been here when I was little. Even stranger was that I suddenly remembered it like it was yesterday. Maybe that had something to do with my magic being stripped…but the memories were back and vivid. I remembered holding his hand as we walked, with Ruby the bunny gripped tight in my arms. I remembered the stained-glass windows and intricate architecture.
I remembered the libraries.
I found my love of books right here at Oxford when I was four.
My birthday was in three days. I thought I was turning twenty-two. It hurt my brain to know I was actually turning five hundred and seventy years old. I don’t feel old at all. Shouldn’t I feel…ancient?
Malachi’s warm hand pressed to the small of my back. “Chloe?”
“I’m five hundred and sixty-nine years old,” I whispered.
“For three more days, yes,” he whispered back.
“Why don’t I feel…older?”
“Because your body has only experienced twenty-two years.” He reached down and laced his fingers with mine then squeezed. “It’s best not to try and understand just how these things work. There are some things the mortal mind just can’t compute, things even I had to grapple with as I aged.”
Aged. Because you’re immortal.
And I’m not.
Right now we looked good together. We could pass for the same age, or close enough. Actually, we were close in age relatively speaking. I was five hundred and seventy, he was seven hundred and twenty. But that was only due to the magic of the Old Lands. I would continue to age at this point, yet he would not.
As I looked up into his beautiful, flawless face I wondered what it would be like when I was a wrinkled old lady. Would everyone assume I was his grandmother? What would our relationship be like? Would he treat me like a grandmother rather than a lover? I imagined it would be difficult not to. And then when I died he would have to continue living without me.
Even though it wasn’t me who would have to suffer a torture like that the idea that I would leave him alone…I didn’t have words to describe how much that hurt. And I’d only just found him. It would hurt infinitely worse decades from now. What would happen to him? Would we ever be reunited in the afterlife? Wait. My heart stopped. I can’t die, Chloe. That was what he’d said. He was the son of Lucifer, Prince of Hell.
My chest grew tight, cutting off the flow of oxygen. I sucked in a shaky breath. His hand tightened on mine, like maybe he, too, was thinking the same things I was. Like maybe he was also realizing just how much this was going to hurt.
I finally understood how Bella Swan felt in Twilight. Like really, truly understood her now. I was in her shoes. I feared what she had feared. I finally understood the desperation she felt to be turned into a vampire just so they wouldn’t have to be parted.
Wait.
My eyes widened.
That’s it.
That’s how I fix this.
If I become a vampire, then we’ll both be immortal.
That was my answer. Once we got this bloody locket off of me, I’d find a vampire to turn me. I knew they existed, my father had told me stories about them. I’d ask The Coven for help. Tegan owed me one after her little stunt. A smile pulled at my lips so I bit my cheek to stop it. Something told me Malachi would not approve of this plan but if Bella made Edward buckle, I’d win over Malachi. I’d get us our eternity together.
“Chloe?”
I froze at the sound of Edith’s voice. I peeked up at my soulmate and grimaced. He arched one eyebrow. “Just go with me, okay?” I whispered and pulled my hand out of his.
He pouted like a sad puppy when I removed my hand from his grip, and it was that that put a smile on my face when I turned to face Edith as she hurried over to us with a stack of books in her arms.
Her face brightened. “Oh, good. It is you!”
“Um, yes. It is me.” I cleared my throat and waved. “Hi, Edith.”
“Bugger, I barely recognized you – if not for the Uggs I might have kept walking,” she half-shouted from fifteen feet away. I knew the very moment she actually saw Malachi because her steps faltered for a second and her face fell. She looked him up and down and then turned to me and made that goofy face of hers I adored so