Eleven
My sister was missing. Taken by people I didn’t know. My mother had been turned into a vampire. She was going to outlive me. Someday, I would die, and she wouldn’t. Humans in secret cities—the immortal safe havens—all lived there for different reasons. Some of them saw things that they couldn’t unsee. Some of them had loved ones that had mated with an immortal. Some of them stumbled in by accident. Some of them came because they wanted to be immortal.
Then, there were those rare people like me.
People who were descendants of immortals but weren’t immortals themselves. My family lived in Moon City because my grandmother had been the mate of a werewolf. That was why we were loyal to the DuPont pack. If someone tried to attack us, or use their powers in an unsavory way, the DuPont’s would act on our behalf.
I’d been in love with Calix. But it had been a secret of mine for so long, I never imagined that he would ever return it.
I was still in a dress from a ball that I hadn’t wanted to be part of in the first place. I’d been pulled into a secret mission with an Alpha that had disappeared mysteriously and reappeared in my life. Now, my mother was going to be reborn as a vampire.
I was waiting with a werewolf and her sire—the guy that I was in love with—for her to be reborn. The night had been long enough but now it was morning.
Calix, because he was an immortal vampire, born from ancient gods could go out during the day. Since my mother was a turned vampire, she wouldn’t be able to. She’d also need someone to feed from.
I didn’t want it to be a stranger. I was going to be the one that she drank from. I was waiting by her unmarked grave with the werewolf and the vampire.
“Please say something,” Calix begged.
I glared at him. I was sitting on the ground in the dress from the night before, trying to figure out how I would find my sister and explain to her what happened with my mother.
Desmond, who was sitting in between us, shot him a glare. “I entrusted you because you are one of my oldest friends, Calix. You were here to help us form Moon City. You’ve helped us all along. Iris’s family swore fealty to the DuPont family. I’m supposed to protect them…”
“I know that!” Calix hissed. “That’s why I was trying to keep her alive. I didn’t think you would want the woman you were trying to make your future mate to be without her mother. Besides, Iris’s mother begged me to turn her!”
“If she’s sired to you…that makes you…” I glared.
Calix sighed. “I’m not your Step Father. It’s not a marriage. When this is all over, we will still be able to be together.”
“I’ve seen you with your sired, Calix,” I reminded him, “there’s nothing innocent about what happens between you. I’m…. I’m sorry, but I can’t be with you if you are going to be connected to my mother in that way.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He spoke calmly, in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Your mother being my sired doesn’t change anything, Iris. I still…. I still have feelings for you. We can make this work!”
I clenched my jaw. “You took my mother from me. I know, that’s not what you were trying to do, but you did. Being turned—being sired—isn’t the same as being an immortal. Being sired is akin to being an addict. She’ll always be trapped by the darkness. I will never see her in the sunlight again. Her soul died, Calix. You took it from me.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “I hate you for this. This is never going to be what you wanted it to be. It can’t.”
“Want me to kill him?” Desmond asked. “I can do it, you know. I’m an Alpha. I have that authority.”
“Oh, fuck off. We’ve got a whole day we have to wait. Just be quiet.” I sat on the ground by my mother’s unmarked grave and waited.
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