Chapter One

It was a week since I’d accepted Godwin’s proposal to marry him.   I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was engaged.

My mother spent every moment that she could manage to steal me away from Godwin to converse with me about the reality of the commitment I was making.  She reminded me that I was only eighteen years old with a very long life as a hybrid ahead of me.  Godwin was four-hundred years and this was his first marriage.  She felt I was rushing things.  In a way, I had to agree with her.  Marriage hadn’t been on my ‘to do’ list after graduating.  It had been my plan to take a year off school while I decided on a major for college.   I’d graduated high school so confused about who I was and what I wanted that, had I entered college right away, I would have entered as a Liberal Arts student.  Not that it was such a bad thing to go that route, but, after watching my mother fumble for a grasp on reality for a few years after my dad died, I wanted to have a bit more focus before I entered a new chapter in my life.

Godwin, on the other hand, was adamant that it had taken him far too long to find the right woman to settle down with.  He reminded my mother that she was about my age when she married my father.  He felt cheated and was eager to make up for lost time.  He assured me that I’d still be able to go to college and study whatever it was that I wanted to study before we started a family.  I saw some sense in that as well.

I felt like a favorite toy being fought over by two children who each had a valid claim to me.

In the meantime, Kenton avoided me as much as he could.  We were forced into each other’s company once when he  had to report to Godwin about Association business, but, for the most part, I didn’t see him.  It was better that way.  Seeing him only brought pain and confusion to an already confusing situation.

My world got so twisted in my mind that I insisted on sleeping alone in my bed while I sorted things out.  Although, not happy with my decision, Godwin respected it.  That didn’t mean that he kept away completely.  He’d slip in when he was confident that my  mother was unawares and would make passionate love to me until my body was practically worn out and then scoot off to his own bedroom with mom none-the-wiser. 

There were a few mornings when I awoke with him inside of me.  It frustrated me that he could climb into my bed and make use of my body for his own pleasure and release without me being aware of it.  I mentioned this to him and he finally came clean and admitted that it was all part of the turning process.   Not his habit of morning sex with a half-corpse, but the fact that I couldn’t wake up very easily.  The morning sex was something that he simply craved and, since he insisted that I was animated and verbally consenting -even though I had no recollection of it- he wasn’t going to stop.   I settled for his assurance that I would eventually wake up when he entered the room and be aware of every moment of our love making.

I have to be truthful.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about his morning sex attitude, but, at the same time, I didn’t feel compelled to make a big deal of it.  I found it to be more of an irritant than an offense.

It  was then that I remembered how Cindy practically slept around the clock when she was first turned.  He said that, although I was more tired and in need of sleep than usual, I didn’t sleep like Cindy because the transition was being done in a slow and easy manner through the transference of vampirism by way of his semen.  Because it was a life and death situation for Cindy, she didn’t have the luxury of a slow transition.  Kenton was forced to introduce his venom into her system in order to save her life.  That was a much harsher way of doing things. 

Poor Cindy.  Her life had been a series of harsh events that she didn’t deserve.  I was hurt and troubled that she tossed our friendship into the trash and insisted that I wronged her with telepathic messages claiming she that deserved having her fangs ripped out and being gang raped by those werewolf boys, but it didn’t change the fact that she held a special place in my heart.

She was serving time for going against vampire law and drinking my blood without my consent while a guest in my home.  I never would have told on her, but she foolishly volunteered the information during the inquest with the conclave while under the assumption that they would excuse her because she was still new at vampirism.  She was such an innocent and  confused girl who’d been thrown into a strange world that she was struggling to deal with and understand. 

Maybe it was because of the few years where I had to grow up and step in to fill my mother’s shoes while she checked out of life with a bottle of Jim Beam, or maybe I was just more adaptable.  I couldn’t say.  But, I seemed to be understanding, and coping with the changes and discoveries of a hidden world better than my bestie was doing.

Godwin assured me that the sentence that was cast on Cindy was a much easier one than would normally be delivered, but I felt bad anyway.  I was of the opinion that she’d suffered enough at the hands of Michael and his minions.  Unfortunately, the Association looked at things differently.   They insisted that, no matter what someone outside of the Association did to make  her suffer, it was their law that she broke and, therefore, it was up to them to cast punishment.

It was clear to me that the Association and I weren’t in agreement on things.   I questioned how that would impact my life down the road, but quickly pushed the thought from my mind as I remembered my mother’s words the night she helped me flee my house to escape being captured by Michael, ‘Let’s get through one ordeal at a time.’

On this particular morning, I’d awoken to find only me in my bed and my body feeling refreshed.   Godwin had been called away the night before on Association business and had yet to return.  I have to admit, it felt good to have that little bit of  ‘space’ from him.  

It was this realization that prompted me to really think about what I was doing.  If I was feeling stifled this early in our relationship, what would I feel like after a few years of marriage?  I’d either have settled down into it or be out of my mind wanting freedom.  I didn’t know which.

Don’t get me wrong.  I thought the world of Godwin and felt lucky to have his love.  Who wouldn’t? He was off the charts handsome with a killer body, he was kind, funny, witty, adept at fairy magic, a considerate provider and a badass leader of a vampire legal system.  So, what was my problem?

I couldn’t say, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was haunted by Kenton’s words the night Godwin proposed to me, ‘You still love me.  I can feel it.’

I didn’t know if Kenton would ever forgive me for accepting Godwin’s proposal of marriage.  Theirs was a volatile relationship with a highly competitive tone to it.  For me to accept Godwin’s proposal only minutes after Kenton told me that he still loved me had to have been a major blow to him.  I know it would have been for me.

I heaved a sigh as I got out of bed.  Never in my life did I think that an average looking girl like me would win the hearts of two hot and sexy men.  What were the odds?  I thought back on my life in the suburbs of Chicago where average looking guys asked out the average looking girls.  The hot guys stuck to the hot girls.  I fantasized with my average looking girlfriends over something that was now my reality.  The funny thing was that it didn’t feel as wonderful as it did in my fantasy.  In fact, it felt kind of awful.

What didn’t feel awful was the fact that Godwin hadn’t been in my bed to undo the shower I’d taken just before climbing into it by getting me all sweaty and sex soiled.  For the first time in so long that I couldn’t remember when, I was able to hop out of bed feeling fresh and clean and simply get dressed.  I kind of liked it.

The rich, aromatic smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted up the stairs as I headed down for breakfast.  Since Godwin wasn’t in the house, it could only mean that my mother was up and busy in the kitchen.  That was one of the things that I missed the most when she was off wandering Wolf Mountain in her animal form.  There was nothing better than walking into a kitchen in the morning to the smell of fresh coffee and the sight of a good, hearty breakfast waiting for you. 

This particular morning, not only was breakfast on the table when I entered the kitchen, but a strange, middle-aged man was already partaking in it.   A quick look at the clock told me that it was barely seven in the morning.  Who came visiting at that hour?

I stopped walking  as soon as I entered the kitchen and stood in place while I took in the sight of the stranger’s short, cleanly cropped dirty blonde hair, broad back, and muscular arms that strained against a tee shirt that looked fresh and new while I waited for my mother to make the introductions.

“Good morning, honey. Take a seat.  I heard you coming down the stairs so I put your eggs in the pan. They’ll be done in a second,” my mother said in her usual, bubbly morning voice.  As I hesitated next to the chair she’d directed me to – which was right next to the strange man who was eyeing me curiously- she added, “Oh, where’s my head?  Honey, this is your grandfather, Ebenezer Cramby.  He’s your father’s father.”

Ebenezer’s blue eyes twinkled as he smiled a friendly smile while washing down his eggs with a huge gulp of coffee.  For a brief second, I thought I saw my father smiling at me.  He extended his hand for me to shake while saying, “I’m sure you don’t remember me.  The last time I saw you, you were a babe at your mother’s teat.”

I smiled and quickly shook away the image of my father as I politely slipped my slender hand into his oversized one while my mind reeled over the horrible saying that just came out of his mouth.  I felt a warmth surge through my body as his long fingers engulfed my entire hand as he pumped it up and down in greeting.  It was a cozy kind of feeling that conflicted with the  cold attitude that I was sporting over his early  morning interruption.  Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew that if I allowed myself to like this man, I’d like him very, very much. 

“Your grandfather has come for a visit.  Isn’t that nice?” my mother asked as she slid fried eggs out of the fry pan and onto my plate.  “Help yourself to some pancakes, dear.  It feels odd not serving you bacon, but both Godwin and Kenton insist it’s bad for us.” She giggled, “More you than me, since I’m wolf now.”

“They’re absolutely right, my dear,” Ebenezer said while he took the liberty of putting a few pancakes on my plate for me.  “I understand that you’ve got a good handle on your magic, Missy.  We wouldn’t want you ingesting anything that would impair that, now would we?  Especially in these troubled times.”

“Troubled times?” I said.

“Why, what’s going on here on Wolf Mountain  certainly qualifies to be labeled as troubled times.  Don’t you think?”  he said.

“The war is over,” I said firmly.

“The battle may be over, but the war has only just begun, my dear,” he assured me.

I looked at my mother and scowled.  The warm cozy feeling that I’d experienced while shaking his hand was gone – replaced by an attitude of cold annoyance.  Who was this man who sat at my table eating breakfast at the crack of dawn while claiming to be my long lost grandfather and calling me his dear?  He looked to be about my mother’s age, yet he had to be much older in order to make such a claim.  Who was he to say that the war had just begun?  Where was he when my father died?  My head was reeling with questions of who, what, and where.

I listened to my grandfather and mother ramble on about the horrible Michael Jefferson and his outrageous and disgusting method that he planned to use in order to increase the size of his pack while I ate my breakfast.  Once my plate was clean, I politely excused myself so that I could tend to the horses.