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“Cherries?” I answer, and there is an audible gasp. “What, what did I say?”

My mother rushes over and grabs my shoulders tightly. Her eyes are boring into me. “You smelled cherries?”

“Yes, why?”

“Are you sure?” my father asks.

“I know what cherries smell like.”

“It could have been her perfume,” Marcus adds.

“Unlikely, you know our scents can’t be masked like that,” Laurence says.

“What the hell are you all talking about?” I practically shout.

“Amelia,” my mother starts. “You’ve found her!”

“Found who?” I can’t process what they are saying.

“Your mate, dumbass,” Lucille shouts.

“No, you’re wrong,” I say with certainty.

“We’re not wrong,” Father replies.

“You could be,” Claire interrupts because, like me, Claire knows something they don’t. Erin is a human, and vampires cannot mate with humans.

“What aren’t you telling us?” Jacob asks.

“Erin is a human,” I say.

The silence that falls is deafening. My mother and father share a look, but it’s not the one I expected. I thought, for sure, they would regard me and then each other with sadness. My chance, slipping through my fingers, but that’s not what is happening.

The thing about being married for a couple hundred years is the ability to talk without using words. They’ve always had the ability to know what the other is thinking, and it is infuriating. Now more than ever.

“Why are you doing that weird, silent conversation thing?” Lucille asks, and I actually chuckle.

“Everyone sit,” my father calls. We follow his demand and take our usual seats around the table. Claire sits on Maria’s knee. They’re close friends too, so it’s not weird. “Amelia, this is going to sound…”

“Unbelievable,” my mother finishes.

“Okay.” I have no idea where this conversation is going.

“There have been a few cases of vampire-human mating.”

“Gross,” I mumble.

Mother ignores my childish outburst and continues. “Each time the… the vampire still fell into madness.”

“Wonderful,” I laugh mirthlessly. Basically, what I am being told is that my stupid body has mated with a species that is incapable of fulfilling what I need to become immortal.

“There are stories,” my father begins. “Stories that tell of a vampire, ages ago, who mated with a human successfully.”

“And are those stories based on truth or legend?” Marcus asks.

“We don’t know,” Father answers.

“So let’s get this straight,” Lucille interrupts. “Amelia has found her mate, but it’s likely she will still turn nuts.”