“I don’t seem to want to let go,” he confesses.
And I don’t seem to want him to either. “You’re a dangerous man, Eli.”
“Not to you,” he promises. “Can I call on you?”
“I should say no.”
“Don’t,” he compels. “Don’t say no.”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I’d like that.”
His eyes warm with approval. “Do you need a ride home?”
“I walked.”
“That’s not an answer. Do you need a ride home?”
“No,” I say, boldness blooming inside me. “But I’d like to accept a ride anyway.”
The images in my mind go blank, and I want to scream with disappointment. I want to jump back in time and relive what it was like to take that ride, and fall in love with Eli. Before he was a vampire. I realize then that this memory has served a purpose. I’ve had a question answered that I didn’t even know I wanted to ask. I met Eli when he was still a man.
Chapter Three
The past is not done with me.
Memories flood my mind.
I’m back in the past, in a saloon, I absently think, or a restaurant, yes, a restaurant, with Eli by my side and a birthday cake in front of me. Pineapple upside-down cake, which is my favorite. Only it’s not really me in appearance, it’s the woman I saw in my mind with Eli before, when I’d held the ring around my neck in my hand the first time. Except somehow even without Eli telling me so, I can feel that she is me.
She is blonde and delicate, yet strong, I think. And happy. This version of me is happy. Or was, happy. I can almost smell the smoke from the candles as I blow them out. I can almost taste the cake and the joy I’d felt that night. He wraps his arm around me and whispers, “Happy birthday, beautiful.”
A series of happy memories flicker through my mind, like a movie, but it’s my life, another life. Me with Eli. My parents who I loved. The grief of losing them. The desire to have a child with Eli, the frustration of not being able to conceive.
I’m jerked out of the memory, and find myself back to the night of my birthday, confused as to why I’ve jumped in and out of the same place in time. Eli and I are riding home in a carriage after a wonderful evening celebrating together. The night is dark. Cam, oh God, Cam, the very Cam who helped me to safety tonight is driving us. He was a friend to both me and Eli, a wonderful, funny, loyal friend. The kind I have not known in this lifetime.
Everything goes black again, pitch black, before the images return. I’m in the carriage, when suddenly a massive force slams into me. For a moment, I’ve lost all time and space, but then, I’m on the ground, a monster is leaning over me, fangs snarling at me.
“Ivy!” Eli shouts, panic and urgency in his voice. “Ivy!”
I open my mouth to scream when teeth rip into my throat.
“Ivy.”
Eli’s voice, soft with command, permeates the memory and I blink him back into view, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Tell me the rest.”
“You mean the part where I tell you we can’t be together?”
He’s just showed me my own death, only to finish off the story by telling me he wants me to go away. I don’t even know what to do with that information, besides what I tried to do minutes ago. I need to go back to my room.
“This is the part where I go back to my room.”
“You know I’m not going to let you leave.”
“And yet, we both know you want to.”
“No. I told you—”
“That you’re a monster. That we can’t be together. That I died by having my throat ripped out. I know. You lived. Your life went on.”