Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
He’s younger than I first thought, too. Well, young for having just spent two hundred years in the forest. Do Horsemen or whatever he is not age? Will he look young forever? I think of my grandpa, who’s actually my great great great great great great times about eight more greats grandpa, and yet still looks like he’s just in his mid-thirties.
Another thing this stranger and I have in common. I feel my cheeks flush and force myself to look at the floor. I’m afraid I’ve been staring.
“Then let’s get you some more food.” I turn on my heel and head toward the fridge. Apparently, there’s electricity in the cabin, just not running water. Not so odd out in the mountain country in this part of the world.
Of course, Grandpa would have a fit seeing me anywhere like this. Only the best for Grandpa Vlad. The way he drowns himself in luxuries makes it obvious to anyone with a pulse that he’s overcompensating for something. That’s just it. The rest of my uncles surrounding Grandpa don’t have one. A pulse, that is. A fact which only occasionally wigs me out.
I come from a family of the undead. So what? Until me, every one of my relatives on my father’s side lived as a human until twenty-five. Then they became overcome by bloodlust and took their first bite to become a vampire, impregnating the next generation at the same time because the bloodlust was accompanied by the good old-fashioned kind of sexual lust. I always thought this was TMI to know about one’s own parents, not to mention every other living relative.
Because though I call them “uncles,” they’re really just a line of about twenty grandfathers and great-great-great grandfathers—you get the picture— who all look twenty-five. Calling them “uncles” seemed less confusing. Especially when most of them have the emotional maturity of a prepubescent boy. Four uncles from the 17th century are barely above feral status.
I always hid whenever I saw them coming down the hallway as a kid. Grandpa Vlad was the oldest and somehow kept them all in check, but I didn’t see how. They tended to communicate more in bloodthirsty grunts than anything else. A couple from the 19th century were more bearable but the newer ones were so power-hungry I was careful to never let my guard down around them.
They were each sure Grandfather was going to leave his dynasty to them. Pointless since the old man couldn’t be killed and never planned on going anywhere.
Also pointless since if Grandfather ever did appoint a successor, the unspoken acknowledgment was that it would be me—the one who broke the chain. I wasn’t a vampire but I was more powerful than all who came before. Vlad valued power more than anything, so I was still favored, despite the fact that we rarely saw eye to eye, and at this particular moment, I had theoretically run away from home to escape the hateful bastard.
But he seems to always find a way to get me back. Vlad always gets what Vlad wants.
I sigh and push away the thought as I close the refrigerator, turning instead toward a hunk of bread I see on the counter. I slather it liberally with some butter that’s also been left out on the counter, and after pulling open several cupboard doors, I finally find a plate.
I walk back over to the bed where the man’s watching me with those cool, eerie gray eyes of his. He reaches out for it, but I pause before handing it off.
“What’s your name?”
He hesitates as if this is somehow far more intimate than telling me what sort of creature he is. But he finally inhales deeply and releases the breath, as if he’s telling a secret, or maybe just a name that hasn’t been spoken aloud for a very, very long time. “Layden.”
I say it back, if only so he can hear it again, “Layden. It’s nice to meet you.”
I hand him his plate of buttered bread, and his eyes show his gratitude as he takes it.
“Why are you being so kind to me? From the world I remember… before,” his eyes cloud over as if it’s a very long time ago he is trying to remember, “no one was kind to one another.”
I frown, thinking of my life, of my parents and wondering where on earth they might be at this moment. Wondering if they’re happy. If they’ve forgotten me as they go about their day-to-day life.
“There’s not a lot of kindness in today’s world either.”
The furrow in his brow deepens. “So why are you—”
I shrug. “We all need somebody every now and then.”
“Who was your somebody?” he asks.
My chest clenches tight. “My mother,” I say, then withdraw my hand because I can’t think about Mom today. It’s been too long since I’ve seen her. “And my best friend, Sabra. There are good people in this world. It just takes a little hunting and patience to find them.”