I had the wonderful mispleasure of running into a cult.

Wonderful because maybe they would actually succeed in killing me. Wonderful because maybe they would actually succeed in stealing my immortality from me.

I call it a mispleasure because I wasn't ready to die yet. I finally have something that made me want to live for another forty years.

The one who has managed to capture my affections made even the thought of losing him to old age, to disease, bearable.

After all, it meant that I had something more to focus my attention on than leeching this curse out of my body.

I stumble along the uneven stones, the chains that they had secured me with clanging ominously. If only they hadn't realized that the ropes weren't as tight as they thought.

It smells dank down here, the air a combination of stale water, mouse droppings, and heady incense. The hood shoved over my head tastes of sweat and blood.

"It figures it was a bonny lass like her that we'd have been looking for all along," the deep rumbling voice of the one I call Ox says. "All that time looking for a pale-skinned lad, and she was hiding under our noses the entire time."

My feet slip, and I manage to stifle my cry as sharp pieces of cobble penetrate deep into my knees. My body is still too new to pain while my mind remembers it well.

"She won't be a bonny lass for long," the skinny one, Snake for his shifty eyes, laughs, and I feel his cold slimy hands yank me to my feet.

As he prods me forward, I hear the familiar laugh of Mouse, the bartender who had hired me. I had thought him a kind and honest man, but he had proven me wrong once I had been ambushed.

I wasn't even supposed to be working this night. One of the other women had been forced to her bed by an illness, and Mouse had had me come in.

Then his wonderful friends had taken me out as soon as I walked out the back door and trussed me up like I was dinner.

Which from what I can hear of their conversation, I basically am.

I stumble again, but this time, my palms find a floor of dirt. The three men don't bother picking me up; one of them takes hold of the chains on my wrists and drags me.

When the hood is yanked off, I find myself in a dim, candle-lit room. Mouse is standing over me with a sneer cutting across his face.

"Get up, Tanya," he says, and the sound of my name on his lips sends a cold shiver down my spine.

"No," I answer defiantly, wishing I could cross my arms.

There is no second chance for me to refuse as the other two pick me up and haul me kicking and screaming onto a wooden table.

Snake backhands me hard across the face, the sting of it as cold as his hands. "Shut your little mouth, lass."

"I hope you all die with me!" I snap, hating that it was these men deciding how I was going to die. "I hope you choke on my blood and whatever and die!"

Ox chuckles, and another chill runs over my body. "Little lass, in order to leech your immortality from you, we must die."

Bitterly, I manage to silence the part of me that wants to run and close my eyes. Like all those other times I have died, I shut down, resigning myself to the fact that this is going to hurt.

Moments pass as the trio prepares themselves: the long scrape of a knife being sharpened, the thud of a bowl, and the soft sound of a blade ripping through flesh.

Wait, what?

"Tanya!" Duncan's familiar voice calls, and I open my eyes as I struggle to sit up.

Ox is lying face-down on the floor, blood pooling beneath him, as my love fends off the other two.

He's never looked more dazzling than in the candlelight, sword and knife gleaming. His russet hair is falling out of his queue to frame his ocean-blue eyes.

"Tanya, some help would be wonderful, lass," he says before flinging his knife at Snake's forehead.

It pierces between his shifty eyes and the force pulls him backwards.

Unfortunately, while I am staring down at the bodies, I hear Duncan's strangled cry.

In my haste to get to him, I forget about my chains and fall inelegantly off the table. I give up on trying to get my legs underneath me and crawl towards where he's curled next to Mouse's dying body.

"Duncan," I whisper, watching blood leak through the hands pressed against his side. "Oh, Duncan."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asks, pain starting to cloud his eyes along with a look I know well. "Why didn't you tell me that you were immortal?"

A tear trickles down my cheek, and he reaches a bloodied hand up to wipe it away.

"I could have helped you. I love you, Tanya."

A shuddering sob erupts from my mouth, and I know we only have a few more moments together. With every emotion I wish I could express to him: hope, sorrow, suppressed secrets, I press my lips to his.

"I love you, Duncan," I mutter once I realize that he's no longer with me. "You saved me. You gave me purpose. One day, I will find a way to be with you again."

Gently, I smooth back that russet hair, kiss his rapidly cooling lips once more, and shut his eyes.

"Goodbye, my only love," I murmur to that room before turning around and leaving him there among the fading glow of candles.