Worriedly, she looked back at Connor, then at his dad, and nodded once.
Gabriel leaned in and whispered quietly, “Is it your fault, or do you just not want Connor to get in trouble?”
In the just-slightly-too-loud whisper of a child, she said, “I don’t want Connor to get in trouble.”
“Ah.” He nodded gravely, then stood again, Connor moving to stand beside him. “I think we’ve gotten things cleared up, then,” he said, then ruffled his son’s hair.
Connor grinned at him, leaned against his father.
And stuck his tongue out atElisa.
ONE
Vampires were made, not born.
All except one.
All except me.
I was the daughter of vampires, born because magic and fate twisted together. I’d spent nineteen years in Chicago. Tonight, I stood nearly four hundred feet above Paris, several thousand miles away from the Windy City and the Houses in which most of its vampires lived.
Around me, visitors on the second level of the Eiffel Tower sipped champagne and snapped shots of the city. I closed my eyes against the warm, balmy breeze that carried the faint scent of flowers.
“Elisa, you cannot tell Paris goodbye with your eyes closed.”
“I’m not saying goodbye,” I said. “Because I’m coming back.”
I opened my eyes, smiled at the vampire who appeared at my side with two plastic cones of champagne. Seraphine had golden skin and dark hair, and her hazel eyes shone with amusement.
“To Paris,” I said, and tapped my cone against hers.
It had been four years since I’d last stepped foot in Chicago. Tomorrow, I’d go home again and visit the city and spend time with family and friends.
For twenty years, there’d been peace in Chicago among humans and sups, largely because of efforts by my parents—EthanSullivan and Merit, the Master and Sentinel, respectively, of Cadogan House. They’d worked to find a lasting peace, and had been so successful that Chicago had become a model for other communities around the world.
That’s why Seri and I were going back. The city’s four vampire Houses were hosting peace talks for vampires from Western Europe, where Houses had been warring since the governing council—the Greenwich Presidium—dissolved before I was born. And vampires’ relations with the other supernaturals in Europe weren’t any better. Chicago would serve as neutral territory where the Houses’ issues could be discussed and a new system of government could be hammered out.
“You look... What is the word? Wistful?” Seri smiled. “And you haven’t even left yet.”
“I’m building up my immunity,” I said, and sipped the champagne.
“You love Chicago.”
“It’s a great city. But I was... a different person in Chicago. I like who I am here.”
Paris wasn’t always peaceful. But it had given me the time and distance to develop the control I’d needed over the monster that lived inside me. Because I wasn’t just a vampire....
Seri bumped her shoulder against mine supportively. “You will be the same person there as you are here. Miles change only location. They do not change a person’s heart. A person’s character.”
I hoped that was true. But Seri didn’t know the whole of it. She didn’t know about the half-formed power that lurked beneath my skin, reveled in its anger. She didn’t know about the magic that had grown stronger as I’d grown older, until it beat like a second heartbeat inside me.
Sunlight and aspen could kill me—but the monster could bury me in its rage.
I’d spent the past four years attending École Dumas, Europe’sonly university for supernaturals. I was one of a handful of vampires in residence. Most humans weren’t changed into vampires until they were older; the change would give them immortality, but they’d be stuck at the age at which they’d been changed. No one wanted to be thirteen for eternity.
I hadn’t been changed at all, but born a vampire—the one and only vampire created that way. Immortal, or so we assumed, but still for the moment aging.
The university was affiliated with Paris’s Maison Dumas, one of Europe’s most prestigious vampire Houses, where I’d lived for the past four years. I’d had a little culture shock at first, but I’d come to love the House and appreciate its logical approach to problem solving. If Cadogan was Gryffindor, all bravery and guts, Dumas was Ravenclaw, all intellect and cleverness. I liked being clever, and I liked clever people, so we were a good fit.