Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
A knock sounded, and I opened the door to find my human personal assistant, the man that did all my daytime errands and also kept an eye on my day-to-day life for me, standing there with his hand ready to knock.
“Sorry to interrupt your sleep,” Chen said. “But there’s a visitor on the northwest lawn entrance.”
“Who?” I asked.
He already knew who. Hell, he would’ve known who it was the moment the visitor crossed onto our territory six miles before the northwest entrance.
“A woman,” he answered. “And since she’s of the same description as the woman that you saved, I felt it prudent to allow her to get this far.”
A growl rose in my voice.
“A good decision on your part,” I said roughly. “Let her in.”
Chen nodded, then left without another word.
I went to the bathroom and used the facilities before using the toiletries that never seemed to run out to get rid of the stench of fear that still clung to my skin from a nightmare that I’d been having before being awoken by the intruder.
I’d just finished when another knock sounded.
“Sir,” Chen said through the door. “I was about to let her in when she left.”
“Where did she go?” I asked as I slipped into a pair of running shorts.
“To the graveyard.”
My eyes closed on their own volition, and I sighed.
“Curious woman,” I grumbled. “I’ll handle it, Chen. Thank you.”
Chen left without another word, and I walked out of the security of my bedroom, mentally locking and barring it as I left.
No matter how much I trusted Chen, I knew that he could still be used against me if another vampire spent enough time on him. Not that Chen would ever betray me on purpose, but that didn’t mean that my enemies wouldn’t try.
They’d done it before.
Pushing outside on the last rays of the setting sun, I walked across my perfectly manicured lawn—one that got mowed every single Wednesday at three—and headed to the northwest gate that would lead to the cemetery.
The same cemetery that held my wife, child, mother, father, sister, and multiple cousins. Grandparents. Great-grandparents.
The property I was living on had been in my late mother’s family for centuries, and I’d outlived them all.
The cemetery was special to me—something that was very personal and not something I wished to share with everyone.
I realized, though, as I crossed through the gate and saw the beginnings of the cemetery, that I was going to have to share it with her.
Especially the way she was bent down by my three-year-old daughter’s grave, staring at it with her heart in her eyes.
“Acadia,” I murmured softly.
Acadia’s head snapped in my direction, and her face showed no sign of chagrin at being caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to do.
“I’m sorry for entering your property without permission. I was on the way to your gate when something called me here,” she murmured quietly.
I likely wouldn’t have heard her at all had I not had such good hearing.
“Nola does that.”
“Nola?” she asked.
“Nola, my daughter.” I gestured to the grave with my head.
I felt it the moment she realized that the small grave belonged to my child.
The sorrow was written all over her face.
“I didn’t know,” she murmured softly.
I walked forward on silent feet, the pull of the grave calling to me.
“She died when she was three,” I told her. “In nineteen fifty-seven.”
I didn’t hear her inhale like I thought I would. Most did when they heard I had a child over fifty years ago.
Though, she likely knew my age.
It was in the papers. Everyone who was anyone knew my age.
Thousands of years old was a huge topic of discussion among the folks of Austin, Texas.
Surely someone that old had to be weird… or ugly.
I was neither… at least I didn’t think I was.
“That’s so sad,” she whispered. “I lost a child, too.”
I blinked, turned, and studied her face.
She didn’t look old enough to have a child. Though, I suppose she was older than most of my generation. If she were of my era, she’d have at least six children by now.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told her honestly.
She shrugged. “I was going to give her up for adoption,” she started. “I had her when I was fifteen, but the night I went into labor, she died while I was pushing her out.”
Emotions roiled through me, and I knew that they weren’t all mine.
I could feel the sadness and fear rolling off of her, and I wanted to reach out and touch her.
I refrained.
“My Nola died in a house fire,” I told her. “She was home with a babysitter while I was out and they set the house on fire because they knew what I was.”
“And your wife?”
I closed my eyes.
“My wife died, too.” I cleared my throat. “In the same fire.”
My wife had been the person to set the fire, but that was semantics.