Chance Nightshade, daughter of the Melbourne City Alpha, will avenge her brother's murder at any cost. Even if it means working with a charming vampire prince.
Season 1 of Witchfire
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"Are you sure you want to know?" London asked, massaging the area between his neck and shoulder. It was a gesture of exhaustion and reluctance. This wasn't a tale that he wanted to tell.
"Yes," I snapped. Of course I wanted to know. Why else would I have asked?
An itch built beneath my skin while I waited for him to begin. I went to scratch it. Nerves shrieked, and I looked down at my forearm, only to find that I'd torn back some skin. It was a foreboding symptom of an impending lapse into instinct.
"It begins with her," London said quietly. The vampire was entirely unaware of my agitation, lost in another time and place.
"Her?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, hating the jealousy that crept into my tone. Now that I'd admitted to myself that London was attractive, it was hard to remember that I could never pursue something with him. It was simply impossible with Jerome in the picture and our people at war.
And that was assuming the attraction was mutual.
"Rose," London clarified, almost sighing the name. "So beautiful... and full of the most fantastical facts. For example, did you know all rainbows are donut shaped when viewed from above? And that elephants carry their pregnancies for nearly two years before giving birth? Oh, and..."
He has a girlfriend. Something sank inside me, and I commanded it to stay sunk. I clicked my fingers to get his attention. "You're getting off track."
"Sorry." Crestfallen, he took a moment to gather the threads of his story once more. "It was her birthday, the night that your brother died. I told Rose she could have anything she wanted, that she could go anywhere, do anything, with anyone. Whatever her desire, I would make it her reality.
"She wanted to go out," he went on. "She liked to dance. So I took her out for dinner — well, dinner for me, and some blood-laced wine for her — before rounding up our friends and hitting the clubs."
"You can eat real food?" I asked, suddenly curious.
"Yeah," he said. "It's a lamia thing. Pretty cool, actually."
London paused for breath. It was bizarre how human he seemed, how something as simple as a lung-full of air could blur the lines that separated mortality from immortality. From what I understood of the lamia strain of the vampire race, he had been born in the way that a mortal was born, ate and drank in the way that mortals ate and drank, and he could brave the sun without consequence. The only thing to separate him from humanity was his supernatural strength, and his need to consume blood as well as food in order to survive.
"What happened next?" I asked.
The beautiful boy shrugged. "We danced. We got tipsy on drunk people's blood, and we... did all the usual partying stuff." The last part of the sentence was tacked on, suggesting intimacy, and I winced. Why did my imagination have to be so vivid? "It was late when we left the first club and went to find another one. Everyone was laughing, having the time of their lives... well, almost everyone. I noticed after a bit that Rose was unusually withdrawn. She walked ahead of the rest of us and only answered direct questions. Then she started ignoring even those.
