The day it happens feels like my funeral.
I mean, I suppose it is, in a way. I’m going to die, one way or another. Elias assured me that it’s usually straightforward, but I have to say that the ‘usually’ in that sentence did concern me a little. It’d be just my luck to be the one who breaks his streak.
We set a time– 3pm– and a place– my flat. Florence and I actually did talk at length about the best place for it, but in the end I decided that, after the week I’ve had, I wanted somewhere safe, somewhere tied to good memories, and with the people I love nearby.
They’re all here, somewhere. They’ve all visited me. It did feel a little like I was saying goodbye, what with the endless trail of people coming in.
Emmy and Fox wandered in first, attacking me from each side with matching hugs, and words of confidence. Things like,‘You’ve got this,’and‘We’re thinking of you,’like they’d each googled ‘things to say to your friend before they become undead’ and the search had come back with nothing.
Then it was Lucy. As the most recently turned of anyone, Lucy had the most practical advice, going through things like making sure I was hydrated and to plan a couple of days inside afterwards so as not to concern onlookers with unpredictable fang extension and what have you.
Cam was working– he’s been taking on Florence’s duties as well as his own, so she’s been free to stay with me– but he video called from one of the consultation rooms to wish me luck.
Mina was a surprise visitor. She said she’d already been planning to come up for a visit when she heard about the accident, but then managed to extend her stay long enough to see me today, too. She was the person to treat me the most like my normal self, and I hadn’t realised how much I craved it, particularly from her.
She patted my head and told me she wasn’t sure I was hot enough to be a vampire, and when I hugged her and said I might test out my bite on her first, she hugged me just a little longer than usual, and that said more than her words ever could.
Bram and Sammi arrived as a united front, as if I had functional parents and they’d come together to wave me off on a new adventure. They’re working together to cover my shifts until this whole thing is over, and that’s about as good a gift as I can imagine.
Because of them, I’ve been able to spend the last two days drinking in every last scrap of my mortality before it’s just a memory. I’ve eaten all my favourite foods at least once. I’ve spent hours with Florence, near her, inside her. Letting her rest her head on my chest and listen to my heartbeat. I know she’ll miss the human me a little, but it’s a price she’s willing to pay for the guarantee that she’ll never lose me.
Elias is the last to arrive, just ten minutes before we’d agreed to get started, and we overhear him exchanging what sound like heated words with Mina. When he finally bursts through the door, he’s clearly a little flustered. It’s a strange thing to see but it makes me feel oddly relieved. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Elias lose his cool before, but it’s good to know it happens to 400-year-old vampires, too.
‘You ready?’ he asks, and although I’m not sure that I am, I feel myself nod. At the same time, my heart lurches, racing into a panicked beat.
Florence immediately looks at me, like she heard it happen. ‘Do you need a minute?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m going to be shitting myself whether we do it now, or in ten minutes’ time. Let’s just start.’
She replies with a single nod, understated but sure. Then she takes my hand, just like she did the other day, and she pulls me over to the sofa where I drop down next to her. Elias, like he knows intuitively what to do, stays on the other side of the room, pretending to be engrossed in something on his phone. Or maybe he actually is engrossed, because his brows are knitting into a look of annoyance that feels very real.
I look away from him quickly, before any of that energy transfers to me. I need all the help I can get, today.
‘It’s just us now,’ Florence whispers, curling into me. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ She presses a kiss to my cheek, my forehead, my chin. When her mouth meets mine, I can feel the slight graze of her fangs on my lower lip. It’s not the first time I’ve felt them, but there’s something more imposing about them now, knowing they’re about to puncture my skin, to bleed me dry.
‘I trust you,’ I say, and, before I have time to overthink it all, I surrender myself to her.
She takes my offering with the grace I have come to expect from her. She doesn’t go for blood straight away, but I feel her mouth on my neck, dragging gentle kisses across the skin there. She pushes gently on my chest until I’m lying flat, then stretches out next to me and gathers me in her arms.
She studies me for a beat, and then smiles, whispers that she loves me, and slowly closes her mouth around the skin of my neck.
Bram was right. I barely feel it at all. There’s an aching at first, a strange pulling sensation that kind of feels like a love bite, but that’s replaced by something closer to euphoria as I start to feel her mouth work, soft swallows that I can feel against my skin.
She lets out a little groan of satisfaction and pops her mouth off me just far enough that she can whisper, ‘You taste amazing,’ into my skin. In my half-delirious state, I see the pleasure as stars bursting above me, which only intensify as she continues to suck, their warmth and light multiplying exponentially until they swallow me whole.
I can’t feel any of the residual pain in my hip or head, and after a while I can’t feel anything at all. I’m nothing but starlight suspended in the sky, a distant flame in the darkness, the glow of something so powerful that it can travel through space and time.
In that moment, in the arms of the woman I love, I’m everything.
I’m the entire universe.
I’m infinite.
And then, with a final exhale, I’m nothing at all.
ChapterThirty-Five
FLORENCE