Page 41 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Hawaii—Fifty years later

T he swaddled baby yawns and looks up at me with bright blue eyes. Good grief. I can’t believe I’m a great-aunt. Or that I have an extended mortal family.

A gray-haired Tina leans over and says, “Don’t hog my grandbaby, sister. Give my brother a turn.”

We’re all in a large hospital room, decorated like a comfortable living area, designed for family to meet the newborn under the watchful eyes of the new parents. I look up at my husband of fifty years, who’s patiently waiting for me to surrender his great-niece. Valroy’s temperament is probably the only reason we’ve done what few maker-progeny couples have succeeded in doing—going the long haul.

We’ve kept the bond because we can’t keep our fangs off each other. At the twenty-year mark, I offered to free him, and he threatened to tie me to the bed until I relented, and that was the last time we talked about it.

I still love him as much as I did the night he asked me to marry him. We waited a year—a tradition among vampires, just to make sure the relationship sticks—then took a three-week vacation in Hawaii to get married, with Tina and Titus standing up for us, and all my bandmates attending.

Boy, did our lead guitarist bring a surprise with him to the wedding. But that’s Chris’s story to tell.

Tina and Titus tied the knot four years after us, had two boys and a girl, and that girl, Laura, named after Tina and Valroy’s mother, is lying in the birthing bed, her husband, Hoku, at her side, watching us all meet their newborn daughter.

I still remember Laura as a toddler who made the sturdiest towers from colorful plastic blocks. Now she’s an engineer and a mother. They grow up much too quickly.

After our family greeting wraps, the couple and their newborn will go into seclusion for four weeks to recover from the birth and bond with their first child—Tina’s first grandchild.

I look around the room and know that someday I’ll lose all these mortals one by one as I live on. Despite that, I smile contentedly at the little girl cradled in my arms. My heart’s healed enough to hold them all for as long as I have them and to survive the grief when they go.

For now, I’m looking forward to playing auntie all over again.

Valroy coos to the baby as I pass her to him, and in the moment, I regret that we can’t have children. He would have made a fantastic father. As it is, he did a grand job raising Tina. And just like he predicted, she became an accountant and financial planner.

I reach up and run my fingers over the baby’s soft cheek. “What’re ya gonna name her?”

Laura glances at her husband, then back at me and Valroy. “If it’s okay with you, we’d like to name her Evelina, Evie for short. You’re the matriarch of our family. Without you, we wouldn’t have the life we do.”

Before Laura finishes, I’m sniffing back tears. “Of course ya can. I’m honored.”

Valroy passes the baby to Tina, then takes me in his arms as I cry it out.

I rarely have reason to cry these days, but darn it all, being part of a family just opens my heart to tears of joy.

My husband pats my back and whispers, “We should be going. It’s late for them.”

Yeah, it’s easy to forget mortals don’t stay up all night. I kiss Laura’s cheek, caress baby Evelina’s messy mop of dark brown hair, and say goodnight. After a group hug with Tina and Titus and Hoku, we’re on our way out the door. The grandparents will stay a little longer.

Valroy takes my hand as we head down the hospital hallway. “Are you really okay with the baby’s name?”

I give him a little shove with my shoulder. “Of course I am. I’ll feel a little weird in forty years when she looks older than me, but I’m happy with it.” I side-eye him. “Did you know their plan?”

“Well…”

“Good grief, you goofball. Ya should’ve told me.”

“They wanted to be the ones to tell you.”

“If you’d whispered it in my ear, I would’ve kept it secret. I’m a good actress, ya know?”

“I know.”

I’m still playing the part of the goddess Diana even though I haven’t taken an ark contract in a long while—my acting career is supporting us, and we consider Sierra Escondida as home base, with frequent trips to Hawaii. I can do the Diana act from anywhere, and New Rome has improved significantly under the first and then the second empress’s rule.

At least ten weeks out of the year, the band gets back together to tour the mixed domes. I’m still the lead singer, and Chris is not only our guitarist, but our manager, too. The Lux are accommodating about providing transportation for our group. Culture is finally starting to see a comeback as people move from the survival phase to expanding communities under new domes.

And when we aren’t touring, we play for the dances held at the Sierra Escondida community center. I’ve introduced Valroy to all my friends, and he fits in quite nicely. He went to college and earned a master’s degree in business, so he works for the town’s financial manager, who was only a little put out by his departure when Laura’s baby arrived a few days early. But we’re in a cycle of daytime moonrises, so he’s able to work remotely to get the town’s annual budget finished on time.

I link hands with Valroy again and squeeze. “What do you want to do now, hot stuff?”

“Swim?”

“I should’ve guessed.” Come to think of it, I did guess. Being raised in a landlocked dome, my husband loves playing in the ocean. And there’s a nude beach on this island he particularly loves. I glance at my virtual watch. We have plenty of time before sunrise. Our beach bags are in the trunk of our electric rental car—I packed them before we left the hotel.

The posted hours at the beach are dawn to dusk, but it’s well known the beach is open to vampires and their guests after the sun sets.

The full moon reflects off the gentle waves lapping at the sand. When the doomsday glacier melted, the diluted seawater killed a ton of corals and fish. The Lux sank a series of domes deep in the ocean surrounding the island to act like an aquarium, adding salt as necessary to preserve the protected fish, turtles, and corals.

I try not to think about the destruction mortals wrought on this world and just enjoy this glorious night.

Valroy insists on carrying our bags, and I’ve learned to let him. Compromise is also part of our success, though there are still things I draw the line at.

The beach is almost empty, so we find a private spot and strip off our clothes in the warm, humid air.

Getting naked in nature revs my engine, and ever since our first summer in the ark, Valroy has had me all over God’s green earth, including lush fields and brisk streams, while bison and elk strolled past. The wilderness dome gave us plenty of privacy to explore our lovemaking.

“Race you to the water,” I say, whooshing before I finish my challenge.

But he’s wise to my games and barrels into me, sweeping me off my feet and dunking me into deeper waves.

I surface, sputtering in the sea foam. “For cripes’ sake—you’ll pay for that.”

I dive under to grab his feet. Valroy is ticklish, and I apply my strategic knowledge until he breaks free and swims deeper, circling around to surface beyond me.

Treading water, he shakes a finger at me. “Oh, Blue Eyes, wait until I get my hands on you.”

“Promises, promises. You sure you can deliver?”

He smiles. “You know I can.”

I kick my way over to him and wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

Fifty years together, and being playful with each other is the glitter that makes our relationship sparkle. We started our journey wrestling in a frozen reclamation bin. Thrown together by circumstances, we learned to live with one another, but whether it was luck or fate, he’s the only one for me, and while he may have fallen first, I often feel I’ve fallen harder.

I kiss him. “Whatcha have in mind?”

With my legs wrapped around him, he slides his erection into me, and we make love slowly under the bright stars and full moon in the warm ocean water. Before plunging my fangs into his neck, I whisper, “I love you.”

He moans as my fang serum floats through his bloodstream. “Me too, Blue Eyes. Me too.”

A Note from Jenna Barwin

Thank you for reading Saved by the Vampire Goddess . I hope you enjoyed it!

The next book in the Dark Wine Vampires series, Saved by the Vampire Thief , is slated for publication in September 2026. It’s set in the same post-Collapse world, but in a different ark—one located in the southwest.