“As a heart attack.”
Aida tossed the remote aside before scrambling over the bed to sit across from Mollie. “Do you understand what you’re saying? What that would make you? What you would have to do,forever?”
“I do. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.”
And, deep down, she’d known this was the path she would take. She loved Mike, and in the end, it was as simple as that.
“I’m not going to leave you. I’ll stay close by while you’re at college…” Her voice trailed off when Aida winced. “Aida?”
“College seems so silly now, doesn’t it?” Aida asked. “After everything we know and everything we’ve been through, how can we go back tonormallives? Or as normal as we’ll get once we enter the vampire equivalent of witness protection.”
“Because we have to return to as much normal as we possibly can. That’s the way life goes. Big things happen, but the world keeps turning, and we have to keep going with it because there is no other choice.”
“You’re not returning to normal; you’re saying you plan to plunge into the insanity.”
“Yes, but I’m not giving up my dreams. I’m still going to college, whether online or at a university, it doesn’t matter, but I still plan to help people. Besides, an eternity of sitting on my ass without anything else to do would get rather tedious after a while, don’t you think?”
“I think you could find plenty to do with tall, blond, and gorgeous over there,” Aida teased.
Mollie forced a smile, but Aida’s words caused jealousy to twist through her. It was unreasonable, given that Mike was precisely as Aida described, but she didn’t want anyone looking at him like that. He washersand hers alone.
“When would you do this?” Aida asked.
“Soon.”
Aida’s eyebrows drew together as she gazed at Mollie. “But you barely know him. Why don’t you wait and see if you can still stomach him a year from now when the lust burns off, you’re asking him to wash his hair out of the sink for the thousandth time, and you can’t stand each other anymore?”
She knew Aida couldn’t possibly understand,shebarely understood, but she would never grow tired of Mike. He would annoy her, as she would him, but she would never stop loving him. She felt the truth of that in every inch of her body.
“There’s a reason why waiting might be impossible,” she said.
Mollie filled Aida in on the things Mike had told her about mates and what they meant to a vampire. Her sister’s mouth fell further open, and her eyes got bigger as Mollie spoke. When she finished, Aida sat for a few minutes before responding.
“It’s almost romantic considering how bloodthirsty some of them are and how vicious they can all be.”
“Mike’s not like the ones who held you captive,” Mollie said.
“I know, but I’ve seen what he can do, and he’s vicious. He beat that one guy’s head off with his bare hands.”
Mollie inwardly cringed at the reminder. “I was there.”
“Will you be violent like that?”
“I’m sure I will be if anyone threatens someone I love.”
“And do you love him?”
“More than I believed I could love a man, and I want a future with him. Before Mike, I never saw myself trusting or loving someone enough to settle down with them.”
“That’s because our sperm donor was an asshole, and you never got over him walking out on us.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” Mollie retorted.
Aida laughed and held up her hands. “Just calling it as I see it, and I don’t have the psych classes you have.”
“Hmm,” Mollie muttered as her thoughts turned to their father.
For years, she’d refused to admit her father leaving had any effect over her relationships, or lack thereof, with men, but Aida was right. However, she wouldnotlet her father taint what she had with Mike.
