“Every day. Every moment, every hour. I could think of nothing but you.”

Dreamed of this, Michael had said when he’d touched my cheek.

I suddenly punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“For constantly calling me your friend,” I said in a heated tone. “If you called me that one more time, I was going to shove those fangs down your throat.”

He chuckled and kissed me again, as if unable to help himself. “I was trying not to pressure you. Just because I was still desperately in love with you, it didn’t mean you were still holding a torch for me.”

“I was, and I still am,” I said. “Does this mean we can be blood mates?”

If one taste of Michael’s blood made me feel so dizzy with love for him, I wanted to do it over and over again. The thought of drinking from anyone else made me feel sick. Michael was the only one I wanted.

The only one I’d ever wanted.

He stilled against me. “You’re not mad that I turned you?”

I flexed my fingers and was happy to see my claws pop. “I still have my jaguar. I’m alive and well. And now I have you. Of course I’m not mad.”

“You’re not doing this to save me from Angelo, I hope.”

I shook my head. “I’m doing this because I love you.”

I kissed him. I could kiss him for all of eternity now. I liked that. “Write him and tell him that you have a blood mate and she’s going to Europe with you.”

He grinned. “I would love to see Europe with you by my side. But I won’t take you as my blood mate until you’re absolutely certain that it’s what you want. The first day after you’ve turned isn’t the time to make that decision.”

“You can still write him and tell him we’re partners. It’ll get him off your back, regardless.” I wrapped my arms around him, feeling as if everything in the world had shifted back into place. “Whether we wait one year or twenty, my answer will be the same. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t want anyone to come between us ever again.”

“We have eternity,” he agreed. “And you might want to think about a new name. I wasn’t joking when I said vampires picked new names to start over.”

I ran my fingers down his back. “Let’s pick something happier than Les Miserables.”

“Something with a happy ending?”

“Exactly.”

—

At first, we argued over names. I thought it would be fun to be Lizzy and Darcy. Michael flat-out disagreed. Too obvious. He’d suggested Edmond Dantes and Haidee, but I was the one who protested that. Edmond and Haidee? Seriously. And here he thought I was the obvious one. I’d suggested Edward and Elinor from Sense and Sensibility, but he’d hated the thought—no vampire should ever have the name Edward again, he’d claimed.

I could see his point.

We settled on Marianne and Christopher Brandon and traveled Europe in style. By the time five years had passed, I was more than ready for the mate mark. Michael stubbornly insisted on giving me more time, so I went ahead and marked him at the top of the Eiffel Tower. And at the Sydney Opera House. And at the Great Pyramid in Giza, and the Acropolis in Greece, and the Taj Mahal.

He eventually got the picture.