“I don’t understand.”
“I want you with me for always. As my lover. My mate. My wife.” What little sleep lingered in her expression wiped away with a blink. Something within her gaze softened, and it made his heart swell.
Confusion made her frown slightly. “But the Council, I thought they have to—”
“Fuck the Council, Alice. If you’ll have me, and please God have me, agree to be with me for the rest of our lives...I am begging you for your most precious gift. For the gift of yourself. I swear to you that I’ll cherish it always. Trade in your human life to become part of a stronger yet equally flawed family. In return, I will love you with everything I have and with everything I am. I will be yours until you tire of me.”
She touched his arm. “I could never tire of you.”
Bast shook his head. “You could. And that’s why I need you to be sure. Take your time and think about this. You might be thinking that death is scary and something you don’t want to face in the near future, but hundreds of years from now, you might regret not being able to leave this body so easily.” He’d already explained to her that vampires were not immortal, but even he admitted that some days it didn’t feel that way. Some days, when he was tired and blood-starved, it felt as if he’d lived one day too long. He’d spare her that lamentation if possible. “And like you know, we’ll be doing this without Council approval. When they discover your creation, and they will, we’ll have little choice. We will be hunted and always on the move. Always looking over our shoulders. Always facing the possibility of being executed.”
He ran out of words. The only ones he could conjure now spoke of danger and death. Of the harsh existence ahead of them. Bet those authors who wrote about vampires and their exotic sex lives wouldn’t know what to make of the last part of his speech. But he had to tell her. Had to warn her. For all he knew, maybe even within days of turning her, they’d be facing Antaeus and his stakes.
“I’m scared.” A shaky declaration said after a lengthy pause.
“I’d be more scared if you weren’t.”
“Will it hurt?”
His fingers curled around hers. “Not if I can help it. Do you want me to explain how it works?”
“Based on the way you’re looking at me, I don’t think I want to know in advance.”
He hesitated. There would be one tough part. Something she would not conceive of on her own. “I can’t help you choose what to do. You have to decide if you want to become a vampire with me. You decide if you want to hear the details of how it works. Any question I’ll answer as honestly as I can. If you can’t decide now, then that’s okay too.”
“It’s not going to be pleasant, is it? The turning part.”
“Certain parts aren’t, no. Whether I tell you now or you just wait and see, I need to know that I’ll have your complete and absolute trust in what happens.”
No hesitation this time. “Of course,” she said with a smile.
It fell away when Bast hardened his expression. “Complete, Alice. I need to know you’ll come out on the other side, with the understanding that I did exactly what needed to be done.”
“You want this so badly. What happens if I disappoint you? What happens when you grow tired of me? I’m nobody special, but you want to spend the rest of your life with me anyway. I hog the covers at night and can only cook, like, three things. Only two of those well. I have no fashion sense and don’t know how to be all high-falutin’ like you around your high-profile friends. Can you really be happy with someone so simple?”
“If the next hundred years are anywhere close to the past week, then yes. And hell yes.”
Alice studied him with a disbelieving gaze while nibbling on her thumbnail. Neither spoke.
In another time, he would have spent months, years if necessary, wooing her right. Slowly coaxing her and loving her until she loved him equally in return. If things were different...
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? One hundred percent, sure?”
“Yes, I am your friend and your lover. And yes, I want also to be your wife for now and always. As a vampire, if that’s what it’ll take. And that’s what it’ll take, because I don’t know how much longer this old body of mine will hold out. So yes, Sebastian. Do whatever needs to be done.” She released an unsteady laugh. “But make it quick before I lose my nerve, okay?”