My skin burns where it meets his. It feels better than good, but it sets off a strange aching in my chest.

Just snow and sapphire and ink.

Are you still faint from the run? Or was it my kissing expertise?

You’re monopolizing the bride,” Emmett said, coming up behind Edward’s shoulder. “Let me dance with my little sister. This could be my last chance to make her blush.

Eight full lives,” I whispered against his jaw, my voice breaking. “Eight full lives and I never found anyone I would stay on a planet for, anyone I would follow when they left. I never found a partner. Why now? Why you? You're not of my species. How can you be my partner?” “It's a strange universe,” he murmured. “It's not fair,” I complained, echoing Sunny's words. It wasn't fair. How could I find this, find love–now, in this eleventh hour–and have to leave it? Was it fair that my soul and body couldn't reconcile? Was it fair that I had to love Melanie, too?

I stared into Jared's eyes, and the strangest thing happened. All the melting and melding I had just been through was shoved aside, into the smallest part of my body, the little corner that I took up physically. The rest of me yearned toward Jared with the same desperate, half-crazed hunger I'd felt since the first time I'd seen him here. This body barely belonged to me or to Melanie-it belonged to him.

And it was different because I'd already lost her so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because she was never really mine to lose. And different because this wasn't my fault.