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Her eyes turned opalescent for a moment despite the public setting. “Will you look at us.”

“Right? We’re killing it.”

Their food arrived, and they were quiet as they enjoyed it. Leslie closed her eyes and groaned in happiness at the same omelet, the same pancakes she’d enjoyed the first weekend he met her—as if she were tasting them for the first time. It was all Ryker could do not to vault the table and steal a blueberry kiss from her tempting lips.

This would be his life. He didn’t see it the way Leslie did, but he knew. Countless flights between Tennessee and Virginia, countless meals like this one. She would create new dioramas, and he would help solve new cases. One day there would be a child. They would keep growing, learning, changing, adventuring and resting by turns…and one thing would remain the same all the centuries of their lives. They would be together.

Thirty-One

Rain poured down the windows of Leslie’s bungalow. The birch tree by the house bent to the wind, then sprang back up again, over and over. She had always loved that tree, loved the textures of its peeling bark and its compromise with the weather to bend but never break. She liked to think of this as the tree’s unconscious wisdom.

Wrapped in her favorite purple blanket, she opened one arm to Ryker, and he joined her on the couch. “I turned the heat up, but it’s hard to get rid of the bone-chill on days like this.”

“No problem,” Ryker said, though he shivered every so often just as she did.

“Just once I’d like to experience what humans mean when they talk about sharing body heat.”

He chuckled. “On days like this, I don’t think I’d mind it.”

“I’m surprised your flight wasn’t delayed. The last twenty-four hours, it’s like our weather is throwing a toddler tantrum.”

“Worst case scenario, everything gets grounded for a day.” Ryker pressed a long kiss to her lips. “Or should I say, best case scenario?”

“Do you know what today is?” She almost hadn’t brought it up, because if he didn’t know, it was really fine. Not like it was a true anniversary or anything.

“Four months of us,” he said.

Hedidknow. Leslie rewarded him with an even longer kiss.

She played Tracy Chapman on the record player at the lowest volume above mute. They made hot cocoa together, sipped their mugs and sat on stools at her little kitchen bar. They played board games from the stash of classics under her coffee table: she won Scrabble, he won Clue. The man who lived and thought at a hundred miles an hour was utterly content to spend a rainy day inside with her, and she loved him for this as well as all the other reasons.

Tracy Chapman’s album ended, and Leslie hopped up to switch it out for Norah Jones.

They were planning the next weekend she could fly to Virginia when “Come Away with Me” began to play. Leslie stood and tugged his hands until he did too.

“I’m guessing,” she said with velvet in her voice, “that you’re a first-rate dancer.”

“I am.” Together they began a slow waltz across the den carpet. On the chorus, they sang it to each other.Come away with me.

“Will you?” Ryker said, halfway through the song and not missing a step.

“I will.”

“For centuries.”

“As many as we can get.”

As the song faded to its end, Ryker took her face between his palms and kissed her. The kiss was gentle, calm, happy, exactly like them together. But then it wasn’t. It caught icy fire that danced in Leslie’s veins. It brought her body to attention. It curled her toes into the carpet, her fingers into the back of his shirt.

Taste.She wanted his taste. She wanted to join their souls forever, today, unexpected and perfect, this day of blankets and board games, wind and rain outside and Ryker with her. Home with her. Being her home. Leslie drew his head down, exposed the dip between his neck and his shoulder, opened her mouth, set her teeth, tried to feel if he wanted this, if he wanted today.

“Yes,” Ryker hissed.

She bit down. She tasted. She sipped a little—cold from the vein and darkly flavorful, nothing like the human blood that kept her alive. She sipped a little more, but this wasn’t about sustenance. This was about their joined souls, and hers shivered in delight that exploded into a joy so strong and deep she could hardly hold it in her body. Her head flung back. She met his eyes. He stared, his body taut, holding himself motionless with effort.

“Ryker.”

“Can I?”