" You know...," I murmured after a time, deciding on not to respond to his last comment. I didn't want him anymore aggravated then he had to be. Especially if I was to ensure a favourable outcome to what I wanted to say. "There is an easy solution to all this. One I have been sadly shirking from due to my own selfish fears."

I saw his shoulders stiffen imperceptibly in the dark and knew that he had more than an inkling to what I intended to say. The solution had always been obvious. I have been the one too weak to even consider it. I have been the one failing him all this time and not the other way round.

" Don't! Don't say another word, " said Lucian softly. But I could hear the tremble in his voice. I knew that he knew this was the only way left for us to be together.

"Then what? You continue to mope here by yourself to the end of time and me? I would marry Coleman and have his babies. Is that what you want?"

His snarl was explosive as the litany of explicits that emanated from him. in words and gesture. I was wrenched up and wrapped up in his arms with a bruising force before even the last of it left his lips. " You're mine. I will kill Coleman first before you could ever marry him."

I wrapped my arms about him as tightly. needing the feel of him more then my the breath itself. Indeed I doubted the next breath at all. He was holding me just that tightly. So I decided use the last of it to say what I really had to.

"I have failed you. Failed us both countless times in the past by forcing you to be the stronger of us two. I made it that it always had to be you who made the sacrifice. You who suffered in trying to keep us together. All because of my selfish need to stay human."

I felt his whole body tensed at that before I was abruptly released. I dropped my gaze to my feet unable to look him in the eye. I had only spoken the truth. I have always loved him even when I thought he didn't love me. Even then I should have known that he did. Everything I ever needed he provided. Everything I ever said he listened. Always he put me first. He put my needs to stay human, to suffer the pain so as not to be enslaved, to willingly allow his father the right to dictate his life only so I would survive and then he gave five years of his life to Vanessa. A greater hell then that I could not imagine. And he had done it all for me.

I have wronged him at every point and always he stood by my decisions. My needs. My humanity.

I purposely blinded myself in a belief that he could be more than what he was. I was the evil one here. I know he is vampire and yet I kept putting it on him to be stronger than what his nature allowed him to be.

"I am sorry, Lucian. I am so sorry for all you have had to go through because of me. I have been so stupid in my fears. Not seeing what I was doing to you. Doing to us. But no more. I will not ask you to change what you are for me anymore. I will change for you," I said breathing hard, rushing to get out what needed to be said. What I have been running away from in all this time. "I will embrace your nature. Make me a vampire."