The Vampire's Special Daughter

by Amira Rain

  The new vampire striding up the driveway was just as hot as Jake; I could see that even from a distance. He was tall like Jake, too, maybe an inch or two over six feet, with the same type of powerful, muscular physique. On the whole, though, he had kind of a different look than Jake, at least facially. Whereas Jake had an open sort of face with far-spaced, bright, light-colored eyes, and golden blonde hair that bordered on light brown, this newcomer’s hair was extremely dark, as were his eyebrows, which gave him a serious, brooding sort of look. His high cheekbones and eyes, which seemed to be some dark shade, only added to this look, which I didn’t find unpleasant at all. In fact, I thought, if this dark-haired newcomer had any kind of a decent personality, I was going to be crushing on him just as hard as I was already crushing on Jake. And torn between liking two guys wasn’t a problem that I wanted to have.

  When the newcomer was nearing the porch, I turned my gaze to the side, not wanting to creepily stare him down from close distance. Suddenly realizing that I’d been greeting everyone while wearing an ice cream-stained apron and now feeling slightly embarrassed about it, I quickly smoothed the front of the apron, as if removing a few wrinkles would really make me look like less of a complete mess. And it was too late for me to remove the apron now, unless I wanted the incredibly handsome newcomer to think I’d done it for his benefit, which I didn’t.

  When he reached the porch steps, I returned my gaze to him and said hello.

  Climbing the steps with as much purpose and confidence as he’d been walking with, he returned the greeting unsmilingly. “I’m here to meet with Hayden MacGregor.”

  Surprised and slightly offended that he hadn’t seen fit to introduce himself to me, I opened the door, gestured inside, and spoke in a voice that I tried to make as icy as possible. “He’ll be hosting a meeting in the dining room soon.”

  Saying a terse thanks, the stony-faced visitor made as if to stride through the front door. However, he was prevented from doing so by the fact that I’d positioned myself to where I was kind of blocking the door. I wasn’t even really sure how this had come to be, whether I’d done it accidentally, or had moved into this position out of some subconscious desire to make the young man pause to introduce himself to me. At any rate, my partial blocking of the doorway was enough to make him stop in mid-stride, frowning at me. However, he didn’t stop for long.

  After just a quick moment spent glancing at the copy of Anne of Green Gables I still held in my hand, he turned his body a few degrees sideways and began breezing on by me. “Excuse me…bookworm.”

  Although he’d said Excuse me at normal speaking volume, he’d said bookworm very much under his breath. He’d said it at such a low volume, in fact, that I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure that I’d heard him right. However, I was sure enough to be immediately outraged, and I glared at him.

  “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

  Just past the threshold of the front door, maybe just a foot or two away from me, he looked at me with a perfectly neutral expression. “I just said, ‘Excuse me.’”

  Seeing some trace of deception in his dark gray eyes, I shook my head. “No, you didn’t. You said, ‘Excuse me…bookworm,’ with bookworm just under your breath, but I still heard it.”

  He lifted his broad shoulders just a degree or two. “Well…so what if I did?”

  I could only sputter briefly. “Well…it’s incredibly rude to call someone a bookworm right while entering their own house, especially when you know nothing about that person…especially when you have no clue if that person really is even a bookworm.”

  “So, you’re denying that you are one?”

  I resisted the urge to slam my damned book on the floor. “Look. The point is that you were incredibly rude by muttering under your breath what you did. And don’t you even try to deny it.”

  For the second time, he lifted his broad shoulders in a faint shrug. “All right. That probably was pretty rude. I’m sorry.”

  Having not expected this response, I briefly struggled to think of what to say. “Well, thank you for the apology.”

  “You’re welcome…messy, ice cream-covered little bookworm.”

  Stunned and outraged, I gasped. The handsome, infuriating newcomer probably didn’t even hear me, though. He was already striding through the foyer to the kitchen, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he’d gotten my heart racing even faster than Jake had.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I thought about following after him, with the intent of demanding an apology. However, before I could take even a single step, I heard Carol welcoming the newcomer from somewhere in the kitchen. Realizing that she and whoever else was with her would now be witness to any demand for an apology, which I didn’t want, I simply shut the front door and went back out on the porch, fuming.

  It was then that I saw my dad in the distance, striding over to the house from the woodland, probably having just finished leading a guard patrol around the property. Unable to wait until he reached the house to tell him about what had just happened, I began dashing over to him.

  When I got close, he greeted me with a smile. “Have the newcomers started arriving already?”

  A little breathless, I came to a stop. “Yes, and I want to let you know, Dad, that one of them has been calling me names. His name is…well, I don’t even know what it is yet, but he looks just a few years older than me, and he has dark hair that’s almost black, and dark gray eyes with just the tiniest hint of blue in them, and he was being incredibly rude to me, calling me all sorts of incredibly rude names. And this was only like, two seconds after arriving on our property.”

  With his smile having been replaced by a scowl, my dad looked over at the house before returning his gaze to me. “What did he call you?”

  “Well, first, he called me a bookworm, and then he ramped it up, calling me a ‘messy, ice-cream covered little bookworm.’ Dad, it was all…it was all just….” A little flustered, and not even quite sure what it was all just, I paused. “Incredibly rude.”

  My dad’s expression had softened, and he now fixed me with a look that I couldn’t quite read. It might have been one of slight exasperation mixed with slight amusement, although I couldn’t be sure.

  “Well, it sounds like this particular new vampire might be a bit socially awkward at best, and annoying and a little rude at worst. So, what do you want me to do about him?”

  Surprised at my dad’s seeming nonchalance, I snorted. “I want you to go inside, find a dark-haired vampire with gray eyes, and….” Needing a moment to think, I paused. “I just want you to kick his ass, Dad.”

  Now my dad didn’t even look slightly exasperated; it was clearly written all over his face.

  With a quiet sigh, he put his hands on my shoulders. “We currently have a big looming problem with the Warrens, Chrissy. I’ve enlisted the help of some of the physically strongest ‘lone wolf’ and otherwise unaffiliated vampires in the country to help us fight this problem. Do you really want me to turn one of them away for simply calling you a bookworm?”

  “He called me a ‘messy, ice-cream covered little bookworm,’ to be precise, and to answer your question, no. I don’t want you to ‘turn him away.’ I said I want you to kick his damn ass.”

  My dad frowned. “Please watch your mouth with the swearing around me, Christine. I’m not your Uncle Mark, and I’m not your Aunt Jen. I’m your dad.”

  Sometimes to my annoyance, he frequently felt the need to remind me of this, maybe because regardless of his “real” age, he didn’t look much older than his mid-twenties, because he hadn’t aged a day since becoming a vampire.

  Feeling simultaneously irritated and embarrassed to have been called out on my swearing, I muttered an apology, finding it difficult to maintain eye contact with my dad. “I’ll watch my mouth.”

  Taking my face in his hands, he planted a kiss on my forehead. “Good. Now, what do you say we get up to the house and head inside. I’m already late to start the meeting. A few
Warren fighters lurking around our property about a half-mile west made sure of that.”

  We began walking toward the house, and I asked him if he and the members of his guard patrol had killed the Warrens or chased them off.

  He said both. “We were able to take one out, but two fled. I wasn’t unhappy about that, though, because I actually wanted at least one of them to bring back word to Raymond Warren that we’re adding to our Watcher group here on the farm. I know his fighters had to have seen all the people traveling in this direction, and I’m sure they were able to tell by scent that they were vampires.”

  “So, once Raymond Warren finds out that we’re beefing up our ‘army,’ he’ll stop building up his own, then?”

  Looking toward the house with his expression troubled, my dad didn’t answer right away. “Hopefully. But even if he does, I don’t think he’s going to be content to just sit back with his new, larger ‘army’ of vampires.”

  “Well, what do you think he’ll do?”

  Again, my dad didn’t answer right away. “Hard to say, but they’ve tried attacking us here on the farm in the past, once when you were just a little baby. Remember when Mom and I told you about that?”

  I nodded. “Yes…but we beat them so badly that time that they’d be afraid to ever attack us again, right?”

  “Well, we beat them badly enough to have made them not attack us again for about the past nine years…but part of that was that after we killed so many of them, they didn’t really have the numbers to attack us again. Now they do.”

  “Well, if they ever attack us here at the farm again, we’ll just take them out the way we did last time, right?”

  “Well, that would be the hope and the goal…and that’s why I’ve invited the new vampires to join us Watchers. I’ve vetted them all, and they all seem like good people…and it’s good and selfless of them to want to join our group in order to strengthen us against the Warrens, and also to protect the non-vampire public at large around these parts. So, Chrissy, even if we find that one or two of the newcomers to our community are maybe slightly annoying, let’s try to be hospitable and make them all feel welcome. Okay?”

  I didn’t say anything, not sure that I could ever force myself to make the gray-eyed newcomer feel welcome.

  We’d reached the house and had climbed the porch stairs by now, and my dad stopped us just before the front door, putting a hand on my shoulder. “As far as the guy that called you a bookworm…I’ll identify him and have a talk with him, and let him know that calling you any sort of names isn’t acceptable.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Unless you don’t want me to have a talk with him.”

  Folding my arms across my chest, I scoffed. “Why wouldn’t I want—”

  “It’s just that sometimes when a young man finds a young woman attractive, he might tease her a little.”

  I scoffed again. “You’re making excuses for him now? Come on, Dad. Are you my dad, or his?”

  Sighing, my dad gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now, would you like to come out to the dining room and join us all for the meeting? You’re more than welcome to if you’d like.”

  Not wanting to face all the newcomers again dressed how I was, I said no, thanks. “I think I’m just going to go upstairs and grab a shower. Lest any of the new vampires call me ‘messy’ and ‘ice cream-covered’ again.”

  Surveying the front of my apron, my dad cracked a tiny smile. “You do look like you might have fallen into one of the churns today.”

  With a sigh, I turned and pulled open the front door. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Inside the house, chaos reigned. Carol and several newcomers stood talking in the kitchen while Mel and Matt bustled through carrying packed moving boxes. Mark and a few newcomers carrying boxes followed behind. In the sunroom adjacent to the kitchen, Sam and his wife Maria tried to corral Mel and Matt’s boys, Devin, Dean, and Derrick, who were all attempting to flee the sunroom and join the busyness of the kitchen. Out in the combination living and dining room, things were similarly packed and busy, with several dozen vampires milling around the vast room while Jen loudly told some story to a small group of them standing around her. Hopeful that Jen was possibly making a romantic connection, I saw that David was part of this group.

  After breezing through the dining room, I began heading up the stairs that would take me to the second floor and my room. It was maybe halfway up them, when I had a full view of the dining room, that I spotted Jake and Paul just about at once. Jake was standing talking to a few people, half-hidden by them. Paul was sitting in an antique wingback chair by the couch, alone, seeming to be just simply surveying the room. He was the only one of the two who saw me, and our eyes locked for just a moment. I looked away first with my face suddenly warming, which I told myself was out of anger.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was actually glad that Paul had been so rude to me and had made me feel so self-conscious about being a bookworm. This was what I told myself, anyway, and I mostly believed it. This was because even though I couldn’t deny that Paul was insanely hot, his behavior had made me dislike him, to say the least, so now I didn’t have to worry about the complication of crushing on two different guys at once.

  Now I’m free to try to become a little closer to Jake only, I thought, mildly amused by the fact that I’d actually thought that after spending all my teenage years single, I might suddenly have the problem of having too many attractive suitors to “choose” from.

  After showering, I dressed in pajamas, deciding that I was just going to stay upstairs for the night, since I had no idea when my dad’s meeting would end, and I didn’t exactly want to come back down in the middle of it. I had just one problem, though, which was that once I’d finished untangling my damp hair with a wide-toothed comb, I realized that I was hungry. And not just hungry, but incredibly so. Silently cursing myself for not grabbing a pint of the ice cream I’d brought home on my way upstairs, I checked my nightstand drawer for any snacks, because I usually kept a few in there to nibble on while watching movies in bed. However, I found only wrappers and crumbs in the drawer, making me think that my three-year-old twin brothers, Mason and Alex, might have helped themselves recently. Having watched movies in my room before, they knew exactly where to look for snacks and sometimes came in to raid the drawer when I wasn’t in my room.

  Having another idea, I grabbed my phone, intending to text Jen to ask her if I could raid her room for something to eat. She’d always had an extremely large appetite; so, for convenience sake, she practically had a whole kitchen, including a minifridge, a microwave, and a toaster oven in her room, along with a custom-built cabinet to store all her food.

  Thinking that she probably wouldn’t mind if I took a cup of instant noodles or something from her stash, I began typing out a text. However, before I could finish it, I received one from her. I got a lil borrd at the meating, so I’m out herr in the kitchin makking spigati. Want sum in a wile?

  A notoriously bad speller, Jen had recently turned off the autocorrect feature on her phone out of frustration, because it so frequently changed her horribly-misspelled words into words that she didn’t intend.

  Smiling at her text a little just because I found her horrible spelling kind of endearing in some way, I hit reply and typed out a return text. I’d love some spaghetti. Thanks! Could you bring some up to me?

  Within a minute of hitting send, I had a reply. Cool, I’ll breng you up a lott becuz I’m makking a hole big pott of it for the twinz to have sum too when thay git hoem.

  I stifled a little giggle looking at this text, marveling over the fact that Jen had still spelled bring incorrectly, despite the fact that she’d been able to see the correct spelling in my text; yet, she’d somehow spelled the word too correctly for the way she was using it. This maybe shouldn’t have been that surprising to me, because sometimes her spelling and grammar could be ju
st as surprising as she herself could be. One particular time that I remembered, she’d managed to spell the word convenience correctly on a hand-written shopping list, but not the words peanut and butter, which she’d spelled peenit and buttr.

  About a half-hour later, bearing a tray loaded with plates of spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread, she entered my room, announcing that dinner was served. “And by ‘dinner,’ I actually mean ‘second dinner’ for me, because all the tacos I had on the way home today were probably my first. They might have fallen under ‘second lunch,’ though, so…who knows.”

  After I’d thanked her for bringing me up some dinner, she asked if I minded if she ate in bed with me, and I said of course not.

  “I’m glad to have the company, because I don’t think I’ll be heading back downstairs tonight.”

  While setting the tray on my writing desk, Jen asked me why not. “Don’t you want to see your mom and Mason and Alex down there? They’re all home now.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I want to see them, but…I guess maybe I’ve just visited with all the newcomers enough for one day. I at least don’t want to go back downstairs until the meeting is over.”

  “Oh, well that probably won’t be for a good while. Everyone was talking pretty intensely when I walked by to bring the tray up.” Jen took two plates of salad off the tray and began bringing them over to my bed. “Or, I should say, everyone was talking pretty intensely until I walked by. See, because I put garlic in the spaghetti sauce and on our bread, I just couldn’t help but make a comment. I was just like, ‘If any of you vampires start to feel threatened by the smell of this garlic, just know that it’s not for vampire-fighting purposes. It’s just because my niece and I like the taste of it. We promise to never turn it against you all, unless you give us a good reason to.’” Handing me my plate of salad, Jen burst out with a little peal of laughter. “Your dad gave me such a dirty look.”