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Her eyes fly open, and for a second, they’re red, a glowing crimson, and then they return to blue as she sits straight up.

Her hand flies out to grab Ramsay, and then she leaps up straight out of the chair and jumps on him, knocking him to the floor.

She goes for his jugular, and I catch a glimpse of fangs as I laugh.

They did it.

It worked.

“Jumping Joseph!” Abe yells. “She’s a Vampyre!”

“May I be damned, it worked,” Thane says in quiet awe. “I’m going to have a sister-in-law for the rest of my life.”

“She’ll be busy trying to get her fill from him,” Abe says. “I reckon that she’ll need human blood after awhile, but Ramsay’s will be enough to sustain her for now.” He looks at me. “But you, Larimar, you’ll be able to feed off Priest, just as he’s able to feed off you. He was human once, and he will always carry that part with him.”

“I never said I would do the same to Larimar,” Priest says gruffly, stubborn as ever.

But when I walk over to him and put my hand over the blood that flows from his wrist, now down to a trickle, the expression on his stoic face softens.

And he gives in.

“Don’t make me beg to be part of your life,” I tell him.

He manages the faintest smile. “But you know I like it when you beg.”

Abe brings the knife over, holding it out like an offering. “I am ready to do the honors again.”

“The honors are all mine,” Priest says, taking the knife from him. “She is mine to hurt and mine alone. She is mine to turn. She is mine. Forever.”

He sits me down on the chair. I keep looking at Maren, at what a feral creature she’s become as she sucks at Ramsay’s neck, but he does seem to be enjoying it, and every now and then she unhooks her fangs to give him a passionate, bloody kiss, grinning at him like a young girl in love. Suffice it to say, she’s no more of a monster than she was before.

“Are you sure you want me to do this?” Priest asks, but he no longer looks unsure of himself. Instead, he seems eager.

Excited.

Eternity waits at the edge of his knife.

“Yes,” I tell him.

He presses the blade against my neck.

“Wait, wait!” I cry out, carefully. “Kiss me first.”

He grins at me and leans in for a long, deep passionate kiss, the kind that makes my toes curl.

“I love you,” he whispers against my mouth. “Always and to the end, whatever end that may be.”

“I love you,” I say back, giving him another quick kiss on his lips, the side of his mouth, his chin. “Always and to the end, whatever end that may be.”

We stare into the other’s eyes for a moment, lost to each other, hearts tangled, murmuring everything we need to know.

And then he swipes the blade across my neck.

Chapter Thirty-Five

PRIEST

“That was quite the risk you took,” Abe says reproachfully, but when I glance at him, he looks more impressed than anything.