“Yeah? You and Iro? After you turned?”

  “Fucking amazing,” she said.

  “Yeah…” Zara replied and nodded. “I need to go. I’m not ready to hear all of those details yet.”

  “Zara, you deserve to be happy.”

  “So do you. I’ll call you when everything’s done.”

  “Thank you,” Arwen said.

  Zara left them alone, and Arwen walked into Iro’s bedroom. Surprised to hear the shower running because Iro was supposed to be sleeping, she walked into the bathroom and saw her there, wiping blood off her body. That made Arwen feel both horrified about what had happened hours ago and so grateful that Iro was still here. She undressed and climbed into the shower.

  “Hi,” Iro greeted.

  “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “I’m feeling much better. And the sun is down now, so it’s okay to be out.”

  “Better, huh? I see only two fully healed stab wounds, babe.”

  “The rest need to be cleaned anyway.”

  “Then, let me,” Arwen requested. “How badly do they hurt?”

  “I’m okay,” Iro said. “You can clean them if you want, but I already did while you were talking to Zara, who may or may not like Alexia and Sarah. Did I get that right?”

  “We’ll see.” She chuckled and wrapped her arms around Iro’s neck. “After this, it’s back to bed for you.”

  “You need to eat.”

  “I did. Your delivery guy stopped by, so I’m okay.” She kissed Iro’s neck. “Zara will call us when it’s done.”

  Iro’s arms went around her waist, and she said, “Arwen, we shouldn’t stay here.”

  “In DC?”

  “This house. Alexia and Sarah told you that they didn’t do anything with Cassia’s call-to-arms list, right?”

  “Yeah. They’re going to tell them all that Cassia is dead and that they shouldn’t expose vampires because they would be doing so without her support.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose, but someone might still get the idea that they can take over for Cassia. I’d give it a year or so before I start hearing about dead bodies piling up and the unexplained deaths.”

  “Really?”

  Iro nodded and said, “If you want to stay here, we can, but not in this house. I’ll buy another one in the name of a company or something. We’ll move in as soon as we can, but we also might have to leave sooner than I promised earlier if someone makes a move.”

  “You think they’ll come after us?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on what she told them about me. But if they start doing things that risk us being exposed, I’ll have to–”

  “Fight them?”

  “Kill them, yes. I can try to talk to them how I did with Cassia first. She was much stronger and older, and we had a connection that ran for so long; her compulsion could have broken because of that. I’ll practice to get better, and I will have to be careful, but yeah, I can’t risk us being found out.”

  “Okay. So, we move,” Arwen said.

  “We?” Iro asked, hopeful.

  “Into a new house here first and maybe somewhere else later, but if you’re going off somewhere to fight for all vampire kind and prevent people from dying, I’m going with you.”

  “You are?”

  “I am,” she replied.

  When Iro leaned to kiss her slowly, Arwen heard her grunt, but it wasn’t her usual grunt that would’ve told her that Iro was turned on. Instead, it was pain. Iro was still hurting, and Arwen needed to get her to bed.

  “Iro, baby, let’s get some sleep. We can talk about a new house and maybe you teaching me how to fight to save humanity tomorrow.”

  “I love you,” Iro replied with a soft laugh.

  “I know. I love you, too,” she said and kissed her on the nose.

  EPILOGUE

  Zara

  “Zara, baby, yes!”

  Her head was between Alexia’s legs, and she could tell that Alexia was ready to come. She waited because she knew what Alexia would do next.

  “Please,” Alexia begged, pressing Zara’s head down.

  “Me too,” Zara added before she sucked again.

  “No problem,” Sarah said from behind her and pushed her fingers in deeper.

  Zara came first. Alexia came next. Sarah had a vibrator pressed to her clit, so she came shortly after both of them, and all of them collapsed in a mess of limbs on the massive bed, catching their breath.

  “That was really good,” Alexia said at some point.

  “It always is,” Sarah agreed and rolled into Zara.

  Zara smiled at her before she kissed her.

  Alexia moved in closer to her from the other side and pulled her onto her side. She took Zara’s leg and wrapped it over both of her own, rolling her hips into Zara.

  “Again?” Zara asked, knowing the answer.

  Sarah kissed her this time, and her hand went to Zara’s breast while Alexia’s hand went to her clit. Zara knew, how she always did now, that all those years ago, as much damage as it had caused in the beginning, she’d made the right decision in becoming a vampire.

  “I love you,” Alexia whispered in her ear.

  Zara smiled into Sarah’s kiss and then came again.

  “I love you, too,” she replied when she rolled on top of Alexia. “And you,” she added to Sarah.

  Sarah gave her a wink and said, “I’m going to shower. You two continue, if you want, but grab us something to eat when you’re done, maybe? I’m starving.”

  “Happily,” Alexia said and pulled Zara down into her. “She’s giving us some alone time since she and I had some this morning.” She kissed Zara’s shoulder. “I’ll make myself scarce for a bit after we eat so you can have some time with her, too.” She kissed Zara’s lips. “Happy ten-year anniversary, baby.”

  Zara smiled at her and replied, “You too. God, I can’t believe it. Ten years?”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy. Do you think it’ll feel different once we have lived out our natural lives? Like, once everyone we know dies, and we’re in that second lifetime, celebrating our fiftieth and then our hundredth anniversary.”

  Zara smiled wider and said, “Probably, yes. In a good way, though. I’d love to be able to celebrate that many years with you.”

  “Me too,” Alexia replied.

  Zara leaned down and kissed her, thinking about how ten years ago, she’d walked out of Cassia’s house and driven away. Amy had been in the passenger seat, Alexia and Sarah had been in the middle row of seats, and they’d had things to deal with in the back. Zara had looked up into the rearview mirror at one point, and she’d noticed them both looking at her in a way she hadn’t seen them look at her before. She’d smiled back at them, and when they had finished what they needed to do, Alexia and Sarah had gone to her place since neither of them had had a place to go in DC. Amy had gone her own way, but the three of them had talked at her apartment for hours and hours, waiting for any announcement of what had gone on in that house to hit the news.

  Once it had, and it had seemed like the police had concluded what they’d wanted them to think, it had been a relief for all of them, but it had been Zara who’d asked them both to go have a drink. Drinks had led to sex. Sex had led to more dinners. After dinners, there had been breakfasts, and they’d stayed with Zara instead of finding a place of their own. Then, there had been texts when they would be apart for work, talking about how they missed each other. Declarations of a desire for commitment had come after that, followed by declarations of love. Ten years, they’d all been together, and Zara had never been happier. Her feelings for Arwen hadn’t just evaporated, of course, but once Zara had seen her with Iro, she’d known there would be no hope for the two of them to go beyond friendship, and that had helped her process those feelings and move on. Now, she had two beautiful women, and she loved them desperately.

  “Yes! Yes!” Alexia came at Zara’s touch. “Fuck! Yes!”

  In a full week of anniversary celebrations, they’d been in bed almost non-stop, sometimes making love and other times, fucking like crazy because they wanted to, but each day, they took some time to themselves, time with just one person, and there was time reserved for the three of them to be together, too. It worked for them, and while they fought occasionally, it was never anything that seemed to get in the way. Some days, Zara would read in a corner of the room, and when she would look up at the two of them snuggled up on their balcony overlooking the city, she’d smile because she could see Sarah laugh at something Alexia was saying, or she would watch them kiss slowly and love how they loved each other. Other days, she would be on that balcony with one of them, doing the same thing. She knew their paradise couldn’t last forever, and they would have to move on soon, but she took solace in the fact that they could return here one day, maybe in a few decades, and that was fine with her.

  “Okay. So, we have a list to review,” Sarah announced as she came back into the bed with them.

  They were all still naked and sated, at least temporarily, having had a blood bag each and enough sex to last a human for a decade, and Zara knew it was time.

  “Let’s do it,” she said and kissed Sarah on the shoulder.

  “We should pick a continent first, maybe,” Alexia suggested as she rested her head on Zara’s shoulder.

  “You want to move to Antarctica?” Sarah teased.

  “No. Well, maybe. The cold doesn’t bother us as much as it does humans.”

  “Shut up.” Sarah laughed. “Not Antarctica.”

  “We can go back to America, just not the East Coast. We were in New York in the beginning and, obviously, DC, so we would need to be careful.”

  “Or, we could stay in Europe,” Sarah suggested.

  “South America?” Zara tossed out.

  “Where?”

  “There’s a house in Chile or in Brazil. I think there’s a smaller one in Peru, too.”

  “Yeah, it’s on the list,” Sarah confirmed, reading from her phone. “It’s a three-bedroom, so we would each get our own room.”

  “But the one in Brazil has four rooms, so we could have a room for all three of us, too,” Zara noted.

  “The one in Chile is in the mountains, and it’s larger. I kind of want to move that special room we have here.”

  Sarah winked at both Zara and Alexia.

  “Oh, that special room, huh?” Zara teased.

  “Hey, you love that room, too. We used it yesterday.”

  “I do love it,” Zara said. “And I think we should leave Europe for the next ten years or so; at least, to live. We can still visit if we want, but not Florence and maybe not Italy unless we’re very careful.”

  “I love it here,” Alexia said, looking outside their large window.

  “Me too,” Zara added.

  “I know we’ve been saying ten years, and Iro told us to stick to ten, but maybe it can be more?” Sarah asked.

  “We should be careful. People who knew us as humans are very much still around, and Florence is a popular vacation destination. People we knew could always come here, see us out and about, and wonder why we left or how we ended up here,” Zara reasoned. “Later, maybe we can come back and stay a little longer.”

  “So, we’re packing up and moving to… Chile?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s remote,” Alexia said. “We might be able to stay for longer, and it looks beautiful.”

  “So, Chile?” Zara asked to make sure everyone was on the same page.

  “Yeah, let’s do it,” Sarah replied and tossed her phone onto the bed.

  “In a month, we’ll be living in Chile,” Zara confirmed.

  “I’m going to hop in the shower,” Alexia said and rose from the bed.

  “Okay,” Zara said.

  Sarah moved into Zara’s lap then and asked, “Hey, are you happy?”

  She wrapped her arms around Zara’s neck.

  “I am very happy,” she replied. “I never thought I’d be this happy.”

  “Me neither,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe we’ve lived in a villa here for a decade. I grew up in a small town and never even thought I’d be able to afford the tiny apartment I had in New York that I had to share with someone else. I was in Cassia’s fancy house, but not for all that long before everything happened, and now, we’re here, and I love it here.”

  “All three of us do, but we need to be careful. We will love the new place, too.”

  “I know. And all that matters anyway is that we’re all together.”

  “Yes,” Zara agreed and lowered her mouth to Sarah’s waiting nipple. “Now, may I?”

  Sarah gave her a nod, and Zara’s hand slipped between her thighs.

  Later that night, as they all sat outside on their balcony – with her in the middle, as she usually was, her two girls next to her, heads on shoulders, a beautiful sunset in front of them overlooking an old city – Zara knew what she wanted.

  “Before we leave, I want to do something.”

  “What?” Alexia asked.

  “I want to marry you both,” she said and shifted until she was kneeling in front of them. “Arwen or Iro can be the officiant when they get here. It’s not legal, I know, but it’s the best we can do in our situation, and I want that. I want to make it as official as we can because I love you both so much. Will you marry me?” she asked and took one of Sarah’s hands in her own, followed by Alexia’s.

  “Yes,” Sarah replied first.

  “Yes,” Alexia said and then turned to Sarah. “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” Sarah replied with a little laugh.

  “Ten years, and I want the next hundred and the next thousand with both of you,” Zara said, kissing their hands.

  When she stood, Sarah did as well and pulled her in for a kiss. Zara kissed Alexia next. Then, Zara watched them kiss each other. She smiled at them and turned around to take in the remainder of the sunset as the two women joined her; heads on shoulders once again, hands linked between them.

  Arwen

  “He’s agreed,” Iro said.

  “Good,” she replied. “Are we okay, you think? Or do we need to stay and keep an eye on him?”

  “I think we’re okay. He’s been running the company for fifteen years now, but he’s going to have to move on soon to something a little less high-profile, given his agelessness. He knows that, and he’s been relatively calm since we talked to him last time. It’s only because he doesn’t want to leave where he is now that he was thinking about doing something stupid like revealing vampires to the world.”

  Arwen sighed and asked, “When will we be done?”

  “I know it’s exhausting, sweetheart,” Iro replied and sat down next to her on the bench. “Are you ready, though? We can stay as long as you want. I’m sorry I had to take that call. I just know if I didn’t, he would’ve overreacted.”

  “No, I get it. You’re basically in charge of about a hundred vampires who once agreed with Cassia to try to take over the world and kill a bunch of people. It’s time-consuming.”

  “This is the most important thing to me,” Iro said and kissed her temple. “You. Us.”

  “I know,” she said, and her hand went to Iro’s thigh. “We can go. I know we need to get to Florence. I just needed to say goodbye.”

  “We can stay here for another year or two, if you need; maybe longer. I–”

  “No, it’s okay. They’re gone.” Arwen looked at the two headstones in front of her. “And it’s not like Zara is still here. Besides, I already quit my job because people started asking questions. It’s time.”

  “I’m sorry you lost her, too,” Iro said as she shifted so that Arwen could lay her head on her shoulder.

  “She was miserable after he died. I know they said it was a heart attack, but I’m convinced it was a broken heart.”

  “They loved each other very much.”

  “Yes, they did. I’m just happy they got to see us happy together, walk me down the aisle, and that they got to know you.”

  “Me too, my love,” Iro said.

  Arwen looked down at the ring Iro had placed on her finger eight years ago. It was made of black gold, with a ruby in the center, smaller emeralds at the sides that Iro had said brought out the green in her hazel eyes, and accented small diamonds. Arwen had fallen in love with it the first time she’d laid eyes on it. Iro had chosen a black gold band for herself, not wanting a stone, and they’d married in Virginia, with Zara acting as Arwen’s maid of honor. It had been a small group of people, and Iro had worn a suit. After they had said their vows and danced for hours, they’d gone back to their hotel, where Arwen had torn that suit off her body, and they’d made love for days.

  “Are you okay?” Iro asked her.

  “I’m okay. It’s just sad to be leaving the only places I’ve ever really called home, Virginia and DC. I don’t really count college.”

  “I’ve lived all over the world, you know? Everywhere practically. Ten years here. Five there. It’s something you get used to. But you know what makes it different this time?”

  “What?”

  She met Iro’s eyes.

  “I’m finally moving somewhere new with the woman I love. Part of me can’t wait to live in Scotland with you. Harsh, stormy weather that makes us hold on to each other tightly; long walks overlooking the water with us holding hands; no one around, so we can make love under the stars at night. I can chop wood for a fire.”

  “With a tight T-shirt on?”

  “If that’s what you want.” Iro laughed.

  “Yes,” Arwen confirmed.

  “Then, I’ll chop wood for the fire in a tight T-shirt.”

  “Or, maybe no shirt at all if we’re really alone.”

  “No shirt at all, then,” Iro said with a smile.

  “But only from downed trees, right? I don’t want to–”

  “I will not chop down any live trees, my love,” Iro said and leaned in to kiss her. Then, she turned to the headstones and added, “Your daughter is very dedicated. I have never, in more than three hundred years, met a vegan vampire.”

  “I’m not really vegan anymore, am I?”

  “You have to drink animal blood to survive, sweetheart, but you’re still vegan in every other way. I’ve lost count of the amount of money we’ve donated to animal shelters, rescues, nature preserves, and–”