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“There is no chance of that happening without losing your soul in the process.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You can talk to Abe about it if you don’t believe me. He’s seen it firsthand. It’s been his calling, his entire life. When he left me behind in Chile, he went back to save and rehabilitate more of us. He knows how futile and dangerous your request is.”

“Fine,” I say tersely. “I will talk to the doctor about it.”

His eyes narrow. “Larimar.”

“Or is it that you don’t want me by your side forever? Just for a hundred years so you can move on to someone else.”

I expected to rankle him a little, wanting a reaction, but I wasn’t prepared for the one I got.

Abject despair lining his face.

His shoulders falling, his hand trembling slightly as it moves along my jaw to cup my cheek.

“The fact that you won’t be by my side until the end of time is the heaviest cross to bear. It’s one I don’t even let myself think about, because if I did, I don’t think I could survive. I would be turned back into a madman. The idea that, one day, I will have to lose you is…my version of eternal damnation.”

His voice is raw, fractured, and I think I see the edges of a crack forming around him too, like his whole being is on the verge of coming apart in front of me. The selfish side of me—my own monster—wants to push that crack until it breaks, to have him fall to pieces the way he made me shatter.

But the human side keeps me above such moral lows.

Because I love him.

And even though there’s a pettiness inside me that still wants him to suffer for what he did to me, I love him too much to do that.

“Then let me,” I whisper to him, reaching out and trailing my fingers along the prickly hair of his beard. “Let me live with you and love you across time.”

He closes his eyes and moves his face to the side, pressing his lips into my palm. “Larimar. My sea goddess. My little fish. You’re mine for eternity, stretching across life and death. Love doesn’t die, not like mortals do. It is eternal in itself.”

I run my thumb over his soft lips. “I’m going to talk to Abe,” I whisper.

His eyes fly open, flashing like a thunderstorm. “I will not allow it.”

“You can’t stop me from doing anything,” I say sweetly, smiling something wicked now. “One word to Ramsay and Maren, and you’ll be back in chains.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he seethes.

“I would if you tried to stop me,” I warn him. Then, I give him my coyest smile. “Besides, you liked being in those chains. You liked exactly what I did to you. I think there’s proof of how much you liked it staining the floor.”

He growls at me.

I growl right back.

Monster to monster.

Chapter Thirty-Four

LARIMAR

Aweek goes by in a blink, like no time has passed at all. Life at sea has become both comforting and monotonous, the same day in and day out, the weather holding steady, aside from the occasional heavy swells that roll through.

In that week, I have tried to further convince Priest to turn me into a Vampyre.

He flat out refuses to even have the conversation.

I can’t blame him at all.