My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten. I popped into the kitchen and retrieved a bag of cold blood from the refrigerator. Warm blood had a foul taste for daywalkers, so a lot of us relied on a delivery service to provide bagged blood.
I was anxious to taste the spread of delicious food at Stephan’s house—one of the only reasons I’d let them talk me into attending—but while we could survive without blood, we would become weak and waste away. So, I drank a mug of blood, washed out my cup, and set it in the dishwasher.
Then I grabbed the keys to my Astin Martin and drove—much too fast—two towns over to my cousin’s mansion. I parked next to the garage, around back. My tux jacket was draped over the seat next to me, so I picked it up and shrugged it on as I stepped out of the vehicle. I shut and locked the car before jogging to my cousin’s back door and bursting inside. “Merry Christmas!” I shouted.
“Uncle Liam!”
“Oof!” I grunted as a gaggle of little kids knocked me on my ass, just like I knew they would. As we laughed and played, I immediately felt better.
These little monsters were the other reason I’d let myself be guilted into coming.
And I did feel bad about staying away because the real truth was that the gloves helped, but my true savior was my family.
1
Amaia
As I stroked my hand down the billowy taffeta skirt of my dress, I couldn’t help but think about how much my life had changed in the past three years. I’d grown up with so little, but now I lived in a mansion with a closet full of more clothes than I could wear in a year. The household staff catered to my every need, including gourmet meals that were more delicious than anything I’d eaten before. I had all the material things I could have ever hoped for, but I would happily give it all up for the one thing money couldn’t buy—finding the daywalker I was destined to spend an eternity with.
“Are you looking forward to tonight?”
I pulled my gaze away from the mirror to turn and look at my sister, who was standing in the doorway of my huge walk-in closet. Forcing a smile on my face, I answered, “Yup, the Bancrofts throw one heck of a party. Especially during the holidays.”
Everleigh rubbed her hands together. “And who knows, maybe you’ll get the best Christmas present ever, and one of the unattached daywalkers Stephan and Bronwyn invited will turn out to be the man fated to be yours.”
“That would be amazing.” When I’d been saved by Kieran, Athan, and Stephan three years ago, I had adjusted to my new reality fairly well. I hadn’t freaked out upon learning that vampires were real and an evil nightwalker had tried to kill me. After they’d defeated the vampire, who had burst into flames before turning into ash, and Stephan asked if he could transport me to the council, I didn’t think twice about getting into the car with him. And when he’d told me about daywalkers and destined consorts, I was in awe of the idea of there being a man out there who had spent all of his days hoping to find me. Someone who would only ever want me. Who would never desire anyone else. Never love another woman.
My sister and I had been shuttled back and forth between houses after my parents got divorced when we were little. My mom had been bitter about the end of her marriage and hadn’t hesitated to tell Everleigh and me about everything my dad had done wrong, including cheating on her. He denied the accusation, but the way he went through women after they broke up always made me wonder if my mom was right. He had a revolving door at his house, introducing Everleigh and me to a new girlfriend just about every month. When I was ten, he married his second wife, who he divorced two years later. The third only lasted a year. The fourth barely six months. The last I heard, he was planning wedding number five with a woman who was twenty-four, only three years older than me.
My mom went through plenty of relationships of her own, but she never married again. The men she picked always ended up cheating on her before she could get to the altar—or at least that was what she accused them of doing. Most of the guys seemed nice enough to me, but I couldn’t blame them for not wanting to stick around. Not when my mom tossed accusations any time they went out without her. No man wanted to spend the rest of their days with a woman who tracked how they spent every minute of their time away from her.