As I took another breath, I saw the three stars again. They were not calling to me; they were letting me go, leaving me to the black universe I had wandered for so many lifetimes. I drifted into the black, and it got brighter and brighter. It wasn't black at all - it was blue. Warm, vibrant, brilliant blue...I floated into it with no fear at all.

Ian paused and leaned closer to me so that I couldn't seem to see anything around his face, just snow and sapphire and ink.

Would you like to hear my story, Bella? It doesn't have a happy ending - but which of ours does? If we had happy endings, we'd all be under gravestones now.

Sometimes it was so easy to forget that I was kissing a vampire.

Your hold on me is permanent and unbreakable. Never doubt that

It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what you say. It's not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.

Isabella Swan?” He looked up at me through his impossibly long lashes, his golden eyes soft but, somehow, still scorching. “I promise to love you forever—every single day of forever. Will you marry me?” There were many things I wanted to say, some of them not nice at all, and others more disgustingly gooey and romantic than he probably dreamed I was capable of. Rather than embarrass myself with either, I whispered, “Yes.” “Thank you,” he said simply. He took my left hand and kissed each of my fingertips before he kissed the ring that was now mine.