Chapter 1

"Are you sure you're ready?" he whispered. I could barely make out his piercing red eyes in the darkness of our underground shelter. I nodded slightly, hardly convincing, but I had decided that this was what I wanted. He reached up one cool, pale hand and brushed my hair behind my ear. "Where do you want it?" I shakily reached up and started unbuttoning the black button-down I had worn specifically for this occasion. One button, two, three… He drew in a sharp breath and I heard him swallow hard, his eyes like garnets fixated on the skin I was slowly unveiling. I pulled the material aside, barely keeping my left breast covered. I slid my hand across his arm, grabbing his hand and pulling it up to rest on my warm skin. I shivered when his ice-cold fingers brushed against my flesh. "Here," I whispered, "close to my heart." He smiled. "You have always been a poetic one haven't you?" His smile faded and his eyes turned dark. "There… it will be more painful…"

I grasped his hand tighter and struggled to make out his beautiful features in the shadows. "It'll be painful no matter what, right?" I thought I saw him nod. "Then it doesn't matter to me. I'll have this mark forever and I want it to have significance."

"Will it not be significant enough that it is my mark?" his voice pleaded with me, and I faltered, my heart almost breaking with the weight of the sadness I could sense in his words. I mentally shook myself and shot him the dirtiest look I could muster. "No fair manipulating me, wait until I can be on a more even field with you. You know what I want."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Fair enough, darling. If you are ready then, I will start now."

I smiled at the slight Irish lilt in his voice and his tendency to speak in formal English. He never had quite picked up on stylistic changes in language. I suppose that's likely to happen when you're over three-hundred years old. No one would be able to tell from looking at his thick, wavy black hair and smooth, perfect skin that he was older than twenty-two. Vampires don't have to worry about wrinkles or hair loss. Yet another of the many unfair advantages they have over humans. Humans like me. I shivered in anticipation as I realized that he wouldn't have so many advantages over me soon.

I nodded resolutely. "I've been ready since the moment I met you."

He leaned toward me, and I grasped the sheets I was sitting on firmly in my hands. I wanted to remember everything about this moment. The single candle burning on the glass table in the center of the room. The soft cotton in between my fingers. The plush mattress underneath me. And the scent of him. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. Would he still smell the same to me in three days? I felt his frozen lips on my collarbone and I gasped. He let out a puff of laughter. "I will miss this the most," he whispered. "The way I can tell without a doubt that I have affected you. There will be no tell-tale pounding in my ears when this is all over. But a small price to pay for having you with me forever, my darling."

I opened my mouth to answer, but was suddenly distracted by the feel of his teeth piercing through my skin. He pulled back and I felt his rough tongue lick the wound, but only for a moment before all sensations were taken away except for one: pain. I screamed, curling up on the mattress, writhing, as what felt like molten lava coursed through my veins, spreading from my chest. I had known it would hurt, but this was beyond imagination.

He sat next to me and brushed my hair back from my face. "I love you so much, my Lorri… I'm so sorry…" he whispered as my screams continued on through the night.