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The amulet.
I feel its heat, too, glowing against my palm.
“Are you nervous?” I ask softly.
“About what?” he says. “Seeing the sunrise with the woman of my dreams? Starting a life that’s going to be filled with happiness and joy and mortal savor? No, Tammy, I’m not nervous. Are you?”
“Only about the plane,” I giggle, nudging him playfully. “I really hope you’re the pilot you claim to be.”
He leads me over to the plane and helps strap me into the front seat. I sit back, taking deep breaths, as Torsten climbs in beside me and starts fiddling with the controls. He handles them all deftly and then starts to taxi the plane onto the strip.
“Don’t worry,” he says, turning to me with his so-Torsten smirk. “I would never let anything happen to you.”
His voice is comforting through the headset.
And then, like magic – how fitting – we’re soaring over the inky blackness of the water and out to sea.
I reach across and grip onto Torsten’s arm, feeling the solidity of it, ready to snatch my hand away if he tells me needs his hands free for the controls.
But he allows me to clutch onto him as we make our path through the sky, the stars seeming insanely close when I finally summon the courage to look.
He turns, grinning at me, seeming almost boyish in the simple joy he takes in the flight, his hair the same silver of the moon as it glistens.
I relax into the flight, even a little surprised when he turns us down to land on a small island seemingly in the middle of nowhere. A flashing landing strip marks the spot and Torsten guides us steadily down, landing so lightly I can barely feel the transfer of the wheels to the strip.
We come to a stop and he leaps down, opening my door and reaching up to help with my straps with his vampire speed.
Is he going to miss it? an anxious voice whispers. Is he going to miss being a creature a thousand times more powerful than other men?
“Where is this?” I ask as he takes my hand and we walk away from the strip, into a small clearing and then beyond to a cabin that rests on the beach.
It overlooks the ocean, the ocean that seems to stretch to infinity as my eyes roam to the skyline.
“A perfect place to watch the sunrise,” Torsten says, the heat suddenly flowing through him descrying his desire. “I wanted a special place to spend tonight with you. So I bought this island and had this cabin built. I hope you’ll find it accommodating.”
“It’s perfect,” I whisper, turning to him and finding an out-of-place look in his eyes. “Torsten, what is it?”
“I need to ask you something,” he says softly, his voice just a few notes above a carnal whisper, the ocean an unceasing backdrop and the stars so bright this far away from the city they blare down like a million winking diamonds. “The most important thing I’ve ever asked anyone, in all my long years, a question I would’ve thought absurd before I scented you in the autumn air.”
I feel tears threatening to prick my eyes.
The voice of the woman I was before I met Torsten – the scared woman, the self-conscious woman – tries to tell me that this couldn’t possibly be happening.
But it is.
Oh my God.
It is.
Torsten reaches into his pocket and takes out a ring box, falling to his knee in a fluid movement, and looking up at me with so much affection in his eyes I can’t hold the tears back any longer.
“I love you, Tammy,” he growls fiercely. “I love you more than I thought a night creature like me was capable of. I’ve spent so many years wondering if I’d ever feel again, feel like mortals feel, but that question was answered the second I laid my eyes on you. You’re strong, passionate, loyal, and fucking sexy on top of all of that. You’re talented, kind, and easily the best person I’ve ever met. I’ve lived a thousand years and I’ve never felt even a tenth of what I feel now, looking at you framed by moonlight. I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my mortal life with you. Tammy Holden, will you marry me?”
Tears blur my eyes as I stare down at him, my voice threatening to catch in my throat and become useless.
But then I find it.
Because I’m done being voiceless.
Torsten has shown me that.
“I love you, too,” I whisper. And then I say it louder, almost screaming it, pride blooming. “I love you. Oh, God, I know it’s crazy. But I know it’s fate. Freaking fate led us together.”
I stare at the ring, an elegant diamond set within a silver band.
And of course, there’s a little red jewel, a small note of character, an inside joke in the form of a precious gemstone.
