He shrugged. “Well, you’re not the only one who can be brave.”
I chuckled, a rumble reverberating through my chest as I kissed him softly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I sighed into his mouth. “My handsome duke.”
EPILOGUE
Iwas still drawn to the night. I looked forward to dusk each day, when a sense of relief would wash over me, as if I’d been holding my breath and could now relax.
Beezle understood. On my evening strolls, he accompanied me. He chased mice in the fields and offered me their heads, reminding me of all I was missing out on. But since Maxwell had driven that stake into Vrykolakas’s heart a month earlier, I felt like I was learning every day what was really important in life. Not the pleasures I’d pursued to sate my appetite for human suffering. My tastes had shifted toward books and music. The sound of bones breaking was no longer my favorite sound. I fancied the exotic sound of the harpsichord.
Still, a feeling of longing overcame me as I walked hand-in-hand with Maxwell through a grove at night and bats twittered overhead, or an owl announced its successful hunt of a rabbit. The fact that I would never feel my body shift into the form of a wolf, a bat, or even mist, would haunt me. But they had never made me as happy as Maxwell did.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you. You’ve seen the sorts of things I was capable of. You should be … frightened of me, of the things I’ve done.”
Maxwell sighed. “Lucian, we’ve been over this. I know you think you only brought death to our door, but look at the hope the future holds now. That was you too.” He looked away. “I know your heart. You’re not the person you were. All you can change are the coming days.” He hesitated, grabbing my hand. “Besides, I don’t know what I would do without you. You sort of grow on people. Like a fungus.”
I chuckled. “Like a fungus. Quite the endorsement.”
“I almost said parasite, but that would have been a little too on the nose, with the sucking blood and all.”
My eyes widened. “You little brat.”
He bit his lower lip. “You have grown on me, you know. I want …” He hesitated.
I stepped closer to him, gazing down at him intensely. “Yes?”
He tilted his head up to me, meeting my eyes. “You know what I want.”
I grinned, my heart skipping as I watched his lips part. “I want to hear you say what you want.”
He swallowed hard. “You.”
I ran my hands through his curls. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Even with that hideous mask?”
I grinned. “Hideous mask and all.”
Maxwell glanced down and scowled. “Oh, Toby,” he scolded as Beezle darted off the path in pursuit of something rummaging through the underbrush. He sighed and let go of my hand, tentatively picking his way over tree roots.
“It’s Beezle!” I corrected him, watching him go, eyes finding the skinny badger Beezle had noticed, even though Maxwell had taken the lantern with him. I’d found my eyes sharper lately. Perhaps Vrykolakas’s death had unblocked some dampener on my senses, for I heard Maxwell mutter under his breath as he continued to pursue Beezle, even though he was halfway across a field now. And yet my blood remained poisonous, dashing any hopes I’d had of going through the change once more. All the better, as it meant I wouldn’t be leaving Maxwell behind, for he had no wish to become immortal.
I crossed my arms and leaned against a tree, breathing in the cool night air as crickets sang their song to fill the silence.
“Careful,” a voice warned, far too close. I started, stiffening as a figure detached from the shadows gathered behind another tree ahead. “I hear there are vampires out there. And you’re human now.”
I squinted at the figure as she stepped into the moonlight. “Funny.”
Violetta laughed, eyes dancing, even as they glinted in the night like a predator’s. “I’m getting stealthy though, aren’t I? Do say I am.”
Isabel appeared from behind a tree and motioned for me to agree.
“I didn’t notice you until you were nearly upon me. It was quite frightening.”
Violetta beamed as she peered back over her shoulder. “You hear that, Isabel? I’m frightening.”
“Yes, dear. Lucian is positively quaking in his boots.”
“You are doing very well,” Ambrose said quietly, melting from the trees. He sent me a lopsided grin. “Hey, Lucian.”
