Eric remained sprawled out on the sand, carefully thinking over her words. Even if he had known all along, she hadn’t expected such composure from him. “You were not kidnapped,” he said finally. “You...you killed Felix.” He did not sound angry or afraid—but amused.

“Felix tried to kill me,” she said. “He tried to ambush me with the same stake I found you holding over Elijah. You attacked us. Felix said you had been hired to find us, and that you’d sent reports back to my...to your employer.”

Eric sighed and closed his eyes. “The man who hired us wanted only information, not murder. He chose me because I had education and resources, which Felix did not—he only had a fervent desire to hunt down monsters. Our employer hoped that would lead me to you. But I deceived him, and I lied to Felix as well. I didn’t want anyone else to find vampires—I wanted them to be all mine.”

“You sent no reports,” Rebekah interpreted. “Or you sent false ones. And if he had no education, then Felix could not write any himself, nor read what you wrote. Then no one but you now knows where we are. But why?” It made no sense, but he stood to gain nothing from inventing that tale—and if he was the only person who knew her secret, then killing him would keep her safe.

Felix had promised Rebekah that she would be hunted down, and Eric could have told her the same story, trying to bluff his way into some kind of negotiation. The chance he would survive would be slim, but it would have been smarter than saying that her exposed secret could die with him, right there on the beach. As bizarre as it seemed, she found herself inclined to believe what Eric was telling her. She sensed that, like her, he was ready to simply tell the truth.

His hazel eyes had opened again, and lingered on the smallest details of her face. “Your brother,” he repeated. “I did not know.”

“He was lying half dead,” Rebekah snapped, irritated by her own confusion on top of everything else. “How did you think he could have carried me away in that state? He hardly looked a threat.”

“His injuries confirmed that he had fought with Felix.” Eric coughed and rubbed at his throat again, then tried to prop himself up on his elbows. With a firm hand, Rebekah indicated that he should stay where he was. “And I thought that even a wounded vampire could manage to kidnap a frightened widow.”

In spite of herself, Rebekah laughed aloud. “You were wrong on every count.” Really, the idea of Elijah’s gruesome wounds coming from a tangle with some human was ridiculous. Rebekah hadn’t gotten a scratch in their brief struggle.

To her surprise, Eric smiled at her. “I knew you were extraordinary,” he murmured. “And yet I find myself embarrassed by how thoroughly I underestimated you. And equally as ashamed that my lieutenant picked up on the truth before I did, when I could not be there to protect you.”

Of course she was extraordinary, but it seemed like a rather odd reaction to everything she had just disclosed. For a human. “You don’t sound as alarmed as I would have expected,” she pointed out, showing her fangs again for emphasis.

“I am hopeful that you’ll let me live, in a sense,” he admitted. She scowled, but her eyes roamed to the lean chest that his ripped shirt exposed. His strong hands, and how capable they looked...

“If you didn’t want to report our whereabouts back to you benefactor, then what did you want?”

“I’ve been hoping to meet a vampire for years now, but not because I wanted to kill one,” he replied.

“I don’t understand, Captain. If not to kill him, then what was the point?” She remembered the sight of the dead werewolf with the wooden stake protruding from his chest, and shuddered. “You cannot tell me you have not hunted us, and a hunt should end with a death.”

“My death, though,” Eric argued urgently, pushing himself up into a sitting position. This time, she let him. “Since Marion died so suddenly, so senselessly, my own death is all I have been able to think about. It haunts me to know that I will simply end, between one breath and the next. I stood before her grave and vowed that I would not follow her so easily. I would not let some sickness, some wound, some accident rip me out of the world. When I discovered writings about your kind, I knew that you held the keys to life and death. I need those keys, Rebekah. I have searched for years so that I could beg you to make me like you. Kill me, so that I cannot die.”

She recoiled, hope and fear warring together in her heart. She had assumed his obsession with death was morbid, that he hated having to live in a world from which every trace of his wife was gone. Death was indeed his enemy, she realized, but only because he loved being alive. She wanted to believe him so badly that it was almost physically painful. “Next you will say you never intended to kill my brother,” she hissed, her voice even harsher than she expected. “You were just trying to threaten a vampire into turning you?”

“I thought he had taken you,” Eric shouted and then winced and lowered his voice again. “I saw you emerge from that tunnel, too afraid to run away. I knew I had to act before the sun went down, and the vampire woke up.

“When I saw no further signs of you or your captor, I tried to follow you inside,” he rasped on. “It was foolish, but when I found him lying there, I thought the risk had paid off.” He frowned, his brow furrowing deeply. He raised one hand to run a rough finger down the side of her face, and the small touch sent shivers through her body. She found herself at a loss for words. “I will not deny I planned to kill him for his sins against you. I intended to kill him if it cost me my life or even a chance at eternal life. What would any of it matter if I lost you?” he said.

She lifted her hand to cover his, and he wove his fingers between hers. “Once I met you, I began to want more than just immortality. I wanted to share it with you,” he finished.

Rebekah felt a sudden heat flushing her skin. She bent down and kissed him passionately, and he wound his fingers in her long hair to keep her close. In that moment she knew she wanted to stay that way forever.

* * *

THEY HAD FOUND the abandoned cottage and lost track of the time. They had talked about everything—learning each other from the beginning, with no secrets between them this time.

He told her what he knew of Mikael’s plans and whereabouts, which naturally wasn’t much at all. They had met only once in an inn outside of Paris, and after that meeting Mikael had handled their business through associates. In turn, Rebekah told him about her father’s past, and he held her while she cried at the most bitter parts. She talked about her short life as a human, and he reminisced about the brief time with his beloved wife.

Most of all, though, they made love. Even when they had to pause, their bodies remained in constant contact. They could not stop touching: hair, shoulders, lips, back, ankles, everything. Her fingers traced the scars from his battles, and his calloused hands explored the flawless silk of her skin. They clung and collided, entwined and caressed. She drank her fill of his blood, and he begged her to take more.

She could not, though, not yet. She had made a promise to the witches of New Orleans nine years before, and her brothers’ bargains were tied to her own. As long as she remained in the vicinity of the city, she could make no new vampires, or else they would all be cast out.

Elijah and Klaus would not forgive her for that disobedience, but they would not absolve her for leaving them, either. She spent hours weighing those two choices, because the only other option she could think of was refusing Eric, and that she would not do. After all of her long life she had found a true mate, and she fully intended to keep him.