Bookworm

Dragons can be very grouchy creatures. They also like pretty stuff, including shiny, expensive pens. Crispin is still getting used to living among mankind.

When I came to, I was hungry and more miserable than ever. I felt like my body had turned into a bag of flour. My muscles were weak, my head throbbed, and my stomach hurt from being too empty. The nurses were very nice and helpful, which was good of them. I knew I was being a little snake, all ornery and vicious. I could be such an ungrateful brat.

All dragons could be.

If I was still a dragon.

I could tell that I'd been asleep for a very long time. It was the reason why my body felt like a sack of flour, and it was the reason why I felt so lightheaded and trembly. I needed calories. But would I be able to hold down a meal?

I found out shortly when a certain golden-eyed vampire entered my room. Crispin brought a whole treasure trove of things with him: suitcases and backpacks, all full of mysterious things; one bowl of hot broth for my hollow belly; and, most importantly, another golden-eyed vamp.

I didn't notice the new arrival, at first. Crispin entered the room before he did, pausing at the door when I greeted him with a fierce scowl. He observed my irritation a bit grimly. "Ah, Sera. What's all this?"

I was sitting up in my hospital bed, leaning back on pillows to stay upright with a nurse at my side. She was trying to give me a new dose of painkiller for the day. Her hands paused in their work when Crispin opened the door. I actually heard her breath catch in her throat. She was getting distracted by Crispin's vampiric beauty. I twitched, irritably. She came to herself and got back to work.

"For your information," I told Crispin, fighting to keep the snarl in my voice down, "I've just slept for a very long time without anything to eat or drink, and I feel wretched."

"Hmm. I do hope I can help with that." Crispin walked in, and I saw clearly what he had dragged along with him: one pale, golden-eyed newcomer, bearing another backpack and suitcase. I stared. I hardly believed my own eyes. A third non-murderous vampire? Was there no end to them? How was it possible? I took to examining him very closely, marveling, searching for some clue as to what was going on. Where did you come from?

He was younger-looking than Crispin, just a high schooler. Like Crispin, he was unnaturally handsome and pale with shadows under his eyes and a golden stare. I noticed his gaze was lighter than Crispin's—he must have fed recently. His body had that same lean, lithe, feline look to it that Crispin's did. The new one didn't have the perfect scholar's wrists and hands meant for a pen and keyboard. He lacked Crispin's delicate finesse.

I greeted him with a special, extra-grumpy scowl. He stared back at me, looking mildly stunned. What was that odd look for? I was hardly stunning to a vampire. Not in this mortal form.

"Sera," Crispin began, gently, "this is my brother, Edward."

I narrowed my eyes, intently. The newcomer looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Scrawny," I commented, trying hard not to think about Crispin's supple, graceful form. "What did you drag him here for?"

Crispin smiled. "He offered to help me bring you books and things. Very nice of him—it's a lot to carry. He wanted to meet you."

"I see," I muttered. "Talk of the town, am I? Little stranger with a healthy dose of oddity and wanderlust. I must be fascinating."

Crispin was amused. "I'm afraid that's what happens in a place as small as Kellogg. Look, Carlisle said to try this." And he held out a porcelain bowl. It was filled with warm broth.

I laughed, quietly. "Your olive branch, eh? That and all these books. Not a bad strategy: tame the lion before holding conversation with her." I took the bowl into my hands. Ah, the blissful warmth! I held it in my lap, letting the heat spread through me. I was so cold without my fireheart …

Ah, but I couldn't let myself think about that. It wouldn't do to dissolve into despair again.

I went back to observing Edward. He was watching me intently, trying to read my face. I narrowed my eyes at him again. "Do you speak?"

The newcomer cooled at once, glaring. "Yes, I can speak."

I chewed my tongue, thoughtfully, trying to restrain it. I was still being a snake, and I needed to get a grip on it. Three golden-eyed vampires! I just had to know … "How big is your family?"

"Quite large," Crispin said, cutting off whatever his brother was trying to say. "Carlisle is my adoptive father, Esme, my adoptive mother. There are seven of us adopted in total."

I stared down at the bowl of broth in my lap as the full weight of it hit me. There were nine of them! Nine!

How had we not known about this? All the vampires we'd ever killed and captured, and I had never heard about these ones. They should have been the talk of the Siege. A marvel such as this … they would have been under the scope and in the hands of our lab technicians long ago.

My skin crawled. I had just pictured Crispin secured to one of the lab tables with glistening silver dragon-scale bindings holding him down, resisting his great vampiric strength as he struggled. Grandfather would be poised over him with the diamond needle rigged up in the stabilizer, driving the ultra-fine point with perfect precision into one golden eye to extract the mysterious shining substance …

My hands tightened over the porcelain bowl. No. I could not allow that.

"Sera?"

I blinked up at Crispin. He looked a little confused. I realized my heart rate had just kicked up several notches at the terrible image in my head. Crispin had heard it. "What?" I snapped, back to being grouchy in a blink. Crispin's face relaxed.

"You seemed distracted for a moment. Just making sure you're alright." He glanced at his brother. Edward twitched, shaking his head and moving toward the door.

"I'll be out here … give you two some private time …"

And he was out.

"Not overly friendly, is he?" I commented, peering into my bowl of broth. My stomach proclaimed its desires with an uncomfortable gurgle-and-squeak. Crispin raised an eyebrow. He was fighting down a big grin.

"No … that's Edward for you. I'd better go check on him. I'll be back, okay? Just a moment."

And out went Crispin.

I scowled at my bowl. What was he running out so quickly for? Sort of rude. The nurse quietly excused herself and scurried out, and then I was alone. Well, at least she'd given me my painkiller before leaving to ogle the two vamps. Silly, gullible humans.

Crispin re-entered my room at the worst possible time, while I was trying to eat my bowl of broth. My hands trembled, violently. I couldn't keep the broth in the spoon. Every time I lifted it out, the warm golden-brown liquid spilled back into the bowl. I was attempting breathing exercises, trying to calm my mind and still my hands, when Crispin materialized at my bedside. I jumped. He'd entered the room too quietly for my human ears to hear him.

"Oh, sorry," Crispin murmured, apologetically. I sighed in frustration, replacing the empty spoon in the bowl. Then I paused, peering up into his face. Was that … smug? His mischievous little grin looked awfully smug to me.

"What?" I wondered, suspiciously.

Crispin pursed his lips, fighting down the grin. "Nothing. Just talking to my brother." He softened, becoming gently concerned. "Do you need some help?"

I growled, frustrated. "I can't hold it still! I'm too shaky."

"Here," Crispin said, "I'll help you."

He settled himself down on the squeaky doctor's chair. He wheeled over to my bedside with much noise and extracted from his pocket … a straw. He grinned at my accusing glare. "I brought one from the kitchen, just in case." He leaned over and lifted my bowl into a hand for a moment, poking the straw in and stirring the broth around to reincorporate the particulate matter on the bottom. I wasn't sure what I was feeling. Embarrassment, maybe? I didn't know what to do with my hands. I stared down at my knees under the blankets, feeling an unwelcome warmth in my cheeks. Oh, perfect. Just flood my face with tempting blood when a vampire was sitting two feet away.

Crispin didn't seem bothered in the least. He mixed the warm broth with brisk flicking movements of his wrist and sniffed it. The face he made confirmed what he thought of the smell of human food. He glanced quickly at me, checking to see if I was watching. I pretended not to notice. I exhaled, heavily, turning my eyes to the ceiling. "I do not like this."

"I'm sure not," Crispin agreed in his smooth, musical tones. "But sometimes we have to do things we don't like." I scowled. He only smiled. "Come on, grumpy friend. You'll feel better if you can hold this down."

He was right about that. Was I willing to subject myself to being an infant for the time being if I could quit shaking in a few hours?

Yes, I was.

So, with a miserable little sigh, I turned back to Crispin. He gently redelivered the porcelain bowl to my lap. "Just think—you'll be back on your feet soon. If you need a little help to get by in the meantime … well, it's a miracle that you're as functional as you are. It could be a lot worse."

"Point taken," I muttered, miserably. He was right. It could be much worse. I could be a vegetable … or dead. So I bent over my lap and poked the straw into my mouth.

It was good broth. The saltiness reminded me how hungry I was. Before I had time to consider what I was about to do, I took the spoon out, set it down by my side, and picked up the bowl, planning to down it. Crispin rescued me from drowning. "Whoa, we were going to do this slowly, remember?"

"I'm hungry," I muttered, pointlessly. I tried to bring the bowl to my lips, but there was no escaping Crispin's powerful, gentle vampire hands. He carefully pushed my wrists down, keeping the bowl away from my face.

"Sera," he said, patiently. "Take it slowly. Remember what happened a couple days ago? Be kind to that little belly."

I took the straw back up, grumbling. Some small voice complained in the back of my head that I was being too mean, but it was hard to be careful and calm. I was jittery and irritable—I was still a little snake. Crispin let go of my wrists, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. I chewed on my straw, trying very hard not to think about how those cool, solid hands had touched me, fighting the temptation to stare at them. I took to peering at all the stuff he'd brought with him. It really was quite a lot. What did he need all the backpacks for?

Crispin noticed where I was looking. He grinned. "Ah, would you like to see? It was quite the chore, packing these all up."

"Overexcited GoldenEyes," I commented around the straw. "How many books?"

Crispin cleared his throat. "Erm … I only brought fourteen, but I've got a list of … well, fifty total." I paused in sucking on my straw and stared at him, my face twitching as I struggled to hold down a smile. He shrugged, awkwardly. "I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I grabbed some of everything."

Well, I was excited. I was dying to know what he'd brought. Even if they weren't my usual books, it was the equivalent of a small library—a little smaller than the one I kept in my room. I raised my eyebrows at the backpacks and resumed sucking on my straw. Crispin chuckled. "Ah, these! My precious things." He unzipped one of the backpacks and extracted something flat and silver. Mmm! Glorious laptop! It was a MacBook. I made a small happy noise. Crispin looked pleased. He flipped the computer over at lightning speed and opened the lid. "I don't know how anyone can survive without a good computer," he muttered. "Especially if they have a slow one."

I grumbled an agreement noise and sucked down the last of my broth. Crispin heard the bowl go empty and his eyebrows scrunched together. "Too fast, Sera," he scolded. I spat the straw out and licked my lips.

"Maybe I'll pay for it later. Feels good right now."

Crispin came to me and gently removed the bowl and straw from my lap. He replaced them with the laptop in a single smooth motion. "Here, grumpy one. I made a questionnaire."

I scrolled through the document. I smirked at what I found. "Determined, aren't you?"

"Well, I thought I might get to know you a little better," said Crispin, amiably. He set my empty bowl on my bedside table. "And you did promise to answer my questions."

"Hmm …" I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the document, skimming at lightning pace through all the questions. "No, I don't think I'm going to answer these like this." I glanced up in time to see the frustration that I'd predicted from Crispin's face. I smirked at it. I couldn't believe myself. Teasing a vampire? I was totally nuts. "Look, if I do them all like this, you'll have your answers, you won't come back, and I'll be bored. Besides, I want to figure out who you are, too. Let's just converse, like ordinary people."

Crispin tightened his lips and furrowed his brow. "I don't think I'd worry about me not coming back," he began, slowly. "I'm too curious, and I'll have more questions, I'm sure. But maybe you're right. It's not fair if you don't get to learn anything about me." He sighed, one hand going up to his temple for a moment. It seemed a habitual motion. He was thinking. Then he smiled, showing off those dazzling and dangerous teeth. "I'll take notes by hand." He dove into one of his backpacks. He tried to move slowly. I could see him carefully moving his hands and monitoring his steps. But he was still a tiny bit too quick. Any human who watched closely would have noticed.

It suddenly occurred to me that Crispin might be a young vampire, as in that he had been created recently. He seemed a little out of practice, especially as he got excited. He had gently restrained my hands when I'd tried to guzzle my bowl of broth, which revealed some of his strength and the solidness of his flesh. Even now he was moving too quickly, not realizing that he was going just a bit fast. He was still learning, still practicing basic skills for living among the humans.

I was surprised at the thought of Crispin's age. It was another one of those things that I had never worried about before, when vampires had still been nothing more than my prey. My stomach wormed as I realized I was about to learn some things about vampires that we had not known before. I was seeing from an entirely new perspective. I needed to take notes! I could be adding to the textbooks!

Crispin extracted a dense, sleek notebook from his pack. The logo on the front caught my eye and I blinked in amazement. "Rhodia?" I wondered aloud. Crispin glanced over, his golden eyes surprised.

"Yes. I'm surprised you know them."

"They're a little more expensive than your average paper," I commented, curious. "Usually you'd only buy them if …"

Crispin, grinning like an overjoyed schoolboy, stuck a hand back into his pack and extracted a little gleaming pen. It was a perfect match. The finials and cap were white and perfectly paired with his skin. The glistening gold marbling in the body of the pen was exactly the shade of his eyes. I couldn't help it. I burst into laughter. "The Pelikan M200!" I exclaimed. "You matched it on purpose."

Crispin laughed with me, grinning all over with those perfect, eye-catching teeth. "I thought you might appreciate this one. It's one of my regulars. I guess you're into fountain pens?"

So we were. Dragons had never quite moved on to the newfangled ballpoints. The Matriarch owned a few fountain pens that were over two hundred years old, and we still made quills with swan feathers every festival. "You clever thing," I teased Crispin. "Saw an opportunity and snatched it. The resemblance is uncanny."

"My brothers call it my little offspring," Crispin said, rolling his eyes. "They think I'm too attached. But you should see how they treat their cars—the hypocrites."

Hmm … these vampires drove cars. Not many did. I filed that away for later. I chuckled and twitched my chin at the notebook he held in his hand. "Alright, let's see the ink."

Crispin came to my bedside and plopped back onto his squeaky chair. He spread the beautiful notebook open to a back page on my mattress and uncapped his pen. Some stupid internal part of me whispered ah, those beautiful hands …

Blood flowed into my cheeks against my will.

Crispin's perfect hands held the pen with comfortable confidence. He started with a long row of connected figure-eights in the top margin. The pen started writing instantly and the ink flowed thick and wet. It was a stunning, glossy deep blue. Mmm … it was a good match for the pen. Well done, Crispin! Then he inscribed his own signature with practiced precision. It was long and compact and slanting, like a wise old professor's.

I'd always had a strange liking for Crispin's hands and wrists, and now there was a new thing to like: his penmanship. It was perfect. I noticed him watching me and pretended to critically inspect his handwriting. I wanted to call out some imperfection just to tease him, but there was none. "Hmm … what ink is this?" I asked, feeling a fresh wave of heat course through my face.

"Diamine Oxford Blue," he replied. "One of my very favorites."

He had good taste. I, too, owned this ink. I nodded, sagely, even as my heart skipped away, all worked up on excitement. "A good choice. Goes well with this pen."

"I'm glad you think so," Crispin said. I risked a glance at him. That dazzling smile was overwhelming. Vampiric good looks were starting to get to me. I wasn't sure if I should be fascinated, afraid, or appalled. Never before had I felt these things that I was feeling now. This wasn't supposed to be what dragons felt about their prey.

But without your fireheart … my traitorous mind whispered, you're not a dragon. My jaw clenched slightly. I would not dwell on that thought. Good thing I had a very effective distraction.

Crispin flipped back to the front page and titled it in that glorious handwriting. Day One. Beneath that he started a short paragraph. Grumpy today, slept ~20 hrs. Low blood sugar.

I stopped him there. "Twenty hours?!"

"I'm afraid so," said Crispin, blinking his stunning eyes at me from beneath his eyelashes. "But it's good for you to sleep. It'll speed up the healing process.

I tore my gaze away from his face. It was distracting me from coherent thought. "No wonder I feel like a sack of flour."

Crispin was quiet. I glanced back down. He was writing again. Feels like a sack of flour.

I groaned. "Crispin, no."

He chuckled. "We need to keep track of your healing. Any information is important." He lightly placed the cap on his pen to keep it from drying out. "How does your stomach feel?"

"Fine," I said, glancing at the empty porcelain bowl on my bedside table. "But I've always had quite the appetite."

I checked the notebook. Sure enough, Crispin was writing it down. No discomfort after 1,000 mL chicken broth, lightly spiced. Very good appetite normally.

I grinned. Had he really measured the chicken broth? No, it was probably an estimate. Still, he was extremely thorough.

"And … pain levels?"

"Fine," I said, again. "The painkiller must be working."

"No headache … neck pain?"

He sounded like an aspiring doctor. Following Dr. Cullen around like a duckling the way he was, he very well could be. "My neck clicks when I turn my head like this," I said, demonstrating. Crispin winced. He could hear the soft pop of my joints.

"We'll have to get that fixed later," he muttered, and resumed scribbling. Misaligned cervical vertebrae, but no pain. Painkiller's effects? "How's the hand?" He nodded at my bandaged appendage.

I held up my left hand. "I don't know. I haven't tried to move it. It was really bad last night."

"Ah," Crispin murmured, softly. "When you couldn't sleep. I remember."

I sighed. "At least it's my left hand. I can do without that. If it were my writing hand, though …"

Crispin smiled. "Don't worry, Sera. You'll have both hands by the time you walk out of here. No fear—you won't have to toss your keyboard." He scribbled away on the notebook. Then he popped the cap back on his pen and sat back. "Excellent. That should be good."

I peered down at his immaculate handwriting. Hmm … I needed some of that where I could always see it. Very nice. "So … is the interrogation over?" I asked, playfully. Crispin looked amused.

"Not even remotely."

"Can I do some interrogating?" I wondered, picking up the new journal and running my fingers over the beautiful, crisp pages.

"Hmm …" Crispin ran a pale, delicate finger over his cheekbone, pretending to be thoughtful. "I suppose it's only fair."

I beamed and set the journal back down. "Excellent! I need some paper."

Crispin got that clever little look about him again and jumped to his feet. He went to the other backpack and opened it, extracting another Rhodia notebook with a flourish. "Good thing I came prepared."

Golly, he must be rich.

Crispin let me use his pen. It was cold to the touch. Of course, he had no body heat to warm it—his hands were room temperature.

I split the book into sections, preparing to take notes on the odd vampires and Crispin. I'd probably need another book for my personal journaling. Unfortunately, the journal I'd brought with me was still in my dragon bag-tent in the forest, far out of reach. I relished the ink, but was heartily embarrassed at my handwriting. My hands were still weak and a little trembly. The shaking wasn't nearly as bad as it had been before, but it wrecked my perfect "r's" and "o's." The fact that the trembling had decreased was still wonderful. A few calories was all it took to put things right.

"Okay, you," I said, titling the first page. Crispin Info. "Age?"

Crispin chuckled. "Twenty-four." He probably found the question funny, knowing he was older than I knew. I scribbled it down, aware that he was watching. I switched to draconic script for the sake of privacy, inscribing my messy estimation of his real age. Fifty, perhaps a little younger. Seems young for a vampire.

Crispin observed with huge interest. "That looks a little like … wait … Elder Futhark?"

I grinned. Leave it to Crispin to know things he should not. Draconic script was very similar to the old Germanic writing because it was designed to be written with claws on stone. "Yes, it's … my own alteration," I lied. "I like to practice it by repeating everything I write."

Crispin narrowed his eyes a little, tilting his head as though it would help him read the strange language. He was cute. I moved to distract him … and myself, so I wouldn't think about him being cute. "Let's talk about your family."

Crispin was immediately cautious. "Oh?"

"Yep," I said, scribbling a heading in my trembling handwriting. "Have you ever looked into your family history?"

"Er … no. Why?"

I gave him my best incredulous look. "You said you were adopted, no? Do you know where you're from?"

"I'm from here. Or are you asking where my ancestors are from?" He was teasing me. I watched him, expectantly. "Then … no. I don't know where I'm from."

I sighed. "You should look into it. Bloodlines can be very telling. What about your family? Where are your adopted siblings from?"

Crispin smiled a little, his perfect teeth shining. "Edward—the brother you just met —"

"The one that doesn't like me."

Crispin sighed. "It's not that, he's just…"

I raised an eyebrow.

Crispin sighed again. "He's just not good at making new friends. It's not you, it's him. But he's from Chicago. He was a foster child there before Carlisle adopted him."

Scribble scribble. I wrote it down. Oh, this wonderful pen. It wasn't as perfect a match for my medium brown skin the way it paired with Crispin's deathly paleness, but I loved it nonetheless. What mattered was how well it wrote, and it did that beautifully. The nib glided over the paper with buttery smoothness.

Crispin kept talking once I paused in writing. "Carlisle is from the UK. All his ancestors are from there. He moved away when he was very young, and he's traveled the world since then."

"Hmm … good to know. I used to spend time in the UK. My family likes the seaside."

"Where are you from?" Crispin wondered, drawing the conversation away from himself. I smiled.

"Switzerland. My family's been there for a few generations, now." No way was I telling him that we lived deep in the heart of the Alps … a hundred miles away from any human town.

"Where did your ancestors come from?" Crispin pressed, looking deeper. My grin got wider. I knew what he wanted me to say—that my lineage was from somewhere in Africa, where my brown skin would have been commonplace.

"Denmark."

Crispin tilted his head. "How many generations back?"

"More than I can count."

"Truly?"

"Absolutely."

Crispin squinted at the wall, puzzling. I chuckled. "We carry old genes in my family. This combination—" I gestured to my brown arm, and then my lightning-blue eyes, "was normal a few thousand years ago, especially in that area. All my family members look like this still."

Crispin became very interested. He flipped his notebook back open, reclaimed his pen from me, and started writing it down. "Denmark, eh?"

"Mmm-hm. Here, look." I turned back to his glorious laptop, which was sitting on my bed beside me. I pecked in a few keywords, hit search, and started opening tabs. It was painfully slow. I was restricted to using only one hand since my other was tightly bandaged and could not be moved. "I'll give you some stuff to read later, if you want more info."

Crispin was delighted. He clinched up onto my bed and knelt next to me, eagerly watching with his golden eyes as I opened one tab and then another. I scooted over to give him some room, even as my stomach was worried about his nearness. He was a vampire. I'd been taught to treat his kind like the monsters they were, not let them get so close and friendly. The question was, why wasn't I more frightened? I would have reacted violently to his nearness, if he had been a normal vamp. But Crispin was golden-eyed, pleasant-tempered, and sweet. I wasn't as afraid as I should have been. "Fascinating," Crispin breathed. His honey-pine breath stroked my cheek. I held my breath as my heartbeat skipped. Whoa. He was so close. It was an effort to ignore the distraction.

I only gave him quick glimpses of each webpage and article, but I knew it was enough. Vampires could take in huge amounts of information at a single glance. They had extremely sharp eyes and high-speed processing capabilities. He could have more in-depth looks later, once I wore out and had to take a nap.

Technically, I was giving away too much. Vampires did not need to know about my geneology. I was showing him all these prehistoric secrets, getting too close to unveiling just how old we were. How well would my lie stand after he'd done some of his own research, discovered how the rest of my race had died out thousands of years ago while my comparatively small family lived on? It was too suspicious. He might guess something.

But I felt relaxed. It was fun, sparking all the excitement in those gold eyes and getting him close to me. Like any common human, I was becoming intoxicated by this vampire. He was sweet and curious and smelled too pleasant for his own good. Some ridiculous, hare-brained, lustful part of me would not listen to the whispers of unease in my gut that should have warned me away from such danger. I liked him close. It was nice. I wanted to keep him that way.

Besides, he wasn't like the other vampires. He didn't seem to want my blood in his mouth. He was far more interested in what I had to say. Did that not mean anything?

"Incredible," Crispin muttered. He'd stolen the computer away from me and was scrolling through one of the articles I'd dragged up for him, sitting cross-legged on the opposite end of my bed to give me a little space. "I wonder if anyone else still carries these genes? I've heard of blue eyes springing up among dark-skinned people by chance, from random modern mutations. But you say yours are from these extinct populations? You're a living relic! I wonder …" He peered up at me from where he was sitting on the foot of my bed. "Are you lactose intolerant, as well?"

"I am."

"Good to know." He reached for the notebook at his side, picking it up with his peripheral vision while watching the laptop screen. "No milk. Better remember that …" he popped the cap off his pen and etched out a bullet point.

"The meatier you can make my meals, the better," I said, nestling back into my pillows and resting my head in them. My neck was tired. I was tired, I realized. My hands had stopped shaking, but my stomach felt like it was full of foam and my eyelids were getting heavy.

Crispin felt my movement as I lay back and looked up from the computer screen again. He tilted his head. "Hmm … you're starting to look a bit drowsy. How do you feel?"

"I don't know," I mumbled, picking up my new journal and letting the wonderfully clean pages rush through my fingers. "How much can one person sleep?"

"A lot, if you're healing." Crispin slid off my bed and shut his computer, setting it on one of the visitor's chairs in the back of the room. "It's okay if you're tired."

I scowled. I wanted to stay awake. I still hadn't figured out how I was going to sneakily ask vampire-related questions to Crispin without tipping him off that I knew his secret. There were still things that I wanted to do. But I yawned.

Crispin laughed, softly. "Naptime, I think?"

"Fine," I muttered, grumpily. The vampire just had that amused look about him.

"When the irritable tiger emerges, it's time for bed." He carefully tugged the pillows out from behind my back and helped me lie down. I found myself intensely aware of his hands as he guided me back, helping me rest my head down without hurting my recently injured skull. He nervously avoided touching my head too much. "I didn't notice those stitches before," he muttered, surprising me.

I blinked. "Where?" I reached up and felt the top of my head. Yikes, I did have an ugly gash. I could feel the rows of stitches tracing across my scalp. How had I not paid them any attention before? "Ow."

"Yes, that is a rather ugly wound." Crispin examined the injury closely. His hands were gentle on my scalp, his fingers probing around the hurt, examining my head. His touch was cool and his flesh was firm on my scalp—all unmistakable signs of vampire that should have triggered my self-defensive instincts. I breathed deeply and stayed calm. "Looks like Carlisle put them in. I know his style. He taught me the same way."

I blinked rapidly. This was strange new information. Crispin had to be very close to Carlisle, indeed. He had learned to put in stitches? Why would a vampire care to know how to put in stitches? My heart skipped into my throat. Because he was good. He wanted to be like Carlisle, a caretaker of those who could not care for themselves. Crispin's cool breath was honey and spice on the top of my head.

My ridiculous brain suddenly wished I could sniff him outside of the hospital, away from the reek of disinfectant.

I rolled my eyes at myself. The motion made me realize that my brain was getting sore. Yes, it was time to sleep. Crispin let my head rest back, gently spread my blanket over me, and retreated to the back of the room. "I'll stay here in case you need me. Looks like I have some reading to do."

He turned the lights down. I craned my neck a little to see him, wincing at the pain of the motion, and found that he was already sitting in one of the visitor's seats with his legs crossed and his pen in hand, writing. Speedy vampire …

He was definitely too at ease with me. He kept doing vampiric things, thinking (or maybe hoping) that I didn't notice. Maybe he wasn't thinking about them at all. Maybe he was just … relaxed.

I shut my eyes. I had to remember one thing—I needed to be cautious. As entertaining and likeable as I found Crispin, I could not allow myself to relax like he did, to let slip the truth about my own identity. It put him at terrible risk. My family would destroy him if they thought he could not be trusted with the knowledge. They might destroy him anyway, because of what he was. I could not allow that. So I would wait … and learn … and, maybe, I would find what I needed to protect him.

Until then … the new side of me that was getting attracted to Crispin became fiercely smug … I would be spending a lot of time around a certain golden-eyed vampire.