The Reluctant by Aila Cline Page A

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malevolence stalking me every time I moved. My tension became so
palpable that Will would touch me lightly on the arm every few
moments to gauge my mood. The evening seemed normal in many ways
and by the end of it, I knew that Luka and I would be good friends.
It was impossible to not like the guy.
    Will haphazardly slung an arm over my
shoulders as we walked to the car, Luka flanking us at a polite
distance. Will’s nice little Civic awaited us and Luka familiarly
untangled my hand from Will’s embrace.
    “Emily,” he began in his usual
rascally tone, “I am impressed. Only you could start a bar fight
with a perfect stranger while completely sober.”
    I grinned until I thought my cheeks
around split open. For some reason, I took a certain pride in
Luka’s comment.
    The car’s hum and the metal band on
the radio lent a backdrop of normalcy to the closing of our
evening. Will held my hand tightly over the console, as if I would
jump out the window. If only he had known then how completely
entranced I was with the way he made me feel. He brought my hand to
his lips to kiss, and I felt this gave me license to speak about a
particular obsession of mine. The rest of America loves it, too, so
don’t judge me too harshly.
    “Ever read Twilight ?” I asked
innocently.
    “ Yes,” he answered with
wry amusement. “Although the movies were pretty bad. That Taylor
Lautner makes one pretty hot werewolf though.”
    I laughed. “Oh, Team Jacob, are you?
That comment came out too smoothly. You knew this was
coming.”
    He chuckled. “Yes. You can’t live in
America and know a Lycanti without thinking about those damn books,
can you?”
    “Well, not really,” I admitted. “And
now that I know there are wolves running around disguised as
people, I have to ask: Are there vampires, too?”
    Will was nonplussed by my question.
“Yep. They call themselves the Children of Dacre.”
    I paused a moment. Honestly, I was
blown away, but I handled it like a real trooper.
    “Why not the Children of Dracula?
Wouldn’t that make more sense?”
    “You got me. They’re just vampires.
It’s not like a different name will change what they really
are.”
    What they really were? So they did
exist as something other than the butt of a joke! I had devoured
the Twilight series in one delicious gulp of a weekend. Stephanie
Meyer’s vision of beautiful vampires danced around in my head. Yes,
I had to ask:
    “Are they hot?”
    He gave me a long, serious look.
“Sometimes. They actually look pretty normal. They’re paler and
downright anorexic-looking. It depends on what you find attractive,
I guess.” He reached forward to slide his hand down the curve of my
hip. “I, personally, do not like the Kate Moss look.”
    “Oh,” I said dejectedly, pushing his
hand away. How disappointing. So Meyer didn’t hold the secret of
Immortals; obviously she just had a really good imagination. And I
still didn’t like my hips, no matter how much he did.
    “I promise,” he said softly. He looked
away. “You’re not missing out.”
    But I had found something that
interested me.
    “Do they live forever?”
    “No.”
    “Do they have superhuman
powers?”
    “No.”
    “What about flying?”
    He snorted. “That’s semi-ridiculous,
Emily. No.”
    “Well, what’s so special about
them?”
    He shrugged. “Some people consider
their diet pretty special.”
    “Do they drink blood?”
    “Of course they drink blood,” he
growled playfully. “What do the vampires you know drink? Banana
smoothies? Very creepy—if you’re terrified of the random rampaging
Bunnicula. I bet you have a complex about that, huh?”
    I pursed my lips. I didn’t like being
mocked. “That’s not funny, Will.”
    “I thought it was pretty
funny.”
    I smiled a bit. “Okay, it was a little
funny, but bananas are overplayed in jokes. Everything’s funnier
with kiwi.”
    He gifted me that sardonic half grin
that I was coming to enjoy.