Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Daniel moaned right back, tipping his head back, eyes closed. I instantly knew he had a hard-on, and I couldn’t help it. I was thrilled by the sensations coming off them. I felt my nipples harden under my tight blue dress, and my thighs clenched under the table. Edwin knew it. He looked me right in the eye as he sucked on Daniel’s arm.
“Ignore him,” Hans said. “He’s winding you up on purpose. He loves playing the fool.”
“I’m mischievous, not a fool,” Edwin corrected as he pulled his fangs out of Daniel’s flesh and dabbed a napkin to his mouth. He had such a lovely grin. “Hans can be so bloody uptight sometimes. Finding one’s fated mate doesn’t always turn them into spoilsports.”
Edwin stuck a bloody tongue out at Hans and it was obvious they’d been laughing for centuries. I was looking forward to being a part of it. I loved the humour between them.
I looked Edwin straight in the eye, using the opportunity to convey my truth.
“Yes, I’m ready to be a vampire,” I told him. “It’s what I want. I’ve known that for ever, I just hadn’t realised it.”
Edwin held the stare between us. I could feel his mind whirring, but I couldn’t read his thoughts.
When his next words came, they knocked me sideways.
“And how about your father? Does he know about your transition yet? What was his reaction to it?”
What the fuck? My father?
I’d never even known my father. Mum and Grandma had never so much as told me his name. My blood ran cold, like someone had walked across my grave, and Hans slammed his fist on the table.
“Edwin! Stop being an utter fucking idiot!”
Edwin’s gaze flicked from Hans’ to mine and back again. He seemed genuinely surprised, and Hans seemed genuinely fucked off.
“Jesus Christ, Hans. You haven’t told her yet?!”
“No!” Hans replied. “She’s had more than enough to contend with already.”
“What?” I asked, heart pounding. “You know my father? Both of you?!”
I hadn’t heard a single thing about my father in years. Every time I’d asked Mum or Grandma about him they’d cussed and told me he was an evil nobody who’d left the village and deserted us. They were pleased about it. They said he was a sinner.
“Seriously?” I asked Edwin. “You know my father?!”
Edwin looked right at me. “Yes, of course I do. Everyone knows your father.”
Everyone except me.
Yet again, I felt like I’d been raised blind and dumb, blinkered off from the whole world and everything in it.
Everyone in it.
“You really don’t know who he is, do you?” Edwin asked. He looked agitated at Hans. “Have you told her a damn thing yet?”
“Yes!” Hans snapped. “I’ve told her plenty.”
“Hardly,” Edwin snapped back, and I wished we could whip time back so I was still watching him sucking on Daniel’s arm, not sitting with my heart pounding, scared of another trapdoor explosion.
Edwin took a breath, and put on a fake smile for my benefit, although he was still talking to Hans.
“How is he going to feel about it when he finds out you’ve transitioned his daughter without so much as courtesy visit?”
“I don’t care,” Hans told him. “This is between me and Katherine, it’s got nothing to do with Thomas. Or her mother or grandmother for that matter.”
Thomas.
I put my cutlery down and held my hands up.
“Will someone please tell me what the hell is happening here?”
The silence was deafening until Edwin moved. He tapped Daniel’s shoulder as he got up from his seat.
“Come on, lover boy, bring your steak.”
I stared in shock across the table.
“See you later,” Daniel said, and did as he was told, following Edwin out of the dining room with his plate in his hand. Edwin closed the door behind them, and I turned to Hans.
“Don’t bother with the don’t ask the questions unless you want the answers stuff,” I said. “I want the answers now, please. Who the fuck is my dad?”
“Edwin can be such an ignorant tosser at times.” Hans sighed. “I was waiting to introduce you properly when the time was right. Your father doesn’t even know you’re back in the village yet.”
“WHO IS HE?!” I shouted. “All I know is that he’s some asshole who fucked off and left Mum and Grandma with me!”
Hans’ eyes were piercing, but he didn’t speak, just let my mind chew over my incoming thoughts.
“That’s another load of bullshit they fed me, isn’t it?!”
“Yes.”
“Like everything else.”
“Indeed.”
I sighed to myself, trying to accept another house of cards tumbling down. I should be getting used to it by now.
“So, who is he then?” I asked. “Do I know him?”
“Not yet.”
My eyes must have been as piercing as his.
“How come everyone else knows who he is? Is he some kind of vampire celebrity or something?”
Hans shook his head. “No. But everybody has two family chains behind them. Yours has a lot on your father’s side, too. They will certainly help with your talents. As we said, you are a psychic, a ghost whisperer and a witch. You don’t generally inherit all of those talents from one side of the tree.”