Solar Midnight: Midnight Sun Reimagined (Life and Death, Book I)

by beyondthedawn

When Edythe Cullen and Beau Swan met in Life and Death (Twilight Reimagined), an iconic love story was born. But until now, fans have heard only Beau's side of the story. At last, readers can experience Edythe's version in the long-awaited companion novel, Solar Midnight. Adapted from the original novel, Midnight Sun, written by Stephenie Meyer - published August 2020.

17. CONFESSIONS

I felt the sun, warm against my skin, and I was glad I couldn't see that, either. I didn't want to look at myself now. For the longest half second I'd ever lived through, everything was silent. And then Beau suddenly shouted my name.

"Edythe!"

My eyes flashed open, and I fully expected to see him running away from all I had just revealed myself to be.

But he was running right at me in a collision course, his mouth open in distress. His hands were half-extended toward me, and he tripped and stumbled his way through the long grass. His expression wasn't frightened, but it was desperate. I didn't understand what he was doing.

I couldn't let him crash into me, whatever he was intending. I needed him to keep his distance. I raised my hand again, palm forward.

He faltered, then wobbled in place for a moment, exuding anxiety.

As I stared into his eyes, saw my reflection there, I thought perhaps I understood. Mirrored in his eyes, what I resembled most was a woman on fire. Though I'd debunked his myths, he must have held on to them subconsciously.

Because he was worried. Frightened for the monster rather than of it.

He took a step toward me, and then hesitated when I moved a half step back.

"Does that hurt you?" he whispered.

Yes, I'd been right. He wasn't afraid for himself, not even now.

"No," I whispered back.

He stepped another foot closer, careful now. I let my hand fall.

He still wanted to be closer to me.

His expression shifted as he approached. His head cocked to the side, and his eyes first narrowed, then grew huge. Even with this much space between us, I could see the effects of the light refracting off my skin shining prism-like against his own. He moved another step and then another, keeping the same distance away as he slowly circled around me. I stayed completely motionless, feeling his eyes touch my skin as he moved out of my sight. His breath came more quickly than usual, his heart pumped faster.

He reappeared on my right, and now there was a tiny smile beginning to form around the edges of his lips as he completed his circle and faced me again.

How could he smile?

He walked closer, stopping when he was only ten inches away. His hand was raised, curled close to his chest, as if he wanted to reach out and touch me but was afraid to. The sunlight shattered off my arm and whirled against his face.

"Edythe," he breathed. There was wonder in his voice.

"Are you scared now?" I asked quietly.

It was as if my question was totally unexpected, as if it shocked him. "No."

I stared into his eyes, unable to stop myself from fruitlessly trying—again—to hear him.

He reached toward me, very slowly, watching my face. I thought perhaps he was waiting for me to tell him to stop. I didn't. His warm fingers grazed the back of my wrist. He stared intently at the light that danced from my skin to his.

"What are you thinking?" I whispered. In this moment, the constant mystery was once again acutely painful.

He shook his head slightly, and seemed to struggle for the words. "I am..." He stared up into my eyes. "I didn't know..." He took a deep breath. "I've never seen anything more beautiful—never imagined something so beautiful could exist."

I stared back at him in shock.

My skin was blazing with the most flagrant symptom of my disease. In the sun, I was less human than at any other time. And he thought I was... beautiful.

My hand lifted automatically, turning to take his, but I forced myself to make it drop, not to touch him.

"It's very strange, though," I said. Surely he could understand that this was part of the horror.

"Amazing," he corrected.

"Aren't you repulsed by my flagrant lack of humanity?"

Though I was fairly sure now what his answer would be, it was still astonishing to me.

He half smiled. "Not repulsed."

"You should be."

His smile widened. "I'm feeling like humanity is pretty overrated."

Carefully, I pulled my arm out from underneath his warm fingertips, hiding it behind my back. He valued humanity so lightly. He didn't realize the depths of what its loss would mean.

Beau took another half step forward, his body so close that its warmth became more pronounced, more present than the sun's. He turned his face down toward mine, and the light gilded his throat, the play of shadows emphasizing the coursing of his blood through the artery just behind the corner of his jaw.

My body reacted instinctively—venom welling, muscles coiling, thoughts scattering.

How quickly it surfaced! We'd been in this arena of visions mere seconds.

I stopped breathing and took a long step away from him, raising my hand again in warning.

He didn't try to follow. "I'm... sorry," he whispered, the sound of the words lilting up, turning them into a question. He didn't know what he was apologizing for.

I carefully loosed my lungs, and took a controlled breath. His scent was no more painful than usual—not overwhelming, the way I was half-afraid I would suddenly find it.

"I need some time," I explained.

"I'll be more careful." Still a whisper.

I moved around him, slow deliberate steps, and walked to the center of the meadow. I sat down in a patch of low grass, and locked my muscles in place, as I had done before. I breathed carefully in and out, listening as his hesitant footsteps crossed the same distance, tasting his fragrance as he sat down in front of me.

"Is this all right?" he asked, uncertain.

I nodded. "Just... let me concentrate."

His eyes were huge with confusion, with concern. I didn't want to explain. I closed my own.

Not in cowardice, I told myself. Or not just in cowardice. I did need to concentrate.

I focused on his scent, on the sound of the blood gushing through the chambers of his heart. Only my lungs were allowed motion. Every other part of me I imprisoned into rigid immobility.

Beau's heart, I reminded myself as my involuntary systems reacted to the stimuli. Beau's life.

I was always so careful to not think about his blood—the scent I couldn't avoid, but the fluid, the movement, the pulse, the hot liquidity of it—these were things I could not dwell on. But now I let it fill my mind, invade my system, attack my controls. The gushing and throbbing of it, the pounding and sloshing. The surge through the biggest arteries, the ripple through the smallest vein. The heat of it, heat that washed in waves across my exposed skin despite the distance between us. The taste of it burning on my tongue and aching in my throat.

I held myself captive, and observed. A small part of my brain was able to stay detached, to think through the onslaught. With that small bit of rationality, I examined my every reaction minutely. I calculated the amount of strength needed to curb each response, and weighed the strength I possessed against that tally. It was a near calculation, but I believed that my will was stronger than my bestial nature. Slightly.

Was this Archie's knot? It didn't feel... complete.

All the while, Beau sat almost as still as I was, thinking his private thoughts. Could he imagine any part of the turmoil inside my mind? How did he explain this strange, silent standoff to himself? Whatever he thought of it, his body was calm.

Time seemed to slow with his pulse. The sound of the birds in distant trees turned sleepy. The cascade of the little stream grew somehow more languid. My body relaxed, and even my mouth stopped watering eventually.

Two thousand three hundred sixty-four of his heartbeats later, I felt more in control than I had in many days. Facing things was the key, as Archie had predicted. Was I ready? How could I be sure? How would I ever be sure?

And how did I break this long hush I'd imposed? It was starting to feel awkward to me; it must have felt so to him for a while.

I unlocked my pose and lay back in the grass, one hand casually behind my head. Feigning the physical sign of emotion was old habit. Perhaps if I portrayed relaxation, he would believe it.

"Can I?" he asked.

I patted the ground beside me.

He moved closer, and then he sat silent as before, thinking whatever it was he might be thinking, alone in this remote place with a monster who reflected the sun like a million prisms. I could feel his eyes on my skin, but I didn't imagine him revolted anymore. The imaginary weight of his gaze—now that I knew it was admiring, that he found me beautiful regardless of everything—brought back that electric current I'd felt with him in the dark, an imitation of life running through my veins.

I let myself get lost in the rhythms of his body, let the sound and the warmth and the smell co-mingle, and I found that I could still master my inhuman desires, even while the phantom current moved under my skin.

This took most of my attention, though. And inevitably, this quiet waiting period would end. He would have so many questions—much more pointed now, I imagined. I owed him a thousand different explanations. Could I handle everything at once?

I decided to try to juggle a few more tasks while still tuning in to the flow and ebb of his blood. I would see if the distraction was too much.

First, I gathered information. I triangulated the exact location of the birds I could hear, and then by their calls identified each one's genus and species. I analyzed the irregular splash that revealed life in the stream, and after equating the water displaced with the size of the fish, deduced the most likely variety. Categorized the nearby insects—unlike the more developed species, insects ignored my kind as they would a stone—by the speed of their wing movements and the elevation of their flight, or the tiny clicking sounds of their legs against the soil.

As I continued to classify, I added calculation. If there were currently 4,913 insects in the area of the meadow, which was roughly 11,035 square feet, how many insects on average would exist in the 1,400 square miles of the Olympic National Park? What if insect populations dropped 1 percent for each 10 feet of elevation? I brought up in my head a topographic map of the park and started computing the numbers.

Concurrently, I thought through the songs I'd heard most rarely in my century of life—nothing common that I'd heard played more than once. Tunes I'd heard walking past the open door of a bar, peculiar family lullabies lisped by children in their cradles as I ran by in the night, discarded attempts by the music students writing their theater projects in the buildings adjacent to my college classroom. I mouthed through the verses quickly, noting all the reasons each was doomed to failure.

His blood still pulsed, his heat still warmed, and I still burned. But I could keep my hold on myself. My grip did not loosen. I was in control. Just enough.

"Did you say something?" he whispered.

"Just... singing to myself," I admitted. "It calms me." I didn't know how to explain what I was doing more clearly, and he didn't pursue the question further.

I could feel that the silence was coming to an end, and this did not frighten me. I was growing almost comfortable with the situation, feeling strong and in control. Perhaps I was through the knot after all. Perhaps we were safe on the other side and all of Archie's hopeful visions were now on their way to becoming real.

When the change in his breathing telegraphed a new direction to his thoughts, I was intrigued rather than worried. I expected a question, but instead I heard the grass shift around him as he leaned toward me, and the sound of the pulse in his hand moved closer.

One soft, warm fingertip traced slowly across the back of my hand. It was a very gentle touch, but the response in my skin was electric. A different kind of burning than that in my throat, and even more distracting. My calculations and audio recall stuttered and stalled, and he had all my attention, even as his heart throbbed wetly just a foot from my ear.

I opened my eyes, eager to see his expression and guess at his thoughts. I was not disappointed. His eyes were bright with wonder again, the corners of his lips turned up. He met my gaze and his smile grew more pronounced. I echoed it.

"I still don't scare you, do I?" I hadn't scared him away. He wanted to be here, with me.

His tone was teasing when he answered. "Nope. Sorry."

He leaned closer, and laid all of his hand against my forearm, slowly stroking down toward my wrist. His skin felt fever-hot against mine, and though a tremor quivered through his fingers, there was no fear in that touch. My eyelids slipped closed again as I tried to contain my reaction. The electric current felt like an earthquake rocking through my core.

"Do you mind?" he asked, and his hand paused in its progress.

"No," I responded quickly. And then, because I wanted him to know some little bit of my experience, I continued, "You can't imagine how that feels." I couldn't have imagined it before this moment. It was beyond any pleasure I'd ever felt.

His fingers traced back up to the inside of my elbow, outlining patterns there. He shifted his weight and his other hand reached for mine. I felt him tug lightly and realized he wished to turn my hand over. As soon as I complied, though, both his hands froze and he gasped quietly.

I glanced up, swiftly realizing my mistake—I'd moved like a vampire rather than a human.

"Sorry," I muttered. But, as our eyes met, I could already tell I'd done no real harm. He'd recovered from the surprise without the smile ever leaving his face. "It's too easy to be myself with you," I explained, and then I let my eyelids close again, so I could focus everything on the feel of his skin against mine.

I felt the pressure as he started to try to lift my hand. I moved my hand in concert with his motion, knowing that it would take quite a bit of effort for him to heft even just my hand without my help. I was a little heavier than I looked.

He held my hand close to his face. Warm breath seared against my palm. I helped him angle my hand this way and that as the pressure of his fingers indicated. I opened my eyes to see him staring intently, rainbow sparks dancing across his face as the light moved back and forth across my skin. The furrow was there again between his eyes. What question troubled him now?

"Tell me what you're thinking." I said the words gently, but could he hear that I was begging? "It's still so strange for me, not knowing."

His mouth pursed just a little, and his left eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch. "The rest of us feel that way all the time, you know."

The rest of us. The vast family of humanity that did not include me. His people, his kind.

"It's a hard life." The words did not sound like the joke I meant them to be. "But you didn't tell me."

He answered slowly. "I was wishing I could know what you were thinking..."

There was obviously more. "And?"

His voice was low; a human would have had a hard time hearing him. "I was wishing I could believe that you were real. I'm afraid..."

A flash of pain stabbed through me. I'd been wrong. I had frightened him after all. Of course I had.

"I don't want you to be afraid." It was an apology and a lament.

I was surprised when he grinned almost impishly. "That's not the kind of fear I meant."

How was he joking now? What could he mean? I sat up halfway, too eager for answers to pretend nonchalance any longer.

"Then what are you afraid of?"

I realized how close our faces were. His lips, closer than they had ever been to mine. No longer smiling, parted. He inhaled through his nose and his eyelids half closed. He stretched closer as if to catch more of my scent, his chin angling down half an inch, his neck arching forward, his jugular exposed.

And I reacted.

Venom flooded my mouth, my free hand moved of its own volition to seize him, my jaws wrenched open as he leaned in to meet me.

I threw myself away from him. The madness hadn't reached my legs and they launched me all the way back to the far edge of the meadow. I moved so quickly I didn't have time to gently release my hand from his; I'd yanked it away. My first thought as I landed crouched in the shadows of the trees was his hands, and relief washed over me when I saw they were still attached to his wrists.

Relief followed by disgust. Loathing. Revulsion. All the emotions I'd feared to see in his eyes today multiplied by a hundred years and the sure knowledge that I deserved them and more. Monster, nightmare, destroyer of lives, mutilator of dreams—his and mine both.

If I were something better, if I were somehow stronger, instead of a brutal near pass at death, that moment could have been our first kiss.

Had I just failed the test then? Was there no longer hope?

His eyes were glassy; the whites showed all around his dark irises. I watched as he blinked and they refocused, fastening on my new position. We stared at each other for a long moment.

Then he opened his mouth. I waited, tensed, for the recrimination. For him to be mad at me, to tell me never to come near him again.

"Edythe... I"m sorry," he whispered almost silently.

Of course.

I had to take a deep breath before I could respond.

I calibrated the volume of my voice to be just loud enough for him to hear, trying to keep my tone gentle. "Give me a moment."

He sat back a few inches. His eyes were still mostly whites.

I took another breath. I could still taste him from here. It fueled the constant burn, but no more than that. I felt... the way I normally did around him. There was no hint in my mind or body now, no sense that the monster was lurking so near to the surface. That I could snap so easily. It made me want to shriek and tear trees out by their roots. If I couldn't feel the edge, couldn't see the trigger, how could I ever protect him from myself?

I could imagine Archie's encouragement. I had protected Beau. Nothing had happened. But though Archie might have seen that much, watching when my break was still the future and not the past, he couldn't know how it had felt. To lose control of myself, to be weaker than my worst impulse. Not to be able to stop.

But you did stop. That's what he would say. He couldn't know how not enough that was.

Beau never looked away from me. His heart was racing twice as fast as normal. Too fast. It couldn't be healthy. I wanted to take his hand and tell him everything was fine, he was fine, he was safe, there was nothing to worry about—but these would be such obvious lies.

I still felt... normal—what normal had become in these last months, at least. In control. Just exactly the same as before, when my confidence had nearly killed him.

I walked back slowly, wondering if I should keep my distance. But it didn't seem right to shout my apology across the meadow at him. I didn't trust myself to be as close to him as before. I stopped a few paces away, at a conversational distance, and sat on the ground.

I tried to put everything I felt into the words. "I am so very sorry."

Beau blinked and then his eyes were too wide again; his heart hammered too fast. His expression was stuck in place. The words didn't seem to mean anything to him, to register in any way.

In what I immediately knew was a bad idea, I fell back on my usual pattern of trying to keep things casual. I was desperate to remove the frozen shock from his face.

"Would you understand what I meant if I said I was only human?"

A second too late, he nodded—just once. He tried to smile at my tasteless attempt to make light of the situation, but that effort just marred his expression further. He looked pained, and then, finally, afraid.

I'd seen fear on his face before, but I'd always been quickly reassured. Every time I'd half hoped that he'd realized I wasn't worth the immense risk, he'd disproved my assumption. The fear in his eyes had never been fear of me.

Until now.

The scent of his fear saturated the air, tangy and metallic.

This was exactly what I'd been waiting for. What I'd always told myself I wanted. For him to turn away. For him to save himself and leave me burning and alone.

His heart hammered on, and I wanted to laugh and cry. I was getting what I wanted.

And all because he'd leaned in just one inch too close. He'd gotten near enough to smell my scent, and he'd found it pleasant, just as he found my face attractive and all of my other snares compelling. Everything about me made him want to move closer to me, just exactly as it was designed to.

"I'm the world's best predator, aren't I?" I made no attempt to hide the bitterness in my voice now. "Everything about me invites you in—my voice, my face, even my smell." It was all so much overkill. What was the point of my charms and lures? I was no rooted flytrap, waiting for prey to land inside my mouth. Why couldn't I have been as repulsive on the outside as I was on the inside? "As if I needed any of that!"

Now I felt out of control, but not in the same way. All my love and yearning and hope were crumbling to dust, a thousand centuries of grief stretched out in front of me, and I didn't want to pretend anymore. If I could have no happiness because I was a monster, then let me be that monster.

I was on my feet, racing like his heart, in two tight circles around the edge of the clearing, wondering if he could even see what I was showing him.

I jerked to a stop where I'd stood before. This was why I didn't need a pretty voice.

"As if you could outrun me." I laughed at the thought, the grotesque comedy of the image in my head. The sound of my laugh bounced in harsh echoes off the trees.

And after the chase, there would be the capture.

The lowest branch of the ancient spruce beside me was in easy reach. I ripped the limb from the body without any effort at all. The wood shrieked and protested, the bark and splinters exploded from the site of the injury. I weighed the bough for a moment in my hand. Roughly eight hundred sixty three pounds. Not enough to win in a fight with the hemlock across the clearing to my right, but enough to do some damage.

I flicked the branch at the hemlock tree, aiming for a knot about thirty feet from the ground. My projectile hit dead center, the thickest end of the bough smashing with a booming crunch and disintegrating into shards of shattered wood that rained down on the ferns below with a faint hissing. A fissure split through the center of the knot and snaked its way a few feet in either direction. The hemlock tree trembled once, the shock radiating through the roots and into the ground. I wondered if I'd killed it. I'd have to wait a few months to know. Hopefully it would recover; the meadow was perfect as it was.

So little effort on my part. I'd not needed to use more than a tiny fraction of my available strength. And still, so much violence. So much harm.

In two strides I was standing over him, just an arm's length way.

"As if you could fight me off."

The bitterness disappeared from my voice. My little tantrum had cost me no energy, but it had drained some of my ire.

Throughout it all, he'd never moved. He remained paralyzed now, his eyes frozen open. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. I was still so angry at myself, but there was no fire left in it. It all seemed pointless. I was what I was.

He moved first. Just a little bit. His hands had fallen limp in his lap after I'd wrenched away from his, but now one of them twitched open. His fingers stretched up slightly in my direction. It was probably an unconscious movement, but it was eerily similar to when he'd pleaded "Come back" in his sleep and reached for something. I'd wished then that he could be dreaming of me.

"Wait." I held out a cautioning hand again.

That was the night before Port Angeles, the night before I learned that he already knew what I was. If I'd been aware of what Julie Black had told him, I never would have believed he could dream of me except in a nightmare. But none of it had mattered to him.

There was still terror in his eyes. Of course there was. But there seemed to be a plea in them, too. Was there any chance he wanted me to come back to him now? Even if he did, should I?

His pain, my greatest weakness—as Archie had shown me it would be. I hated to see him frightened. It broke me to know how much I deserved that fear, but more than either of those burdens, I could not bear to see his grief. It stripped me of my ability to make anything close to a good decision.

"Don't be afraid," I begged in a whisper. "I promise—" No, that had become too casual a word. "I swear I will not hurt you. You don't have to be afraid."

I moved closer to him slowly, making no movement that he would not have time to anticipate. I gently touched my hand to the one he still held out for me. He wrappe his fingers around it tightly.

The pace of his heart eased. His lids relaxed back into their usual place. It was as if my proximity calmed him.

"Please forgive me," I pleaded. "I can control myself. You caught me off guard. I'm on my best behavior now." What a pathetic apology. Still, it brought a hint of a smile to the corner of his lips. And like a fool, I fell back into my immature efforts to be amusing. "I'm not thirsty today, honestly."

I actually winked at him. One would think I was thirteen instead of a hundred and four.

But he laughed. A little out of breath, a little wobbly, but still a real laugh, with real mirth and relief. His eyes warmed, his shoulders loosened, and his hands opened again.

It felt so right to gently place my hand back inside his. It shouldn't, but it did.

"Are you all right?"

He stared at our hands, then glanced up to meet my gaze for a moment, and finally looked down again. He started to trace the lines across my palm with the tip of his finger, just as he had been doing before my frenzy. His eyes returned to mine and a smile slowly spread across his face till the little dimple appeared in his chin. There was no judgment and no regret in that smile.

I smiled back, feeling as though I could only just now appreciate the beauty of this place. The sun and the flowers and the gilded air, they were suddenly there for me, joyous and merciful. I felt the gift of his mercy, and my stone heart swelled with gratitude.

The relief, the confusion of joy and guilt, suddenly reminded me of the day I'd come home, so many decades ago.

I hadn't been ready then, either. I'd planned to wait. I wanted my eyes to be golden again before Carine saw me. But they were still a strange orange, an amber that tended more toward red. I was having difficulty adapting to my former diet. It had never been so hard before. I was afraid that if I didn't have Carine's help, I wouldn't be able to keep going. That I would fall back into my old ways.

It worried me, having that evidence so clear in my eyes. I wondered what was the worst reception I could expect? Would she just send me away? Would she find it difficult to look at me, to see what a disappointment I had become? Was there a penance she would demand? I would do it, whatever she asked. Would my efforts to improve move her at all, or would she just see my failure?

It was simple enough to find them; they hadn't moved far from the place I'd left them. Maybe to make it easier for me to return?

Their house was the only one in this high, wild spot. The winter sun was glinting off the windows as I approached from below, so I couldn't tell if anyone was home. Rather than take the shorter route through the trees, I paced toward them through an empty field, blanketed in snow, where—even bundled up against the sun's glare—I would be easy to spot. I moved slowly. I didn't want to run. It might alarm them.

It was Earnest who saw me first.

"Edythe!" I heard him shout, though I was still a mile out.

In less than a second I saw his figure dart through a side door, racing through the rocks surrounding the mountain ledge and stirring up a thick cloud of snow crystals behind him.

Edythe! She's come home!

It was not the mindset I'd been expecting. But then, he hadn't seen my eyes clearly.

Edythe? Can it be?

My mother was following close behind him now, catching up with his longer stride.

There was nothing but a desperate hope in her thoughts. No judgment. Not yet.

"Edythe!" Earnest shouted with an unmistakable ring of joy in his voice.

And then he was upon me, his arms wrapped tight around my neck, his lips kissing my cheek over and over again. Please don't go away again.

Only a second later, Carine's arms encircled us both.

Thank you, she thought, her mind fervent with sincerity. Thank you for coming back to us.

"Carine... Earnest... I'm so sorry. I'm so—"

"Shush, now," Earnest whispered, pulling me against his chest and breathing in my scent. My girl.

I looked up into Carine's face, leaving my eyes open wide. Hiding nothing.

You're here. Carine stared back at my face with only happiness in her mind. Though she had to know what the color of my eyes meant, there was no off note to her delight. There's nothing to apologize for.

Slowly, hardly able to trust that it could be so simple, I raised my arms and returned my family's embrace.

I felt that same undeserved acceptance now, and I could barely believe that all of it—my bad behavior, both voluntary and involuntary—was suddenly behind us. But his forgiveness seemed to wash the darkness away.

"So where were we, before I behaved so rudely?" I remembered where I had been. Just inches from his parted lips. Enraptured by the mystery of his mind.

He blinked twice. "I honestly have no idea."

That was understandable. I breathed in fire and blew it back out, wishing it would do some actual damage to me.

"I think we were talking about why you were afraid, besides the obvious reason." The obvious fear had probably driven the other out of his mind completely.

But he smiled and looked down at my hand again. "Oh, right."

Nothing more.

"Well?" I prompted.

Rather than meet my gaze, he started tracing patterns across my palm. I tried to read their sequences, hoping for a picture or even letters—E-D-Y-T-H-E-P-L-E-A-S-E-G-O-A-W-A-Y—but I could find no meaning in them. Just more mysteries. Another question he would never answer. I didn't deserve answers.

I sighed. "How easily frustrated I am."

He looked up then, his eyes probing mine. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and I was surprised at the intensity of his gaze. I felt that he was reading me more successfully than I was ever able to read him.

"I was afraid," he began, and I realized gratefully that he was answering my question after all. "Because... for, well, obvious reasons, I can't stay with you, can I?" His eyes dropped again as he said the word stay. I understood him clearly, for once. I could hear that when he said stay, he didn't mean for this moment in the sunshine, for the afternoon or the week. He meant it the way I wanted to say it to him. Stay always. Stay forever. "And that's what I want, much more than I should."

I thought of all that would entail if, after all, I forced him to do exactly as he described. If I made him stay forever. Every sacrifice he would bear, every loss he would mourn, every stinging regret, every aching, tearless stare.

"Yes." It was hard to agree with him, even with all that pain fresh in my imagination. I wanted it so much. "Being with me has never been in your best interest."

He scowled at my hand as if he didn't like my acknowledgment any more than I did.

This was a dangerous path to even hint at. Hades and the pomegranate. How many toxic seeds had I already infected him with? Enough that Archie had seen him pale and grieving in my absence. Though it felt as though I, also, had been corrupted. Hooked. Addicted with no hope of recovery. I couldn't fully form the picture in my head. Leaving him. How would I survive? Archie had shown me Beau's anguish in my absence, but what would he see of me in that version of the future, if he looked? I couldn't believe I would be anything more than a broken shadow, useless, crumpled, empty.

I spoke the thought aloud, but mostly to myself. "I should have left that first day and not come back. I should leave now. I might have been able to do it then. I don't know how to do it now."

He still stared at our hands, but his cheeks warmed. "Don't. Please."

He wanted me to stay with him. I tried to fight the happiness, the surrender it pulled me toward. Was the choice even mine, or was it his alone now? Would I stay until he told me to go? His words seemed to echo in the faint breeze. Don't. Please.

Which is exactly why I should. Surely the more time we were together, the harder it would grow to be apart. "Don't worry. I'm essentially a selfish creature. I crave your company too much to do what I should."

"Good!" he exclaimed, as if this was an obvious thing. As if every boy would be pleased that his favorite monster was too selfish to put him before herself.

My temper flared, anger pointed only at myself. With rigid control, I removed my hand from his.

"You should never forget that it's not only your company I crave. Never forget that I am more dangerous to you than I am to anyone else."

He looked at me quizzically. There was no fear anywhere in his eyes now. His head cocked slightly to the left.

"I don't think I understand exactly what you mean by that last part," he said, his tone analytical. It reminded me of our conversation in the cafeteria, when he had asked about hunting. He sounded as if he were gathering data for a report—one he was vitally interested in, but still, no more than an academic inquiry.

I couldn't help but smile at his expression. My anger vanished as quickly as it had come. Why waste time with ire when there were so many more pleasant emotions available?

"How do I explain?" I murmured. Naturally he had no idea what I was talking about. I had not been terribly specific when it came to my reaction to his scent. Of course I hadn't; it was an ugly thing, something I was deeply ashamed of. Not to mention the overt horror of the subject. How to explain, indeed. "And without horrifying you?"

His fingers uncurled, stretching toward my own. And I couldn't resist. I placed my hand gently back inside his. The willingness of his touch, the eager way he wrapped his fingers tightly around mine, helped to calm my nerves. I knew I was about to tell him everything—I could feel the truth churning inside me, ready to erupt. But I had no idea how he would process it, even as generous as he always was toward me. I savored this moment of his acceptance, knowing it could end abruptly.

I sighed. "That's amazingly pleasant, the warmth."

He smiled and looked down at our hands, too, fascination in his eyes.

There was no help for it. I was going to have to be obscenely graphic. Dancing around the facts would only confuse him, and he needed to know this. I took a deep breath.

"You know how everyone enjoys different flavors? Some people love chocolate ice cream, others prefer strawberry?"

Ugh. It sounded worse out loud than I would have thought for such a weak beginning. Beau nodded in what looked like polite agreement, but otherwise his expression was smooth. Perhaps it would take a minute to sink in.

"I apologize for the food analogy. I couldn't think of another way to explain."

He grinned—a smile with real humor and affinity; the dimple sprang into existence. His grin made me feel as though we were in this ludicrous situation together, not as opponents but as partners, working side by side to find a solution. I couldn't think of anything I would wish for more—besides, of course, the impossible. That I could be human, too. I grinned back at him, but I knew my smile was neither as genuine nor as guiltless as his.

His hands tightened around mine, prompting me to continue.

I spoke the words slowly, trying to use the best analogy possible, knowing even as I did that I was failing. "You see, every person has their own scent, their own essence... If you locked an alcoholic in a room full of stale beer, she'd drink it. But she could resist, if she wished to, if she were a recovering alcoholic. Now let's say you placed in that room a glass of hundred-year-old brandy, the rarest, finest cognac—and filled the room with its warm aroma—how do you think our alcoholic would fare then?"

Was I painting too sympathetic a picture of myself? Describing a tragic victim rather than a true villain?

He stared into my eyes, and while I automatically tried to hear his internal reaction, I got the feeling that he was trying to read mine as well.

I thought through my words and wondered whether the analogy was strong enough.

"Maybe that's not the right comparison." I mused. "Maybe it would be too easy to turn down the brandy. Perhaps I should have made our alcoholic a heroin addict instead."

He smiled, not as widely as before, but with a cheeky twist to his pursed lips. "So what you're saying is, I'm your brand of heroin?"

I almost laughed with surprise. He was doing what I was always trying to do—make a joke, lighten the mood, deescalate—only he was successful.

"Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin."

It was surely a horrific admission, and yet, somehow, I felt relief. It was all his doing, his support and understanding. It made my head spin that he could somehow forgive all of this. How?

But he was back to researcher mode.

"Does that happen often?" he asked, his head tilting curiously to one side.

Even with my unique ability to hear thought, it was hard to make exact comparisons. I didn't truly feel the sensations of the person I listened to; I only knew their thoughts about those feelings.

How I interpreted thirst wasn't even exactly the way the rest of my family did. To me, the thirst was a fire burning. Jessamine described it as a burning, too, but to her it was like acid rather than flame, chemical and saturating. Royal thought of it as profound dryness, a screaming lack rather than an outside force. Eleanor tended to evaluate her thirst in the same way; I supposed that was natural, as Royal had been the first and most frequent influence in her second life.

So I knew of the times the others had had difficulty resisting, and when they had not been able to resist, but I couldn't know exactly how potent their temptation had been. I could make an educated guess, however, based on their standard level of control. It was an imperfect technique, but I thought it should answer his curiosity.

This was more horror. I couldn't look him in the eye while I answered. I stared at the sun instead as it slipped closer to the edge of the trees. Every second gone hurt me more than they ever had—seconds I could never have with him again. I wished we didn't need to spend these precious seconds on something so distasteful.

"I spoke to my sisters about it... To Jessamine, every one of you is much the same. She's the most recent to join our family. It's a struggle for her to abstain at all. She hasn't had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell, in flavor—" I flinched, realizing too late where my rambling had taken me. "I'm sorry," I added quickly.

He gave an exasperated little huff. "It's fine. Look, don't worry about offending me, or horrifying me, or whichever. That's the way you think. I can understand, or I can try to at least. Just explain however makes sense to you."

I tried to settle myself. I needed to accept that through some miracle, Beau was able to know the darkest things about me and not be terror-stricken. Able not to hate me for it. If he was strong enough to hear this, I needed to be strong enough to speak the words. I looked back at the sun, feeling the deadline in its slow descent.

"So...," I began again slowly, "Jessamine wasn't sure if she'd ever come across someone who was as... appealing as you are to me. Which makes me think not. She would remember this. El has been on the wagon longer, so to speak, and she understood what I meant. She says twice, for her, once stronger than the other."

I finally met his gaze. His eyes were narrowed just slightly, his focus intent. "And for you?" he asked.

That was an easy answer, with no guesswork needed. "Never before this."

He seemed to consider that word for a long moment. I wished I knew what it meant to him. Then his face relaxed a bit.

"What did Eleanor do?" he asked in a conversational tone.

As if this were just some storybook fairy tale I was sharing with him, as if good always won the day and—though the road might get dark at points—nothing truly evil or permanently cruel was allowed to happen.

How could I tell his about these two innocent victims? Humans with hopes and fears, people with families and friends who loved them, imperfect beings who deserved the chance to improve, to try. A woman and a man with names now inscribed on simple headstones in obscure graveyards.

Would he think better or worse of us if he knew that Carine had required our attendance at their funerals? Not just these two, but every victim of our mistakes and lapses. Were we a tiny bit less damned because we had listened to those who knew them best describe their shortened lives? Because we bore witness to the tears and cries of pain? The monetary aid we'd anonymously provided to make sure there was no unnecessary physical suffering seemed crass in retrospect. Such a weak recompense.

He gave up waiting for an answer. "Okay, so I guess that was a dumb question."

His expression was mournful now. Did he condemn Eleanor while he gave me so much mercy? Her crimes, though much greater than two, were less in total than mine. It pained me that he would think badly of her. Was this—the specificity of two victims—the offense he would balk at?

"Even the strongest of us fall off the wagon, don't we?" I asked weakly.

Could this be forgiven, too?

Perhaps not.

He winced, flinching away from me. No more than an inch, but it felt like a yard. His lips pulled into a frown.

"Are you... asking for my permission?" The hard edge in his voice sounded like sarcasm.

"No!"

So here was his limit. I'd thought he'd been extraordinarily kind and merciful, too forgiving, in truth. But actually, he'd simply underestimated my depravity. He must have thought that, for all my warnings, I'd only ever been tempted. That I'd always made the better choice, as I had in Port Angeles, driving away from bloodshed.

I'd told him that same night how, despite our best efforts, my family made mistakes. Had he not realized that I'd been confessing to murder? No wonder he accepted things so easily; he thought I was always strong, that I only had near misses on my conscience. Well, it wasn't his fault. I'd never explicitly admitted to killing anyone. I'd never given him the body count.

His expression softened while I spiraled. I tried to think of how to say goodbye in such a way that he would know how much I loved him, but not feel threatened by that love.

"But you're saying there's no hope" he explained suddenly, no edge in his tone, "right?"

In a fraction of a second I replayed our last exchange in my head, and realized how I'd misinterpreted his reaction. When I had begged pardon for past sins, he'd thought I was excusing a future, but imminent, crime. That I meant to—

I had to fight to slow my words down to human speed—I was in such a hurry to have him hear them. "Of course there's hope. Of course I won't—"

Kill you. I couldn't finish the sentence. Those words were agony to me, imagining him gone. My eyes bored into his, trying to communicate everything I couldn't say. "It's different for us," I promised. "El... these were strangers she happened across. It was a long time ago, and she wasn't as... practiced, as careful, as she is now. And she's never been as good at this as I am."

He sifted through my words, heard the parts I hadn't said.

"So if we'd met..." he paused, searching for the right scenario. "Oh, in a dark alley or something...?"

Ah, here was a bitter truth.

"It took everything I had—every single year of practice and sacrifice and effort— not to jump up in the middle of that class full of children and—"

Kill you. My eyes fell from his. So much shame.

Still, I couldn't leave him any flattering illusions about me.

"When you walked past me," I admitted, "I could have ruined everything Carine has built for us, right then and there. If I hadn't been denying my thirst for the last... too many years, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself."

I could see the classroom so clearly in my mind. Perfect recall was more a curse than a gift. Did I need to remember with such precision every second of that hour? The fear that had dilated his eyes, the reflection of my monstrous countenance in them? The way his scent had destroyed every good thing about me?

His expression was far away. Maybe he was remembering, too.

"You must have thought I was possessed."

He didn't deny it.

"I couldn't understand why," he said in a fragile voice. "How you could hate me, just like that..."

He'd intuited the truth in that moment. He'd understood correctly that I had hated him. Almost as much as I'd desired him.

"To me, it was like you were some kind of demon, summoned straight from my own personal hell to ruin me." It was painful to relive the emotion of it, to remember seeing him as prey. "The fragrance coming off your skin... I thought it would make me deranged that first day. In that one hour, I thought of a hundred different ways to lure you from the room with me, to get you alone. And I fought them each back, thinking of my family, what I could do to them. I had to run out, to get away before I could speak the words that would make you follow... You would have come."

What must it be like for him to know this? How did he align the opposing facts? Me, would-be murderer, and me, would-be lover? What did he think of my confidence, my certainty that he would have followed the murderer?

His chin lifted a centimeter. "No doubt about it," he agreed.

Our hands were still carefully intertwined. His were nearly as still as mine, aside from the blood pulsing through them. I wondered if he felt the same fear that I did—the fear that they might have to come apart, and he wouldn't be able to find the courage and forgiveness necessary to bring them together again.

It was a little easier to confess when I wasn't looking into his eyes.

"And then," I continued, "as I tried to rearrange my schedule in a pointless attempt to avoid you, you were there—in that close, warm little room, the scent was maddening. I so very nearly took you then. There was only one other frail human there—so easily dealt with."

I felt the shiver move down his arms to his hands. With every new attempt to explain, I found myself using more and more distressing words. They were the right words, the truthful words, and they were also so ugly.

There was no stopping them now, though, and he sat silent and nearly motionless as they gushed out of me, more confessions mixed up in explanations. I told him about my unsuccessful attempt to run away, and the arrogance that brought me back; how that arrogance had shaped our interactions, and how the frustration of his hidden thoughts had tormented me; how his scent had never stopped being both torture and temptation. My family wove in and out of the story and I wondered whether he could see how they influenced my actions at every turn. I told him how saving his from Taylor's van had changed my perspective, had forced me to see that he was more to me than just a risk and an irritant.

"In the hospital?" he prompted when my words ran out. He studied my face with compassion, with eager, nonjudgmental desire for the next chapter. I was no longer shocked by his benevolence, but it would always be miraculous to me.

I explained my misgivings, not for saving him, but for exposing myself and consequently my family, so that he would understand my harshness that day in the empty corridor. This led naturally into my family's varied reactions, and I wondered what he thought of the fact that some of them had wanted to silence him in the most permanent way possible. He didn't shiver now, or betray any fear. How strange it must be for him, to learn the whole story, the dark now woven through the light he'd known.

I told him how I'd tried to feign total indifference to him after that, to protect us all, and how unsuccessful I'd been.

I wondered privately, not for the first time, where I would be now if I had not acted so instinctively that day in the school parking lot. If—as I'd just grotesquely described to him—I had stood by and let his die in a car accident, then revealed myself to the human witnesses in the most monstrous way possible. My family would have had to flee Forks immediately. I imagined their reactions to that version of events would have been... mostly the opposite. Royal and Jessamine would not have been angry. A trifle smug, perhaps, but understanding. Carine would have been deeply disappointed, but still forgiving. Would Archie have mourned the friend he'd never gotten to meet? Only Earnest and Eleanor would have reacted in a manner nearly identical to their first reactions: Earnest with concern for my well-being, Eleanor with a shrug.

I knew that I would have had some small inkling of the disaster that had befallen me. Even that early, after just a few words exchanged, my fascination with him was strong. But could I have guessed the vastness of the tragedy? I thought not. I would have ached, certainly, and then gone about my empty half life never realizing how very much I had lost. Never knowing actual happiness.

It would have been easier to lose him then, I knew. Just as I would never have known joy, I wouldn't have suffered the depths of pain I now knew to exist.

I contemplated his kind, sweet face, so dear to me now, so much the center of my world. The only thing I wanted to look at for the rest of time.

He gazed back, the same wonder in his eyes.

"And for all that," I concluded my long confession, "I'd have fared better if I had exposed us all at that first moment, than if now, here—with no witnesses and nothing to stop me—I were to hurt you."

His eyes widened, not in fear or surprise. Fascination.

"Why?" he asked.

This explanation would be as difficult as any of the others, with many words I hated to say, but there were also words I very much wanted to speak to him.

"Oh, Beau." It was a pleasure just to say his name. It felt like a kind of avowal. This is the name to which I belong.

I carefully loosed one hand and stroked his face. The joy of the simple touch, the knowledge that I was free to reach out to his this way, was overwhelming. I grasped his hands again.

"Beau, I couldn't survive hurting you. You don't know how it's tortured me." I hated to look away from his sympathetic expression, but it was too hard to see his other face, the one from Archie's vision, in the same frame. "The thought of you, still, white, cold... to never see your face turn red again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses... I couldn't bear it." Those words did nothing to convey the anguish behind the thought. But I was through the ugly part now, and I could say the things I'd wanted to tell him for so long. I met his eyes again, rejoicing in this confession.

"You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."

So were these words weak echoes of the feelings they tried to describe. I hoped he could see in my eyes exactly how inadequate they were. He was always better at knowing my mind than I was at reading his.

He held my exultant gaze for just a moment, pink creeping into his cheeks, but then his eyes fell to our hands. I thrilled to the beauty of his complexion, seeing only the loveliness and nothing else.

"You already know how I feel," he said, his voice not much louder than a whisper. "I'm here because I would rather die than live without you."

I wouldn't have thought it possible to feel such euphoria and such regret at the same time. He wanted me—bliss. He was risking his very life for me—unacceptable.

He scowled, his eyes still lowered. "Sorry, I'm an idiot."

I laughed at his conclusion. From a certain angle, he had a point. Any species that ran so headlong into the arms of its most dangerous predator wouldn't survive long. It was a good thing he was an outlier.

"You are an idiot," I teased gently. And I would never stop being grateful for it.

Beau glanced up with a puckish grin, and we both laughed together. It was such a relief to laugh after my grueling revelations that my laugh shifted from humor to sheer joy. I was sure he felt the same. We were utterly in sync for one perfect moment.

Though it was impossible, we belonged together. Everything was wrong with this picture—a killer and an innocent leaning close, each basking in the presence of the other, totally at peace. It was as if we'd somehow ascended to a better world, where such impossibilities could exist.

I was suddenly reminded of a painting I'd seen many years ago.

Whenever we canvassed the countryside for likely towns in which to settle, Carine would frequently make side trips to duck into old parish churches. She seemed unable to stop herself. Something about the simple wooden structures, usually dark for lack of good windows, the floorboards and pew backs all worn smooth and smelling of layer upon layer of human touches, brought her a reflective kind of calm. Thoughts of her father and her childhood were brought to the fore, but the violent end seemed far away in those moments. She remembered only pleasant things.

On one such diversion, we found an old Quaker meetinghouse around thirty miles north of Philadelphia. It was a small building, no bigger than a farmhouse, with a stone exterior and a very Spartan arrangement inside. So plain were the knotty floors and straight-backed pews that I was almost shocked to see an adornment on the far wall. Carine's interest was piqued as well, and we both examined it.

It was quite a small painting, no more than fifteen inches square. I guessed that it was older than the stone church that housed it. The artist was clearly untrained, his style amateurish. And yet, there was something in the simple, poorly wrought image that managed to convey an emotion. There was a warm vulnerability to the animals depicted, an aching kind of tenderness. I was strangely moved by this kinder universe the artist had envisioned.

A better world, Carine had thought to herself.

The sort of world where this present moment could exist, I thought now, and felt that aching tenderness again.

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb...," I whispered.

His eyes were so open and accessible for one second, and then he flushed again and looked down. He steadied his breath for a moment, and his impish smile returned.

"What a stupid lamb," he teased, stretching out the joke.

"What a sick, masochistic lion," I countered.

I wasn't sure that was a true statement, though. In one light, yes, I was deliberately causing myself unnecessary pain and enjoying it, the textbook definition of masochism. But the pain was the price... and the reward was so much more than the pain. Really, the price was negligible. I would pay it ten times over.

"Why...?" he murmured, hesitant.

I smiled at him, eager to know his mind. "Yes?"

A hint of the forehead crease began to form. "Tell me why you ran away from me before."

His words hit me physically, lodging in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't understand why he would want to rehash a moment so loathsome.

"You know why."

He shook his head, and his brows pulled down. "No, I mean, exactly what did I do wrong?" He spoke intently, serious now. "I need to learn how to make this easier for you, what I should and shouldn't do. This, for example"—he stroked his fingertips slowly up the back of my hand to my wrist, leaving a trail of painless fire—"seems to be all right."

How like him to take the responsibility on himself.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Beau. It was my fault."

his chin lifted. It would have implied stubbornness if his eyes were not so pleading.

"But I want to help."

My first instinct was to continue insisting that this was my problem and not something for him to worry about. Yet I knew that he was simply trying to understand me, with all my strange and monstrous quirks. He would be happier if I just answered his question as clearly as possible.

How to explain bloodlust, though? So shameful.

"Well... it was just how close you were. Most humans instinctively shy away from us, are repelled by our alienness... I wasn't expecting you to come so close. And the smell of your throat—"

I broke off, hoping I had not disgusted him.

His mouth was pursed as if fighting off a smile.

"Okay, no throat exposure." He made a show of tucking his chin against his right collarbone.

It was clearly his intention to ease my anxiety, and it worked. I had to laugh at his expression.

"No, really," I reassured him. "It was more the surprise than anything else."

I lifted my hand again and rested it lightly against his neck, feeling the incredible softness of his skin there, the warm give of it. My thumb grazed his jawline. The electric pulse that only he could awaken started to thrum through my body.

"You see," I whispered. "Perfectly fine."

His pulse began to race as well. I could feel it under my hand and hear his galloping heart. Pink flooded his face from his chin to his hairline. The sound and sight of his response, rather than awakening my thirst again, seemed only to speed the rush of my more human reactions. I couldn't remember ever feeling this alive; I doubted I ever had, even when I'd been alive.

"I love that," I murmured.

I gently extracted my left hand from his, and arranged it so that I was cradling his face between my palms. His pupils dilated and his heartbeat increased.

I wanted so much to kiss him then. His soft, curving lips, ever so slightly parted, mesmerized me and drew me forward. But, though these new human emotions now seemed so much stronger than anything else, I didn't fully trust myself. I knew I needed one more test. I thought I'd passed through Archie's knot, but still felt something was lacking. I realized now what more I had to do.

One thing I'd always avoided, never let my mind explore.

"Be very still," I warned him. His breath hitched.

Slowly, I leaned close, watching his expression for any hint that this was unwelcome to him. I found none.

Finally, I let my head dip forward, and turned it to lean my cheek against his bhest. The heat of his warm-blooded life pulsed through his fragile skin and into the cold stone of my body. That pulse leaped beneath my touch. I kept my breathing steady as a machine, in and out, controlled. I waited, judging every minuscule happening inside my body. Perhaps I waited longer than necessary, but it was a very pleasant place to linger.

When I felt sure that no trap waited for me here, I proceeded.

Cautiously I readjusted, using slow, steady movements so that nothing would surprise or frighten him. As my hands drifted from his jaw to the points of his shoulders, he shivered, and for a moment I lost my careful hold on my breathing. I recovered, settling myself again, and then moved my head so that my ear was directly over his heart.

The sound of it, loud before, seemed to surround me in stereo now. The earth beneath me didn't seem quite as steady, as if it rocked faintly to the beat of his heart.

The sigh escaped against my will. "Ah."

I wished I could stay like this forever, immersed in the sound of his heart and warmed by his skin. It was time for the final test, though, and I wanted it behind me.

For the first time, as I breathed in the sear of his scent, I let myself imagine it. Rather than blocking my thoughts, cutting them off and forcing them deep down, out of my conscious mind, I allowed them to range unfettered. They did not go willingly, not now. But I forced myself to go where I had always avoided.

I imagined tasting him... draining him.

I'd had enough experience to know what the relief would feel like, if I were to utterly quench my most bestial need. His blood had so much more pull for me than any other human's I'd encountered—I could only assume that the relief and pleasure would be that much more intense.

His blood would soothe my aching throat, erasing all the months of fire. It would feel as if I had never burned for him; the alleviation of pain would be total.

The sweetness of his blood on my tongue was harder to imagine. I knew I had never experienced any blood so perfectly matched to my desire, but I was sure it would satisfy every craving I had ever known.

For the first time in three quarters of a century—the span I had survived without human blood—I would be totally sated. My body would feel strong and whole. It would be many weeks before I thirsted again.

I played the sequence of events through to the end, surprised, even as I let these taboo imaginings loose, at how little they appealed to me now. Even withholding the inevitable sequel—the return of the thirst, the emptiness of the world without him—I felt no desire to act on my imaginings.

I also saw very clearly in that moment that there was no separate monster and never had been one. Eager to disconnect my mind from my desires, I had—as was my habit—personified that hated part of myself to distance it from the parts that I considered me. Just as I had created the harpy to give myself someone to fight. It was a coping mechanism, and not a very good one. Better to see myself as the whole, bad and good, and work with the reality of it.

My breathing continued steadily, the bite of his scent a welcome counterpoint to the glut of other physical sensations that overwhelmed me as I held him.

I thought I understood a little better what had happened to me before, in the violent reaction that had terrified us both. I had been so convinced that I might be overwhelmed, that when I actually was overwhelmed, it was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. My anxiety, the agonizing visions I'd obsessed over, plus the months of self-doubt that had shaken my former confidence all combined to weaken the determination that I now knew was absolutely up to the job of protecting Beau.

Even Archie's nightmare vision was suddenly less vibrant, the colors leaching away. Its power to shake me was ebbing, because, and this was obvious now, that future was entirely impossible. Beau and I would leave this place hand in hand, and my life would finally begin.

We were through the knot.

I had no doubt that Archie saw this, too, and that he was rejoicing.

Though I was exceptionally comfortable in my current position, I was also eager for the rest of my life to unfold.

I leaned away from him, letting my hands trace along the length of his arms as they dropped to my side, full of simple happiness to just see his face again.

He looked at me curiously, unaware of the momentous occurrences inside my head.

"It won't be so hard again," I promised, though I realized as I spoke that my words probably made little sense to him.

"Was that very hard for you?" he asked with sympathetic eyes.

His concern warmed me to the core.

"Not nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. And you?"

he gave me one disbelieving glance. "No, it wasn't... bad for me."

He made it look so easy, being embraced by a vampire. But it must take more courage than he let on.

He smiled a wide, warm, lopsidedly dimpled grin. It was clear that if it did take any effort to bear my nearness, he would never admit to it.

Giddy. That was the only word I could think of to describe the high I was experiencing. It wasn't a word I often thought of in relation to myself. Every thought in my head wanted to spill out through my lips. I wanted to hear every thought in his. That, at least, was nothing new. Everything else was new. Everything had changed.

I reached for his hand—without first exhaustively debating the act in my mind—simply because I wanted to feel it against my skin. I felt free to be spontaneous for the first time. These new impulses were completely unrelated to the old.

"Here." I placed his palm against my cheek. "Do you feel how warm you've made me?"

His reaction to this first instinctive act of mine was more than I'd expected. His fingers trembled against my cheekbone. His eyes grew round and the smile slipped away. His heartbeat and his breathing accelerated.

Before I could regret the deed, he leaned closer and whispered, "Don't move."

A thrill shivered through me.

His request was easily accomplished. I froze myself into the absolute stillness that humans were incapable of duplicating. I didn't know what he intended—acclimating himself to my lack of a circulatory system seemed unlikely—but was eager to find out. I closed my eyes. I wasn't sure whether I did this to free him from the self-consciousness of my scrutiny, or because I wanted no distractions from this moment.

His hand began to move very slowly. First he stroked my cheek. His fingertips grazed across my closed eyelids, and then brushed a half circle beneath them. Where his skin met mine, it left a trail of tingling heat. He traced the length of my nose and then, with the trembling in his fingers more pronounced now, the shape of my lips.

My frozen form melted. I let my mouth fall slightly open, so that I could breathe in the nearness of him.

One finger caressed my bottom lip again, and then his palms slid down my neck, his thumbs tracing over my collar bones. His hands moved around my shoulders to my back before wrapping my arms around me, pulling me to his chest. The feeling was pure bliss.

He bent down to press his face into my hair and inhaled deeply. Then he slowly leaned away. I felt the air cool between us as he eased back.

I opened my eyes and met his gaze. His face was flushed, his heart still raced. I felt a phantom echo of the pace inside my own body, though no blood pushed it.

I wanted... so many things. Things I had not felt any need for in my entire immortal life before I met him. Things I was sure I had not wanted before I was immortal, either. And I felt that some of them, things I'd always thought impossible, might, in fact, be very possible.

But while I felt comfortable with him now as far as my thirst was concerned, I was still too strong. So much stronger than he was, every limb of my body unyielding as steel. I must always think of his fragility. It would take time to learn exactly how to move around him.

He stared at me, waiting, wondering what I thought of his touches. "Sorry."

"I wish... I wish that you could feel the... complexity," I fumbled to explain. "The confusion I feel. That you could understand."

A tendril of his hair, caught in the breeze, danced in the sun, catching the light with a reddish shine. I reached out to feel the texture of that errant lock between my fingers. And then, because it was so close, I couldn't resist stroking his face. His cheek felt like velvet left out in the sun.

His head tilted into my hand, but his eyes remained intent on my face.

"Tell me," he breathed.

I couldn't imagine where to even begin. "I don't know if I can. You know, on the one hand, the hunger—the thirst—that, being what I am, I feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though"—I gave him an apologetic half smile—"as you are not addicted to any illegal substances, you probably can't empathize completely. But..."

My fingers seemed to search out his lips of their own accord. I brushed them lightly. Finally. They were softer than I'd imagined. Warmer.

"There are other things I want, other hungers," I continued. "Hungers I don't even understand myself."

He gave me that slightly skeptical look again. "I might understand that better than you think."

"I'm not used to feeling so human," I admitted. "Is it always like this?" The wild current singing through my system, the magnetic pull drawing me forward, the feeling that there might never be a closeness that would be close enough.

"For me?" he paused, considering. "No, never. Never before this."

I held his face in my hands.

"I don't know how to be close to you," I cautioned him. "I don't know if I can."

Where to set the limits to keep him safe? How to keep selfish desire from pushing those limits unwisely?

He shifted closer to me. I held myself still and careful while he rested his forehead against mine.

His eyes slid closed. He sighed contentedly. "This is enough."

The invitation was not something I could resist. I knew I was capable of getting this much right. With meticulous care, I moved my hands up to tangle my fingers into his hair. I pressed my lips against his forehead, breathing in his warm scent. A first kiss, though a stealthy one—unrequited.

He chuckled once. "You're a lot better at this than you give yourself credit for."

"I was born with human instincts. They may be buried deep, but they exist."

The passing of time was meaningless while we stared at each other. His heart moved languorously now, his breath was slow and even against my skin. I only noticed the change when the shadow of the trees fell over us. Without the reflection off my skin, the meadow seemed suddenly darker, evening rather than afternoon.

Beau heaved a deep sigh. Not contented this time, but regretful.

"You have to go," I guessed.

"I thought you couldn't read my mind."

I grinned. "It's getting clearer."

We'd been a long time here, though now it seemed like mere seconds. He would have human needs he was neglecting. I thought of the long, slow trek to get to the meadow, and I had an idea.

I pulled away—reluctant to end our embrace no matter what came next—and placed my hands lightly on his shoulders.

"Can I show you something?" I asked.

"Anything" he said, a hint of suspicion in his voice. I realized my tone was more than a little enthusiastic.

"How about a faster way back to the truck?" I inquired.

His lips pursed, doubtful, and the crease between his brows appeared, deeper than before, even when I'd nearly attacked him. It surprised me a little; he was usually so curious and fearless.

"Don't you want to see how I travel in the forest? I promise it's safe." I grinned encouragingly at him.

He considered for a minute, and then whispered, "Will you... turn into a bat?"

I couldn't suppress my laughter. I didn't really want to. I couldn't remember ever feeling so free to be myself. Of course, that wasn't exactly true; I was always free and open when it was just me and my family. However, I never felt like this with my family—ecstatic, wild, every cell of my body alive in a new, electric way. Being with Beau intensified all sensation.

"Like I haven't heard that one before!" I teased once I could speak again.

He grinned. "Right. I'm sure you get that all the time."

I was on my feet in an instant, holding out one hand to him. He eyed it doubtfully.

"Climb on my back."

He stared at me for a moment, hesitating. I wasn't sure whether he was wary of this idea of mine, or just wasn't sure exactly how to approach me. We were very new to this physical closeness, and there was still plenty of shyness between us.

"Huh?"

"Don't be a coward, Beau, I promise this won't hurt."

"Edythe, I don't ... I mean, how?"

I turned my back to him.

"Surely you're familiar with the concept of a piggyback ride?"

"Sure, but..."

"What's the problem, then?"

"Well... you're so small."

I blew out an exasperated sigh. Hadn't we been over this? I darted into the trees and located the largest boulder in the vicinity of the meadow. I ripped it from the ground and carried it with one hand back to where Beau was standing.

"That's not what I meant. I'm not saying you're not strong enough—"

I tossed the boulder back over my shoulder in the direction I retrieved it from. It crashed through the trees, and I heard it split into three pieces.

"Obviously," he went on. "But I... How would I fit?"

I turned around again. "Trust me."

Much too slowly, he put his arms around my neck from behind.

"Come on," I said impatiently. I lifted his left leg from the ground and gently arranged placed it above my hip.

"Whoa!" he protested, but I was already pulling his other leg into place around me. His pulse quickened and his breath caught, but once he was in place, his arms and legs constricted around me. I felt enveloped in the warmth of his body.

"Am I hurting you?" He sounded worried.

"Please, Beau," I snorted.

It struck me how easy it was, not to carry his insignificant weight, but to have him literally wrapped around me. My thirst was so wholly overshadowed by my happiness that it barely caused me any conscious pain.

I took his hand from where it was gripped around my neck, and held his palm to my nose. I inhaled as deeply as I could. Yes, there the pain was. Real, but unimpressive. What was a little fire to all this light?

"Easier all the time," I breathed.

I took off at a relaxed lope, choosing the smoothest route back to our starting point. It would cost me a few extra seconds to go the long way, but we would still get to his truck in minutes rather than hours. It was better than to jostle him with a more vertical path.

Another new, joyous experience. I'd always loved to run—for nearly a hundred years, it had been my purest physical happiness. But now, sharing this with him, no distance between us bodily or psychically, I realized how much more pleasure there could be in simply running than I'd ever imagined. I wondered if it thrilled him as much as it did me.

One qualm nagged at me. I'd been in a hurry to get his home as soon as that seemed to be his wish. However... surely we should have concluded that most momentous interlude with a proper finale, a sort of seal on our new understanding? A benediction. But I'd been too hasty to realize it was missing until we were already in motion.

It wasn't too late. My system was electrified again as I thought of it: a true kiss. Once I'd assumed it impossible. Once I'd mourned that this impossibility seemed to hurt him as well as me. Now I was sure it was both possible... and fast approaching. The electricity ricocheted around the inside of my stomach and I wondered why humans had thought to name such a wild sensation butterflies.

I slowed to a smooth stop just a few paces from where he'd parked.

"Exhilarating, isn't it?" I asked, eager for his reaction.

He didn't respond, and his limbs retained their taut grip around my waist and neck. A few quiet seconds passed with no answer. What was wrong?

"Beau?"

His breath came in a gasp, and I realized that he'd been holding it. I should have noticed that.

"I think I need to lie down," he said faintly.

"Oh." I was in dire need of practice with human. I hadn't even thought of the possibility of motion sickness. "I'm sorry."

I waited for him to release his hold, and slowly, he loosened his grip. Then his weight disappeared all at once.

He stumbled backward and fell to the ground. He sat with his head between his knees.

I knelt down and placed a hand on the back of his neck.

I sat beside him. Listening to his measured breathing, I found that I was more anxious than the situation merited. I knew this was nothing serious, just a bit of queasiness, and yet... seeing him pale and ill bothered me more than was reasonable.

A few moments later, he lifted his head experimentally. He was still pale, but not as green. A faint sheen of sweat covered his brow.

"I guess that wasn't the best idea," I muttered, feeling like an ass.

He smiled a wan smile. "No, it was very interesting," he lied.

"Hah," I huffed sourly. "You're as white as a ghost—no, worse, you're as white as me!"

He took a slow breath. "I think I should have closed my eyes." As he said the words, his lids followed suit.

"Remember that next time." His color was improving, and my tension eased in direct correlation with the pink infusing his cheeks.

"Next time?" he groaned theatrically.

I laughed at his sham scowl.

"Show-off," he muttered. His lower lip jutted out, rounded and full. It looked incredibly soft. I imagined how it would give, bringing us even closer.

I rolled to my knees, facing him. I felt nervous, and restless, and impatient, and unsure. The yearning to be closer to him reminded me of the thirst that used to control me. This, too, was demanding, impossible to ignore.

His breath was hot against my face. I leaned closer.

"Look at me, Beau."

He complied slowly, looking up at me through his dense lashes for a moment before lifting his chin so that our faces were aligned.

"I was thinking, while I was running..." My voice trailed off; this was not the most romantic beginning.

His eyes narrowed. "About not hitting the trees, I hope."

I chuckled as he tried to hold back a grin. "Silly Beau. Running is second nature to me. It's not something I have to think about."

"Show-off," he repeated, with more emphasis this time.

We were off topic. It was surprising this was even possible, close as our faces were. I smiled and redirected.

"No, I was thinking there was something I wanted to try."

I put my hands lightly on either side of his face, leaving him plenty of room to move away if this was unwelcome.

His breath caught, and he automatically angled his head closer to mine.

I used an eighth of a second to recalibrate, testing every system in my body to be completely positive that nothing would take me off guard. My thirst was well under control, sublimated to the very bottom of my physical needs. I regulated the pressure in my hands, in my arms, the way my torso curved toward him, so that my touch would be lighter against his skin than the breeze. Though I was sure the precaution was unnecessary, I held my breath. There was no such thing as too careful, after all.

His eyelids slid shut.

I closed the tiny distance between us, and pressed my lips softly against his.

Though I'd thought I was prepared, I was not entirely ready for the combustion.

What strange alchemy was this, that the touch of lips should be so much more than the touch of fingers? It made no logical sense that simple contact between this specific area of skin should be so much more powerful than anything I'd yet experienced. It felt as if a new sun was bursting into being where our mouths met, and my whole body was filled to a shatter point with the brilliant light of it.

I only had a fraction of a second to grapple with the potency of this kiss before the alchemy impacted Beau.

He gasped in reaction, his lips parting against mine, the fever of his breath burning my skin. His arms wound around my neck, his fingers twisted into my hair. He used that leverage to crush his lips more tightly to mine. His lips felt warmer than before, as fresh blood flowed into them. They opened wider, an invitation...

An invitation it would not be safe for me to accept.

Gingerly, with the lightest force possible, I eased his face away from mine, leaving my fingertips in place against his skin to keep him at that distance. Apart from that small shift, I held myself motionless and tried, if not to ignore the temptation, at least to separate myself from it. I noted the unpleasant return of a few predatory reactions—an excess of venom in my mouth, a tightening in my core—but these were superficial responses. While perhaps it would be unfair to say that rationality was in total control, at least it was not a feeding passion that made that statement untrue. A much more agreeable passion held me in its thrall. Its nature, however, did not eliminate the need to moderate it.

Beau's expression was both overwhelmed and apologetic.

"Whoops," he said.

I couldn't help but think what his innocent actions might have precipitated just a few hours ago.

"That's an understatement," I agreed.

He was unaware of the progress I'd made today, but he had always acted as if I were in perfect control of myself, even when it wasn't true. It was a relief to finally feel as if I deserved some of that trust.

He tried to move back, but my hands were locked around his face. "Should I...?"

"No," I assured him. "It's tolerable. Wait for a moment, please."

I wanted to be very careful that nothing was escaping me. Already, my muscles had relaxed and the influx of venom dissipated. The urge to wrap my arms around him and continue the alchemy of kissing was a harder impulse to deny, but I used my decades of practicing self-control to make the right choice.

"There," I said when I was totally calm.

He was fighting another smile. "Tolerable?" he asked.

I laughed. "I'm stronger than I thought." I would have never believed how in control I was able to be now. This was very rapid progress indeed. "It's nice to know."

"And I'm not. Sorry."

"You are only human, after all."

He rolled his eyes at my weak joke. "Yeah."

The light that had filled my body during our kiss lingered. I felt so much happiness, I wasn't sure how to contain it all. The overwhelming joy and general bemusement made me worry I wasn't being responsible enough. I should take him home. It wasn't so hard to think of ending this afternoon's utopia, because we would leave together.

I stood and offered him my hand. This time he took it quickly, and I pulled him to his feet. He wobbled there, looking unsteady.

"Are you still reeling from the run?" I asked. "Or was it my kissing expertise?" I laughed out loud.

He wrapped his free hand around my wrist to steady himself. "Both." His body swayed closer to mine. It seemed intentional rather than vertiginous.

"Maybe you should let me drive."

All disequilibrium seemed to vanish. His shoulders squared. "Uh, I think I've had enough of your need for speed today..."

If he were driving, I would need him to keep both hands on the wheel and I could do nothing to distract him. If I were driving, however, there would be much more leeway.

"I can drive better than you on your best day. You have much slower reflexes." I smiled so that he would know I was teasing. Mostly.

He didn't argue with the facts. "I believe you, but I don't think my truck could handle your driving."

I tried to do the hypnotizing thing he'd accused me of before. I still wasn't exactly sure what qualified. "Some trust, please, Beau."

It didn't work, perhaps because he was looking down. He patted his jeans pocket, then pulled out his key and wrapped his fingers into a fist around it. He looked up again, and shook his head.

"Nope," he told me. "Not a chance."

He started toward the road, stepping around me. Whether he was actually still dizzy or just moved clumsily, I didn't know. But he staggered on the second step and I caught him by the t-shirt.

"Beau," I breathed. All the jocularity vanished from his eyes, and he leaned into me, his face tilted down toward mine. Kissing him immediately seemed like both a fantastic and a terrible idea. I forced myself to err on the side of caution.

"I've already expended a great deal of personal effort at this point to keep you alive," I reminded him in a playful tone. "I'm not about to let you behind the wheel of a vehicle when you can't even walk. Friends don't let friends drive drunk," I concluded, quoting the Ad Council slogan. It was a dated reference for him; he'd been only three when the campaign was launched.

"Drunk?" he protested.

I grinned a crooked smile at him. "You're intoxicated by my very presence."

He sighed, accepting defeat. "I can't argue with that." Holding his fist up, he let the key drop from his hand and fall into mine.

"Take it easy," he cautioned. "My truck is a senior citizen."

"Very sensible."

His lips pursed into a frown. "So you're not affected at all? By my presence?"

Affected? He'd utterly transformed every part of me. I barely recognized myself.

For the first time in a hundred years, I was grateful to be what I was. Every aspect of being a vampire—all but the danger to him—was suddenly acceptable to me, because it was what had let me live long enough to find Beau.

The decades I had endured would not have been so difficult had I known what was waiting for me, that my existence was advancing toward something better than I could have imagined. It had not been years of killing time, as I had thought; it had been years of progress. Refining, preparing, mastering myself so that I could have this now.

I wasn't entirely sure of this new self yet; the violent ecstasy suffusing my every cell seemed unsustainable in the long term. Still, I never wanted to go back to the old me. That Edythe seemed unfinished now, incomplete. As though half of her was missing.

It would have been impossible for her to do this—I reached for his hand and held it to my cheek, feeling the velvet give of his warm skin under the faint pressure. I closed my eyes and took in a slow, deep breath.

"Regardless," I whispered in his ear. "I have better reflexes."