Accidental Sire(8)

She went on. "They stayed in my room last night and didn't leave until this afternoon, which is, by the way, the first time I've allowed humans in my sleeping space during daylight hours in centuries. They insisted, despite my many, many, many attempts to make them leave. I think they just couldn't face your side of the room without you in it. They're still more pleasant roommates than Brianna was, even with the ‘hostage crisis' element to the situation."

Morgan and Keagan were my suite mates at New Dawn Residence Hall. I roomed with Morgan, and Keagan had a single next door, specially assigned by the housing office because of "problematic snoring." She'd tried sleep-apnea masks, nose strips, and those jaw adjusters. But nothing could slow down her buzz-saw sleeping noises.

I hadn't believed that such an adorable petite person could produce such a hellacious racket, but the first night we all spent in the dorm, I could have sworn Satan was chipping wood in the room next door.

Morgan had been difficult to read when we first moved in. She insisted that she was not a nice person, but she always treated me kindly. I thought she would find Keagan too perky to tolerate, but they got along like two peas in a pod. Morgan insisted that one day she would find Keagan's dark, petty center, and on that day they would make the evening news.

The pair of them had become the glue that kept me cemented to University of Kentucky's campus. And now they were six floors away from me, and I wasn't allowed to talk to them. They might as well have been on the moon. The weird finality of what had happened to me-dying, coming back, biting Ben-all seemed to land on me at once. My life was over. Nothing would be the same for me. Again.

I flinched as Jane opened the interrogation-room door. Ophelia let go of my hand, and the sympathetic expression on her face hardened to one of boredom. Jane sat next to Ophelia and gave me a long appraising look. She opened a small notebook and set a UK Wildcats mug in front of me, with a coaster. It was filled with dark red blood that smelled like fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and every carb I ever wanted to eat.

Why wasn't I more grossed out by that? Why?

I pushed it away without drinking. Because that was disturbing.

Jane sighed. "OK, Meagan, I'm trying very hard to set aside my personal feelings about the fact that you've apparently drained and maybe done a half-assed job of turning a young man I happen to like very much, leaving me to make a very upsetting phone call to his mother, who goes to church with my mother and will make my weekly coffee date with Mom a living hell. I really am trying. I understand that you've been through two traumatic experiences in the last hour or so, but we need to talk about the events that led to your turning and then waking up too damn quickly and biting a perfectly nice kid, all of which have resulted in a metric ton of irritating and unnecessary paperwork for me."


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"I can't believe I'm the one saying this to you, Jane, but maybe you should take it easy on her," Ophelia said.

"A living hell, Ophelia," Jane growled. "And you've met my mother."

Ophelia rolled her eyes.

Jane took a deep breath and said in a calmer, slightly sweeter tone, "I'll start again. Meagan, my name is Jane Jameson-Nightengale, and I'm the head representative of the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead for western Kentucky. Now that you're a vampire, you are under our protection, but you're also subject to our laws. With me so far?"

I waggled my hand back and forth. "Ish."

"Great. I'm here because Ophelia called me about your turning and the, um, strange circumstances. I was here taking her report when the V-one-one alarm went off. Let's go through every step of what happened since you woke up this evening," Jane said. "No detail is too small. Because I'm still trying to figure out whether I like you or not. You're friends with Ophelia, so I'm leaning toward not."

"My future mother-in-law." Ophelia sighed, waving her hand at Jane.



And so I went through the whole horrifying morning (evening?) again, which was a treat. I told Jane everything I could remember about the night of the mixer and every moment since I rose, and her expression remained absolutely neutral throughout my story. And considering the number of broken bones and flesh wounds involved in that story, that was more than a little upsetting.

I got so caught up in verbally vomiting everything I could remember that I had a sort of out-of-body experience, where it felt like I was floating above myself, watching me making an idiot of myself. And my mind's eye could see that I apparently hadn't washed my eye makeup off after the mixer, so I had day-old mascara running down my cheeks.