Modern Day (One year after the events of Belle Morte.)

I sat on the winter-hardened ground in the gardens of Belle Morte, and stared at my sister's grave. A year had passed since she died, and there was still no headstone – neither me or Mum could find the right one or the right words to put on it. Instead, the place where the headstone should be was marked out by smooth white pebbles that Ysanne had provided at my request. A large bouquet of pink roses was propped against the pebbles; I didn't need to check the plastic-sealed card to know that they were from Mum.

"I miss you so much," I whispered.

I pressed my hand to the cold ground, flattening the frost-stiffened blades of grass. The white pebbles gleamed under the moonlight, and above the grave, the great oak tree looked like a shadowy hand, clutching at the sky.

Footsteps sounded softly behind me, and I knew it was Edmond without needing to look.

"How has it been a whole year already?" I asked, as he sat beside me.

Edmond took my hand – the one currently sporting the emerald engagement ring he'd given me at Christmas.

"I don't even know if this is the right day to call the anniversary of her death," I said, staring at the grave.

I'd initially considered this her anniversary because, twelve months ago, it was the night that I'd finally put her out of her misery and ended her rabid life. But the sister that I'd known and loved had died weeks before, at the hands of Etienne, the man I'd once considered a friend. Before he'd betrayed me and I'd cut off his head in revenge.

"You hoped longer than any of us that she could be saved, so for you, this is the right anniversary," Edmond said.

The velvet richness of his voice, that faded French lilt that I loved so much was like a warm blanket settling over my shoulders.

"I miss her so much that it feels like a physical ache, right here," I said, touching the place where my heart no longer beat. "But I'm so angry too." Tears pricked my eyes. "I'm angry at the role she played in all this. She must have known that Etienne would hurt people to get what he wanted, and she helped him anyway. I'm angry that there's so much about her that I obviously didn't know, and I'm angry at her for being capable of things that I never imagined she would be."

Emotion knotted up my throat, making it hard to speak.

"And I'm angry at myself for being angry with her, because what good does it do now? She's dead. She's never coming back. The man she loved, the man she was willing to sacrifice everything for – he's dead too, at my hands."

Edmond said nothing, just listened.

"Do you know what one of the worst parts is?" I continued. "In some ways, I feel like it's actually better that she's dead, because this way I don't ever have to confront her for what she did. It's easier to think of June my sister and June the rabid as two separate people, but if she'd lived, if she'd become a normal vampire instead of a rabid, I would have had to face the reality of who she was and what she was willing to do. And I don't know if I'd have been strong enough for that. But what kind of person is glad that their sister died?"

"You're not glad that she died. You're glad that you never had to see someone you loved standing on the opposite side of a battle-line in the sand. That's not the same thing," Edmond said.

"Isn't it?"

"No. You will never stop loving June, but that doesn't change your anger at the choices she made. You could have blamed Etienne for her actions. You could have said he manipulated her, and to an extent, he did. But June still made her own choices, however bad they were. It's natural to feel angry and betrayed about something like that. It's natural to feel some measure of relief that you never had to confront her over it," Edmond insisted. His thumb stroked the back of my hand.

"Will I ever not feel angry?" It came out as a whisper.

"I don't know, mon ange."

"Do you still feel angry about stuff that happened to you in the past? Charlotte, for example?" I asked.

A gust of wind whisked raven-black strands of Edmond's hair across his face while he considered my question.

"What I feel about Charlotte is . . . not anger, as such, but betrayal. Even hundreds of years after it happened, it still hurt to know that someone I had loved enough to be completely honest with, hated me enough to want me dead."

"But you don't feel angry that she did it?"

"Not anymore, no."

"But it took you a long time to get to that point."

"Oui."

The branches of the oak tree clacked like bones overhead. A year ago, I'd become convinced – thanks to Etienne – that Ysanne had murdered June and buried her beneath this tree. But when Edmond had helped me dig it up, there had been nothing but animal remains. Now, June really was buried here, and the memory of that day – digging at the frozen ground until I'd ripped the skin from my fingers – clashed with the reality of this night until my chest felt tight and painful.

"I don't want to be angry with her," I whispered.

"You can't help how you feel. Emotions are complicated, and sometimes you have to let them run their course, how matter how long it takes. I do believe that, one day, you'll realise you're not angry at her anymore. You'll always love her and miss her, but you'll have let go of everything else."

"Sometimes I still forget she's really gone. I'll see something funny on social media, or Jason will tell me a dirty joke, and I'll think that I need to text that to June, but then I remember that I can't. Every time it happens it's so fucking painful, but I'm scared that it'll hurt worse when it stops happening, when she's been gone for so long that I'll never forget she's not here."

"I know it sounds cliched, but it does get easier. The pain won't necessarily go away, but it will become more manageable. A hundred years from now, you'll probably still cry on her birthday, or when you recall a favourite memory, but the pain becomes more of a blunt ache than a sharp edge," Edmond told me.

I leaned against him and he kissed the top of my head.

"I've never lost anyone before. My dad abandoned us when we were both too young to remember him, and I was only six when my grandparents died, so I don't have many memories of them. This is all new to me." A shudder rolled over me. "But I guess it's something I'll have to get used to. I'm immortal now, so I'll have to watch all the humans I care about die."

"That's a burden that humans have to carry as well. No one is safe from grief and loss."

I sat up a little straighter as something occurred to me. "Do you think my dad even knows that June's dead?"

"I imagine so. He'd have to have been living under a rock to miss the media storm that followed Etienne and Jemima's coup."

"Not everyone watches the news."

"Did your mother try to contact him?" Edmond asked.

"She couldn't even if she wanted to. When he left, he didn't tell her where he was going or leave her a contact number. He could be anywhere in the world by now. He could be dead himself." A fresh spark of anger ignited in my chest. "If he does know, he never tried to contact us, and it would be easy since the whole world knows I live at Belle Morte. Even if that had been kept secret, my mum's lived at the same address all my life. My dad could have gone back there. The reality is that he didn't want us when we were alive, and he doesn't care now that we're dead."

"Do you miss him?" Edmond asked softly.

"No. He's the one who missed out, not me."

Edmond smiled. "I very much concur."

"How much do you remember of your dad?"

His smile faded. "Not enough. I don't remember how old I was when he died, but I think I was about seven or eight. I can't bring his face to mind anymore, but I still remember his laugh."

"Was he a good dad?"

"I suspect what counted as a good father back in the 1600s may be different than what counts as one now, but I don't remember anything bad about him."

I couldn't keep a smile from creeping across my lips. "It's weird to think of you having parents."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. You're this gorgeous, elusive, famous vampire, and it's just hard to picture you as ever being anything else. I can't imagine you with human parents."

"Can I tell you something?" said Edmond, leaning in so that his lips brushed my ear in that way that made me shiver. "Sometimes I can't picture it either."

"Really?"

He nodded. "I was just a child when my father died, and only sixteen when the plague took the rest of my family. Five years later I became a vampire. I know I was human once, but I've been a vampire for so long that it sometimes seems as though my human life was a dream."

"It feels shitty to admit it, but sometimes I forget that you know how it feels to lose siblings," I said.

He rarely talked about them, but Edmond had once had a brother and two sisters, whose bodies had ended up in a plague pit, along with his mother and the girl he'd planned to marry.

"That's not shitty. They've been dead for centuries, and like I said, sometimes that part of my life feels so distant that it's like it never really happened."

I leaned up to kiss him. "I love you," I whispered against his mouth.

"Et je t'aime," Edmond said. "Are you ready to go back inside?"

I stared at June's grave for a few moments longer, and then I held out my hand to Edmond. He helped me to my feet, and tucked a flyaway bit of hair behind my ear.

"I need to start thinking about a headstone," I said, as we started back toward Belle Morte.

"I'd offer to help, but I feel like this is something that you and your mother need to do."

"Yeah, you're right. I'll call her tomorrow."

Edmond paused outside the back door that led into the mansion that had become my home. "Don't ever feel ashamed for how you're feeling," he told me. "When it comes to grief, some days will always be harder than others, but I told you once that if you fell apart, I would help put you back together, and I meant every word." He lifted my hand and kissed it, his lips touching my engagement ring. "You're going to be my wife, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

Wife.

It sounded so strange when I heard it out-loud. I'd always thought that, if I ever did get married, it wouldn't be until my thirties, and now that seemed like a strange assumption. People got married when they fell in love, not when they reached an arbitrary decade of life.

I tangled my fingers in Edmond's silky hair, and pulled his head down for a long kiss. "I can't wait," I said.

Edmond smiled. "Neither can I."