exasperated sigh from Dell's general direction, but I continued. "However, to humor you, since I'm sure you don't intend to treat me like a small child, I'll go."

Dell was standing on my path home, and as I started along it, I brushed him, and our hands touched. It was impossible—I was wearing the cranberry turtleneck sweater that I loved because it covered almost all my skin except my fingers and the tip of my thumb, and over it a lightly insulated windbreaker—there was hardly any bare skin to touch. But my hand brushed his for a moment, just for the barest moment, it was enough.

My world was destroyed in a burst of light and color, imploded to encompass only him. Only Dell. The horror I usually felt at skin contact no longer existed, my shyness, my parents, time itself no longer existed.

I was inside his mind. Dell, what is this? What's happening? And I heard him say (or rather, think, I suppose), very clearly and distinctly,

Oh, shit. I laughed inside our combined heads.

This is bad?

It…it has the potential to be, he said-thought-whatever, sounding dazed, and broke the contact. I stared at him, or what I could see of him. Not knowing what I was doing (surely I would never have done this if I'd had full control of my senses), I reached up, tracing my fingers along the contours of his face. The contact sent tiny shivers through my arm, but it wasn't the disgust I usually felt at touching another person. This felt good, it felt natural.

"Dell, what was that?" I asked softly. Hearing my voice out loud was a slight shock, even after so short a connection. All inhibitions seemed to have been removed.

"I don't know…but I think I might…I have to go!" he finally blurted out, and completely disappeared. I could have cried, but I didn't; I was not a person who cried. Instead I started running for home, hoping I wasn't so late that my parents noticed.


Getting away at first seemed paramount, and not just because Leia was beginning to look more and more like a food source. I had to finish feeding, but I also had to collect my hopelessly scattered thoughts. This could be dangerous for everyone involved, for Leia and myself and possibly Carrie if it came to that.

I had heard enough about the soulmate principle from the other Daybreakers; enough, at least, to know exactly what had just happened there. And most of me wanted to be back there, to be with her; unfortunately, that 'most' included the teeth that were stretching and lengthening painfully. What, I thought, irritated, wasn't that rabbit enough? It was a moot point, anyway, because I came across another deer. I drank it swiftly and considered trying to find Leia again, but…

Soulmates should trump homework. Soulmates should trump work, period. Soulmates should trump Carrie. Hell, soulmates should trump all of those combined!

And yet, I went home anyway. It was Thursday, we could talk tomorrow…I would try to explain. Carrie was sitting in the kitchen, but looked up with a knowing smile when she saw me. "Catch anything…interesting?" She said it in a way that could have been interpreted as genuinely interested, suggestive, irritated, or teasing. That was one of the many, many things about Carrie…

I made the connection and stared at her incredulously for a moment. "You knew—you knew that something was going to happen, didn't you!"

"Depends," she said, now careless. "What happened?"

"Leia…Leia Price from English—she was on a walk, I guess…"

"You didn't hunt her, did you?"

"No!" I said, shocked. "She's my soulmate."

Carrie looked at me. Sat back in her chair. "Wow. That adds some much-needed complication to our job, doesn't it?"

"I know."

"And it might even break Leia's straight-A's-since-fifth-grade streak," she said contemplatively. "I mean, being bound for life to a newly-reformed vampire who may or may not attract the violent attention of and eagle who can at times be a human can really put a cramp in your—"

"Carrie, shut up!" Because images I would much have preferred to avoid were flooding my mind—images, not me, but of Leia, lying bleeding from the midsection, intestines spilling onto the ground. Because that was what Adler did to humans who knew about the Night World, after he knew who he was suppose to be killing. "No. That is not going to happen to Leia. Not in a million years."

"Do you think we should tell her?" Carrie asked, completely seriously. "I mean, Thierry did give us autonomy to do basically whatever we needed…" Her face was anxious and paler than usual. "Or I could put wards on her or something. If you wanted."

Wards weren't Carrie's strong point, but they were as powerful as anything else she did. "We…I…my soulmate. Not yours," I finally settled on. "But yes, I'm going to tell her."