Family is Forever
Conversion Book Six
Copyright © 2017 by S.C. Stephens
Cover design by Okay Creations
Editing by Madison Seidler Editing Services
Formatting by JT Formatting
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
License Notes
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Also by S.C. Stephens
Dangerous Rush
Furious Rush
Untamed
Thoughtful
Reckless
Effortless
Thoughtless
It’s All Relative
Collision Course
The Beast Within
The Next Generation
‘Til Death
Bloodlines
Conversion
For the Adams clan.
My, my, how you’ve grown!
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
About the Author
THERE WERE CERTAIN things about my life that I couldn’t ignore, even if I wanted to. My family was full of vampires, including myself. I had to lie about who I really was, had to hide my abilities as much as I possibly could. A couple of months ago, my sister, Nika, had died. Well, I guess she wasn’t completely dead. She had undergone a conversion and become a pureblood vampire with all their benefits and setbacks. The empathic bond I’d had with her was gone now, a fact that both saddened and relieved me. I was the last vampire in the family with a pulse. And, I was the last vampire who could continue the line. If I didn’t have kids, the vampiric family tree would die with me. No pressure or anything.
It was the last day of my junior year, and what a hell of a school year it had turned out to be. I was glad it was almost over. Then, after a too-brief summer vacation, I’d be starting my senior year of school. Good or bad, it would be my last year in Salt Lake City—my last year with my friends. After I graduated, my family would be moving to another location and everyone who knew us here would be wiped clean. We’d be ghosts and rumors, with no specifics about us remaining in their memories. It would be as if we were never here at all. And that was the point. Protect the nest, no matter the cost. That was our family motto. Lately, the cost had been high.
Nika had temporarily lost her boyfriend, Hunter Evans. Turned into a vampire against his will, Hunter had experienced some serious adjustment issues. He seemed to be doing better now, but Nika had suffered in the interim. Hunter was one who’d turned her into a fully-fledged member of the undead, something my family was still struggling with. He’d done it to save her life though, so no one truly blamed him for her transformation. Even still, I should be starting my senior year this fall with Nika, but instead I would be starting it alone. Completely alone.
The other price that had been paid recently was my girlfriend, Arianna. I’d had to give her up to protect the nest. I was still ticked about that. Grandma Halina had acted too fast, wiped her mind prematurely. I could have turned Arianna around if Halina had just given me more time. But she hadn’t and Arianna was practically a stranger to me now.
I’d spent the last several weeks trying to rebuild our relationship, but it was slow-going. Arianna and I talked during school, but it was just friendly, casual chitchat like we were merely acquaintances. It physically hurt me to have to hold back, to not be able to kiss her cheek and tell her how beautiful she looked, how amazing she was. Pretending I wasn’t in love with her was hard, and it was getting harder every day. I wanted what we’d had so badly, I was growing impatient. But I didn’t want to risk everything by moving too fast, by being too aggressive. We had to come together organically, or else I would come across as a creepy stalker and she’d tell me to get lost. But on the flip side, if we moved too slowly, I’d become…her friend. And nothing more. Ever. Walking that fine line between friends and more-than-friends sucked, and every day I was terrified she’d never see me the way she once had.
I wished Nika was in the picture again. Arianna’s friendship with Nika had helped spark her interest in me—she’d grown to love me from afar while I hadn’t been paying attention. With Nika working behind the scenes to sell me to her best friend, we could have crossed the friend-zone barrier more easily. But Nika was a creature of the night now…and erased from Arianna’s memory just as permanently as I had been. It really bothered me that Nika had lost her friendship with Arianna because of me, and I constantly found myself wishing she could have it back, that somehow, Nika could work on rebuilding her bond to Arianna too. That was impossible though. Nika was different in ways that Arianna would notice if she spent a lot of time with her. And Nika was nocturnal now, so human friendships were much harder to maintain. Nika missed a lot by being up all night and hiding away all day. I was still having trouble adjusting to her new schedule, and I didn’t get to see her as often as I liked. I missed her.
Although, my human friends had been keeping me company in Nika’s absence. Trey, my always-there, almost-always-high best friend, and Raquel, my ex-crush turned friend. It still shocked me that Raquel and I were buds now. I’d spent most of my time in high school pining over her while she’d been dating a raging asshole. But even though she and Russell were no longer together and I was currently single, we hadn’t crossed the friendship line. Whatever I’d been feeling for Raquel before I’d started dating Arianna just wasn’t there anymore. Arianna still had my heart, even if she didn’t know it.
No matter how long it took, I was going to win her back.
“Julian, you’re going to be late.” Looking over at my bedroom doorway, I saw my mom leaning against the doorframe, giving me a lopsided grin. “It’s the last day of school. You don’t want to end the year on a sour note, do you?”
Pulling on my last boot, I quickly laced it up. “I don’t think being late today is going to
be what sours the year for me,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
Mom glanced over at my wide-open bathroom door after my sullen comment. Through the bathroom, she could easily see into the next bedroom. Nika’s room. Well, her old room, since she couldn’t sleep there anymore. She needed a space impervious to sunlight to sleep away the day now. She stayed below the house, in the rooms Dad had added for Halina. Nika wasn’t happy about sleeping down there. She wanted to stay at the family ranch, so she could be with Hunter, her sire. Mom and Dad weren’t okay with that idea though; she was still too young in their eyes to be living with her boyfriend.
Mom’s expression darkened as she stared at Nika’s old room. Standing, I walked over to my bathroom door and softly shut it. Mom’s face shifted back to me and she smiled, but I knew she was faking it; there was no warmth in her grin. What had happened to Nika still bothered her—it bothered us all. But as I constantly reminded myself, it was better than Nika dying.
“She’s fine, Mom. She’s happy.” While I used to know that through our bond, now I only knew it because Nika told me. And by the way her eyes sparkled whenever she said it, I believed her. She really was truly happy. It was the rest of us who were reeling.
Mom gave me a stiff nod. Her deep brown eyes shimmered with moisture, and I instantly felt bad for closing the bathroom door. And for my unnecessary comment. Maybe the moment would have passed with only an unspoken elephant in the room if I hadn’t stupidly brought attention to it.
“Hurry, so you can grab something to eat before school. I don’t want you to go to class hungry.” Like all of the undead members of my family, Mom looked young for her age, but with the sag in her shoulders and the lifelessness in her eyes when she turned away from me, I thought she looked closer to her true age for once.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered, “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”
She heard me, as I knew she would. “It’s fine, Julian. Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll set out some breakfast for you.”
I stifled a sigh. I knew when I walked downstairs there would be a meal fit for a king waiting for me. It used to be I’d just grab a bowl of cereal and a glass of blood in the morning, but ever since Nika had turned, Mom had started making elaborate meals for me every chance she got. It was like she was overcompensating for the fact that I was the only one left who still ate regular food. It was nice, but unnecessary. I never ate as much as she made, and all the excess did was remind me that I was different, that I was alone, and that my twin—my best friend—had been taken away from me.
Looking around my messy room, I searched the floor until I spotted the strap of my backpack buried under a mound of clothes and comic books. When I was with Arianna, I’d tried to be less of a pig, but now… I just didn’t see the point in keeping my room tidy anymore. Both Mom and Nika were disappointed by that fact.
Tossing aside the outfit that I wore yesterday, I unburied my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. Today was a double-edged sword for me. It was the last day that I had to deal with the tedium of schoolwork, but it was also the last time I’d have any sort of a real excuse to see Arianna. Unless we somehow bumped into each other over the summer, I’d have to wait until September to see her again. It was only three months from now, but it felt like three hundred.
Shaking away that disheartening thought, I headed downstairs to where I could feel Mom and Dad in the kitchen. I could feel Nika, too, in the basement. While Mom and Dad were moving around, Nika’s position was stationary. She was most likely sleeping.
The smell of breakfast hit me long before I saw it. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, fresh fruit, cinnamon rolls, and steaming blood. I swear Mom was trying to kill me with comfort food. I looked at the meal piled on my plate with my jaw dropped. “Mom, this looks amazing…but I can’t eat all this. Toast and blood for breakfast really is fine.”
Mom was spooning steaming blueberry filling from a saucepan into a thin crepe dusted with powdered sugar. As she plopped the finished crepe onto a plate already overflowing with food, she frowned. “Hmm, you might be right. This is a lot of food.” She sighed as she put the pot of leftover blueberry filling on the stove next to the bubbling pot of blood. “Just do your best. I don’t want to see it go to waste.”
I gave her a raised eyebrow in response. My stomach hadn’t woken up yet, and there was no way I’d get through a quarter of this meal. Seeing my expression, Mom grimaced. “I’ll try and tone it down, honey. I guess I got carried away…”
That was putting it mildly. Mom had made a whole turkey for dinner last night. Just for me. I was going to be having turkey for dinner for the next three months. Unless she made something else tonight…maybe an entire pan of lasagna or something.
With a smirk on his face, Dad started pouring the hot blood into tall glasses. “I told you that was too much, Em. Yes, he’s a growing boy, but he’s not Bigfoot.”
I laughed as I popped a piece of bacon into my mouth. No, I was an entirely different mythical creature. Mom scowled at Dad for his comment, then at me for sniggering at it. Dad was laughing as he approached her with a glass of blood in each hand. “I’m just impressed that you made all of that without burning anything,” he said, humor in his voice. “You’re getting better.”
Mom tried to frown, but smiled instead. Grabbing her glass, she moved over so that her entire body pressed against his. A seductive grin spread over Dad’s face as he glanced at where they were connected; I immediately shifted my eyes to my plate. “Guess I picked up a thing or two after watching you in the kitchen for all these years,” she said, her voice low.
“You’re a very astute student,” Dad replied, his voice equally low.
Even though I wasn’t hungry, I cringed and dug into my food. My parents sometimes forgot I was in the room when they started flirting with each other. It was mortifying, and I groaned when I heard Mom giggle like a pre-teen. Then the sounds of light kissing filled the air. Kissing reminded me of Arianna, and everything I’d lost with her. Irritated, I grumbled, “Guys…seriously? I’m eating.” I shoveled a spoonful of eggs into my mouth for emphasis.
“Sorry.”
I risked a glance at parents to see them pulling away from one another with huge smiles on their faces. I was glad to see them genuinely happy, I really was, but it was difficult too. I missed my girlfriend. A lot.
No longer feeling the need to force myself to eat, I stepped away from my plate. I was just about to tell my parents I was heading to school, when Dad held a glass of blood in front of me. Wisps of steam swirled around the cylindrical opening in an inviting way. The smell overpowered everything else in the room. It was sweet, tangy, and heady. Like a marshmallow-laden cup of hot chocolate on a chilly evening, it was an irresistible draw. I didn’t need the blood like my family did, but I sure enjoyed it. And with how tumultuous this day might be for me, I knew I could use the pick-me-up.
I removed the glass from my father’s frozen fingers and brought it to my lips. My fangs crashed down the second the liquid hit my tongue. Heaven. The warmth cascaded down my throat, invigorating every part of me. I felt stronger with just a few swallows, rejuvenated, almost invincible. I felt alive. Setting the cup on the counter, I felt like I could take on the world. Blood. Such a great way to start the day.
“Thanks,” I told my dad. “I should probably get going. I don’t want to be late on my last day.” I gave my mom a one-sided grin.
She smiled, and then sighed as she looked over the amount of food I was leaving behind. Guilt filled me, but I tried not to feel bad about it as I headed toward the front door. I hadn’t asked her to make a banquet, and I’d told her more than once not to make so much food. It was just her way of coping.
I fished my keys out of my backpack as I approached the station wagon I shared with my sister. One good thing about Nika’s conversion, we didn’t fight over the car as much since she was now a night owl. And really, she had the blazing speed and endurance of a pureblood vampire—she could run her
ass wherever she wanted to go.
Even though it was early in the morning, it was already comfortably warm—no jacket required. The sky was clear and blue, the same shade as my eyes. Arianna had loved my eyes. If we’d never parted ways, I’d be excited for school. And even more excited that it was the last day, and we’d soon have almost endless time together coming up. We would have talked for hours, kissed, cuddled, and grown even closer than we’d already been. But all that was gone, and I had nothing to look forward to now.
Feeling melancholy, I started the car and made my way to school. Traffic was with me, and I arrived early. Trey was there, hands in his pockets while he lazily skated down the sidewalk beside the parking lot. I honked my horn, and he almost fell off his board. I was laughing as he turned around to glare at me. Parking the car, I felt just a tiny bit better about today. At least I still had my friends.
“Not cool, dude. You ruined a perfectly awesome daydream,” he told me. Despite the warm weather, Trey was wearing his signature stocking cap. He tucked some loose blonde strands under his hat while he frowned at me.
I clapped his shoulder as I joined him. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. What was your daydream about?”
His scowl instantly shifted to a smile. “Annabeth Phillips doing cheers without her briefs on.”
I shook my head as he lifted his eyebrows suggestively. Annabeth Phillips was the captain of the cheerleading squad. Trey had had a thing for her ever since she’d done a pep rally braless. The faculty hadn’t seemed to notice the jiggling, but the students sure had. I think half the male population here had a thing for Annabeth. Unfortunately for Trey, she was graduating this year.
While Trey and I walked along the path, laughing at his suggestive imagery, a voice behind us shouted, “Hey guys, wait up!”
Trey and I both turned to see Raquel sprinting in our direction. The sight of her hurrying to me, reminded me yet again how drastically my life had changed since the beginning of the year. Raquel was dressed in a thin, long-sleeved shirt, and shorts as legally short as the school allowed. Her skin was an appealing bronze color that was smooth and soft to the touch. Her hair was a deep, dark shade almost as black as my own. It shimmered in the sunlight as it streamed behind her while she jogged our way. With dark almond eyes and plump lips, Raquel was definitely a beautiful girl. Trey often told me to wake up and ask her out. But I couldn’t. I only felt friendship for her now.
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