“Tai can’t help being cool.” Leslie was laughing.
Of course, of everyone here, he would be the one to show off. Not that it counted as showing off, because leaping less than ten feet into the air and diving into some water was hardly an impressive feat for a vampire. Claire held back her eye roll,though. She’d made a resolution with herself while driving from her downtown condo. From the morning hike to the afternoon art festival to the dinner they’d reserved at Ryker and Leslie’s favorite tapas restaurant, no one would ever guess how strongly Claire disliked Ryker’s best man.
Tai surfaced on the other side of the pool and shook the water from his hair. Jake and Hannah clapped, and Tai’s dark eyebrows shot up. If Claire didn’t know better, she’d think he hadn’t noticed his audience until now.
“Nice,” Jake said.
Tai shrugged.
Ryker was chest-deep in the water already, but now he crouched and sprang from the pool up to the same boulder.
Leslie’s musical laughter rang over the water. “Look what you did, Tai. Now my fiancé has to outdo you.”
“Of course he does,” Tai said. Without waiting to watch, he slipped under the water and began roving the bottom of the pool like an actual fish.
Ryker ran across the wet rock and launched himself into the air, flipping two somersaults before entering a dive that created considerably more splash than Tai’s had done. This time the cheering came from the whole group, accompanied by laughter.
“My turn!” Logan and Nova shouted in unison. They launched out of the water at the same moment, landed side by side on the glistening boulder, and grabbed one another’s arms in an attempt to push each other into the pool. They were as identical as fraternal twins could be—corn-silk blond hair, aquamarine eyes, impish noses and angular limbs, freckles spattered across pale cheeks. When they finally tipped over the edge into the water together, vampire balance kicked in and ended the squabble. Midair they tucked their limbs and rolled through the impact with the water, graceful as any synchronized diving team.
Across the pool, Hannah and Leslie treaded water side by side. Hannah said, “I’ve never seen you do that.”
“Which part?” Leslie said.
“The way they all move, the smoothness. Do you hide it at home?”
“Part of growing up in a human town,” Leslie said. “But I’m getting more natural at it. Want to see?”
Hannah’s hands dripped as she clapped them just above the water. “Yes please. Hey, everybody, it’s the bride’s turn!”
Leslie grinned, then pushed off the nearest underwater rocks and shot out of the water. Hannah gasped as Leslie landed on the boulder, then gasped again and gave a little cry as Leslie crouched, sprang, and twirled a full circle in midair. Her body arched out over the pool and then dove deep.
Claire joined the applause. Ryker put his fingers to his lips and whistled, and that earned laughter too. Everyone was so at ease—the twins splashing one another, Mackey floating on his back slightly separate from the group, Philippa sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, still fully clothed. Tai had been underwater so long, Claire could hardly believe he hadn’t bobbed to the surface encased in ice. Ryker met Leslie in the center of the pool when she surfaced, and they shared a light kiss that garnered more applause.
It was all so…good. Sure, Tai was here, but so what? Claire was with the friends she loved, friends that had become her family. She floated on her back for a minute, let the goodness of the morning soak into her while her bones soaked up the cold of the water. Every vampire’s teeth would be chattering when they finally got out to dry off. She wouldn’t trade her physical abilities for anything, but sometimes she wouldn’t mind borrowing a wolf’s elevated body temperature and near-inability to feel the cold.
After Hannah and Jake climbed up to the rock and did cannonballs into the pool, Leslie swam over to her. “I know you helped Hannah with some of the planning for today. Thanks.”
Claire waved a hand. “My pleasure.”
“Want a turn on the diving board?” Leslie gestured to the boulder. “Ryker says you’re a great swimmer.”
Until now Claire had felt satisfied watching the rest of them have fun. Maybe Tai hadn’t been showing off when he got the diving party started; maybe he’d simply seen the boulder and wanted to enjoy a dive. Claire vaulted out of the water onto the smooth, wet rock. She angled toward the waterfall and leaped as far as she could, and the cheers of her friends echoed in the basin behind her as her body parted the veil of the falling water and she dove deep into this darker place.
Of course as a vampire, she didn’t need light to see. She ran her palms over the submersed rocks that formed the bowl beneath the falls, avoiding the slimy algae. Silver minnows flitted overhead, closer to the surface. A few larger fish—she was no expert, but they looked like trout—watched her from the shelter of an underwater outcropping. Claire scissored her legs, and her body cut through the water, fast and effortless, exhilarating. She didn’t have to breathe. The cave behind the waterfall was deeper than she’d expected. She pushed farther back, into true lightless monochrome that would leave a human blind. Her toes brushed against an unsuspecting turtle’s shell, and it snapped at her but missed when she yanked her foot away faster than it could strike.
Her vision snagged on movement at the back of the cave. Through the water, which was still crystal clear, a pair of vampire eyes met hers.
Two
Claire thrust both her arms down and gave a full-strength kick that shot her body to the surface. She exploded halfway out of the water with an enormous splash that not even the vampires outside the cave would hear over the waterfall. Ten feet farther into the cave, Tai surfaced too, though less dramatically.
“Sorry to startle you.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
His mouth tilted, but he didn’t call her on the obvious lie.
Tai’s eyes were always noticeable, but they were more so in the dimness of the cave. Unlike most vampire eyes, which came in jewel tones—purple, blue, green—Tai’s were mostly colorless, not gray but not exactly silver either. The glint of his irises was constant, as if he had two actual orbs of metal in his head and someone had polished them to a sheen.
