by Kristie Cook
He nodded. “A mature one, which means I’ve been turned.”
My gaze dropped to the pictures. “And my parents?”
“They gave you the gene. It has to be triggered before age twenty-one.”
“How?”
“You don’t know how you were turned?” I shook my head again. “You don’t know who turned you?”
“I know nothing. I didn’t even know I was turned until I woke up with a killer thirst and almost killed my fiancé.”
Something flickered in his eyes, but I couldn’t determine what. A darkness. Perhaps a sadness or regret. He scratched his cheek before answering my question. “A moroi is turned by drinking the blood of another, mature moroi. Usually the parents provide their blood in a family ceremony because it strengthens the bond of the bloodline. The blood also passes extra powers and abilities from the source to the recipient.”
“Powers and abilities?” I glanced back up at him and was immediately distracted, so I returned my gaze to the photos.
“The Romanian moroi originated from a sorcerer whose black magic backfired into him and his family. Ever since, the magic manifests in different ways when the gene is triggered. Usually something with the elements. It’s basically a family trait, although there are stories of parents sometimes allowing another’s blood to be given to their child if the source of that blood had a unique power or extra strong ability.”
My brows dipped down as I studied one photo in particular, of the man and woman who were supposedly my parents. Who noticeably hadn’t been around here. The question came out in barely more than a whisper. “And if it’s not triggered by twenty-one?”
“The child goes on to live a completely normal, human life, able to marry a human, have children whose genes are dormant and don’t need to be triggered, and grow old with their mates. And the moroi parents and the entire bloodline behind them . . . they die. As though their bodies slowly return to human, and their true age catches up, eventually killing them over time.”
Unexpected tears blurred my vision, and I blinked several times to keep them at bay. “They’re . . . gone?”
He didn’t answer at first. He strode around the side of the desk, turned my chair, and dropped into a squat in front of me so he could look me in the eye. Trepidation filled his expression. “Your father passed a few years ago. Your mother a little over a year ago. And Mammie . . .”
“Madame Luiza?” I gasped.
“Your aunt.”
My hand clamped over my mouth as my head shook. “No. This can’t be true. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t even remember them!”
“Are you sure?”
My eyes closed as I inhaled a jagged breath. The visions I’d been trying so hard to repress since arriving in this town started pushing through. The sob escaped me.
“I wasn’t turned in time! Why? Why would they do that?”
“They all wanted the best life for you, even knowing it would kill them.”
I choked on another repressed sob. “Why couldn’t I have that here? With them?”
He paused, and when I looked up at him, the trepidation was gone, now filled with sadness. “They believed Havenwood Falls, and the people here, were not the best life for you.”
“I don’t understand. This was our life. My life. Right? How could they think sending me away, forcing me to go off completely on my own, embedded with memories of a false past . . . how was that the best life for me? No family, no friends. If they wanted me to stay human, why couldn’t I do that here? Or at least be able to come back, memories intact? Life intact?”
His eyes darkened, and he looked away. “They said it was too risky. You were more likely to be turned here. You’d want to be turned.”
I didn’t understand the problem. I mean, I wished I wasn’t a vampire, but being a moroi sounded not quite as horrible—I could still have children, a dream I’d given up—especially if this really was my heritage. My family. And, more importantly, they’d still be alive. On the other hand, I knew too well that I’d never choose this life and the insatiable, murderous thirst that came with it, no matter how well controlled.
“Why would I do that?” I asked. “I mean, besides to save them, but obviously that was never a choice given to me. So why else would I choose to turn and give up the normal life they wanted for me? That I must have wanted so badly?”
His gaze came back to me, and our eyes collided. “For me.”
I had no response. I could hardly think, especially the more intense his stare became. Capturing me. Swallowing me. Claiming me. My lungs began to burn and scream for air because I couldn’t breathe, so lost in his gaze and his words and their meaning.
I gasped and broke the connection, turning away, looking everywhere but at him. A wave of emotions began to build—emotions I wasn’t ready to take on yet. This was too much. All of it too much.
“I . . . I can’t,” I finally said on a soft breath as I stared at the desk in front of me. But the rest of the words, of what I wanted to say, failed to form, to come out. I can’t applied to just about everything at the moment. I couldn’t think, speak, and while I could probably feel, I really didn’t want to.
Xandru blew out a harsh breath and stood. He walked back around the desk and turned. “Well, then, I can’t either.”
And with that, he strode out and away.
Finally able to breathe again, I sagged over with my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands. What just happened?
“Xandru?” Addie’s voice came from the door that led back out to the lobby.
“I can’t do this,” he growled before the sound of his heavy footsteps carried across the wood floor of the lobby and out the door.
My fingers curled into my hair and rubbed into my temples as I drew in several breaths. Addie entered the room, but I didn’t look up. Instead I stared at the contents of the desk under my elbows. A piece of bank stationery caught my eye, and my focus narrowed in on the letter.
“What the hell?” I straightened up and pulled the piece of paper out from under the photos, then read the full letter. Addie silently took off her coat, seeming not to mind that I hadn’t acknowledged her yet. When I finished, I looked up as she tugged at her black miniskirt before sitting in the chair in front of me. She was sans glasses today, and her light brown hair was down, spread out over the shoulders of her gray blouse. I held the piece of paper up. “Do you know anything about this? Particularly this part right here?”
I pointed to the name Michaela Petran, which supposedly was mine. Which part of me had already come to accept was mine—the part that dared to acknowledge the visions that had been floating around my head for days as actual memories. My memories. Buried but returning from the grave.
“Hello to you, too.” Addie gave the letter a quick read and shrugged. “It’s a transfer of ownership of the inn to you.”
“Obviously. But why?
Her caramel brows lifted. “Because it’s been in your family forever. You’re the next in line. Why do you think Mammie worked so hard to get you back here? Aurelia and Gabe are certainly too young.”
“Wait. What?”
“How much did Xan tell you?”
I blinked, then shook my head and waved a hand in the air, as though I could shoo away those last few minutes between him and me. “Obviously not everything. He told me who my parents were. That they’re gone. That Madame Luiza was my aunt. That they didn’t want to trigger my gene, even when it meant they’d die.”
She nodded. “Your parents owned the inn. Mammie’s been taking caring of it since they passed. As best as she could, anyway. Aurelia and Gabe, too . . . as best as she could. I think she’d been hanging on to wait for your return.”
My chest tightened at the thought of Madame Luiza trying to do so much. Then Addie’s meaning really sunk in. And the hits keep on comin’.
“Aurelia and Gabe . . . ?”
“Your sister and brother.”
I sat back in my chair and blew out a long
breath. That bratty little bitch was my sister? But I began to understand. “She hates me. And I can’t blame her.”
“She’s a teenager. Remember when we were that age—oh, no, I guess you don’t.” She smiled sadly. “You will soon. For some people, the memories return as soon as they’re back within the town’s ward. For others, it takes time. And the spell they put on you was so strong. It may be a while.”
“We were friends,” I blurted. Although no memories of that had surfaced, I knew we had some kind of connection.
Her smile brightened a little. “Practically sisters. Besties forever.” She sighed. “Until your parents decided forever was over for us. For you. And—” She looked over her shoulder, toward the door, and she didn’t have to finish her thought.
“I’m not ready for that. For him.” My eyes once again traveled over the desk. “There’s just . . . so much.”
I began sorting the photos into piles and the papers into a stack. Another letter from the bank caught my attention. And seriously. The shocks really wouldn’t stop.
“Foreclosure?” I read the letter again, then let out a sad laugh. “Well, I guess I don’t have to worry so much about the inn being mine. It won’t be much longer.”
My fingers released their hold on the letter and let it drift back to the desk. Addie snatched it up.
“This isn’t right,” she said as she read it. “We’ll take care of this, Kales. They can’t take this place from you, from your family. Something’s going on here . . .”
I barely paid attention to the rest as the nickname made the tips of my ears tingle. Nobody in my recent past had ever called me that. It had always been Kae for short, or Sindi’s occasional Kaekae. But I remembered that nickname. I remembered standing by the fountain in the square, gold flakes sparkling in the sun as Addie gave me a hug, and said, “Besties forever, Kales. Try not to forget me, okay?” And Xandru stood next to us, his hand on my lower back. And—
The sound of heavy and purposeful footsteps coming up the walk to the front door knifed into my recollection, severing it. I blinked and cocked my head.
“Oh, right. I came over to warn you,” Addie said. “The wolves are descending.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Sheriff Kasun and his deputies were on their way over to question you.”
“For what?”
The front door opened.
“Um . . . for murder?”
Chapter 8
Kaboom. The biggest bombshell of them all.
The little bell on the front desk dinged.
“What?” I gasped.
Addie cringed. “They found a body outside of town, in the woods. Looks like a vampire attack.”
“And of course they immediately come to the new girl in town.”
“You’re not exactly new.”
“Maybe not, but I wasn’t a vampire the last time I was here, was I?”
The bell dinged again, several impatient times. I stood and exhaled a sharp breath. Like I needed this right now. My brain was spinning with information overload. I didn’t even know if I could form a coherent answer to the simplest question, let alone ones that could put my freedom at risk—possibly my life. As I headed out of the office and toward the lobby, I realized I didn’t have an alibi for much of my time here. In fact, most of it had been spent with a woman who’s also now dead. Fabulous.
“Careful,” Addie whispered as she walked behind me. “Wolves aren’t exactly vampires’ best friends.”
I stopped in mid-step and hissed, “What does that mean?”
She bumped into me before catching herself. Her mouth was right by my ear as she explained in a low whisper. “They’re wolf shifters. They always showed outward respect toward your father because of his seat on the Court, but the natural instinct to hate your kind runs deep.”
Awesome.
Two men stood in the lobby, one in a khaki uniform with a deputy badge pinned to his chest and a brown felt hat in his hands, the older one in flannel and jeans. Both standing well over six-foot tall and with the same silvery-blue eyes and facial structure, they had to be related. Brothers, maybe.
The younger one bristled when he looked next to me, at Addie. “Came to warn her, did you?”
Addie gave him a warm grin, and her tone came out sickly sweet. “I came to make sure you do this properly, Deputy Kasun. She’s entitled to a representative from the coven.”
A noise almost like a growl rumbled in his throat, barely audible except to my keen ears.
“Ms. Petran,” said the one who appeared to be in his mid-forties based on the laugh lines near his eyes and the speckles of gray around his temples and in the scruff along his jaw. While the cop seemed uptight and ready to pounce, this guy was more relaxed, his tone softer around the edges. “We’re sorry about your aunt.”
“Peters,” I corrected. The deputy stiffened and peered at me with narrowed eyes. “That’s what’s on my ID, which I’m sure you want to see, right?”
“We already know it’s fake,” he said rather curtly, accusingly. As if I’d known it was fake. The older guy gave him a sideways look of warning.
“And thank you,” I said to the older one. “Although, I just learned she was my aunt.”
He nodded. “I’m Sheriff Ric Kasun. This is one of my deputies and son, Conall. We’re aware of your background and understand this all must be rather strange for you.”
“Strange would be putting it mildly.”
“Doesn’t matter what you remember from the past,” Conall said, his demeanor in contrast with the sheriff’s. Like they had a good cop–bad cop thing going on. Although, on closer inspection, while Ric’s posture appeared more relaxed, his muscles were tense and his gaze swept subtly around the lobby, likely taking in every detail, ready to spring if he saw something he didn’t like. “We need to know about last night. Where were you?”
“Care to be a little more specific with the time there, deputy?” Addie asked, her voice still dripping syrup, but with an underlying warning.
His upper lip twitched. “Between 4:25 and 5:12 a.m.,” he bit out.
Addie snickered. “That’s very specific. Russell’s lap time?”
“Something like that,” Sheriff Kasun said. “He found the body on his final run of the night out near Wylie’s gulch.”
“So where were you?” Conall snarled at me.
I pretended to think about it. “Pretty sure I was sleeping.”
“At night?” he scoffed.
I couldn’t help the small smile. “I’ve been working toward a more normal schedule, now that I can.”
“When do you hunt?” he asked. “If you’re on animal blood, as we’ve been told, best hunting is at night.”
“You would know,” Addie muttered. He ignored her.
“Madame Luiza provided me with more than a week’s worth of bottled blood. I haven’t needed to hunt yet. I don’t know when I will, either. The bottled stuff here isn’t too horrible, much better than anything I’d had before. And I kind of like animals. I don’t like having to kill them.” I paused. “Most anyway. The ones that don’t wish me harm.”
Conall cocked his head, sensing the challenge I might have been making.
“You have somebody to vouch for your whereabouts at that time?” the sheriff asked.
“That you were in bed,” Conall clarified quite rudely.
And there was the question I knew would come. I tried not to take offense at the implication, although I’d been here less than a week. What kind of girl did he think I was? Oh, yeah. Murderer.
“I sleep alone,” I said as nicely and calmly as I could muster.
“No need to be a dick, Conall,” Addie said.
“We need to know if she has an alibi, Adelaide,” Sheriff Kasun said to her. “That’s well within procedure.”
“Are you questioning all of the vampires?” she demanded.
“We will be. If we need to.”
I blew out a breath, trying to release some of the
tension that only continued to build. “Look, I get it. You have a dead body, and I’m the newbie here. You want to believe you know me, except you don’t, because I’m not the old Michaela. But I’m not a murderer, either. I’ve never killed a human. I take pride in how well I control my needs. I swear I’m not the vampire you’re looking for.”
“In other words, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Addie sniped, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
“We do have empaths here in town,” Conall said. “They’ll know if you’re lying.”
I shrugged. “Bring them on.”
“She’s not lying,” said a deep voice from behind me, sending stupid tingles down my spine. I couldn’t even see him, but my whole body came on alert as he approached. “I’ll vouch for her.”
Oh, shit. What the hell was he doing? Barely more than an hour ago he was stomping away, acting like he wanted nothing to do with me. Now he was willing to lie on my behalf?
Conall looked over my shoulder, the disgust he felt obvious. “You were with her?” His nose wrinkled. “At least I know why she’d lie about it.”
Xandru growled behind me. Seriously growled. The sound a vampire makes in warning. His hand suddenly appeared in my peripheral vision, pointing a finger at the deputy. “Show some respect, asshole.”
Conall lifted a brow.
“To her,” Xandru yelled, making me jump.
“Calm down,” the sheriff quickly said, sensing the testosterone and who knew what other pheromones skyrocketing. “Both of you. Answer the question, Mr. Roca. Were you with her?”
I felt him bristle as he moved next to me.
“Not exactly,” he said. “I was on her porch the whole night, though.”
The sheriff squinted his eyes and cocked his head. “You were what?”
Xandru shifted next to me, sending heat over my skin. “I was watching her place.”
“Watching or stalking?” Conall muttered, and the next thing I knew, Sheriff Kasun was breaking up a fight of an inhuman sort.
He stood between the two younger men, both of their chests heaving, more likely from adrenaline than needing to catch their breaths. Conall’s eyes glowed a golden color, and Xandru’s fangs were out. The sheriff stood there for a long moment, his arms out to keep them separated. When they seemed to have calmed down and gained control, he put his hands on his hips and turned to face Xandru.