Elena's POV

I walked the streets for a very long time before I made it home.

My heels had rubbed blisters into my ankles. I was cold all over.

I sank down by the entryway and looked at my empty apartment, and it suddenly hit me — most of my things were actually at James's estate.

For the past few years, I had basically been working as his private assistant.

Arranging his banquets. Managing his social affairs. More often than not, sleeping in his guest room.

So all this time, I had been devoted myself to him like that, with not a single thing in return.

Looking down at the dress that didn't really fit me, I just leaned forward against the floor and laughed bitterly.

The wedding I had designed with my heart had been taken by James and given to Vicky.

The engagement banquet I had waited years for still didn't have a date.

I had spent all those years adapting to the world of vampires, putting myself together every single day, hoping that someday James would take me in.

In the end, I had nothing.

In the end, I was still just something to be laughed at.

I stayed on the floor a long time before I could stand again. I was on my way to the living room for a glass of water when I heard a key in the door.

James stumbled in, drunk, the sharp smell of wine pouring off him.

I caught him on instinct.

But the thought of him sober the next day, recoiling from my touch again, made me want to pull my hand back.

He grabbed my wrist before I could and pressed my palm against the side of his face.

Those red eyes that were always so alert, so cutting, were soft and unfocused now. He looked up at me with confusion, with something almost wounded in his expression.

I had never seen him look at me like that. For a moment I just stood there.

"I'm sorry — " The words came out unsteady. "I'm sorry. Today's the last time. I promise."

The bridge of my nose stung. I had waited so long for that apology.

"Don't push me away. Please."

There was something almost pleading in James's voice.

"Let me hold you. Just let me."

His nose grazed mine, and his eyes were drowning in mine.

The tear tracks under my eyes still stung. He kissed them gently.

"I love you. Don't push me away. Please."

I could hear my own heart pounding. I closed my eyes and let him.

We had never held each other so closely.

The cold of his skin sank into mine. I could feel how desperate he was, and I held him just as hard.

His pale skin pressed against my body, every muscle in him drawn tight where it should be.

His narrow waist moved in rhythm. A vampire's stamina is nothing like a human's, and I couldn't take the dizzying pleasure or the pain — but I didn't want to give in and pass out either.

All I knew was that I had waited so long that my heart had gone past the point of pain into something like numbness.

"James. I love you."

I kissed his lower lip and whispered it against his ear.

His hand ran through my hair and came to rest against the side of my face. He deepened the kiss.

"Vicky. I love you too."

Vicky?

Every illusion of happiness shattered in that single moment.

Vicky.

The name he said was Vicky.

The smell of wine rolling off him was right there at my mouth. I started laughing, and I couldn't stop.

So that was it. He was drunk. He had mistaken me for Vicky.

Elena, how could you be this stupid?

I was mocking myself in my head. I tilted my face up at the ceiling, numb. The tears had run dry. There was only the raw burn in the rims of my eyes.

When it was over, James had already drifted off, content.

I looked at the wreck of the bed. There were dark bruises forming on my shoulders and arms where he had gripped me.

A human body was never built for that kind of force.

Looking down at the marks on my body, I understood something I should have understood a long time ago.

Maybe I had never had any business forcing myself into this world to begin with.

I looked at James one last time. His features, even cold and asleep, were still impossibly handsome. But now, looking at him, there was nothing stirring in me at all.

When the sky outside started turning gray, I sat at the edge of the bed, and I suddenly remembered the first time I had seen James, all those years ago at the ball. Back then I had thought fate was finally on my side. I had believed I could make him love me one day.

Now I knew.

What fate had given me wasn't favor.

It was a swamp — the kind that pulls you in deeper the longer you stand still.

And I had stood still so long I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be chosen. To actually be loved.

It was time to walk out of all of it.

I was going to walk out of a life I had never been loved in.

I was going to disappear from James's world. Completely.