Page 5

Lorcan

I watched the retreating figure of the mail carrier, the satisfaction of her blood fading. This was what my parents had cursed me to, but it was a life I’d live on my own terms. I didn’t need them, or my brothers, or anyone else for that matter. All I needed was a source of blood to keep me alive.

And I needed to get some old man saltbush.

But right then, I was confined to my house with my sclera glowing a bright red and my pupils the color of ash from feeding.

The last thing I needed was questions, so I turned to my phone, relieved when my search found a holistic garden shop in town.

Hopefully, if I went just before it closed, I could minimize any interactions.

I ran a hand over my face. The thought of mingling and exchanging pleasantries with strangers was enough to make me reconsider the errand.

Maybe I should just phone? No. It wouldn’t kill me to get out of the house for once.

When evening fell, I set off on foot to the center.

My mind wandered, reflecting on a mystery I rarely thought about anymore.

There was a peculiarity the men in my family shared—the ability to walk in sunlight unharmed.

Sharing our blood with another vampire also allowed them to walk in the sun for a time.

We attributed it to our creator, Runa LaRoux, better known around Waterford as the Dearg Dur.

Her story was as old as time. She had fallen in love with a farmer in her village, but her father betrothed her to a chieftain’s son.

Her husband, a miserable wretch, beat and abused her for his pleasure.

At first, she convinced herself that her true love would save her, but he never came.

She starved herself to death to escape her hopeless life.

She was hastily buried, and the villagers forgot to put rocks on her grave to keep her from rising for revenge.

Or maybe they did it on purpose. Who knows?

Whatever the case, that night, Runa rose from the dead as vengeance incarnate, her fury reshaping her into a creature craving blood in the darkness.

She set her sights on her father and husband, the two she blamed most for her torment.

Growing up, we feared her, although we learned early that the O’Cillian name would never be in the mortal history books because of a truce between her and my parents.

It did nothing to stop the hushed whispers and reverence of our bloodline among the immortal.

My brothers and I often speculated on what Runa got from the bargain, but never learned.

Over time, we only feared her for what she could take away: our anonymity as vampires.

We’d been safe, untouched by the chaos our kind thrived on—until Aiden decided he wanted something more.

Of all my brothers, I missed my youngest brother, Conall, the most. I tried to quiet my mind—forget about the past—but the last conversation I had with him invaded.

“You can’t leave me with them,” Conall growled.

I threw a shirt into my bag. “I can and will unless you want to come with me. You’d be most welcome to.”

I had reached my wits’ end. Our parents were gone, and Aiden was out of control.

Every day, he hunted hunters and vampires, testing his strength and inability to die.

By then, we’d had five years of it. Five years of being afraid that Aiden would be dead or would lose himself entirely.

Five years of the demands for subservience, which would never happen.

Maybe we would have been better off if he had died.

Cormac tried to rein Aiden in and talk some sense into him.

But he had also stepped into Father’s role as acting president for the business and was overwhelmed.

I could have helped, but I couldn’t forgive his one failing: he would never cut Aiden off.

Aiden had access to all our money and homes, which gave him the financial backing to create even more issues and no means of real escape for the rest of us.

I hated the bloodshed, the violence, the demands for control.

“Where are you going?” Conall’s eyes pleaded with me to abandon my plan.

“I don’t know. But until Mother and Father return, neither will I.”

His voice became soft. “How do we know they’re still alive?”

Sometimes he still acted like a teenager, rather than an 800-year-old vampire.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Because Mother owns 51 percent of Dún Na Farraige Estates Incorporated. As long as she is human, no vampire other than those Mother invited in will cross our threshold. And Father must stay with her to keep her alive. She has been alive for nearly a millennium. Without his blood, she’ll die. ”

I had spent countless hours with our mother quizzing her and learning every morsel I could about the magic that ruled our lives, including the blood bond she had with my father as his mate.

I never knew if it was love or loyalty to my father that made my mother more knowledgeable than he, but her teachings, including about the natural magic the witches tapped into, still guided my path.

Our mother was the oldest vampire mate known to exist. She drank our father’s blood daily to allow her body to heal. But that meant my brothers and I were not full vampires. Instead, we were dhampirs—half human, half vampire.

We stopped aging around age thirty with no need for us to die.

And we always needed blood, starting with blood-laced milk from our mother’s bosom, tiny punctures opened for us by our father.

Blood-laced wine followed as we weaned from our mother.

If any of us went for too long without, we desiccated, suffering the same effects as any full-blooded vampire. Yet the sun never burned.

I pulled my mobile from my pocket, trying to convince myself I just needed to check the time.

Instead, I flipped to my contacts and saw my brothers’ numbers—given to me over the years, even though I hadn’t wanted them.

They were a reminder of bonds I’d never entirely severed.

My thumb hovered over their names as though a force kept me from pressing Call.

I’d never dialed them before and wasn’t inclined to start now.

Any contact would only pull me back into a life I loathed.

I gritted my teeth and tucked the phone back into my pocket, focusing on the road ahead, as much physical as metaphorical.

The garden center came into view. I took a breath, hoping the voices floating to me were from a neighboring property.

The lights strung across the path and the banner over the entrance to the center made my heart sink.

Instead of the quiet closing time I’d hoped for, the place was bustling: laughter drifted on the breeze, fires danced in the pits, and caterers moved about with trays of food.

It reminded me of everything I had abandoned to live in solitude.

My muscles tensed, instinct telling me to run.

I wasn’t fast enough. A woman with curly brown hair approached from behind a tree, a clipboard in hand, and a smile—open and welcoming—on her lips. The carefree warmth unsettled me further, causing my feet to glue to the ground.

“Hey, are you here for the party?” she said. “It doesn’t start for a while, but tons of people are already here.”

I shook my head, words eluding me. I couldn’t be here, I couldn’t stay. It was too loud with too many people. “No, I was just going to make a purchase, but you’re busy. I’ll come back tomorrow.” I took a step back, my shoulders drawing inward.

“Oh, no! Briar would never forgive me if I let you leave. She’ll want to make sure you have what you need. Come on in.”

She beckoned to me. I forced myself forward, each step pulling me out of my sanctuary of solitude, my mind screaming for me to return home.

This was a world I no longer belonged to, but it was too late for me to do anything but enter it.

I promised myself I’d be there only long enough to get what I needed.