“Sorry,” he says in a gruff voice.
“For what?” I ask softly.
“For acting like a caveman,” he says.
“For being possessive?”
“For saying that you’re mine when it’s not what you want.”
I give him a quick smile. “Come with me, I’m going to get you cleaned up.”
I grab his hand gently and lead him into the kitchen, making him sit down at the table. Then I go and run a dishcloth under warm water.
“You know that’s not necessary,” he says as I come over with the cloth and lean down in front of him, dabbing it on the cut at the corner of his head. “Then again, this is the closest you’ve been to me in ages.”
I glance at him and to his credit he’s not staring at my breasts, which are right in his face, but he’s looking at me, searching my face, like he’s studying a treasure map.
“Listen, Wolf…”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
I give him a wry grin as I bring the cloth to the cut on his nose, which is already healing. “How do you know what I was going to say?”
He averts his eyes. “You were going to tell me that I shouldn’t have lost my temper.” He glances down at the bloody lapels of his white tux. “Or shouldn’t have ruined my tux.”
“Well, maybe the latter,” I say, though he has the money to buy a million designer tuxes to replace it. “But I think Dracula had it coming. In fact, I think he wanted you to hit him. Maybe he’s a masochist like that.”
“I’m sorry I got possessive.”
I pause, running the cloth over his bleeding lip. “And you know what? I loved it.”
He frowns at me.
“Wolf,” I say, dropping the cloth and linking my hands behind his neck. “You have nothing to apologize for. Not anymore. Not about anything. Not about being possessive, because I certainly belong to you as much as you belong to me, not about calling me yours. I am yours, Wolf. All of me, every single inch, but especially my heart.”
He swallows thickly, his eyes roaming over my face, trying to find the truth in my words. “I’m sorry I’ve been the way I am,” I tell him. “I know how badly you were hurting over my mother and that you acted out of grief, and while it doesn’t make the hurt you caused me okay, it does explain it. I know you. I know you better than anyone and I know that you truly love me. I just wanted to make you hurt because you hurt me and I was scared you’d do it again.”
“I would never,” he whispers harshly. “I promise you that. Baby, you’re mine until the end of time. Until we’re just stardust ourselves. And I swear to god, I will do everything in my power to never hurt you again, to keep your heart safe, if only you’ll give me another chance.”
And here come the water works. I grin at him, a tear rolling over my cheek. “Wolf, we’re living our second chance. I gave us both that chance the moment I asked Lenore to turn me, the second I woke up on that floor.” I rest my forehead against his and he closes his eyes in relief. “I love you, so fucking much that I don’t even know what to do with it sometimes. It’s just something that’s so much bigger than me, so much bigger than the both of us. But it’s also everything that’s good in the world.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. He doesn’t have to. I can feel the happiness swirling inside him, I can feel the remorse and the sadness, and the love, and I know he’s drowning in all of it right now.
Finally, he looks up at me and his eyes are filled with tears and I’m lost in that liquid golden gaze. “I love you, Amethyst. So much. I love you, yesterday, today and forever.”
“Yesterday, today and forever,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss him. His lips are soft and they taste like his blood and they feel like heaven.
They feel like love.
Epilogue
Wolf
Three months later
* * *
“Oh, it’s as beautiful as I remember,” Amethyst says from beside me. “This really is the perfect place.”
We’re standing on Solon’s private beach just below his estate at Shelter Cove and the sun is just starting to set below the horizon. We would have been here earlier, but traffic was a snarl outside of the city, and then for old time’s sake Amethyst insisted we have lunch at the Eel River Café in Garberville.
Actually, I’m glad we stopped there. I often think back to the before times, to the moments before when we were here together, when we had no idea how tragically our lives were about to change. Sure, there was the Mara, the nightmares, which thankfully left after the terrible event came to pass. But we were both living in this place of possibility and innocence, which is an odd thing to ascribe to me considering how long I’ve been on the planet. And yet, that’s what I felt, looking back. Innocent.