Brook should be looking at my partially bare shoulder, gawk ing at the tattoos there that not one other fledgling or vampyre that I knew of had ever had. But he wasn't. He was still staring into my eyes. And suddenly something happened within me. I stopped feeling like a goofy, jittery, dorky teenage girl. The look in his eyes touched the woman inside me, awakening her, and as this new me stirred I found a calm confidence in myself that I had rarely known before. Slowly, I reached up and pushed the small strap of my ribbed cotton tank over my shoulder so that it joined my half-discarded Brooket. Then, still meeting his eyes, I swept my long hair out of the way, lifted my chin, and turned my body slightly, giving him a clear view of the back of my shoulder, which was now completely bare exc
