I walk to the glass door and slide it open. A cold fifty-degree wind rushes inside and I can feel tiny droplets of moisture in the air. I close my eyes and let the coolness wash over me, raising chill bumps from the back of my neck down to the backs of my bare legs.

Isaac’s warm body comes up behind me and despite my temperature being hot enough, I still want him close. I turn around and press my body into his and crush my lips against his in a way that I’ve only done one time before. In March, when I wanted him in every way possible. When I tempted fate and he almost killed me. I taste him heavily in my mouth and just kiss him deeper, letting his tongue dance with mine, feeling every inch of my skin tremble with little waves of anticipation. The kiss breaks as we come up for air, but I can still feel his lips so close and I can still taste him. “What are you doing?” he says in a whisper and then he brushes his lips across mine.

He kisses my eyelids and I feel them shut for a brief moment longer.

Carefully, I pull away from him, letting his fingers trail across the skin of my arms. I stare into his eyes, watching how he watches me as if we’re the only two people left in the world. “I’m jumping off the cliff,” I whisper back our perfect metaphor and then smile faintly and run outside into the cool night air. The sand crushes underneath my feet as I run closer to the shore. Isaac is close behind me. I feel the little droplets of ocean spray tickling my face as the light wind scoops it off the surface of the water and carries it. We make it far enough away from the house that the lights from inside seem small and dim and the bonfire blazing not far from it appears as nothing more than a candle flame.

I stop running and as he comes up fast behind me, I catch him by the front of his shirt and take him into another kiss. I push him into the sand and fall down with him and the kiss never breaks. He breathes harder against me, forcing his mouth more vigorously against mine as I straddle him, my body arched over his as he lies in the cold, dry sand.

I lift away, holding my body up with my hands pressed near his shoulders. “Do you want me?” I whisper.

He raises his back from the sand to sit upright, wrapping his arms around me to hold me in his lap. He nods once slowly. I watch how his face searches mine, seeking some kind of assurance, maybe even for the faintest ounce of uncertainty in my plan. Because he won’t sleep with me if he thinks I’m only giving in for his benefit.

“You can’t find it, can you?” I say and graze my mouth across his chin.

He moves his hands from my waist and explores my face with his fingertips, kissing each spot where his fingers have touched. My jawline. My cheeks. The little hollow spot above my upper lip. The hidden one below the bottom lip.

He looks deeply into my eyes. “No…I can’t find it,” he whispers and his arms wrap around my back, pressing me fully into the heat of his chest. I see the stars flip up in my vision as Isaac turns me over and lies on top of me in the sand. I let my legs fall away, giving him access between them. Still fully clothed he presses himself against me and when I feel just how much he wants me, my thighs tremble, the inside of my chest pained with tiny quivers all the way down into my stomach and my hips.

He moans against my mouth. The more forcibly I kiss him back and press myself hungrily into him, the deeper and more abrasive the moans reverberate through his body.

But just when I let myself believe that I’m seconds away from the fate of my virginity, Isaac buries his face between my neck and shoulder and I feel the weight of his body ease from mine in a way that can only indicate refusal.

“Adria,” he says from above, my cheeks resting in his palms, “I’m not going to do this to you. I can’t.”

My tears quickly burn their way to the surface, but I choke them down. I know deep down that his refusal isn’t because he doesn’t want me as much as I want him, but it still hurts as much as rejection and I’m too humiliated and confused and angry to look at him.

“I love you…so much…but I can’t do this….” It took everything in him to say it. The pain in his eyes is unmistakable, but this time I can’t stay to try and make it better. I push myself out from underneath him and storm away back toward the house, leaving Isaac alone on the beach.

19

I WAKE UP THE NEXT morning entangled underneath the sheets with him; the sliding glass door Isaac must’ve left open all night for me because I can smell the salty ocean heavily on the air and hear the waves licking the shore and the call of early morning seagulls making their rounds. I feel the breeze, too, brushing gently through my hair, cooling my face.

Prying my eyes open the rest of the way, I squint as the sunlight floods the basement, spilling out over everything except for the couch bed where we’re curled up together. Isaac, feeling my movements, tightens his arm around my stomach as I lay with my back against him. Normally, the first thing I do when we wake up like this is roll over to face him, kiss him and force him awake the rest of the way by tickling him and poking him.

But not this time.

I don’t roll over to see him sleeping, or wonder if he’s already awake, only pretending to be sleeping so he can hold onto various body parts and not get blamed for it. I love his harmless little quirks. But I guess I’m not the only one of us that knows this morning is different from the rest and so he doesn’t do any of that. And while I miss it, I don’t want him to do it.

We spend the rest of our time in Portland together, always together, but there’s an obvious distance between us. And everyone else sees it, too.

I love Isaac with everything in me, but I don’t know what else I can do to show him at this point. And I think the feeling of being rejected by him, for whatever reason, has hurt worse than I ever imagined it would. It hurts because I was more ready than ever, because my heart was fully in it. But mostly because I have come to terms with what has happened to me and that it won’t be much longer before I can’t give myself to him at all. Because I won’t know who I am. I won’t know a damn thing about anything!

I was ready. And he took that away from me.

I can’t be mad at him, just disappointed and embarrassed.

Zia is constantly over my shoulder, trying to pry the tiniest bit of information out of me, but I’m not talking about any of this to anyone. Not even Harry, who has pulled me off to the side once already, asking what happened.

On the ride back to Hallowell, Daisy sits behind me, playing with my hair and whispering things in my ear about how much her brother loves me and that no matter what happened, she can tell just by looking at him that he’s hurting pretty bad.

But I can’t tell her anything, either.

We pull up into my driveway and Aunt Bev is sitting out on the porch with Uncle Carl in his wheelchair, two glasses of iced tea between them on the little round table.

I try to smile as if everything is as great as it was when I left and I guess I’m pulling it off because Beverlee doesn’t seem to detect anything different. I hug her and Uncle Carl before heading upstairs with Isaac carrying my bags for me.

He closes my bedroom door after setting the bags on the floor.

“What’s on your mind, love?” he says.

I get the duffle bag next to him and toss it on the bed, pulling everything out of it just to be doing something. I still can barely look him directly in the eyes. I just feel so stupid.

“Nothing really,” I say, tossing my dirty clothes from the bag into the laundry basket by the closet.

“You must hate me,” he says and I stop what I’m doing and look over at him.

“I could never hate you.” My chest shudders lightly. “It’s not your fault anyway. It’s mine.”

I’m not sure what I’m saying, because I honestly don’t know which of us is at fault. All I do know right now is that I don’t want him feeling wounded for something that he shouldn’t.

I’m the one lying to him. I’m the one keeping so many secrets and I’m the one he falsely believes wholeheartedly is his and his alone. I don’t believe anymore that he knows about the Blood Bond. If he knew, he would be taking care of me in the ways I need to be taken care of.

I know he would. I don’t doubt this anymore.

I should’ve just told the truth when I had planned to, but now I’m back to being afraid and ashamed of the truth. Afraid to tell him that Viktor is alive, of breaking his heart not once, when he realizes how unloving his father is, but twice, when he learns what Viktor did to me.

Yes, I should’ve told him when I had the courage.

So, I guess all of this really is on me. It is my fault and I can’t let Isaac stand there for a second longer feeling that any part of it is his. I can’t be mad at him because he didn’t want to have sex with me. I know he’s worried because I’ve not been in my right mind lately that he would feel like he’s taking advantage of me—I’m the one being selfish! I could have an a**hole boyfriend that didn’t care about something like that. But that’s not Isaac. He would never hurt me like that.

I go over to him and hug him, letting my head fall against his body. He squeezes me so tight. “I could never hate you,” I say again, but with more urgency. “You’re everything to me and I’ll love you until I…,” I swallow, still holding back the tears, “…until I can’t anymore.” They weren’t the words I wanted to say.

“We’ll get through this,” he says pulling me away from his chest to look at me, his hands braced against the sides of my neck, his fingers spread to touch my face. “Nathan’s going to be at the store tonight and hopefully he’ll see Genna there.” He smiles briefly, but then it fades and becomes something dark. “And if he can’t fix this the easy way then I’ll do it the hard way.”

I don’t like the sound of that and instantly my guard goes up. “What is the hard way, Isaac?” But already I know what he’s going to say.

“I’ll kill her if I have to. You know I will.”

My breath catches and I feel my body tense up. I shake my head disapprovingly. “But Nathan said—”

“I don’t care what Nathan said.” His bright blue eyes seem to churn with resolve. “I will do whatever I have to in order to protect you. I don’t care from who, or what.”

A single tear escapes down my cheek and Isaac kisses it away. “You have to know that.” He crushes me against him, enveloped in his arms and I can’t help but feel like those last words held so much more meaning than what I know. The intensity in his voice was so resolute, so pleading.

“Tell me that you believe it,” he says, still holding me close.

“I do believe you,” I say. “I do.”

Beverlee’s voice travels up the stairs. Isaac and I let go of each other as she knocks once first before opening the door to let us know she doesn’t want to catch us in an awkward moment.

“How was your trip?” she says.

Isaac buries his hands in his pockets.

“We had a lot of fun,” I say. “Went to that lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth and hung out Downtown a lot. It was great.”