CHAPTER 17
JULIAN
Fifty people is fifty variables.
Fifty heartbeats I can’t tune out. Fifty potential threats, fifty witnesses, fifty angles of approach that Damien could exploit if he chooses to appear. The DJ’s bass line thuds through the sand, drowning out the natural rhythms I’ve learned to track over two and a half centuries.
I hate this.
Poppy’s hand tightens on mine. She’s watching me—not with the confusion of the past few days, but with something new. Understanding.
“You’re scanning,” she says quietly.
“Yes.”
“For what?”
For whom. But I can’t tell her that. Can’t explain that the man from the cocktail party—the one I dismissed as “old history”—has been texting me surveillance reports on her family’s room numbers.
That he mentions all of my past loves by name.
That his silence tonight is louder than any threat he could make.
“Exits,” I say. “Habit.”
She doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the furrow of her brow, the way she files the lie away with all the others she’s been collecting.
The cold skin. The untouched plates. The way I flinched when she pressed her ear to my chest and found that strange slow pulse where a normal heartbeat should be.
She knows something is wrong. She just doesn’t know how wrong.
My phone buzzes.
I check it without thinking—mistake, always a mistake—and just like that, he wrecks the night.
DAMIEN: She looks beautiful tonight. The green dress was a good choice. I can see her pulse from here. Can you?
I put my phone away. Force my expression neutral. But my hand has tightened on Poppy’s, and she notices.
“Julian? What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. What is happening when you check your phone and go pale?” She steps closer, lowering her voice beneath the music. “And don’t tell me it’s work. I’ve seen your work face—which by the way, is cool and collected. This isn’t that face.”
Across the dance floor, Violet is laughing at something Chris said. Catherine is holding court with the aunts, gesturing with her champagne flute. Preston and Serenity are performing for their phones in the corner, oblivious to everything that isn’t their own reflection.
Normal. All of it so achingly normal. And somewhere in the shadows, a monster is watching, waiting, planning how to burn it all down just to watch me suffer.
“Julian.” Poppy’s voice is firm now. “You’re scaring me.”
I look at her. Really look at her—the woman who handed me a laminated cheat sheet and asked me to pretend. Who kissed me in the ocean like I was something worth wanting.
She deserves better than lies.
She deserves better than me.
But I’m selfish. I’ve always been selfish. Two hundred and fifty-seven years, and I still can’t stop myself from wanting things I shouldn’t have.
“It’s because I love you.”
The words come out rough. Unplanned. Nothing like the careful confession I’d been rehearsing in my head.
This isn’t that.
This is terror. This is Damien’s text burning in my pocket.
This is the sudden, visceral certainty that something is going to happen, and she doesn’t know—she doesn’t know what’s hunting her, doesn’t know what I am, doesn’t know that the man holding her hand is the most dangerous thing at this party.
Poppy blinks. “What?”
“I love you.” I grip her hands like she might disappear.
“I know that’s not what this is supposed to be.
I know we said this was going to be fake, but none of it has been a performance.
I’ve been in love with you since our first date.
I tried to honor our contract. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t help but fall deeper in love with you. ”
“Julian—”
“And I need to tell you something.” My voice is shaking. I never shake. “Something I should have told you before I kissed you. Before I let any of this go as far as it’s gone.”
Her face has gone serious. Watchful. “Okay.”
“Not here.” I glance around at the fifty variables, the fifty heartbeats, the fifty witnesses who have no idea what’s standing among them. “Can we—Can we go somewhere quieter? Please.”
She searches my face. I don’t know what she sees—fear, probably. Desperation. The cracks in two centuries of carefully maintained control going out the window.
Then she nods.
“The garden,” she says. “There’s an alcove past the hibiscus. I saw it earlier.”
She leads me away from the party, away from the lights and the music and Damien’s invisible gaze. Her hand is warm in mine. Her heartbeat is steady, trusting.
She has no idea what I’m about to tell her.
She has no idea that in the next few minutes, everything she thinks she knows about me—about us—about the world—is going to shatter.
But I can’t protect her with lies anymore. I can’t love her and deceive her at the same time. I won’t be the monster who let her walk into danger blind just because the truth was too heavy to speak.
The garden alcove is hidden behind a screen of hibiscus, close enough to the party that we can still hear the bass line pulsing, far enough that the chaos fades to background noise. Fairy lights glimmer through the palm fronds. The ocean murmurs somewhere beyond the darkness.
She turns to face me. Waiting.
And I begin.
“Earlier today, when you told me what Sage said—”
“About the vampire thing?” She laughs, but it’s nervous. “Julian, that was just—”
“She’s right.”
Poppy doesn’t respond.
“She’s right,” I repeat. “About what I am. What I’ve been hiding from you since the moment we met.”
“Julian—”
“I’m two hundred and fifty-seven years old.
” I try to keep my voice steady. “I was born in 1769 in a village that doesn’t exist anymore.
I was turned when I was thirty-two—the age I’ll be forever.
I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. My heart slowed to almost nothing before your great-great-grandmother was born.
Twenty beats a minute, maybe less. Just enough to remind me I’m not quite dead. ”
She’s staring at me. Her face is unreadable in the moonlight.
“I drink blood.” The hardest part. “Not often. Not from unwilling sources—I have arrangements, ethical ones, as ethical as something like this can be. But it’s what I am. What I need to survive.”
Silence. The waves crash below us. Somewhere in the resort, a door closes.
“Say something,” I whisper. “Please.”
“I knew.”
I blink, stunned. “What?”
“I knew. Or—I suspected.” She glances downward. “The cold skin. The way you don’t eat. The references to things that happened before you were supposedly born. I’ve been making lists, Julian. Keeping track. Trying to convince myself there was a reasonable explanation.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re telling me there isn’t one.” Her voice is steady, but I can hear the tremor beneath it. “You’re telling me that my fake boyfriend who became my real boyfriend is actually a vampire. An actual, literal vampire.”
“Yes.”
“Who’s been alive for two hundred and fifty-seven years.”
“Yes.”
“Who drinks blood.”
“Yes.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Then: “Have you ever wanted to drink mine?”
The question hits hard. “Poppy—”
“Have you?”
I close my eyes. “Yes.”
“When?”
“Every night we’ve spent together. When I—” I stop. Force myself to continue. “When I look at you, I want to—to taste you.” I open my eyes. “I never have. I never will. But I won’t lie to you. The want is there.”
“You could have,” she says quietly. “I’m sure you have superhuman vampire powers. You could have done anything to me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I love you.” The words tumble out. “Because you’re not food to me, Poppy. You’re not prey. You’re the first person in a long time who’s made me feel like I might still be human somewhere underneath all of this.”
Her breath catches.
“I should have told you sooner,” I continue. “Before you started falling for someone who doesn’t deserve you. I let this go too far because I wanted it too much—wanted you too much—and that was selfish. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you telling me now?”
“Because I should have given you the choice a while ago.” I lean forward, close enough to touch her if she’ll let me. “You get to decide what happens next.”
“What are my options?”
“I can leave. Walk away. I’ll handle the rest of the wedding from a distance—make excuses, disappear. You can tell your family whatever you want. I won’t contradict it.”
“And the other option?”
“I stay.” My voice drops. “And you stay, knowing what I am. Knowing the risks. Knowing that I’ve lived for two and a half centuries and I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”
She’s quiet for so long that I start to prepare myself for the leaving. For the look of horror that eventually comes. For the moment when she realizes that the fairy tale she thought she was living is actually a nightmare.
But when she speaks, her voice is calm.
“The man at the cocktail party. The one who made you tense up. He’s like you.”
Not a question. A statement.
“His name is Damien. We have... history.”
“Bad history?”
“The worst kind.” I hesitate. “He’s here because of me. Because he wants to hurt me. And the easiest way to hurt me right now is through you.”
“So I’m in danger.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me that either.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By keeping me in the dark about someone trying to hurt me?” There’s an edge to her voice now. “By letting me walk around without knowing there’s a vampire with a grudge watching me?”
“I was wrong.” I can’t defend it. I don’t try.
“I was wrong about all of it. The secrets. The protection. The idea that keeping you in the dark would keep you safe.” I meet her eyes.
“I’m telling you now because you deserve to know.
Because you deserve to choose. Because whatever happens next, I want it to be real. No more lies. No more performances.”
She turns her back to me, and I can’t read her expression.
“You’re really two hundred and fifty-seven years old.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve really been alive since 1769.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve really been drinking blood this whole time. Like, actual blood. From people.”
“Yes. Though ‘drinking’ makes it sound more dramatic than it usually is. There are blood banks. Willing donors. It’s all very... administrative.”
She laughs. The sound surprises us both.
“Administrative.” She turns to face me. “You’re telling me that vampire feeding is administrative.”
“There’s paperwork involved. NDAs. It’s not very romantic.”
“Julian.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“Don’t I?” She steps closer. “There’s a vampire who wants to destroy you by hurting me, and possibly my family in the process. The wedding is in two days. Don’t I need to decide right now what side I’m on?”
“There aren’t sides. There’s just—”
“There are always sides.” She’s in front of me now, close enough that I could pull her into my arms if I dared. “And I’m choosing mine.”
My heart—my still, useless heart—somehow aches.
“Poppy—”
“I’m terrified.” Her voice shakes, but her eyes don’t waver. “I’m terrified, and this is insane, and I’ve spent the last week falling for someone who isn’t even human. But you know what scares me more than vampires?”
“What?”
“Going back to who I was before you. The version of me who acted happy instead of feeling it. Who built a life that looked so perfect in photos and felt so empty everywhere else.” She takes a breath.
“You see me, Julian. Not the influencer. The real me. And I don’t want to give that up because the person who sees me happens to be two centuries old with a complicated relationship with sunlight. ”
“This isn’t a small thing you’d be accepting.”
“I know.”
“I can’t give you a normal life. I can’t—” My voice breaks. “I can’t age with you.”
“I’m not asking for forever.” She reaches out, cups my face in her warm hands. “I’m asking for now. For this. For the chance to figure out what we are together instead of you deciding for both of us.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“No.” She laughs again. “I’m absolutely not sure about this. I’m probably making a huge mistake. But I’d rather make it with my eyes open than walk away and spend the rest of my life wondering what if.”
I pull her closer. Press my forehead to hers.
“I love you,” I whisper. “I know it’s too soon. I know you have every reason not to believe me. But I love you, Poppy. I’ve loved you since you handed me that laminated cheat sheet and started rambling about your ex’s chakra-aligned girlfriend.”
She laughs into my chest. “That’s a terrible origin story.”
“It’s ours.”
“It’s ours.” She tilts her head up. “So what happens now?”
“Now I tell you about Damien. About Prague. About why he’s here and what he wants.” I stroke her hair. “And then we figure out how to face him. Together.”
“Together,” she repeats.
“If you’ll let me.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. Her eyes are bright with tears she’s not letting fall.
“One condition.”
“Anything.”
“No more secrets. No more ‘protecting me’ by keeping me in the dark. If we’re doing this—whatever this is—we’re doing it as partners. Equal partners. Even if one of us is immortal and the other one can’t get through a wedding without carbs.”
“Deal.”
“And—” She hesitates. “If Damien is really as dangerous as you’re making him sound, I need to know how to protect myself. And my family.”
“I’ll tell you everything. All of it.” I pull her close again. “Starting now, if you want.”
“Not now.” She yawns against my chest. “Now I need to process. And maybe panic quietly for a few hours. And definitely not tell Sage she was right, because she’ll be insufferable about it.”
“Sage can never know.”
“I know.”
We stand there, wrapped around each other.
I told her the truth, and she stayed.
For the first time in two hundred and fifty-seven years, I’m letting myself hope that maybe—just maybe—this story ends differently.