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  “Be careful with your heart. I know you've given it to Peter, and I know you are tied to him, but I just want you to make sure that is what you want. If you love him and he makes you happier than you ever thought you could be, then I give my blessing to be with him. If he ever makes you sad, or upset or hurts you, he isn't the boy for you. If you decide to spend your life, or more than that with him, that is also your choice. I will support anything you do. Even if that means you become an immortal.”

  That makes me sit up and look at her.

  “I know. I thought a lot about it, and I'm not going to stand in the way of getting what you want. If you want to spend eternity with Peter, you can. I don't want you to live with regrets, or worry about what I would have thought. I want you to do what makes you unbelievably happy, even if it's that. It’s going to be dark for a while, but your dawn will come, and it’s going to be glorious.”

  She has another coughing fit and I hand her a glass of water. She's only able to take a little sip, and it spills onto her chin. I wipe her mouth and she lies back, closing her eyes again.

  “So many people don't get to say good-bye. I've been thinking about this ever since I was diagnosed. I wrote this speech a million times. I decided I wasn't going to get it right.” I sense that's the end of what she wants to say. She hugs me close, her frail body trembling.

  “I love you, ma fleur. If I hadn't had you, I wouldn't have had much to live for. You are my life, and you will go on after I am gone. My Ava-Claire.”

  “I love you, Mommy.” I hug her for what seems like hours, and only a few seconds because Dad is back, with a nurse right behind him.

  They want to move her to a hospice, but she refuses.

  “I just want to go home.”

  Peter

  Claire passes away the following morning in her bed with Ava, Sam and Aj standing by her bedside. I am outside under the window. There is a moment of absolute peace when I hear her breathing cease. There is a moment of pure bright silence that rings like a bell.

  “I love you,” Ava and Sam say, kissing her forehead.

  Ava walks out of the house and down the road without saying a word to her father. He crumples to the floor and Aj comforts him. Hot grief hits me like lightning, and I nearly stumble. Ava starts to run down the road, and I follow her.

  “Just kill me, Peter. Just kill me. I can't do it.” She turns to face me, and her grief consumes me. I am breaking, but it can't be anything to what she is facing.

  “You have to live for her. Even when it hurts so much you think you can't stand it.”

  “I don't want to. It's too much.”

  “You can handle it. You are my strong girl. You've faced down immortals. You can face this.” She just keeps shaking her head. “I am never going to leave you. Never.”

  “You don't know that. Helena was supposed to find Di, but she hasn't come back. She doesn't have any incentive to help us. She probably ran off. There's nothing we can do. There's a chance that if you change me and make a bind, that it could break the bind with Di. I know that no one has told us that it would work, but I don't trust them. Everyone has something to hide, a reason to lie. Even if it doesn't break the bind, I would be invincible. She would have no way of hurting me. I could fight her. I could fight for us. And Viktor wouldn't be able to exact his revenge. It would give us time. So much time.”

  “I will change you, but not now. Not today. Today is for Claire.”

  I think she's going to protest, but she makes a strangled sound.

  “Today is for her,” Ava says.

  Twenty-Nine

  Ava

  We have the funeral that weekend. I had no idea how many people Mom knew, or knew her. It is all a blur, and to be honest I didn't want to remember it anyway.

  Peter is there the whole time, standing beside me, holding my hand, trying to take my pain. It's too much for both of us.

  Dad isn't doing well, but Aj has sort of moved in with us to help with everything. It seems like there are a lot of things to be done when someone dies. Paperwork, bills, things to be changed, and lawyers and wills.

  I find the box Mom told me about in her closet. There is a note on top with my name on it. I take it to my room, but I can't open it. Maybe someday I will be able to, but I'm not ready yet. I still can't believe that she's gone. The house is too quiet. It doesn't feel like home without her.

  I keep forgetting, thinking that she's just at work, or out with the girls, and hasn't come home yet. I feel like I'm constantly waiting for her to come back. But she doesn't.

  Tex and Viktor are over a lot, and Dad doesn't really seem to care that I have both Peter and Viktor over. Jamie is there a lot, too, always trying to cheer me up. I ask him if he's heard from Brooke, but he hasn't.

  The night after the funeral, I have the burning dream again, and I wake up screaming.

  “Shh, I'm here.”

  “You have to change me, Peter. You have to.”

  “Okay. We will have to make arrangements.”

  So we do. We spend the rest of the night thinking logistics. I think back to what Mom said. I do want to spend my eternity with Peter. I'm going to become immortal and then we're going to find a way to take care of Di, with or without Helena. And then Peter and I are going to share our eternity together. If there's anyone who can make sure that it happens, it's my mother.

  I plan to spend the following weekend with Tex. I know she'll work as my alibi. As soon as I recover, I'll go home and Peter will help me adjust. I do worry that I will want to kill my father, but I have been dealing with that for a while, and I haven't done it yet. I will cross that bridge when I get there.

  Peter

  It will be done. She will be mine. I will take her soul. I think about what it will be like, to carry something that precious. I don't want to be responsible for something that precious, but she has asked, and I promised.

  Rasha and Kamir leave Ava a note, saying how sorry they are for her loss. She tosses it in the trash, but I retrieve it and save it. She might not want it now, but she will.

  We don’t hear from Helena for two days, and Ava starts to worry.

  “What if she changed her mind?” Her eyes are permanently red and puffy from crying. We're in her bed, lying as close as two people can be.

  “We have to believe that she won't.”

  She turns her face up for a kiss. “I love you,” she says. “Thank you for not being responsible and saying that I shouldn't want to make a decision like being immortal at a time like this.”

  “I adore you,” I say.

  She sits up, looking at my face. “What is it?”

  “I am not sure.” Something has come over me, much like when Ava's feelings overcome me. Except, this isn't hers. It's something big and bright, and it hurts and it feels wonderful and astonishing and new and old and...

  Ava

  He pauses for a moment and I seize him, expecting him turn to ash in my bed.

  “I. Love. You.” He says it slowly and deliberately. I throw myself at him, knowing that this is the end. He's gone.

  Moments pass. Then minutes. I count my breaths, but he's still solid.

  “Ava,” he says, unlatching my hands from around his neck. If he was human, I would have choked the life out of him. “I love you,” he says again. He smiles at me and I push my hands on his chest.

  “Why aren't you dead?”

  “I don't know.” His calm tone makes me want to yell.

  “How did you know it wouldn't kill you?”

  “I didn't.”

  “Then why did you do it, you moron?!”

  “Because I felt it.” I thought I'd gotten rid of my tears, but I still had some.

  “You can't do things like that to me, ever again. What the fuck is wrong with you?” I just lost my mother and he takes crazy risks.

  “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He says it over and over, putting different emphasis on each word. I'm so angry with him, but after he starts smiling and laughi
ng while saying it, I turn to mush. He loves me. I don't know if it means the bind was void all along, or Helena got to Di, or we'd somehow broken it ourselves.

  He loves me.

  Epilogue

  Ava

  Peter and I hash out the rest of my transformation details in the midst of making out. He says he loves me a billion more times. I want him to say it a billion more.

  “I love you,” he says. He tries saying it with different emphasis on each word. He says it soft and slow and fast and loud until we're rolling on the bed and laughing.

  “I am never going to tire of saying it.”

  “Helena must have gotten to Di.”

  “She must have.”

  “We're going to be together,” I say, my face cracking open with a smile.

  “We are.”

  “Soon.”

  “Very soon,” he says, his hand sliding down my arm to my hip. “I can make love to you. I can marry you. I can try to be everything you deserve.”

  “You are more than I deserve.”

  “Not possible.” His lips claim mine for a fiery kiss.

  Peter

  We stay up the rest of the night, kissing and talking.

  “You should call Viktor to see if his bind is gone. I don't know how we'll tell, but we need to know if it's just you.”

  “Tomorrow,” I say. I just want tonight to belong to us. Just us.

  “Okay,” she says, touching my bare chest. “And tomorrow, I'll tell Dad that I'm spending my weekend with Tex. Aj will be here to take care of Dad. I'll have to call Jamie and tell him. There is no way I'm letting him find out after. I owe him, big time. And I have a few things I need to do first.” She grabs her notebook from the side of her bed and flips it open.

  “Number one: I need to have one more piece of Miller's pie. Number Two: I want to take one more nap. The last sleep, if you will. Number three: I want to run until I can't breathe so I can remember the feeling —” She goes on to list four more things. All human things she wants to do before becoming immortal.

  “And one more. I want you to take me flying, and I don't want there to be anything between us. I want the last thing my human skin feels to be your skin.” Her green eyes meet mine, and our desire explodes, and I capture her lips.

  “Yes, my Ava. I will take you flying.” I am not afraid of hurting her anymore. I am not afraid of anything.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “I love you,” she says.

  “I. Love. You,” I say, punctuating every word with a kiss. “It’s time for our dawn, Ava-Claire.”

  Neverend

  (The Noctalis Chronicles, Book Four)

  by

  Chelsea M. Cameron

  One

  Ava

  Am I going to do this? Like, really do this? Things seemed so simple before my mother died. I still flinch when I think about that word. Died. So final. Four letters, bookended with “Ds”. I am going to let Peter, my vampire angel (for lack of a more specific term) make me like him. A noctalis. One who drinks blood and never dies.

  No death for me. Ever.

  Being with Peter. Forever.

  Ever forever.

  The plan is set. I’ll pretend I’m staying with my best friend, Tex, for the weekend. Then Peter will bring me back to this church and transform me. Three days without sunlight. Then I will emerge anew. Immortal.

  “Are you ready?” Peter says for the millionth time. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I put my fingers to his lips. He’s not talking about the noctalis transformation.

  “You can’t hurt me, Peter. It’s not possible.” I take his left hand, which is fisted in my hair and move it to the edge of my shirt. No, losing my virginity on a dirty mattress in a dingy, moldy church is not my dream, but as long as I’m with Peter, nothing else matters. I want to give him this one last bit of my humanity before . . .

  “Ava-Claire . . .” The way he says my name makes me ache for his touch. It looks like I’m going to have to take charge here.

  “I want you to touch me, please.” Almost against his will, his hand wraps around the hem of my shirt and starts raising it. His eyes, one green, one blue, never leave my face.

  My skin automatically erupts in goosebumps as his fingers brush my stomach. I mean, it’s not the first time he’s touched me there, but it’s the first time I know that it’s going to lead to something more.

  For a fleeting second, I wish we were outside, so I could see his body washed with moonlight, but I’m not going to be too picky. He brings his mouth back to mine, a tentative kiss. A test. I wait and his hand travels under my shirt and upward, his cool hand setting my skin on fire.

  Peter was made to turn me on, to make me want him. Everything about him, his skin, his smell, EVERYTHING does something to me.

  A little moan escapes my throat as he thrusts his tongue into my mouth and his hands brush the edge of my bra.

  And then my moan is cut off by my phone ringing.

  Peter

  It isn’t that I don’t want to make love to her. Love, love, love.

  I can’t stop thinking the word, wanting to say it to her. Love, love, love.

  I want her so much that it overwhelms my desire for her blood, this desire for her body. But I am afraid. Afraid that I will hurt her. Bruise her delicate skin. Get lost in the moment and ruin it. Ruin her. Break her.

  I cannot live with that, but I would have to. Her blood, her pain would be on my hands for eternity. Granted, I could save her. Save her by making her a noctalis, just a little sooner than she planned. I knew that would be her argument, so I didn’t even consider fighting with her about it. She wants it. I want it, if I am being honest with myself. My most selfish self. An eternity with this beautiful, stubborn, interesting, witty girl by my side would never be enough.

  I knew I was being hesitant and I knew she wouldn’t like that, so it didn’t shock me when she took my hand and placed it against her belly.

  I don’t get startled, but when her phone rings, I feel like I have been. Or maybe I am so in tune with her emotions that I startle because she does. Perhaps.

  I pull away from her mouth as she makes a sound of frustration. I leave my hand up her shirt, however. I’m not sure I can move it. Her skin feels too good.

  She mutters a curse and looks away from my face as the phone continues to ring.

  “I’ll just let it go to voicemail,” she says, before grabbing my face and bringing my lips back to hers. I can almost feel the force behind it. She will be a formidable noctalis, and I know I am not the first person to think that. She will be magnificent.

  Our lips join again and I revel in the feel of the pulse of her heart through her skin. Feel her blood pumping. This is one of the last times I will feel it. This life from her.

  The phone shrills again.

  “Mother fucker!” I let her up as she grabs for the device. I hate those things, honestly, but they seem to be a necessary evil, at least for humans.

  “What is it?” she says angrily, keeping her hand on my chest. “Oh, hey Tex.” Her voice softens a little and she sits up, giving me a look. I can hear Texas’ voice on the other end, clear as a bell. I don’t need noctalis hearing for that. She has a voice that . . . carries.

  “Where the hell are you? You are NEVER going to believe who is at my house right now.”

  I already know, and so does Ava, but she asks the question anyway.

  “Who?”

  “Di and Helena.”

  Ava’s eyes close and we both know that our time alone tonight is over.

  “We’re on our way,” Ava says with a heavy sigh before hanging up.

  “Your mother ruins EVERYTHING.”

  Tex

  Viktor and I were . . . okay, we were totally having a make-out session that was quickly turning into a topless make-out session, when two people popped through my bedroom window. Like they’ve been invited over.

  My brain realizes three th
ings at once.

  First, it’s Di and Helena. Di, who is hell-bent on killing my best friend.

  Second, they’re holding hands.

  Third, they’re both smiling in a non-creepy way.

  This could be very good, or very bad. It can only really go one of those two ways. No in-between.

  Viktor doesn’t seem upset, or freaked out, but then he almost never does. Our new connection tells me that he is a little . . . concerned. It’s still so freaky, feeling his emotions along with mine. I’ve got enough goddamn emotions for twelve people. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t get riled up easily, or else my head might explode, and that wouldn’t be pretty. He gets to his feet and pulls me with him.

  “Hey, Tex. I brought someone to hang out. If that’s okay?” Helena says, sounding every inch the fifteen-year-old she once was, complete with a cute skirt and t-shirt with Marilyn Monroe on it. Except was alive a hell of a long time ago, and definitely didn’t grow up with that accent. Being around her is kind of like watching every teen movie ever, rolled into one person. Only less annoying, because Helena is pretty kick-ass—except for her taste in women.

  Di’s smile drops and that, more than anything, scares me. She is crazy beautiful. And yes, she looks like a total bitch as well, and not just because of the red hair. I’ve never seen her in anything but a dress, but this one is shorter and looks a bit like a prom dress. They’re seriously dressed like they’re off to their first unsupervised party to get drunk. I finally stop staring and find my voice.

  “Um, she’s not really welcome. The whole wanting-to-kill-my-best-friend thing and all. And don’t even get me started on the revenge thing you made Viktor agree to. That was a dick move, and I’m not going to forget it,” I say, hoping I sound way more brave and bitchy than I feel.

  I don’t even attempt to get up, because I know my knees will knock together, and I don’t really want to show them how scared shitless I am, even though I know they can hear my heart and all that. The curtain in my window blows softly from the warm June breeze as we all sort of freeze and try to figure out what the hell is going on.