Keepers of the Flame (Trilogy Bundle) - By Melissa F. Hart Page 0,2

her grandmother. “Please, just leave it, Grandma. I'm not ready, I don't want, I can't...” Taking a deep breath she tried to push back the rising panic and tried again. “I'm just not ready.”

Katrina stared at her for a few seconds, her ruby red lips pursed, then she nodded. “So, are you going to the prom with Eric? What?” She asked, feigning innocence as Luanne rolled her eyes and opened the car door.

“Has anyone told you that you're too nosy, Grandma?” she asked before stepping out of the car.

“Hey, who are you calling Grandma?”

***

I shook my head as I walked into the house I'd shared with my grandma since I was sixteen. Katrina could be impossible sometimes, but I loved her with every fiber of my being. I didn't tell her this, but I had nightmares that someday she would be taken from me. I know this is somehow connected to what happened three years ago, but I didn't want to think about that. I glanced back and saw her with a small shopping bag. Looking at her, it was easy to understand why I called her by her name and told people she was my aunt. What else could I do? How did you go about explaining that, even though your grandmother looked like a young thirty-year-old, she was actually a hundred-and-fifty-three-year-old vampire? Did I say vampire? Sure I did. You don't believe they exist? Well, that's exactly how we like it. And yes, I did say we. You see, it's something I didn't talk about then and it's not something I like to talk about now, except with those like us. Sharing such information would probably have earned me a vacation at the funny farm.

I entered the cool interior of the home and sighed with relief. We were in the middle of summer and the heat outside was killing. But that wasn't why I loved Katrina's home. It was like living in an exotic cave. The walls were a very pale blue with one section painted in dark grey, and the windows had heavy curtains that were always drawn. The darkness was softened by soft lamps in different parts of the living room. I felt my tension melt away as I sank my feet into the beautiful rug that grandma had told me was an Ambusson rug. When I first came to live with her, I'd been entranced by the patterns on the rug. I looked around me, felt that familiar ache in my chest, the emptiness that had been my companion for the past three years. When was this all going to get better?

Chapter Two

I try to live like a normal person. It's not easy when you know you're different. As much as I've tried to blend in, I still stand out and I hate that. I want to be normal. Is that too much for a girl to ask? With a grandmother like Katrina who is always into one escapade or the other, it might be too much to ask. Still, I had no idea she would go as far as to make my life completely unlivable.

Since it was summer and I didn't have to be in school, I decided to indulge my nocturnal side and spent the day sleeping. So it was not until five p.m. before I woke up and my room was a complete world of its own with an ensuite bathroom and a fridge stocked with almost every snack I could want. Hmm, I suppose you're now wondering about whether I drink blood or not. What can I say? I'm a vampire and the craving for that hits me every now and then. But I'm not like any vampire you've heard about. I was not made a vampire; I was born one. We are known as the parereans or the Born, as we are sometimes called. So we can go out in daylight if we want to, although we prefer not to. I can see my reflection in a mirror, though I have no idea why I would want to. It's just my face that's going to be staring back at me. And yeah, we can manage our craving for blood, when it does strike.

So sometime around eight p.m. I decided to go down for a real meal, something hot. As I went down the stairs, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Something wasn't right in the house, there was a foreign aura and it