Ysanne

They didn't talk about it for the rest of the day, and when night came, and Edmond drifted off to sleep, Ysanne slipped out of the bed and tiptoed upstairs to what had once been her bedroom.

"Richart," she whispered.

She spoke to him rather than Julien because her feelings for Julien were still all tangled and knotted inside her. His loss was still too raw.

"I'm so confused," she said, turning in a slow circle in the space where their bed had been. "I see the way Edmond looks at me, and I can't pretend that I don't feel something for him, too. But I came here to say goodbye to Julien, not to offer up my heart to someone else. It's too soon. What do I do?"

Silence.

"Even if I had said my final goodbyes to Julien, how can I ever risk loving another human? You are too fragile, you break too easily, and you always leave me. Edmond will leave me too."

She waited, as if expecting an answer, then she shook her head.

"You fool," she quietly chided herself. "Asking a dead man for answers."

She tried to picture Richart in that moment, tried to imagine what he would say, but the scraps of memory blurred together, slipping through her fingers, until she realised with a stab of horror that she could no longer remember what colour Richart's eyes had been. She couldn't remember what his laughter sounded like, or the smell of his skin. Had he held her while she slept, or was that some other lover?

Ysanne's chest tightened. She would never forget the man that Richart had been, but so much else of him had been forgotten. No matter how hard she tried to cling to her memories, they faded, and one day her memories of Julien would fade too.

And of Edmond.

"I can't keep him," she whispered. "No matter what happens, I cannot keep him."

She would only break his heart . . . or he would break hers.

Physically, Ysanne was stronger than any human could ever be, but she didn't think she was strong enough for that, not when she was still putting the pieces of her heart back together after Julien's death.

She lifted her eyes to the beamed ceiling.

"Edmond and I are from two different worlds, and one day we will have to part ways," she whispered, as much to herself as anyone else.

That realisation hurt far more than she wanted to admit.

Edmond

He woke up early the next morning, and lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Ysanne slept beside him, her face turned to the wall, her hair spilling like palest gold between them. In these quiet, precious moments, Edmond could almost pretend that they were just two normal people, a husband and wife like any other. He rolled onto his side, studying the way Ysanne's hair slipped away from her neck, revealing a triangle of skin, the shape of her shoulder-blades beneath her shirt, the curve of her hip. He wanted to touch her so much he ached.

But Ysanne wasn't his wife.

Her heart still belonged to Julien.

Careful not to wake her, Edmond climbed out of bed and slipped on his boots. He went out into the courtyard, where the trees commemorating Ysanne's dead husbands grew.

For the longest while he stared at them, trying to imagine what they had looked like, what kind of men they had been. It was ridiculous to be jealous of two men who had died long before he was even born – and by Ysanne's own admission, she'd never even been in love with Richart – but he couldn't help it.

They had both known Ysanne in a way that Edmond feared he never would, and he hated that. He hated that this world kept dealing her such cruel blows, and he hated that he couldn't make things better for her.

Every time he made her laugh, made her smile, it was like a flame had ignited in his chest.

Had her husbands made her smile like that?

How much of her heart did they still own, and would there ever be room for him?

He moved away from the trees and wandered through the courtyard, trying to picture it how it must have been when Ysanne and Richart came to live here, more than two hundred years ago.

With the walls around him having crumbled to ruin, it was difficult to tell how much land they had owned, though it was more than Edmond had ever dreamed of. But this place must have been beautiful once, before thieves had ransacked it, before it had fallen to dust and decay.

Both Richart and Julien had given Ysanne things that Edmond never could, and that gnawed at him.

As he walked, he stopped every now and then and used a stick to write his family's names in the snow. His letters were still shaky, but they were getting better. On his fifth attempt, the stick hit something hard beneath the snow, and he crouched down, digging through all the packed white powder. There was a pond here, frozen hard beneath the snow, and he cleared away a patch of its solid, glassy surface.

A strange man stared back at him, and with a small jolt, he realised that, for the first time in a long time, he was looking at his own reflection.

He looked older than he remembered, and he wasn't thin like he had been when Ysanne first found him. Muscle carved lines on his arms, chest, and he was sure he was taller. His hair had grown, spilling like ink around his shoulders, and his cheeks and chin were shadowed with bristle.

The last time he'd seen his own face, he had been a boy.

The face staring back at him now? That was a man.

But he still didn't know if he was the man that Ysanne wanted or needed.

"Are you alright?" said the woman herself, behind him, and Edmond almost jumped out of his skin.

He spun around, losing his footing and falling in the snow.

Ysanne stood a foot or so away, watching him with a faintly bemused expression.

"There's a pond here," he mumbled.

"Is there?" Ysanne moved closer, looking down at it. "I'd forgotten."

Down in the snow, looking up at her, Edmond's mind flashed back to the first time they'd met. Things were different now. He was no longer afraid of her. He was no longer worried about crossing social lines.

He wanted to kiss her so badly that his mouth felt dust-dry, aching for a single taste.

But that was a personal line that he still wasn't bold enough to cross.

The bond that they had built over these weeks was something special, and he was terrified of jeopardising it.

Then Ysanne turned away, and Edmond sank back into the snow, letting its icy embrace cool the heat rushing through his veins.

Maybe when the snow melted, when he was no longer as dependent on Ysanne to hunt for him, then he would be in a position to re-evaluate their relationship.

He didn't know how long that would take, but Ysanne was worth waiting for.

Ysanne

Weeks continued to drift past, and the snow showed little sign of melting.

She and Edmond spent their days talking, and preparing food, and keeping the house clean. She taught him games, and they often played together in the long, cold evenings, huddled in front of the fire. She told him stories of the world, all the wonders that he hadn't seen. She hunted meat for him, and from time to time visited towns and villages to buy other things that he needed, and in return he let her drink from him.

During her time as a vampire, Ysanne had become accustomed to taking blood wherever she could get it, but she had never imagined a system like this – where vampires and humans shared a willing, symbiotic relationship, each giving what the other needed.

Several more times, she and Edmond watched wildlife in the snow.

At his request, she performed feats of strength and speed for him, and he tried with everything he had to keep up, but he never could.

Still, he was stronger and in better health that he had ever been. The knife wound had healed, leaving only a narrow scar, almost indiscernible on his skin, and the hollow look in his eyes had faded, giving way to warmth and laughter.

He wasn't the same person she had rescued from the snow all those weeks ago.

She still caught him watching her sometimes – with either a gentle warmth or a blazing heat – and every time, she pretended not to see.

He had become so comfortable with her now, so at ease that he no longer worried about what was considered 'proper'. Quite often she awoke in the morning to find he had shuffled closer to her in his sleep, his body curving around hers while they both dreamed, and maybe it was purely subconscious, but he obviously enjoyed the closeness – she could feel the hard shape of his desire pressing against her. She could have moved away, but she never did.

One morning, while climbing onto the roof to retrieve a pigeon whose feet had frozen to the chimney, Ysanne's foot slipped on a patch of ice and she fell. She toppled off the roof with a startled cry, which was echoed by Edmond, as he stood watching. Fortunately, the deep snow cushioned her landing, and she suffered nothing more than bruises, but she squeezed the poor bird too hard when she fell, and its chest burst, showering her head with blood and guts.

Edmond dashed over to her, his face white. "Don't move," he cried.

"It's not mine," Ysanne said, wiping a thick hunk of gore off her face. She held up the crushed remains of the pigeon. "I'm afraid you won't be having this for dinner, though."

"I'm more worried about you," he said.

He pulled her to her feet, and Ysanne wrinkled her nose, picking bits of flesh and bone out of her hair. Getting her hands dirty didn't bother her – she could easily wash the blood off – but her hair was another matter.

When he realised that she wasn't hurt, Edmond's lips twitched, holding in a laugh. "You look ridiculous."

Ysanne threw the remains of the bird at him, but it only made his laugh break free.

She picked more bits off her face and out of her hair, trying to maintain her dignity, but a laugh was building in her chest too.

"Come on," Edmond said. "I'll help you wash it out."

Edmond helped her wash her hair in front of the fire, and when it was clean, he combed it for her. Ysanne couldn't see his face, but there was something incredibly intimate about the feel of his hands in her hair, gentle, almost reverent. He touched her like she was precious, like every strand of hair was made of finest gold. No one had touched her like that in a long time.

When her hair was clean and dry, she fetched her sharpest knife so she could shave him.

Neither of them acknowledged the fact that Edmond could easily have done it himself.

They sat close together, facing each other, and as she carefully scraped the honed blade along Edmond's cheeks, she was very aware of the way the air crackled between them, hotter than the ever-present fire. Edmond's heart loudly thumped in his chest, and his eyes continuously drifted down to her lips. He probably didn't even realise he was doing it, but Ysanne noticed it every time.

He wanted to kiss her.

And she wanted him to.

One day, the growing tension between them would come to a head, and she didn't know what would happen when it did.