Juliet Immortal

ONE
    V ERONA , I TALY , 1304
    T onight, he could have come through the door—the castello is quiet, even the servants asleep in their beds, and Nurse would have let him in—but he chooses the window, climbing through the tangle of night flowers, carrying petals in on his clothes.
    He stumbles on a loose stone and falls to the floor, grinning as I rush to meet him.
    He is a romantic, a dreamer, and never afraid to play the fool. He is fearless and reckless and brave and I love him for it.
Desperately
. Love for him steals my breath away, makes me feel I am dying and being reborn every time I look into his eyes or run trembling fingers through his brown curls.
    I love him for the way he sprawls on the freshly scrubbedstones, strong legs flexing beneath his hose, as if there is no cause for worry, as if we have not broken every rule and do not face banishment from the only homes we have ever known. I love him for the way he finds my hand, presses it to his smooth cheek, inhaling as if my skin smells sweeter than the petals clinging to his coat. I love him for the way he whispers my name, “Juliet”—a prayer for deliverance, a promise of pleasure, a vow that all this sweet
everything
he is to me will be forever.
    Forever and always.
    Despite our parents, and our prince, and the blood spilled in the plaza. Despite the fact that we have little money and fewer friends and our once-shining futures are clouded and dim.
    “Tell me that tomorrow will never come.” He pulls me to the floor beside him, cradling me on his lap, hand curling over my hip in a way it has not before. Heat flares from the tips of his fingers, spreading through me, reminding me I will soon be his wife in every way. Every touch is sanctified. Everything we will do tonight is meant to be, a celebration of the vows we have made and the love that consumes us.
    I drop my lips to his. Joy bleeds from his mouth to mine and I sigh the lie into the fire of him. “It will never come.”
    “Tell me that I will always be here in this room. Alone with you. And that you will always be the most beautiful girl in the world.” His hands are at the ties on the back of my dress, slow and patient, slipping each ribbon through its loop with a deliberate flick of his fingers.
    No urgent, shame-filled fumbling in the dark for us. He is steady and sure, and every candle shines bright, the better to see the tenderness in his eyes, to be more certain with everypassing moment that this is no youthful mistake. This is love. Real. Magnificent. Eternal.
    “Always,” I whisper, so full of adoration the emotion borders on worship. A part of me feels that to love so is sacrilege, but I do not care. There is nothing in the world but Romeo. For the rest of my life, he is the god at whose feet I will kneel.
    His cheek presses to mine, his warm breath in my ear making mine come faster. “Juliet … you are …”
    I am his goddess. I can feel it in the way he shudders as my fingers come to the buttons of his cotehardie and pluck them from their holes, one by one, revealing the thin linen of the shirt beneath.
    “You are everything,” he says, eyes shining. “Everything.”
    And I know that I am. I am his moon, and his brightly shining star. I am his life, his heart. I am all that and the answer to every unspoken question, the comfort for every hurt, the companion who will walk beside him from now until the end of our lives, reveling in the bliss of each simple chore done in his name, overflowing with beauty because I am blessed to spend my life with my love.
    My love, my love, my love
. I could hear the words a thousand times and never grow tired of them. Not ever.
    “Forever,” I whisper into the hot skin at his neck, sighing as the last tie holding my dress to my body falls away.

TWO
    S OLVANG , C ALIFORNIA , P RESENT D AY
    D ying is easy. It’s coming back that hurts like hell.
    “Oh …” I press my hands to my forehead, where hot, tacky liquid pours from a cut above my eyebrow.
    There is a lot of blood this time. Blood on my hands, smeared onto the dashboard, dripping through my fingers onto my jeans, leaving black spots I can see in the dim moonlight shining through the car’s glass sunroof. It’s messy, frightening, but, amazingly, the accident hasn’t killed her. Killed
me
.
    Me, now. Her, sometime again soon, depending on how long it takes to ensure the safety of the soul mates I’ve been sent to protect. Or how long it takes Romeo to convince one