Page 80

The fluttering in my chest grew stronger. Something deep within me struggling to break free. To assert dominance. To retake control.

I hissed again, panic flooding through me.

No! How could he—

I splayed my fingers into claws and struck at Michael. He dodged easily and grabbed my arm before I could do it again. I felt desperate to get him off me so I couldescape.

I needed to, before…

Michael, no!The voice inside of me was inconsolable.No, no, no, no, no—

“Why?” The voice asking the question was mine, but it didn’t entirely belong to me, either. The question escaped my lips without my conscious control. And there was a plaintive note in it that I didn’t like at all. Like the words were dipped in pain.

No. Not pain.Anguish.

They were emotional. Weak. Pathetic.

Because our mate wasstrongnow. He was powerful. He was immortal.

How could that possibly be a bad thing?

“I became a vampire foryou, Danny,” Michael whispered, holding my gaze. “I told you I would do anything for you, and I meant it.”

My heart broke inside my chest, releasing a tidal wave of emotion through me, sweeping everything else away. It was rage. It was pain. It was hope. And most of all, it waslove.

Michael had spent months running away from even talking about what we were to each other. And he had faced it. He had admitted to both of us what he felt. But that was still different. Because he could have still walked away from hunting, from thesupernatural, from the darkness of the last five years. But now, there was no walking away.

Not anymore.

He had become the one thing he had always hated. And he had done it for me. To prove to me that I wasn’t alone. That I was loved.

No!I fought it. I beat back the surge of emotion that overtook me, threatening to drown me. If I could just force my body to obey me, I could—

“Michael,” I breathed, staring at him. It wasn’t my voice speaking. It was the emotional part of me. The part that cared. Except that the difference seemed less distinct than it had a moment ago. A fresh wave of pain swept through me. “No.”

He was just as handsome as ever. But even in the shadows of the alleyway, I could see that his teeth were sharper, too. They were fangs.

“I made you a promise. I swore to you that you wouldn’t spend a single day on this earth as a monster. Help me keep that promise. Come back to me, Danny.” He dropped to his knees before me, his expression crumpled, and the naked plea on his face felt like hot knives in my chest, cutting my heart into ribbons. His voice became a whisper. “Please, Danny. I’m begging you.”

I knew what he had given up, didn’t I?

He had given up any possibility of a life spent in sunlight. Of backyard barbeques and normal neighbors, and errands, and mundane jobs, and family vacations. He could have had those things, if he had wanted them badly enough—and I knew he did. Deep down, he still wanted the life he had lost.

But now he would never step out of the shadows, ever again. Not really. He would always be a creature of darkness. He had chosen a life filled with moonlight and inhuman hungers. An eternity of never aging, never moving forward. Never quitebelonging to the human world, but always having to pretend that he did. He had traded away everything he was and everything he knew to be good and true, on thechancethat maybe I would come back to him.

And he had done it forme.

My father’s face flashed in my mind. The relief in his eyes when the poltergeist had killed him. And the horrible, sick realization that he had given up on purpose. That he hadwantedto leave. And the aftermath: me standing there, surrounded by darkness, breathing hard with the locket in my hand, realizing how horribly and completely alone I was now. Michael was offering me a future where that would never happen to me again.

And all I would have to do is reach out for it with both hands.

But Michael would never grow old. He might never die. He would never truly know peace again.

You’re a fucking idiot if you think there’s ever going to be any peace at all without you. Ever.

Michael words echoed in my mind, and I realized that the walls I had thrown up between us had fallen. Because I could feel the fierceness with which he meant it. But the expression on his face was softer than before.

And it was filled with such love that I almost couldn’t stand it.