I can’t make us stop. Instead, I reach up, fist his shirt, and deepen the kiss. I press myself to his body and listen to the faint, pleased groan he lets out. I rub my core against the meat of his thigh while his breath hitches inside my ear, and he says, “Ethel.”

It’s not my real name. Not the one the real Lazlo, the Lazlo who remembers, likes to use. And that, at last, is the bucket of ice I need.

I push him away, both my hands against his rib cage. He stumbles backward, breathing fast, his expression half delighted, half outraged.

Shit.

“No, I— No.” I shake my head. “This is wrong. I can’t do this to you.”

He frowns. “You don’t need to do anything. I do things. To you.”

“You—” I want to bury my face in my hands. “You don’t even know who I am. You don’t remember who you are. This is— I am basically deceiving you, and—”

“I know that. You are odd. And a terrible liar, and not good at being secretive. But I don’t care.”

“Well, you should care. You cannot consent to being with someone who hasn’t been open with you about their identity, and—”

“There is nothing that I could discover about you, or about myself, that would make me want to do this any less.” His tone is arrogant and self-assured, and brooks no argument.

I hate it.

Sadly, I could see myself loving it.

He steps closer once again. “I know we have done this before, Ethel.”

“No. No, we haven’t. How do you even . . . ?”

“I know your smell. I know your skin. Your hair. It’s all familiar. I have it all memorized. And I dream of you—of this. So many dreams, all so different, we must have done it a million times, in a million different ways. Tell me what you’re hiding from me, let’s get this over with, and then let’s do it a million more times.” He stops when a masked man trips drunkenly inside our alleyway. “Not now,” he orders the intruder before turning back to me.

“Actually, sir,” I say, shrill, panicky, eager to end the conversation, “this place is all yours. My friend and I were just getting ready to go our separate ways.”

Lazlo rolls his eyes, but the man in the Edward Cullen mask nods his thanks and walks closer.

And that’s when something starts nagging at me. There’s an odd familiarity to his gait. To the grace of his movements. To the speed of—

“It’s you,” I whisper.

I barely have time to shove Lazlo out of the way before the vampire who tried to kill me two nights ago attacks me again.

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Chapter 10

Imay have been a little overoptimistic about the death of Teenage Dirtbag Vampire. In that sense, the Halloween crowd is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, the loud music and festive atmosphere are noisy enough to cover the sounds of our fight, which guarantees that people won’t interfere and accidentally get themselves torn to pieces. On the other, it means that I’m on my own. A problem, since despite my first impression of him, the vampire trying to kill me is very, very strong.

When we met before, in Central Park, he must have been injured. Or starving. He has now recovered, and his assault is becoming harder and harder to fend off. He attacks me silently, precisely, with none of the sloppiness of two nights ago. He’s not of my bloodline, but with power like this, I have to scrap my Teenage Dirtbag assessment and admit that he has to be at least as old as I am.

We are that evenly matched.

I stab at him with my dagger and try to overpower him once and for all, letting out a frustrated grunt when he disarms me. A group of teenagers walk past the mouth of the alleyway, glance at the struggling outline of our bodies, and let out lewd, suggestive noises. “Get a fucking room, losers!”

It may look like we’re making out, but I just want to get the vampire off me and go check on Lazlo, who hasn’t gotten up since I shoved him against the wall.

I put all my might behind a powerful push and manage to throw Adult Dirtbag inside a dumpster. When he doesn’t immediately reemerge, I take a second to run to Lazlo and kneel at his side, pushing back the hair on his brow.

He is unconscious, and my stomach drops. I know he can’t die, not from this. But he could forget even more. His brain is clearly susceptible to . . . anything, really, and my stomach tightens with worry and regret and something that feels a lot like desperation. “Are you okay?” I shake him to no avail. “Lazlo? I—”

A clawed hand grips the back of my sweater, pulling me away. The world goes upside down, and a moment later the vampire is on top of me. “You are in my territory,” he growls, lips and tongue mangled by his own teeth. His eyes are milky white all over, with the sole exception of his pupils.

I was wrong. He’s not an adolescent, and he’s not my age. This vampire is at least a millennium older than me. His power is unstable and impossible to predict. The realization hits me when he tears at my jugular with a swift strike of his fangs, causing my blood to erupt out of my skin.

The pain eviscerates me, and I scream. My neck throbs like it’s on fire.

He’s fucking ancient. That’s why he can take me so easily. I try to kick him off, but he has me pinned underneath him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” I hiss at him.

“You should have left when you had a chance.”

“Fuck you. I was here first.”

His smile is shark-toothed, as if every single one of his teeth is a canine. “You’ll be here last, too.” He opens his maw wider, spit and blood mixing as his head bends over to strike my vein again, and—

It rolls away.

His head, that is.

It wobbles above the vampire’s neck, dangles forward, and then rolls away.

The vampire collapses on top of me in a puddle of viscous fluids. I push his lithe body away, smelling the metallic scent of blood as it blends with the rotting sweetness of the trash behind us, then scramble to my feet before his juices can soak through my clothes. “What the—” That’s when I notice that Lazlo has regained consciousness. He stands behind the remains of Ancient Dirtbag, a dagger in his grip. But he’s not staring at his handiwork.

No: He’s staring at me.

Thank you, I want to say. And: Are you okay? And: He’s not dead yet. We need to expose every part of him to the sun.

But there is a light in his eyes, new and old at the same time, that tells me that there’s no need for me to explain anything. He already knows all of this. Killing vampires is second nature to him—first, maybe.

I open my mouth. Then, unsure of what to say, close it. Suddenly, I feel like crying, and I’m not certain I know why.

Until Lazlo says, “Aethelthryth.”

My name. The one my mother gave me. Probably because it was all the rage at the time—over a thousand years ago.

It can mean only one thing.

That’s why, without any warning, I charge Lazlo Enyedi and begin to attack him.

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Chapter 11

Over the centuries, I’ve battled Lazlo more times than I can count. If there is one thing I’m certain of, it’s that when it comes to physical strength and fighting skills, he and I are equals.

That’s why it makes absolutely no sense that only a couple of seconds pass between the time I start running in his direction and the moment the blade of my dagger touches the ink wrapped around his neck.

Sure, he’s a little banged up. But I’m still bleeding profusely from where the vampire gnawed at me, which means that we’re both in poor shape.

And yet, here I am. Looking up at him with my knife at his neck, trapping his larger body against the wall with no difficulty. I have, at last, the opportunity to excise him from my life once and for all.