“How was your talk with Haruka?” Jun eventually asks, his voice low.

“Nice. He said some encouraging and insightful things to me. He’s very kind. Nino said he’ll help me with my aura tomorrow.”

“That’s great. I’m really glad.”

I narrow my eyes. “That sounded weird.”

He glances at me. “How so?”

“I don’t know—like fake.”

Junichi laughs, looking back toward the lake. “It wasn’t.”

I’m still watching him, unconvinced. “You’re being awkward, which doesn’t quite work because I’m the awkward one.” He huffs in a laugh but still doesn’t say anything. Just staring forward. “What is it?” I ask. It takes another moment, but he finally answers me.

“I would really like to kiss you. I want to touch you. You told me not to, and I respect that. But I miss you.”

Him saying these things is enough to send off a flare of heat inside me, like flash photography. My skin is all tingly and the warmth of my energy is wide awake again. Truthfully? I miss him too. And of course I want to kiss him, but…

I swallow, trying to bite back the surge I feel inside me, but I already know it’s useless. It’s starting to register and burn in my eyes. Once it gets that far, I’m learning it’s too late to turn back. “If we kiss, I will absolutely light up like a firework—”

“That’s fine, Jae.” He turns his upper body so that he’s leaning into me but not touching me at all. His face looks pained. “If you’re comfortable with it, I don’t mind—I want it. Let me feel you…” He lifts his hands and cups my face, staring into my eyes and waiting. The heat is so intense inside me I can’t even speak. There’s no way I can stifle this now, and there’s nowhere for me to run.

I nod in his hands, feeling the light behind my eyes intensify as my hands shake. “Okay.” He caresses his nose against mine and I close my eyes tight. I love the tenderness of this when he does it to me. I always have. But I’m also scared because I can feel my nature swelling and radiating out of me now, hot and relentless. I open my eyes wide, and my chest tightens.

“Breathe, sunshine. Don’t fight with it. Please just let it go.”

My hands find the bottom of his lapels and I hold on to him, trying not to fight it, even though it’s what I’ve always done. He kisses my face and I close my eyes again. Then he moves down to my jawline, gently pressing his lips to my skin and nestling his face into the curve of my neck.

As I breathe in and out, the raging heat eventually softens. It shifts into something cooler—less furious and intense. When I open my eyes, it’s all around us. A distinct blue haze. Not thick or dense like fog. It’s airy and light. Moving but hovering in place like magic.

Junichi lifts his face from my neck and looks at me, and his irises are glowing amethyst. Before I can truly admire the mystifying allure of it, he tilts his head and takes my mouth. My jaw drops as if there’d been a weight attached to it, and he’s already lapping inside me. We fall into a passionate rhythm that hasn’t been put to practice in a while but moves just as fluidly as it ever did.

We’re kissing and moving so intensely that my mind flashes back to a room filled with sunshine. Suddenly, I’m in Japan, in Kurashiki, and the world feels new and fresh—like the morning after a night of heavy rainfall and the leaves and flowers are glistening. There’s an overabundance of sensations. Everything is a little too bright, but I’m ridiculously excited. Absurdly so. Maybe this is the most excited I’ve ever been in my life, because I feel part of something now. I feel connected and loved and safe, and there’s someone who’s there for me and I’m there for them. He wants to be with me, and I with him, and there’s truly no question or doubt in my mind. I feel full of life, and I never want this feeling to end. Somewhere inside me—somewhere deep that I don’t quite yet understand—something tells me that it never will.

I open my eyes, and Jun is holding me with his fingers threaded in my hair and against the back of my head. His eyes are still glowing in vivid purple and I feel mine alighted as well. My energy is radiating outward and around us, holding us captive like a protective sphere. It doesn’t hurt anymore, though. Now… it feels kind of nice. Tingly and soft.

He’s not saying anything, just looking at me with heavy lids. When my head clears a little more, I say, “I don’t know how to turn it off.”

“You don’t need to turn it off.” He leans in and kisses me again, straight on. Then on my nose, then my cheek. “Just let it be free until it’s satisfied.”

I slide my hands from his lapels and inside his jacket, carefully resting my palms against his waist. “I’m assuming this isn’t awful for you?” I smile, but I’m nervous.

He keeps kissing me all over, mindless with it like he’s in a state of euphoria. “I love this. If I wasn’t concerned about embarrassing you, I would undress you and make love to you right now on this bench.”

My stomach clenches and the heat within me kicks up again. Well, that did something.

“Do you know what your aura is, Jae?”

Blinking, I think back to the textbook definition that he’s given me a few times. “It’s the physical manifestation of my vampiric nature.”

Jun huffs in a little laugh. “Yes, but it’s more complex than that. I told you before that it communicates with me. And that it reveals the most sincere and unfiltered parts of you and your desires. It calls to me.”

I swallow, afraid of the answer but wanting to ask the question. “What… does it say?”

“That you’ve chosen me. That you love me and want me as your mate, and if I submit to you, I’ll never want for anything.”

Holy shit, that’s embarrassing. Christ. I lean back, trying to break his hold on me. “No. I—I wouldn’t ever ask you to—”

“Jae.” His voice is soft, but he holds my head firm in his grasp, bringing our faces even closer. “Even if you don’t say the words, or try to deny it, I know the truth and how you really feel. It’s all around us… You said you forgave me, but why are you still pushing me away like this? It’s confusing, sunshine.”

“It’s difficult—being this open and transparent.”

“Because you’re afraid?”

“Yes.”

He leans in again, pressing a swift kiss to my lips. “I understand. But I promise you don’t need to be.” Jun looks into my eyes, hesitating. “May I taste you? Technically, it’s improper for me to ask you that question. I’m not supposed to, and I should wait for you to offer yourself to me. But I really just—”

I lift one hand from his waist and grip his chin so he stops talking, then I meet his gaze. “Yes.”

He’s right. I said I wanted to try and that I’ve forgiven him, but I’m still trying to protect myself. I’m guarded. That doesn’t work, though, does it? You either love all the way or you don’t bother. Half-assing it won’t do either of us any good. It’d be pointless.

I’m surprised when Jun brings a trembling hand up to catch mine from holding his chin. This person who’s always so cool, composed and unbothered is unraveled right now. I don’t know how, but I can feel his hunger and desire for me—the depth and sincerity in his eyes when they meet mine.

He places my palm against his nose and inhales deeply before he licks the center. He tilts his head and bites down softly, then his fangs elongate and sink deep into my skin as he pulls and feeds. His eyes are closed at first, and he exhales a deep sigh, moaning with… relief? When he opens his eyes again and stares directly at me, I allow myself this moment. To completely trust him. I reach back to that feeling hovering at the edges of my psyche—that day when I first woke up to this new life and I had zero doubts about anything. Only promise and hope were stretched out before me.

Meeting his gaze, the stiffness in my chest softens. I might be insecure about this later, but right now, as he pulls from me and I nourish and give him the life he needs, I have faith in him. That he won’t walk away from me again.

Just as my body is relaxing, something jolts from within my core, and it terrifies me because it’s so unexpected. Jun stops feeding, looking at me as if he’s waiting for something. I open my mouth to speak but I can’t, because the heat inside me returns, but the dial is set to a hundred. A blazing inferno. My body goes rigid, but Jun pulls me in and holds me tight in his embrace, grounding me—or us—through whatever is happening. All I can do is watch as my energy shifts, deliberately pulling Jun’s amethyst aura from his body. I can literally see the two colors converging and seeping into each other, like two shades of paint being mixed to create a new, brilliant hue.

When the colors are fused and one, the energy slowly shrinks down, pouring into us both like osmosis. It feels warm and liquidy as it seeps into me, and when it’s finally finished, there’s a heavy weight in my core. I still can’t move because it’s doing something. Adjusting? Like a bird settling into a new nest.

Eventually, the stiff weight lessens and my body goes lax, but Jun is still holding me in his embrace as I gasp—desperate to suck in air and swallow. His breathing is labored too, but he never lets me go. Not even for a second.

Forty-Eight

Junichi

It’s done. No more games.

I feel like an empty mug that’s been poured into—filled with something rich, warm and more satisfying than anything I could fathom. To describe it would only shortchange Jae and his essence. The complexity and goodness of what he’s given me.

But I also feel like a jackass, because I’ve been running away from this my entire life, and I even ran away from Jae for months. He’s been offering me—a dying man—restoration and fulfillment, genuine love and refuge from an otherwise toxic and painful existence. A life where I’ve starved myself on a regular basis and willingly depended on someone who abused me because I thought there was no better option. I turned Jae down, blinded by my own stubbornness, prejudices and assumptions.

Fucking stupid.

The weight of the bond between us dissolves, warmly distributing itself all throughout my body. It’s not heavy like an anchor. It was at first, but now it’s dispersed, and I feel it running all through me like liquid feathers. It’s incredible.