Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - Token of Darkness

“I’ll have to call my … her …” She hesitated, and then settled on one. “My friends. I don’t have any other relatives, but there are some people besides Ryan who would like to know I’m … alive.” She shook her head. “That’s the right thing to do, right? Even if I’m not quite who they knew?”

Cooper nodded. “I changed a lot because of the accident. But my friends still wanted to see me.”

“I guess Ryan will let me stay with him, and help me figure out how to use this body. You’ll be around, right? I mean, you’ll stay in touch?”

“Of course,” Cooper assured her. “I wouldn’t have gotten through this last summer without you. It’s my turn to be here for you now. And I guess I’ll still need Ryan’s help, too, so I’ll be over there a lot.”

“Will you take me out to dinner?” Samantha asked, her expression brightening.

“Sure, as soon as Ryan or the doctors say you’re up to it,” Cooper said.

“No, I mean … will you take me out?” Samantha said, the emphasis clear this time, especially when she blushed, and mumbled, “Their mother would have said it’s improper for a girl to ask a boy on a date.”

Startled, Cooper blurted out, “I guess you owe me dinner, since I’m pretty sure you’ve watched me shower.”

She laughed—and then winced. Her physical recovery would doubtless take a long time.

“Only the once,” she replied innocently. She smiled widely. “I’m not going to ask again, Cooper Blake, so as soon as I’m pronounced fit, I expect you to be a gentleman.”

Yes, she had watched him shower, teased him mercilessly, hit on him while possessing the body of a friend of his, and was, if he understood it right, not even quite human. Then again, he was a little less than normal himself.

He wasn’t an expert on magic or supernatural powers. He couldn’t begin to fully comprehend everything he had seen and done recently. But this much was simple. It didn’t matter what she was. She was Samantha.

“It’s a date,” he promised.

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes grew up in Concord, Massachusetts. Born in 1984, she wrote her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, praised as “remarkable” (Voice of Youth Advocates) and “mature and polished” (Booklist), when she was thirteen. The other books in the Den of Shadows series are Demon in My View, Shattered Mirror, and Midnight Predator, all ALA-YALSA Quick Picks for Young Adults. She has also published the five-volume series The Kiesha’ra: Hawksong, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Voice of Youth Advocates Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection; Snakecharm; Falcondance; Wolfcry, an IRA-CBC Young Adults’ Choice; and Wyvernhail. Her most recent book was Persistence of Memory.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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eISBN: 978-0-375-89597-5

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