Forever Night (Darkness Falls Book 3)

Chapter One

There really was no better place to be than where I was right now – waking up in the arms of my boyfriend, Luke. Lying here with him, in our bed, in our house, made me blissfully, deliriously happy.

Three weeks had passed since my final battle with Rachel – the insane vampire who'd made it her personal mission to kill me – and since then no one had seen hide or hair of her, or any of the rogues who had joined her in attacking the clan's house. It almost seemed too good to be true, but maybe she really was gone.

Careful not to wake Luke, I rolled over to look at him. Our room was in pitch darkness, thanks to the thick black curtains we'd fitted to every window, but my body clock told me it was early evening. Slowly but surely, I was adjusting to living with a vampire.

Luke lay next to me, his face soft with sleep and his black hair mussed on the pillow. He was growing it longer again and my fingers ached to run through it, to glide along his head and down to his face and chest. His storm-and-steel grey eyes were one of his most striking features, but even with them closed, he was gorgeous.

I lifted a lock of hair from his face, smoothing it back so I could see him better. A goofy little grin broke out on my face. He was beautiful and he was mine. And I was his.

"Kiara," Luke murmured, his lips barely moving. "What have I told you about watching me sleep?"

"That it's incredibly flattering and sexy?"

He smiled without opening his eyes.

Leaning forward, I planted a gentle kiss on his mouth. Luke suddenly came to life, grabbing my hip and rolling on top of me. He braced his arm next to my head and I trailed a hand down his bicep.

Luke was always gorgeous but I loved him best like this – with sleep-mussed hair and slightly drowsy eyes. There was something wonderfully vulnerable and intimate about it.

"You're so beautiful," I said softly.

His lips quirked. "Isn't that my line?"

He lowered his head and kissed me, long, slow, and torturous. My hands clutched at his arms, feeling hard muscle flex beneath his skin.

We'd been living together, just the two of us, for a little over two weeks now, but we still hadn't taken that last big step in our relationship. There hadn't been time. During our final fight with Rachel and her rogues, the house that Luke and I previously shared with his parents had been set on fire. The house itself was salvageable, but it wasn't quite habitable yet. Samuel and Elena had a vampire friend with a spare bedroom, so we'd stayed with them temporarily – Samuel and Elena in the bedroom, and Luke and I on the sofas downstairs. Ethan had crashed on Riley's sofa for a while, until Riley's mum started to get funny about the whole thing and then Ethan had been left with no choice but to come and stay with the rest of us.

Luke and I only stayed there for a week before moving into the house that my mum had used her entire savings to buy us. We had offered to let the clan stay with us too, but Elena had refused, insisting that we needed to start our own lives there without everyone else breathing down our necks.

So for the past two weeks, we'd been painting the walls, getting the electrical side of things sorted – it wasn't easy finding an electrician who would only work at night – and trawling Dalwick's various junk shops for cheap furniture. Getting the house up to scratch had been almost a full-time job, and that wasn't counting all the hours I worked at the diner to make enough money for us to live on. Luke had valiantly tried to get a job, but it was never easy for a vampire, so for now mine was the only income. It wasn't so bad. The Waffle House was actually a fun place to work once I'd got used to it, and I'd dropped out of college so I could take on more shifts.