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Suddenly, it didn’t feel quite so much like I was two separate people anymore. But I could feel the fears and desires warring within me. It felt far more like a choice I could make: I could come back to him, if I wanted to. But it wasn’t as easy as that. Because if something ever happened to Michael, it would be a pain I would need to live with for an eternity. A heartbreak I wasn’t quite sure I would ever recover from. And didn’t I know, firsthand, how easily a life—even an immortal life—could end?

It would be far easier—and far safer—tonotcome back. To let the cold and sharp-edged version of me win out. I could revelin the violence of what I was now. I could lose myself in that. I could make it so that nothing would ever matter again.

So that nothing could ever hurt me.

Michael was quiet, on his knees in front of me in the alleyway, waiting. I knew he could sense the battle raging within me. Just like I understood what he was doing: he was letting me choose. I had towantto come back to him.

And even though he was bigger than me—even though he was one of the toughest people I knew—he looked so fragile in that moment.

Easily broken.

If I didn’t come back—because I was a coward and I hadchosennot to—what would that do to him? It was intolerable to consider. Even for a moment. But I could see it anyway. A cold eternity stretched out in front of him for centuries, grief choking him at every turn, never quite healing. Watching what I had become, but unable to bring himself to end me. Grieving what he had lost. What we had both lost.

And he would be alone, the same way I had been alone, until the day I met him.

With my heart in my throat, with the cold fingers of fear laced through my gut, I made my choice.

I chose him.

I would always choose him.

The inhuman desire to hurt strangers, to feed and feed until nothing more was left, to revel in the violence and power of what I was now, receded into the background. The cold edges of my mind melted away, the ice thawing as though it had never been. It wasn’t gone. But it wasn’t in the driver’s seat anymore.

I was.

Michael’s breath escaped in a broken sob and I could feel his relief flood through me.

“Danny.” His words cracked right down the center. “Oh, Danny. Danny.”

He kept saying my name, like it was a prayer.

I fell to my knees beside him. I cupped his face, the roughness of his stubble scratchy and perfect.But what about everything you’ve given up?

He met my gaze and his reply was immediate and unhesitating.Those things don’t matter as much as you. They never have. They never will. They don’t mean anything without you.

I swallowed my own lump of emotion, but his words had chased the last of my fears from me. “But what if it hadn’t worked?”

Even the chance that it might was enough for me. I would have never forgiven myself if I didn’t try.He flashed me a watery grin and added aloud, “Besides, you know me. When have I ever not been a little reckless? Why should this situation be any different?”

I laughed. And it was a little helpless, because I couldn’t quite manage anything else. The previous coldness and clarity of purpose I had felt was gone. And my inhuman hunger had receded as well, fading into the background in his presence, just like always.

“But how did you control yourself?” I demanded, the realization crashing through me that Michaelhadn’tattacked anyone. “How did you stop yourself from pouncing those guys? The one I bit wasbleeding.”

Then guilt flooded through me, and I let out a soft gasp. Was that guy going to be okay? How badly had I hurt him?

“He’ll be fine,” Michael assured me. “You didn’t hit the jugular properly. He would have died right there if you had.”

I nodded, but his words still didn’t banish my guilt.

If Michael hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed him. If he hadn’t found me in time—

How had he found me?

“It was the bond,” Michael told me quietly. “Your walls have been slipping since you left the mines. I’ve been getting glimpses of what you had planned. Evil-you isn’t as slick as he thinks he is.”

“The connection between us is whatever we need it to be, when we need it to be that thing,” I replied, remembering what Thierry had told us. Tears sprang to my eyes. But how had Michael believed that so strongly? What if he hadn’t found me?

And, yet again, how was he controlling himself now? We were in downtown Boise and there were peopleeverywhere.Then again, even though Michael was a vampire now and there was little chance of me hurting him, I still found that his nearness had soothed away my hungers, just as it had all along. Maybe part of what our connection needed to be was us not noticing the hungers and encouraging each other to not become crazed monsters?