The sudden flare and flicker of light behind her told her what she needed to know. Her home was gone and he was hiding the fact that she was not.
The flames made her smile through the tears of disappointment. She had imagined a life with him, a family, and he had only wanted her as a sacrifice. Lela looked around at the empty marshlands and closed her eyes, finding her family. They would not take her in as a member now that she had broken with them, but they would protect her and let her live on the outskirts of their caravan.
She would start her life anew as a pariah, but she would be alive.
****
One hundred and twenty-four years later…
Zora shivered in the rain and looked up and down the open street before she crossed. She always tried to get home before sunset, even though the dark siders were supposed to abide by the standard daylight laws. There was always a look in their eyes that said they might not feel like playing by the rules for a night.
She walked down the street with her head bowed as she tried to avoid getting soaked, even though she was fairly sure she couldn’t get any wetter.
She sidestepped an oncoming woman with brilliant green eyes and didn’t look over her shoulder to continue trying to figure out what she was. The feel of the gaze on her spine let her know it was some sort of predator.
Getting to her building didn’t make things any easier. A hunched shadow sat near the door, and she opened the outer door with a practiced twist, turning to pull it closed behind her.
Zora climbed the three floors and wished for enough money to be able to afford a building with an elevator. She opened her door and closed it, latching all nine locks, one at a time.
There was no dignity to squelching across her tile floor and stripping in the bathroom, but the hot shower felt amazing.
An hour later, she was sitting in a long-sleeved jersey dress with a glass of wine and the wreckage of her dinner next to her. She flipped through the channels and was just settling in for a Friday of investigative television when a knock sounded at her door.
Zora looked over at the door with irritation. “Who is it?”
The knock sounded again.
Zora pulled a shawl around her shoulders to hide the fact that underwear had not been on the evening’s agenda, crossed the room and looked through the peephole. A pair of red eyes stared back at her.
“Tsura Charani Maloney?”
Zora stepped back, away from the door. No one called her Tsura. No one was supposed to know the name. She was Zora Charity Maloney on all of her legal documentation.
The door rattled in the frame and Zora ran to get her great-great-grandmother’s blades. Cutting a vampire went against everything she had inherited, but it was her only chance.
She held up the knives her great-great-grandmother had used to fend off her husband, and she backed up against the wall. Her confidence that a vampire couldn’t come into her home without her permission was shattered when the door burst in.
He was tall, lean and elegant, but it was her resemblance to the face she saw in the mirror which filled her with horror. The scars on his face sealed the resemblance to her ancestor. “That’s impossible.”
“Why? I am your blood, darling, and you are mine. It is about to make me a very happy man.” He rushed her and before she could get her knives up, he had clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, making soothing sounds as her lungs screamed and her world went black.
Chapter Two
She was being carried, and her senses were vibrating with the nearness of a gathering of vampires. For over two decades, Zora had fought what her senses were telling her, but now, there was no choice. She was in danger and her life was about to take a sudden shift.
Zora opened her eyes just enough to see and looked at the elegantly dressed men and women around her. She tried to keep her breathing calm, but her heart was pounding in a staccato beat.
“Easy, child. This will be over shortly. We have to wait our turn.”
She whispered as softly as she could. “How did you find out about me?”
He chuckled. “The Internet is an amazing thing. Genealogy websites are just fascinating.”
She winced at the thought that one of her distant cousins had plugged her name into a display for everyone to see she was related to this monster.
He stepped forward and she took in the line he appeared to be in. A deep, booming voice was speaking and a lighter voice was pleading. There was a whistling sound and a thwack, and then all was silent until the deep voice spoke again.
They were moving up a very disturbing line.
The woman in front of them asked for, and was granted, a larger territory to look for humans who wished to act as food. She went away quite happy.
The room went completely silent when her great-great-grandfather stepped forward.