EPILOGUE
Istrolled out the doors to the lecture hall, shouldering my bag, eager for fresh air.
My head was a jumble of complicated equations.
Asymptotics and Perturbation Theory was one of several graduate level courses I was required to take while working on my thesis.
It was a two hour lecture, twice a week—
I stopped short. Standing in the middle of the quad, arms crossed with his legs braced, was Laurie. Students, both undergraduate and graduate alike, gawked at the sight of this magnificent creature dominating their world. My mouth fell open and I didn’t bother to close it.
He was in a bespoke suit that hugged his frame like a dream, his hair tied half up, half down, the loose tendrils framing his handsome face.
I could just make out the points of his ears, though to anyone else, they looked like prosthetic ears.
The rest of us mortals were bundled up in coats and scarves.
It was the end of January, and only a vampire could handle the cold like this. Which made him stand out more.
A couple of girls nearby were clutching each other’s arms and whispering, “Oh my god, is that like, one of the new faculty members or something? He looks like that guy from the sword show—I forget what it’s called.”
“Taegan,” I said, turning toward them. “Shadowlands.”
“That one!” one of them said, giving me a shy smile.
I looked back at Laurie. The corners of his mouth had tugged up. I walked across the quad and stopped in front of him. “What happened to Hassan?”
He stood unnaturally still. “I gave him the rest of the day off.”
Hassan was one of the few vampires Laurie trusted to escort me to and from my classes at BU. I didn’t mind. Especially when he kept a low profile.
“Does that mean you’re my new bodyguard for today?” I let my gaze travel up and down his form. We were still being watched, but I didn’t care.
“If that’s all right.”
“Better than all right,” I said, unable to hide my enthusiasm
“Good, because Ania is in the car waiting for us.”
“Doesn’t she have work today?”
“She does—did. I convinced her to come shopping with us instead.”
I squealed and flung myself at him. He caught me easily, wrapping his hands around me and holding me against him. Our eyes were level as we gazed at each other.
“I missed you,” I breathed, my lips millimeters from his.
“It’s only been four hours, little flower.”
I pouted. “Does that mean you didn’t miss me?”
“Oh, I missed you. Why do you think I’m here?
” His lips captured mine in a long, lazy kiss.
We’d been kissing like this for months and I wouldn’t ever tire of the way his tongue felt as it explored my mouth.
The way wetness pooled between my thighs.
His fangs elongated, as they often did. He’d explained that it usually happened when he lost control.
I felt one of them nick my tongue and tasted the coppery taste of my blood.
He groaned, deep and low. I pulled back, nipping at his lower lip along the way.
“Maybe shopping can wait. Surely there’s an empty classroom around here somewhere—“
“Laurie!” I cried.
His low chuckle made my stomach flutter. “Fine, fine. Let’s go shopping.”
He set me down and took my bag, shouldering it as if it were filled with styrofoam instead of a laptop and two mathematics textbooks. His fingers laced through mine as we walked to the campus parking lot.
I spotted Ania’s head of blond hair and suppressed my excited squeal, opting for something more dignified as I dropped Laurie’s hand and rushed to her, pulling her into a hug. She worked long hours now and I only got to see her a few times a month.
“Lils!” She hugged me back just as tightly.
“I didn’t think you’d get to ditch work.”
“I heard there’d be shopping with no price limit.”
Laurie tsked and we laughed. “Get in the car, both of you.”
Vittorio was behind the wheel. I let Ania take the front.
Laurie and I slid into the back. “Hey Vit,” I greeted, leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.
Laurie let out a warning growl, though there was no venom in it.
He tolerated my sweet gestures with the other vampires in his family, though it required heaps of patience.
He didn’t like anyone’s scent on me, especially other males.
I leaned back against the seat. He reached around and buckled me in before I had the chance to. It was one of the many gestures I’d grown accustomed to. Little things to ensure my safety, like he was always thinking of me first.
Because he was.
Ania began firing off questions to Vittorio as we drove.
Laurie and I stayed silent, holding hands in the back seat, sharing conspiratorial grins whenever Vittorio answered with clipped sentences or irritation.
Ania had grown on him, I was sure of it.
So much so, I’d noticed Vittorio indulging her in the same ways he indulged me.
Except, his eyes also lingered on her for long periods when he thought no one was watching.
I’d even caught him smiling once, when she’d come to dinner a few weeks back.
There was definitely something there, and I had every intention of nudging it along.
Laurie seemed to think the same thing, because his gaze held a hint of mischief at the discussion taking place in the front seat. “If you don’t join us, I won’t be able to help you pick a suit for the party.”
“My suits are completely fine, Miss Calka. I’ve got a whole closet full of them.”
“Yes, but they’re not exactly new,” she chided. Vittorio scoffed, but it was only half hearted. I’d even noticed a bit of red creeping up his jaw. Who knew vampires could blush?
“Come on, join us. It’ll be fun. Better than sulking around in the corner all the time.”
“I do not sulk,” he snapped.
“Of course not.”
They continued like this until Vittorio parallel parked outside of Braxton’s shopping district.
Laurie gave my hand a squeeze before unbuckling me and helping me out of the car.
I let him fuss. No one had ever wanted to fuss over me until I’d met him.
I’d spent a lifetime being uncared for, overlooked, and even scorned.
Laurie worshiped me, made me feel loved and appreciated for who I was.
“Darling!” Zola rushed forward and wrapped me in a hug.
“You made it!” I breathed into her neck.
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. We’ll have you looking like a queen.”
“She already does,” Laurie broke in, grabbing my hand again now that Zola had released me. “Shall we?” Without waiting, he led me toward the large designer store to my left.
We weren’t merely shopping today. Our outing was intentional, to find the perfect things to wear for next week’s party. Our engagement party. Though, no one else but Laurie and I were calling it that.
It would have been a surprise for me, except that last week when I’d been feeding from him, I stumbled across a memory of him searching through the fortress vault just before we’d left Italy.
He’d come out with a stunning engagement ring.
I should have kept quiet, but in my excitement I’d blurted, “You got me a ring?!”
It wasn’t one of my finer moments.
He planned to propose to me in front of his family at the Braxton manor house. Hence, the perfect attire was needed. It wasn’t every day a girl got engaged.
When I discovered his secret, he looked at me with hesitance and said, “Does that mean you’ll say yes?”
“You’ll have to wait and see,” was all I gave him before kissing him and then ripping his clothes off to wrap my lips around his cock. He’d dropped a mouthful of expletives and muttered things like, “I should buy you rings more often,” until it was simply my name he was uttering as he came.
“Thinking impure thoughts,” Laurent’s voice growled in my ear as we approached the door.
“Who, me?” I gave him a lift of my eyebrow as he ushered me in. “Just remembering what you said the other night after I saw your little secret.”
“Right.” His gaze heated. He didn’t break eye contact with me as a store attendant rushed over and began fawning. “She’ll need the prettiest dress you have,” he finally said, still not looking at the woman. “The more expensive the better.”
“Laurie,” I hissed.
“What? I have every intention of spoiling you rotten for the rest of our lives together. You can Laurie me until you’re blue in the face, but that won’t change my mind.”
Warmth burst in my chest. This man! This…vampire! He was so different from the first time I’d met him, cocooned in a hard shell of ice. It had long since melted. I’d never seen him smile more than I had over the past couple of months. Even now, a slow grin spread across his lips.
He claimed that I gave him a reason to live, to keep living, to want more, to feel. But he’d given me a lot too. He’d shown me what it felt like to be wanted. What healthy love looked like. Even what pure happiness looked like.
The others shuffled away to browse displays of gowns and suits.
Ania had chosen to link her arm through Vittorio’s—who pretended he wasn’t pleased to have her hanging off him, yet looked like he wanted to pull her closer—as she guided him to a suit she claimed would bring out the color in his eyes.
Laurie stood beside me as the attendant rushed off to gather gowns in my size.
“Whatever you find today—it will be the dress you agree to marry me in,” he said, his lips close to my ear.
Chills raced down my arms. “But it’s not the dress I care about, little flower.
It’s you. Only you. Always you. You are what I want, and you will always have a place, a home, in my family—soon to be our family.
You are worthy of us, of love, of everything I can give you and more. Never forget that.”
His words wrapped around my heart like a promise, healing old wounds I’d carried for so long. My throat clogged with tears. I leaned in and kissed him, then pressed my forehead against his. “Thank you,” I breathed. “I love you.”
“And I love you. Are you ready?” I nodded. “Good. Come.”
I let him lead me toward the dressing room where I would find the perfect gown to help me step into my new life. A life with Laurent. With people I loved and trusted. A life worthy of the girl who only ever wanted to be kept.