I stood between him and his distracted glare. "David?"

"Hm?" He managed to look at me this time.

"I know there's something wrong. What is it?"

"Nothing."

"That's not nothing."

"Well, it's nothing that needs discussing right now."

Above us, the dark grey clouds closed in, swallowing the last smudge of blue left in the sky, making the sudden dread in my gut go deeper. "So?" I closed my eyes for a second, pushing the swell of worry aside. "Are we going to the island, or are we gonna stand here and get incredibly wet?"

He looked up at the sky. "Perhaps we should go home. I'm not sure even the island can contain that storm."

I hugged myself, shivering a little as dots of rain fell over my bare shoulders.

"You cold?" David asked, rubbing my arm.

I nodded. "I can feel the autumn coming on."

"And so follows the winter," he said absently, his shoulders dropping. "Come on then."

My hand linked with his. "Home?"

"No. The island. Never know when it might be our last chance to go back there."

"I'll always go back there-even when you're not with me anymore."

His nose and chin stayed pointed at the island, while his eyes slowly drifted onto me, narrowing, the question on his mind a breath away from his lips. But I squealed, my arms flailing out in an octopus manner when he bent down and scooped me up.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting us to the island faster."

"Oh. Crap!" I buried my face in his neck, my teeth making a cage as the forces of gravity tried to hold me down under the vampire's need for speed. It felt kind of like going upside down on a roller coaster, gravity pushing at my head, compressing my arms and legs, possibly trying to cube me.

We stopped abruptly and my gut kept going as my feet touched the ground. I folded over, feeling heat rush into my cheeks and ears.

"You gonna be sick?" David laughed.

"I'm okay." I reached up and grabbed his arm, using it to steady myself. "I'm okay."

"Just take slow breaths. It'll ease off."

I nodded, rolling to a stand under the majesty of our secret little island. Even if I was about to puke, the cool cave of foliage stole my thoughts enough to make me forget how fast I'd just travelled, and the fruity tingle of wild flowers filled my senses, making it easier to breathe.

"Better now?" David asked.

"Yeah. Better."

"Good."

In my peripheral, a vibrant purple petal caught my eye; I turned to David and smiled.

"For you," he said, tucking my hair back with the flower.

"You know, I still have the one you gave me here last time."

"I know," he said, sliding his hand down my arm to take my hand. "Ara?"

"Mm?" I tore my eyes away from the canopy-the way the gaps in the leaves, if I looked only at the grey behind them, looked like blurry, floating lanterns.

"I need to tell you something." As our eyes met, a flash of sadness turned his pale green. "Something which, I'm afraid to say, is not good news."

"Okay." My small voice trembled.

"I told you I'd warn you when it was time for me to leave?"

My stomach sunk; I bit my bottom lip.

"Well...the-" his voice steadied with a chest-lifting breath, his gaze fixing on my lips, rising up to my eyes. "The time has come."

"No."

"I've been called to return to duty."

"What? When?"

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks? But, that's not enough time. How can I-how can you expect me to..." I fought several arguments with him in my head, not winning any of them. "No, you can't do this. You have to tell them no."

"That's not the worst part, Ara." He took another deep breath. "In that two weeks, I am expected to operate the Set from the New York offices. I will only be able to see you at night."

"Night? Two weeks? And that's it? For forever?"

"Unless you change your mind and become a vampire," he said in a low, dry tone.

"David. I can't make a decision like that in two weeks. How can you possibly expect me to-"

"Because you have to, Ara!" He looked at me long enough to see the hurt infect my face. "The time is now. Like it or not. You have to choose. When the full moon rises in a fortnight, I will be boarding a train and leaving for Le Chateau de la Mort-with or without you beside me."

"You can't do this to me. Mike's here for the next two weeks. How am I going to choose between life and immortality while he's distracting me?" I wiped fat raindrops off my shoulder, moving out from under the giant leaf collecting them. "Can't you reason with them? Can't you do something?"

"Ara. You don't understand the ways of the Set. I've been ordered to return by the head of the World Council-the king, for God's sake. One does not refuse an order from the king."

"But-"

"Look." He dropped his head with a dejected breath. "Two weeks to get my affairs in order was a generous courtesy. He needn't have offered that at all."

"Why? Are you in trouble?"

"In ways." He looked up at the leaf above us and grabbed my hand, leading me to the shelter of a larger tree. "The man I entrusted to run things in my absence has proven less than reliable. I must return and pull things into line."

"But you have a life here. What about school and-"

"The Set do not care! It's a part of being on the Council. I knew this when I joined; I accepted that with all of its glory and all of its responsibility. I must leave. That is all there is to it."

The pattering of rain filled the silence in around us while it all sunk in. "But, what will I do without you-how will I get through the days?"

"Something tells me you'll be fine." He smiled conceitedly, shaking his head once.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"David?" I demanded, stepping closer.

He stared at the ground. "I was listening last night. When you spoke to Emily and Alana-about Mike."

Oh no. My lips parted for some kind of explanation, but only air came out.

"That's what happened? Wasn't it?" He looked back at me. "The reason you were crying the night you asked your mom to pick you up? The night she-"

"Yes," I whispered.

"I'm so sorry, Ara." He gripped the back of my head and pulled me into him, squishing my cheek against his warm, soggy cotton shirt. "He was a fool to turn you down."

"No, he was probably smart."

David leaned back a little and cupped my face delicately in his hands. "I guess that explains your over-analysing when I wouldn't kiss you. I'm sorry. If I had known-"

"It's not your fault. You did the right thing. Better to feel undesirable for a few days than to be dead, right?" I laughed a short release of tension.

"Do you love him?"

"Who?"

"Mike."

"I-" My eyes drifted past David's to nothing in particular.

"S'il te plait, mon amour, tell me the truth. It will hurt more if you lie."

"I..." New tears came for a new kind of pain: betrayal, unrequited love, the loss of a friend. I hadn't cried for Mike yet, and I needed to so badly.

I closed my eyes, and a tight cramp twisted my heart. If Mike had loved me that night, I wouldn't be here. But he didn't, and now I had David-only to lose him, too.

"I love you more than I love him."

David stiffened, straightening away from me. "But he's better for you. You can live with him-die with him."

"But he doesn't love me, David."

"You lied to me," he said coldly.

"I know." My eyes closed involuntarily. "I'm sorry. I know I told you once that I don't love him. It's just that-I'm really confused." I looked at him; he looked away. "When Mike rejected me, I locked all the feelings I have for him deep inside. I felt so damn stupid. I didn't even want to admit them to myself." I touched a hand to my chest, my words a breathless whisper. "I was just trying to forget it happened." I searched for compassion in David's eyes, but only a hard man glared down at me, his jaw stiff. Everything around me felt cold; the air, my arms, my face, even my heart.

"Perhaps, with this information coming to light, we no longer need our last two weeks together."

"David. No," I said, grabbing his arm, but my words disappeared under a roll of thunder. "It doesn't have to be this way. We-we can work it out-"

"There's nothing to work out. You love Mike, and you don't want immortality."

"I never said that. Please, we can make our own future. I believe in magic still. I believe there's hope for us-for our lives, tog-"

"Shh." He placed a finger over my lips and brought his face down to align our eyes. "No, Ara, my love. It is all too clear to me now. I have to be the strong one, for both of us-" he dropped his finger, "-and you have to be the one that goes on. You must go on, have babies, beautiful babies, and be happy-live that dream."

"Don't you get it, David?" I shook my head, my eyes still, watering. "You're the only dream I want to live."

"Precisely. Live. You've been waiting for me to tell you I'll stay, that all of this is some nightmare. But, my love-" His eyes softened, a hundred years of sadness flaming within them. "It's not."

I managed one syllable before the smoke of his words stung my eyes, forcing the volcanic eruption of blubbering.

"Don't cry, sweetheart. I love you, and you will always belong to me. But I can't keep lying to myself, believing you'll change your mind."

"But, maybe I will."

He shook his head again. "Even then, it would only be to save me from eternal solitude. And for that reason, I just can't take your dreams away. Your human life is your greatest gift and my greatest sacrifice."

I sniffled, wiping my hand over my nose. "It doesn't have to be that way."

"It does, my love. Look-" He pointed to a blue and black butterfly, dancing in the shelter of a silky leaf. "You see, you're much like that butterfly."

"How?"

He wrapped both arms around my waist from behind, tucking his chin against my shoulder. "She started her life in the shadows, close to the ground. She lived and existed only as others saw her; a caterpillar, nothing more. Then, one day, she bloomed into a beautiful, brightly-winged creature-so free, so pure. Something she could never have been had someone taken her away.

"Her life is short in comparison to most. But she will live each moment, flying, spreading her beauty, her life through the tree tops, so that when her existence comes to an end, as the sun goes down on her final day, her spirit will go on, and there will always be a beautiful butterfly to carry on her name." David kissed the top of my ear, smoothing his hands against the skin on my belly just under my top. "I love you, and your spirit will go on. As long as you have happiness, I have everything I will ever desire."

"But what will you do without me?"

"I am the rain." He looked up at the sky; I looked too. "I exist each clouded day whether the butterfly flies or falls. A human life is but only a blink in the eye of eternity. I will go on when you are gone, I will have no choice."

"Go on, or move on?"

His arms tightened around me. "I will never move on. The pain I will feel for eternity without you is a sacrifice I am willing to make to save you from forever longing, wishing you'd been given the chance to live. I owe that to you-" He nodded once. "For the love I feel-I owe that to you."