A/N: This is it. The end. Well... the end of Alice and Daniel's story, anyway. There will be another story in the Pereche series for you to watch out for, My Morality. It'll be a few months away.

As always, big thank yous go to thir13enth for betaing and holding my hand and to all of you for reading. :)

Previously:

"I might love him, but he never showed any hint that he felt the same way about me. It's useless."

I saw the flash of a vision just moments before it happened, and Edward and I both whipped our heads around behind us to see it happen in real life.

It was such a familiar voice, a voice I had spent the last day imagining. And it wasn't just a dream this time. It was right there coming from his mouth.

"I do feel the same way."

I sat there in shock as I watched Daniel duck out from behind the brush and walk toward us.

"Daniel," I whispered, my voice scattering on the breeze.

He was truly here, mere feet away from me. He had followed me across hundreds of miles—for what reason, I couldn't be sure—and stood before me. His appearance mirrored how I felt. His clothes were somewhat more ripped than when I left him, and there was a streak of dried blood on his chin. His eyes were dark and hollow like a haunted man.

Edward was looking between the two of us, his head flicking back and forth comically. "Should I…" He gestured back toward the house, looking concerned.

Go, you idiot.

"Right." With a last glance between me and my mate, my brother was gone, a few snapping twigs the only echoes in his wake.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" I stood up from the fallen log to face him, making sure to leave the giant tree between us as some kind of shield against the power he wielded over me.

"What do you think?"

"I really don't know!"

He took a step closer. "Alice. You left me." His voice was softer and held more emotion than I had ever heard in it. He almost seemed vulnerable.

"I'm aware. Did you ever consider that there might be a reason for it?"

The softness was gone. "What possible reason could there be to leave your mate?"

I was pacing the length of the log, forging a path through the covering of snow and through to the layer of dead leaves below. "I saw it, okay? I saw a vision of what I was going to become if I stayed with you!"

A frown marred his face. "What you'll become?"

I took a step backwards. "A monster," I told him softly. "A human drinker."

He quickly schooled his face into a blank canvas, emotionless and hollow. His voice echoed his detached demeanor. "Because all human drinkers are evil." It came out as a statement of fact, not the question I expected it to be.

I cringed and looked away. "I just… don't want that lifestyle." Even I knew that my words sounded defensive. I almost lacked the ability to confirm the idea to Daniel's face, our bond not letting the words leave my mouth. It wasn't exactly what I meant, but it wasn't too far from the truth. I did think that many human-drinkers were evil. I knew that prolonged consumption of human blood often changed personalities. I also knew from first-hand experience that abstaining made us more human than our counterparts. We didn't see people as food, and that could only be a good thing, surely. Humanity and life were things considered gifts, so it followed that as vampires they were something we should also strive for as well.

"Even if you're scared, Alice, you shouldn't have run. That's not the right thing to do. You should have stayed and fought for us."

"Stay and fight for something which could end up destroying me?"

"What's the alternative? Leaving both of us to be miserable for the rest of time?"

I didn't have an answer, because that was exactly what I planned. I simply shrugged one shoulder and quirked one corner of my mouth in guilt.

"You promised me," he said softly, his head quirked to the side as he studied me.

"I promised? What did I promise?"

He looked me directly in the eyes. "You promised me that I could trust you to not hurt me."

"I-"

"I thought you were different. I thought you wouldn't leave me like they all do. You were supposed to care enough, Alice. To care more than my human mother to not leave me. To care more than Theo."

I scrunched my brow in confusion. "Who's Theo?" This was the problem when he didn't tell me about his past. I was missing important parts of what made him Daniel.

"Theo was my… creator. My friend. My father. But he met his mate."

"What? And he left you?"

His eyes went hard. "She was killed by another nomad, and after she died, he just sat down and asked them to kill him as well. He didn't love me enough to keep living. His mate was the reason he left me. Left me alone. Mates are more trouble than they're worth."

His hesitance to get close to anyone, even his mate, suddenly made sense. But regardless, it still hurt to think he didn't want me. "You think I'm more trouble than I'm worth?"

He took a few angry breaths, like a bull preparing to charge, staring me down. "You think I don't know you, but I probably know you better than your family. I know that your power is both your greatest gift and your greatest curse. I know that you practically drown in the guilt you feel because you can see bad things happening but don't know the course to take to stop them. I know you have spent decades trying to control the world, when really all you crave is to give up control; you want someone else to take the reins for once. Alice, that someone is me. We both know it is. You don't have to fear you're making the wrong decisions anymore, because I'm willing to take over for you. I can take some of your burden. You just have to let me."

"I don't—"

"Yes, you do. Take down the façade, Alice. You don't have to organize and plan every minute of every day just because you can see the consequences of every decision. You don't have to keep the weight of the world on your shoulders. I'm here to take some of that from you. And I'm very strong, you know." He sent a little smirk in my direction.

"I like organizing everything," I protested.

"Parties and frivolous things, sure. But do you really like having to tell everyone how to live their lives—and have them resent you for it—just because you've seen the outcome? It's time to let go. It's time to accept that sometimes bad things happen, and there's nothing you can do about it. And yes, that means that sometimes we can't be perfect. We can't all stick to the animal diet. But just because you see the slips happening, it doesn't mean that you should give up on life altogether."

Something in the words he was saying made me think he'd had a change of heart. What had happened to him in the precious hours since I had run from him? "Does that mean?"

"I don't know," he said with a shake of his head. "But it's not your decision to make or alter. It's mine. And if either of us make mistakes, that's not your fault, Alice. You can't give up on a relationship because you've seen a split second vision of something bad happening. Do humans forego relationships because they know that there will be hard times? No, the good times outweigh the bad. It's all worth it. If being together means that there's an odd slip, aren't the hundreds of happy times worth those few times of pain?"

"I—I guess."

"Don't fight happiness, Alice. I'm here to fight for you. No, I'm not ready to go cold turkey and change my diet. No, I'm not ready to play happy families with a bunch of people I don't know. But you don't run away because of those things. Mates grow and evolve together. But they wither and die apart. Let us evolve, Alice. Let us grow. Don't let us become so despairing that we beg some stranger to kill us, leaving everything behind."

I looked at my mate in confusion. Nobody in my life had really ever called me on my inclination to make decisions based on my visions. Every one of the Cullens had just gone along with what I told them since the day they learned about my gift. It had resulted in some great things happening, but sometimes the pressure to be right all the time did get to me.

Was this why Daniel had been sent to me? I hadn't been able to work out why the fates had deemed him to be perfect for me. But maybe this was it. He could be harsh and forthright, sure, but maybe that was what I needed. Maybe I needed someone to question my decisions. Maybe I needed someone to stop me from going off excitedly with some plan. Maybe—just maybe—he really was the yin to my yang. The gruff and tough man who takes no shit from anyone to balance out what had been described as my over-bubbly personality that caused people to agree to things they didn't want to.

He was willing to follow me and call me on a bad decision. He was willing to fight for me even after I'd abandoned him. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. In three days he hadn't been willing to change his diet for me. But was diet the only factor in a relationship? Could we find some middle ground and learn to accept each other's faults?

I was Alice Cullen. I was the one who saw the future. It wasn't often I got a dressing down from anyone about my decisions. But in the space of an hour I'd had both Edward and Daniel yelling at me and telling me I'd gone the wrong way. It was possibly the hardest thing for me to admit—and I could see it becoming a pattern if Daniel stuck around—but maybe they were right. Maybe I had been pig-headed, letting the tiny glimpses of the future control what I did with my life.

I looked him up and down. "I'm sorry," I whispered, and he was instantly across that damn fallen log and at my side.

"Sorry?" His fingers were twitching by his side, as if he was trying to resist from touching me. I knew exactly how he felt, because our proximity was making me want to touch him in return.

"Yes," I said softly. "You're right. Both you and Edward."

"What am I right about?"

God, I hated admitting I was wrong. I didn't do it often. I had always occupied that moral high ground that came with omniscience. "I only saw one bad vision. I shouldn't have let that jade our whole experience. I didn't even look for the good parts of our future."

"Our future? So are you saying we have a future?" He looked at me with lust and just the slightest hint of… was that love?

I couldn't say no to him. I sighed. "Yes. If you'll have me back."

He grabbed me by the upper arms and pushed me back against the nearest tree, forcing his lips against mine. I was in no position to stop him, and I found I didn't want to. I wanted to give him control. I wanted to let him be the man in our relationship—something I knew I hadn't always done with Jasper.

"I have one condition," he said between kisses.

"What's that?"

"I need you to promise that you won't do anything like this again. If you have a vision like that, tell me. Tell me your problems. Don't just go off half-cocked without trying to work the problem out. You might see the future, but you don't know everything."

I hung my head, resting it on his muscular shoulder. "I'm starting to realize that," I said softly, my hands creeping up to thread themselves in the back of his haphazard hair.

"So?"

"So what?" I was momentarily distracted by his nibbling at the side of my neck.

"Do you promise?"

"I promise I'll try," I breathed.

"So stubborn," he growled. "Close enough."

With that, he scraped his teeth down my neck, making me shiver in anticipation. His hand crept down the middle of my chest, ripping the buttons of my blouse open as it went, exposing my pink lace bra.

I could feel the rough bark scraping against the silk material, and in any other situation I would have been mourning the loss of the beautiful shirt. It was going to be ruined very quickly from our hard bodies.

I leaned forward and licked at the dried blood on his chin, cleaning the temptation from his face.

My eyes flicked to his. "That—that's deer blood," I gasped, pride filling me. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was disgusting," he replied with a shrug. "And it doesn't change anything."

That was where he was wrong. He had made an effort. Not just the effort to find me, but at least he tried animal blood. There was hope for him. Hope for us.

My attention was pulled back to him when he grasped my left leg and hooked it over his hip. I couldn't stop myself reaching down to unbuckle his belt. I was eager to feel him against me, and I couldn't deny that even to myself. His pants loosening and falling to his knees jostled the foot wrapped around him and my pretty ballet flat fell from my toes, tumbling into the snow beneath us.

I saw his hand snake under my denim skirt, inching tortuously higher. I wanted to beg him to move his hand faster, but my mouth was suddenly engulfed by his and I couldn't say a word from the force of his tongue moving against my own. I shuddered when his fingers finally brushed against my panties. A flash of what he was intending to do ran through my head, so I didn't move my leg down to assist him.

A finger moved under the elastic around my leg and within milliseconds the material was ripped from my body and discarded to the side, the royal blue color in stark contrast to the white on the ground.

"Daniel," I gasped against his lips as he thrust two fingers inside me with very little caution. His other hand moved up to caress my breast through the cup of my bra, sending a surge through me when he brushed over my nipple.

My hands gripped his shoulders, steadying me as he stroked me into a frenzy, and I whimpered when he pulled his fingers out, looking at me with the faintest hint of a smirk.

Anchoring me off the ground, higher on the tree, he lined our hips up against each other. He looked deeply into my eyes, his deep coppery-red eyes boring into my own. He seemed to be waiting for something. I quirked my head to the side in question, not breaking our combined gaze, and attempted to push his hips forward with my foot.

"Who do you belong to, Alice?" he asked, his voice dripping with desperation.

"I—" My old self wanted to protest and say that I was my own woman, but somewhere deep inside, I was beginning to think that wasn't true anymore. He needed me to belong to him body and soul, and I wanted to be what he needed.

"Who?" he demanded.

"You," I told him with conviction. "I'm yours."

He swallowed the last word in his kiss, thrusting into me instantly. I couldn't be sure exactly why—although I could hazard a guess—but this felt better than our first time mere days ago. This wasn't about claiming a mate in an animalistic way. This was about connecting as people—as vampires—and accepting each other.

I could feel the cells of my skin itching to move against him faster and harder, but he held me in place against the trunk of the tree, and I could feel some pieces of the bark falling off beneath me. He was completely in control, keeping me prone against him, and I found that I actually liked the feeling of being under his spell. Nobody else could tell me what to do, yet Dan seemed to be able to do that with ease, and it even felt right. I wanted him to own me, and as his movements accelerated, gripping my hips tighter and tighter, I couldn't help the groan that escaped my lips.

"Mine," he growled softly as we both crept closer and closer to the edge.

My eyes fell closed and my head fell back against the tree in ecstasy. "Yes. Completely yours," I moaned as I fell off the precipice, the contractions of my body pulling him over with me.

"Mine," he repeated, and he sunk his teeth down into the join between my neck and shoulder. Just the bite and what it meant was enough to make a series of after-shock flutter through me. He had marked me in the most primitive of ways, and as we both came back down to earth, glancing at each other, he lapped at the wound, sealing it with his venom.

Waves of contentment filled me, and I could feel a light purr echoing through his chest. I started when I realized the same noise was coming from me.

Reaching up to thread my fingers through the sides of his hair, I pulled him down to kiss him gently, incredible emotion filling my every pore.

"We can do this," I whispered, and for the first time since actually meeting him, I truly believed it. I belonged to him, and that would be true until the moment we died.

"We can," he confirmed. "Because it's almost as if the fates commanded it."

Maybe fate wasn't a fickle as I had believed.