“Can’t you just come with me—hide, maybe live in the bedroom or something?”

David laughed out a short breath. “I wish I could, but I have work to do here, Ara. Being dead—or supposedly dead—gives me an advantage other vampires don’t have. No one will be looking for me. I can track Drake without being noticed. And besides, someone has to do a better job of researching your genealogy than Morgaine has.”

I nodded, wandering over to fall into his waiting arms. “I’m sorry we’re fighting.”

“We’re just stressed, Ara-Rose.”

“Even then, we should be supporting each other when we find it hard, not arguing.”

“I know. And it gives true definition to our vows, don’t you think? That even being immortal does not free us of the struggle to keep our promises; to love and honour, for better or worse. But, I am in love with you. And despite my failures as a husband in the last day and a half, I know that when all’s said and done, I care how you feel, and fighting or none, my life is nothing without you.”

I nodded against his shirt. “One day we’ll know what it feels like just to be in love, without laws and prophecies coming between us.”

“No, my love.” He sighed, tangling his fingers in my hair. “I don’t think we will.”

The sombre tune illustrated the pain in my heart; the sorrow of a soon to be absent lover; the sting of goodbye. Closing my eyes, I let myself feel the rise and fall of my breath, and the warm, flowing sensation of the energy in my fingertips—the energy that radiated out as I played, electrifying the white keys, making them glow.

“Sad?” said a smooth voice.

“Is it that obvious?” I rolled my head back, keeping my eyes closed as David kissed my brow.

“Your light is blue; it’s usually a hundred different colours.”

“Really? I never noticed.” I chose to keep my eyes closed these days, finding it hard to deal with this supernatural string of electricity flickering around my fingertips when I played. With my eyes closed, I could still just be human here.

“It bothers you.” David sat beside me.

“Yes.”

“If it’s any consolation, Ara, it’s very beautiful. Like watching birds dance on a summer’s breeze.”

I smiled, allowing my mind away from the shadow of immanent pain. Just now, in this moment, I am home. There is love around me, family, safety. Later, when I arrive at Loslilian manor, I’ll be someone else—no longer just a girl.

And that’s the funny part about it all really. I am just a girl, but to the Lilithians, I’m already a princess—powerful and strong. They know nothing of me—of my story, of my life. They never will.

As the last high note rang out into the echo of my mind, David closed the cover on the keys and rested his hand over it, smiling.

“What you smilin’ at?” I looked up.

“We have a while until Mike and Emily get back from the shop.”

“And?”

“And from what I hear, there’s supposed to a child somewhere in our future.”

My eyes narrowed, but my lips smiled. “You…you want to do that, now?”

Dust motes danced in the white sun filtering through the window over the piano, and David’s fingers swept the air slowly, coming to rest along my cheeks as he planted the softest, sweetest kiss on my lips. “Yes, now.”

My eyes opened from their involuntary close, and I marvelled at the electric blue David’s became with my lustful energy; the energy that filled my veins, charging my touch with a shock that could be, at the same time as dangerous, also very intimate.

“I love that feeling,” he said, closing his eyes, savouring it as if he’d tasted a sweet treat for the first time.

“And I love this feeling.” I placed my hand over his.

David’s whole demeanour changed then; he lifted me suddenly, placing me on top of the piano.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Showing you what it’s like to make love on a piano top.”

With a hot, shaky breath, I let my legs fall softly open as David traced the inner curve of my thigh, all the way up—resting his fingertips against my underwear.

“Lay back,” he said with a half-smile, and slid his other hand under my skirt.

Carefully, I rolled backward, feeling each vertebra in my spine as it touched the hard, glossy surface of the piano and the cold under me as he removed my lacy delicates. “Do you really want our child to be conceived on such an uncomfortable surface?”

“Ara, my love, to have a child with you would be like filling my soul with light. I don’t care where or how we conceive her, it will be a miracle just to create life with you.”

Aw. “I love you, David.”

“I love you, too, Ara, my beautiful—” he kissed my nose, “—delicate, rose.”

“Forever?” I whispered.

He smiled as he kissed my lips but didn’t answer.

And like a carefully choreographed dance, David pressed himself between my legs, cradling my hips the way only his hands knew how. I closed my eyes, breathing the warmth of the man I love, revelling in the perfection of his vampire touch.

So many things had been lost in our lives and yet, after all the heartache, after all the chaos, so many new, great things had been discovered. We found that, no matter what, our love is strong enough to overcome torture, death, separation, and anything else fate can think of to throw at us. And that for all the times the world tried to tear us apart, we’d always find a way to come back to each other—to find the warm embrace of eternal love, and never, ever let it go.

At last, I am immortal.

At last, I am in David’s arms.

And at last, we have forever; his forever, and my forever.

Finally the same.