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The night air clung to your skin like cellophane as the humidity hung thick in the air.
You made your way slowly through the woods, looking through the trees and marsh for any sign you were heading in the right direction. The forest was familiar to you, though you had never been there before, and it didn't take you long to find the way forward.
He was close. You could feel it tingle across your skin, his presence growing stronger in your mind with each step you took. The further in you went the more the feeling grew, until you could swear you felt his breath on your shoulder. Your hand moved on instinct, covering the scar that lingered on your neck.
At last, you found what you were looking for. An abandoned house, deep in the Mississippi marshland.
The door creaked open, years of decay causing the wood to bend and rot. Inside was a single room, lit by a solitary candle. The light danced as it flickered, painting shadows across the walls. From the darkness, you see red eyes reflecting back at you.
"So your finally back, eh darlin'?" Remmick asked as his eyes roamed up and down your body.
"You knew I would be," you replied softly.
You moved closer, your eyes seeing clearly in the dark. You looked across his face, down his chest, checking for any lingering signs of damage.
He smiled, "Now don't you worry sweetheart; I'm all better, I promise."
You scowled, "Who said I was worried?" you asked defensively.
"You did," he replied simply. He put his hand out, beckoning for you to come to him. You hesitated, then slowly slipped your hand into his. The ring on your left hand shined in the candlelight as Remmick pulled you forward. You moved to sit on his lap, your thighs straddling his as one hand moved to your leg, the other still holding your hand as he admired the ring on your finger with a gentle gaze.
You stared at him, his face just as handsome as you remembered. You ran your hand over the right side of his face, your fingers sliding up to run through his brown locks.
"I'm sorry about that darlin'—musta been a real shock for you, feelin' that kinda pain all of a sudden."
"The further away I am, the less I feel it," you said, your hand sliding down to his chest, "I knew it must've been bad, if I could feel so much from so far away."
Remmick smiled, showing his fangs, "So you thought you'd come down and make sure I wasn't six feet under?"
"I knew you weren't."
His hand slide from your hand to your arm. It roamed high until it stopped at the exposed skin of your neck. His thumb rubbed lightly on the scar, a permanent reminder that you belonged to him.
"I missed you," he said, his voice soft. His hand moved from your neck up to cradle your jaw.
Your chest ached.
This was just like before.
The further away you were from him, the more in control you became. His thoughts and feelings didn't feed into you when you were a thousand miles away, but this close they nearly overwhelmed you.
It's why you had left.
You wanted him. You loved him. You missed him: But how much of that was you, and how much of it was what he wanted you to be?
"I," you hesitated, your eyes moving away from his. His thumb rubbed lightly against the smooth skin of your jaw, a smile on his face.
"Now, no need to fight it darlin'," his hand slid to the back of your neck, pulling you closer to him.
He was right; you couldn't fight it even if you wanted to. His voice was in your head, and his gaze was on your face. You saw yourself through his eyes, felt his feelings as he stared. And if you couldn't be certain of anything else, you knew that he loved you.
You leaned forward, your lips meeting his. His hand moved from you chin to tangle in you hair. Your grip on his chest tightened as you dug your fingers into his shirt.
You had missed him. You could have been on the other side of the world and you still would have missed him. You loved him; whether that was because of your bond or not didn't matter.
Not now that you were back in his arms.
His free arm snaked around your waist, pulling you in closer, breath mingling as you kissed each other as if it had been a century since you last touched.
Because it nearly had been.
You had always been surprised he chose to let you go, and even more that he had never come looking for you.
You broke apart, your pupils just as red as his as you stared back at him. He smiled, brushing a lock of hair from your face.
"I never had to go lookin'; I always knew you'd come back to me."
"How could you possibly have been sure? I didn't even know," you asked, your lips lingering just above his.
He smirked, lightly bumping his nose against yours, "I don't have to see your mind to know your heart."
He was right. He didn't.
From the moment he stepped off that ship and laid his eyes on you he knew exactly what your future would look like. He smiled softly as he watched you through your window that first night, knowing one day you would agree to be by his side forever.
The first beautiful thing he ever saw in this new world, and he knew you were destined to be his.
At first, he took his time getting close to you He wanted you to know, undoubtedly, that your feelings were yours when the time came. And for awhile, you had.
You knew the first time you kissed him under the stars that the swelling in your chest must be love. When he told you the truth about what he was, you held on tighter because you were certain losing him was scarier than the monster he claimed to be. And when you agreed to be his wife, you did so knowing there was nothing in life worth living if you couldn't live it with him.
Your first kiss as husband and wife was your last kiss as a human, and that night you were truly bonded body and soul to him for eternity.
But eternity is a long time.
The further away a memory gets, the harder it is to be sure about anything you remember. Through the years, as you watched him use and abandon others, you began to look back at those early memories in a different light. You started to question what you remembered, and how you remembered it.
Had you loved him, or had he just been manipulating you from the start? When he told you the truth about what he was, had he really told you the full story? When you agreed to be his, had it ever really been your choice?
Time stretched your memories thin, melding them with his until it became too difficult to decipher him from you. It began to eat at you, night after night, as you wondered if you sold your soul for a beautiful lie.
So one night, you left.
You hadn't said anything to him—there was no need. He had know the day was coming before even you had, sensing your growing unease and worry as the years went on.
He could have stopped you, if he had wanted to; you knew that just as well as he did.
He didn't even try, choosing instead to let you go without asking you to reconsider.
He hadn't wanted you gone, but he understood that you needed to leave. You needed to get out there and feel on your own, away from the smothering cloud of his millennia of thoughts and feelings and memories. You needed to detach yourself from him, so you could see that all you had felt those centuries before had been real.
So when you left, he never worried you wouldn't return.
It didn't matter how far away you got, or how long you were gone; he always knew you would be back. He knew because he felt it the moment you walked away. He felt it the first time you smiled at him, and the moment your eyes had met through the clouded glass of your window that night 200 years before.
He didn't know when, or how, or why; but he knew you would be back some day.
And he had been right.
You sat in his lap, wrapped in his arms as you kissed him like he could disappear at any moment. You were his again just like he always knew you would be.
"I love you, Remmick," you muttered softly against his lips, and he smiled.
Because you were his, and you always would be.