As a child, I’d glanced at it again and again, enchanted by the idea of immortality. Now I knew better. Immortality wasn’t idyllic or enchanting. But it was powerful. If I had to live forever, I had to make it count. And that was why I needed to get as far away as I could from temptation—and from Damon. So that’s why I boarded a ship bound for New Zealand. I had no idea if I’d stay for a month, a year, or a century, and I liked it that way. I liked not needing a plan. I liked only depending on myself. And I liked the way it was so easy to slip into conversation with a stranger and no longer feel like I was hiding a horrible secret. I was Stefan Salvatore. I still craved blood. The desire was relentless, all-consuming, a second heartbeat pounding away in the center of my being. I wondered what it would feel like if I could just give in to my dark side, like Damon. I wondered what would have happened if Lady Alice hadn’t come and saved both of us. When it mattered, in that final moment between life and death, would I have had the self-control to break the compulsion and pull myself off him?
