Paris greets us with rain that smells like stone.
We feed at an underground club in the Marais—all exposed brick and red velvet, where beautiful people negotiate desire in French that sounds like seduction even when discussing boundaries. The woman I drink from gasps "Mon Dieu" as my fangs pierce skin, and her pleasure tastes like permission to exist without apology.
James watches from across the room, his control fraying as blood stains my lips. When we return to our hotel overlooking the Eiffel Tower, we don't bother with words. Just hands and mouths and the desperate affirmation that we're real, that this is real, that forever starts now.
Afterward, tangled in sheets that cost more than my old monthly rent, my phone buzzes.
Alan: "The house is safe. Mom cried. Dad actually said thank you. So... thanks, I guess."
Not forgiveness. But not rejection either. I show James, and he kisses my temple—understanding without needing explanation that hope is enough.
***
Barcelona explodes with color even in darkness.
The Gothic Quarter winds around us like a maze designed by someone drunk on possibility. We feed at a rooftop party where the Mediterranean stretches to infinity and beautiful people offer their throats with hedonistic abandon.
But tonight we're not hunting. We're dancing.
James moves with a grace that comes from centuries of practice, but there's joy in it now. Not just precision—actual happiness. We dance because the music demands it, because our bodies want to, because we can.
"What do you want?" I ask between songs, both of us breathless from habit rather than need. "From forever. What do we build?"
He considers, pulling me close. "Something permanent. A home, not just a house. Maybe travel for a few decades first, then settle. Create space for the people we love—Emily, Alan if he'll have us, whatever family we make along the way."
The image he paints feels… possible?
My phone buzzes again. Emily: "Club's expanding. Some tech bro paid a fortune for the 'Artemis experience' then tried to tip 500%. Your vampire mystique is killing my bottom line in the best way. Miss you. Come home soon."
I show James, laughing. "I created a market demand."
"You created yourself," he corrects. "The market just recognized value when it saw it."
***
Venice rises from the water like a fever dream.
The irony isn't lost on either of us—vampires without reflections walking a city built on mirrors. Everywhere we turn, glass reflects everything except us. Gaps in reality shaped like people, moving through crowds of tourists who'll never notice the absences among them.
We feed on a gondola, because the romance of it is too ridiculous not to embrace. Our donor—a businessman from Munich seeking adventure—gasps as my fangs pierce skin, and James drinks from the other side of his throat simultaneously. The intimacy of sharing blood, sharing pleasure, sharing this moment on water that's witnessed centuries of desire—it feels sacramental.
Walking through empty streets after midnight, our footsteps echoing off stones worn smooth by tourists and ghosts, James asks the question I've been waiting for.
"Are you happy?"
I stop walking. Consider. Not the easy answer, but the honest one.
"I'm free," I say finally. "Happy feels too small for what this is." I look at him. "That's not happiness—that's liberation."
"Even with Alan?"
"Especially with Alan." The truth settles as I speak it. "I'm learning that love doesn't require forgiveness to exist. I can love him and accept he might never forgive me. I have forever to wait. He doesn't. So I'll wait."
"Hope," he says simply. "That's what forever is for."
***
We end up on the rooftop of our Venetian hotel, four stories above canals that reflect moonlight in patterns my human eyes never could have captured. The city spreads below us—ancient and eternal, indifferent to our crisis and joy in equal measure.
"Do you regret it?" I ask. "Turning me?"
James takes my hand, studying my face like he's memorizing something precious. "I regret that you had to suffer to become this. Regret the violence it took, the losses you carry. But regret you?" He shakes his head. "Never. You saved me as much as I saved you."
The truth of it resonates in my chest where my heart used to beat.
I think about the journey—from selling my virginity to save my brother to building something that feels like purpose. From believing I was broken to understanding I was just trapped.
"Innocence," I say aloud, testing the word. "I spent my whole life thinking it meant purity. Being good. Not causing harm."
"And now?"
"Now I think it just means not knowing yourself."
James pulls me closer, and we stand there watching the city that's witnessed more endings and beginnings than we'll ever know.
"I love you," I tell him. "Thank you for making me free."
"Thank you for giving me a reason to live," he responds.
My phone buzzes. Alan: "Coffee next week? I want to try."
The hope that's been struggling to survive finally blooms into something sustainable. Not certainty—I may wait decades, centuries, forever for full forgiveness. But Alan is trying. Emily is thriving. James and I have infinite tomorrows stretching ahead.
I taste blood on my lips from our earlier feeding. Feel the night air against skin that will never age. Hear James's unnecessary breathing beside me, the human habit he maintains because it makes him feel less alone.
"I'm not innocent anymore," I say, and the words feel like celebration rather than confession. "Not human. Not what I was."
James turns to face me fully, and in his gray-blue eyes I see two hundred years of loneliness finally ending. "And?"
I smile, feeling fangs press against my lower lip, feeling power hum through immortal veins, feeling free in ways I never imagined possible.
"And I've never been more alive."
We disappear into the Venetian night together, leaving ourselves open for whatever forever brings.