Page 51 of Bottoms Up (Mythic Beast #4)

Benji’s aiming to be back on his computer and doing his job at two to three years, and safe around humans in six.

If he can manage it that fast, I will, too, but I’m aiming for two years before I can do short social media videos, three years until I can do promo videos with the band, and ten years before I can go back on tour with them.

Benji had gone back home that morning, and Julian was busy at Homewood, helping Marco.

I needed air, trees, sky. Stillness . I grabbed my electric bike and rode out past the edge of Homewood’s land, into the Prentice Cooper Forest.

I ended up at Snooper’s Rock, a massive slab of sandstone perched high above our own Grand Canyon, full of trees and green, with the Tennessee River snaking its way through the mountains, carving lazy curves through the valley floor, and catching the silver of the moon in flashes.

I wasn’t directly over the T-Wall, but in the same general vicinity, and this part of the mountain calls to me. It feels old. True. Special.

I’d known Julian was flying behind about the time I crossed the Homewood boundary, so I wasn’t surprised when he sat on the rock with me.

“Four days to the full moon,” I noted. When you live on land the werewolves use to run the three days of the full moon, you keep up with these things.

The moon was bright enough it lit the valley below us — not just with light, but with magic. A soft, pale enchantment draped across treetops and stones, like the whole world had exhaled.

“I wasn’t in a great place when we met,” I told him.

“Not unhappy so much as dissatisfied. The word ennui kind of works, but that isn’t exactly it.

I’d come to the conclusion I was going to live my life alone, finding sexual partners to scratch the itch, but never finding true love.

I mean, I had a great life, right? Part of Mythic Beast, my own house and a dream car, bandmates I actually like and want to spend time with. ”

I sighed and told him a truth I hadn’t spoken out loud to anyone except Kirsten, back when she’d been my therapist.

“I played around with deciding on a gender and sticking to it, but what would I choose? If I picked a gender based on what someone else wanted, I’d eventually resent them for it, so why do it at all? If it was going to doom the relationship, why bother?”

“I love you , Silver. Not your gender. Whether you feel like a girl or a boy on any given day doesn’t change how I feel about you.” He rubbed my back. Petting me. “I’m truly bisexual. I love men and women, and I love every side of you, but especially the inside — who you are as a soul.”

“I know, and I have no idea how I got so lucky. Benji loves both sides of me as well, but sometimes it feels as if he treats me like I’m two people — his baby sister and his little brother.

I’m just your Silver.” I stopped looking at the scenery and focused on him.

“I’m not your girlfriend or your boyfriend. I’m just yours.”

“Of course you are. Maybe I have different ideas about gender than most of society, neutered as a child so I’d sound like a girl even as an adult, and that process gave me…

” He sighed. “You’ve never made me feel grotesque.

I know my body isn’t attractive, with my manboobs and my stomach, but you’ve never, not once, looked at me as if I’m anything less than perfect.

You’re around absolutely perfect specimens of men all the time, especially Will, Davy, and Mikey, but you don’t look at me as if I’m wrong . ”

I shook my head. “I love how big you are. I mean, your dick could stand to be a little skinnier when you take my ass, but otherwise, everything about you is perfect. You’re my Julian, and I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

I leaned into him and changed the subject. “Zander brought up an important point, and it’s one I don’t think we’ll have to deal with for a while, but maybe eventually?”

“Vampire hierarchy,” he said, falling into step with my thoughts. Not reading my mind — we were just in tune . Syncopated.

“Right. At first, you’ll be stronger than me, so you dominating me will just happen.”

“But if you grow stronger than me, it’ll alter the dynamic.”

Marco had said he doesn’t see that happening for at least a hundred and fifty years, and he pointed out most vampire marriages don’t last that long.

“Are you interested in marriage?” he asked. “Is that something we should do before you’re turned, or would you rather wait until after, and do it as vampires, with a standard contract?”

Vampires don’t marry until death do us part .

They oath to each other for a set number of years, and everyone keeps track of assets so there aren’t problems when they split.

I didn’t want that. If we’re going to marry, I’d much rather do it while I’m a human, when we don’t have to worry with writing a contract with an end date.

But that led to stress over having to actually plan a wedding. Maybe I am more man than woman in some ways, because the idea of a big wedding day where I’m the center of attention didn’t appeal to me. At all .

“How would I know how I’m going to feel on the big day? Would I need a dress, or a tux?” And that was only the beginning of my arguments against a wedding. Not getting married — I’d love to be married to Julian, I just hated the whole idea of what it would take to make it happen.

“Have both on hand. Choose one of each, and then wear whichever feels right when the day arrives.”

I shook my head. “It’s more than that. Hair, makeup, nails, shoes. Planning for the big day means you have to plan .”

“Then we won’t make it a big day,” he said simply. “We’ll find someone to marry us, and we’ll go somewhere meaningful. Here, or the top of another mountain you like. We get to decide how to do it. It can be just the two of us and whoever marries us, if you want.”

And just like that, he swept away every negative. Every dread-laced detail.

“Do you want to?” I asked, voice softer than I meant it to be.

“I would love to be your husband, and for you to be my spouse.”

Had I just asked Julian to marry me? I didn’t think it qualified as a proposal, but he’d answered as if I had. Should I answer back and make it official?

Before I could figure out how to respond, he said, “I’m sure I’m doing this all wrong, but will you marry me, my little stellina , mon trésor ?

I couldn’t help my smile. I used to think I wasn’t built for love. That I was too much, too unpredictable, too different to be someone’s forever. But Julian doesn’t fit into society’s two specific boxes, either, and somehow — we fit together.

We work.

“Yeah. I’d like that. Yes, I’ll marry you, and right here will be the perfect place.”

We sat on that stone slab with the world falling away beneath us — mountains fading into sky, the river shining like a vein of silver in the dark. I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together.

“Do we have to tell people?” I asked. “Because if Kirsten and Cora turn it into a fucking event, I’m bribing one of the dragon triplets to fly me to Faerie and drop me in an enchanted forest.” Or possibly a centaur orgy.

He laughed, that soft, breathy sound he only makes for me, like I hung the fucking moon, and it made my chest go all stupid and soft.

“We’ll do it our way,” he promised. “No contracts. No witnesses. Just a vampire and a rock star, and the mountain they call home.”

And in that moment — that perfect, moonlit silence — I believed him.

I believed in us .

I leaned into him, he wrapped an arm around me, and I swear the universe tilted ever-so-slightly — like it knew we’d just started our journey into forever. Hand in hand, fuck the fanfare.

We’ll see Silver and Benji’s journey into forever during Benji’s book, tentatively titled Last Light.

Breadcrumbs and clues were left to tell you who the necklace went to. More on that in later books. Something else to look forward to.

Keep reading for an excerpt from Ghost .