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I couldn’t get to sleep at all that night. Emotionally, I was a wreck. The horror of almost being burned alive was still fresh in my mind, as was breaking Tristan’s heart. Thoughts of Aiden and London were never far behind my thoughts of Tristan, and together they overwhelmed me.
I had to do something, anything. My only option was Tristan. The other torments were irreversible. If I could just speak to him, then maybe we could come to some kind of closure. Maybe he would even agree to stay in my life somehow—as selfish as that was for me to ask.
The answer came to me, though I wasn’t entirely sure I could pull it off. London died before I could ask her how. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and reached out to him. “Tristan?”
No reply. But I wasn’t giving up that easily. This had to work. It just had to. “Tristan!”
“Ana?” He asked, his voice sounding in my head.
My heart sped up. “Tristan I need to talk to you, please come back.”
“Ana, coming back won’t change anything…”
“Please, Tristan.”
I felt whatever mental connection, I had established with him, cut out. I sighed and lay back onto my pillow. At least I knew that I could contact him whenever I wanted to. That was something, right?
“Ana,” spoke Tristan’s voice.
I turned to find him and the cloaked girl standing in front of my balcony doorway. My heart skipped a beat. I could barely look him in the eye I felt so guilty, and his presence seemed to strip me of the ability to think. I was totally at a loss as to how to explain why it was I was choosing someone else, especially when the whole reason I’d been reincarnated was to be with him. It had all been so clear to me a minute ago.
Tristan broke the silence with an introduction. “This is Surya. She’ll be watching over Brighton now.”
“You’re leaving for good?” I asked, surprised, even though I knew I shouldn’t be. He had caught me kissing another boy.
He nodded.
Surya removed her hooded cloak. Tristan had assured me that becoming a vampire didn’t make you beautiful, but she was. Long and lean, with almond colored skin and jet black hair, you could easily be forgiven for assuming that she was sophomore in college if not for that scowl that never really left her face. Even when she attempted to smile it was thinly disguised. I found my thoughts drifting to Aiden. “So this is her?” she asked. When she wasn’t shouting, her Indian accent rolled off her tongue like music.
Tristan managed a brief smile. “This is her.”
She let her eyes go back and forth between us for a moment before settling on Tristan with a grin. “You had eyes for me like that once.”
If not for the situation, the expression on Tristan’s face might have almost been comical. It was obvious that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with this meeting.
“How do you guys know each other?” I asked. I needed to get to the reason I’d asked him to come back, but I was having trouble summoning the courage.
Tristan started to speak but Surya beat him to it. “I was Tristan’s first.”
My eyes widened. I wasn’t expecting to hear that.
“The first person I turned,” he corrected.
“That too, I suppose.”
Tristan shot her a look.
She laughed. “I am kidding. Tristan has always been so serious that it is hard not to enjoy a laugh at his expense sometimes. During the wars, I was his top lieutenant. We won many battles together.”
“Are you like him? I mean, you’re not a bad vampire are you?”
She laughed again. “Have I given up the old ways? Certainly not. Our Tristan is now one of a kind in that regard. But I am tamer than most—I will not kill while I am here.” She shifted her eyes to Tristan and her expression turned. Worry stained her face. “Or are you asking whether or not I will be one of vampires who will torture him, and then end his life?”
Tristan shook his head. “You promised, Surya.”
“I don’t care. This is madness, you have to know that. He is furious about losing Aiden. He revered him, Tristan. Even your stature won’t save you from his wrath. I…I am scared for you.”
He put his hands over her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “I gave you my command because I trust you Surya. Even when we were vastly outnumbered, I knew that you would have my flank. You were the only vampire among my soldiers capable of experiencing fear, but I never doubted that you would come to my aid. I need that same courage from you now. Can you do this?”
She turned her head away from his, and I saw the tears in her eyes. Human emotion. She was well practiced, and disguised it well, but she was like him. She had had her humanity reawakened, too.
“You’re taking the blame for Aiden’s death?” I asked.
“Ana…”
“And they’re going to torture you…to kill you for what I did?”
“It’s the only—“
“You can’t die Tristan…not you too. I’ll run away with you, whatever you want, just don’t…please don’t do this.”
“Daemon has to have someone to punish. Would you rather I send Surya? If I asked, she would take the blame for it. She could say that she ordered it, that she resented him for turning his back on the old ways. That I found out and ordered her to turn herself in.”
I looked to her and knew that Tristan was right. But I would never be able to live with myself.
I shook my head.
He smiled. “Of course you couldn’t do that to her—just like I couldn’t possibly let anything happen to you. You must know that.”
Now I was the one fighting tears. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? This is my choice.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t choose you.”
He sighed. “You were right to move on. I was selfish and controlling, that’s not how you treat someone you care about. I can see that now. The way things ended the last time... Maybe this is the best thing for both of us. Just know that even if you can’t remember, our time together has been the best of my life and that I love you.”
“Is she really worth it, Tristan?” Surya really looked scared now. I think she really counted on me talking him out of it. I really had tried. “Can she really mean that much to you?”
They locked eyes for several silent seconds before Tristan spoke. “Wouldn’t you do the same for me?”
Emotion overtook her face and she disappeared into the night.
“This is goodbye, Ana,” he said leading me out onto the balcony.
“W-wait…I…”
“There’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind. But I do hope Darren will forgive me for this last...”
He kissed me. Aside from the handful of memories I had recalled in my dreams, I had no memory of my lifetimes before. But subconsciously, even with my memories being taken away, there had always been a part of me that had never forgotten, the part of me recognized my name even as a baby, that felt so hopelessly drawn to him and kept this connection between us alive. Now, in the midst of this physical connection, I gave myself over to it completely, allowing it to surge into the forefront in a way that I never had before, and I felt something so powerful that I lost myself completely. The earth moved and the sky danced above us.
Tristan pulled away, his eyes wide. He must have felt the same thing that I had. Only, I was experiencing something else too.
“Tristan…I remember,” I whispered. “And I’m still me. I’m still Ana. Don’t go.”
He stared into my face with tortured eyes, and stroked my cheek with his hand. “I have to protect you, Ana.” Then he was gone.
It had only taken another kiss for my half of our bond to become strong enough—a powerful physical connection to coincide with the emotional one—all
owing me to bypass the magic that kept our past hidden. We were both right, I guess. Our story was in fact, very much like a fairytale. Only, and he’d warned me, there’d be no happily ever after.