slowly. “So . . . how is he?”
“He doesn’t go into detail about his health and happiness. All he says is ‘Congratulations.’”
Lucas hadn’t been seen or heard from since he absorbed her black magic and disappeared. Eden knew she was supposed to be afraid of him—he was Lucifer, the Prince of Hell, after all. He was the being responsible for controlling the darkness that threatened the human world. Threatened everything.
He’d wanted to leave, to go back to Heaven, and he’d come so close to doing just that. Instead, he chose to stay and keep doing exactly what he’d signed up for in the first place.
He’d lied, manipulated, and deceived them shamelessly, using them as part of his master plan.
And he’d also saved her soul and Darrak’s life.
“I think I know what her name should be,” Eden said after a moment.
Darrak held up a hand. “Don’t say it.”
“Lucy.”
He sighed. “I just knew you were going to say that.”
“What do you think?”
Darrak put the card down and came to Eden’s side, climbing in the bed next to her and putting his arm around her shoulders. He looked down into the face of his tiny daughter and nodded. “Yeah, that works for me.”
She smiled. “Don’t pout.”
“I’m not pouting,” he pouted.
“You’re going to make a great father,” she whispered to him.
“Going to try like hell.”
They both looked down at Lucy, who seemed to smile up at them a moment before a faint glimmer of fire appeared behind her pale blue eyes.
“She didn’t . . .” Eden began.
A wide smile stretched across Darrak’s face. “You said she had my eyes. And she does! That’s my little girl!”
Eden started to laugh. “Well, hell. I guess it’s fate.”
“Would you look at that?” Darrak said before leaning over to brush his lips against hers again. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
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BLOOD BATH & BEYOND
Coming summer 2012 from Obsidian!
The fangs don’t get nearly as much attention as you’d think.
Your average, everyday person doesn’t notice that they’re sharper than normal human canines. If they did, they’d have to deal with the possibility that vampires really existed. It’s a survival instinct on their part, culminating from centuries of living side by side with something they’d prefer to think of as a fictional predatory monster. Or, more recently, as an eternally sparkling teenager.
Real vampires make up approximately 0.001 % of the population—that’s one in a thousand. So, worldwide, there are about six million vampires.
Humans just don’t see us. It does help that, despite what you might have heard, we can go outside into the sunshine without turning into a pile of ashes. We blend in with regular human society just fine and dandy.
It’s kind of like we’re invisible.
Someone bashed into me when I glanced down at the screen of my phone as I walked down the busy sidewalk.
“Hey!” the woman snarled. “Watch where you’re going, you dumb bitch!”
“Bite me,” I replied sweetly, then added under my breath, “or I might bite you.”
She gave me the finger, stabbing it violently in my direction as if it was a tiny, flesh-colored sword.
Okay, maybe we’re not totally invisible.
I couldn’t help that I had a natural-born talent to rub people the wrong way. It had very little to do with me being a vampire and more to do with me just being . . . me. I liked to think it was part of my charm.
I looked bleakly at the phone again. No messages. No calls. It felt like everyone I knew had recently deserted me. It wasn’t far from the truth, actually. Last month, my parents had moved to Florida to a retirement community. Two weeks ago, my best male friend, George, had left for Hawaii to open a surf shop after he won a small fortune in a local lottery. And now, my best girlfriend and her husband were in the process of moving to British Columbia so she could take a job in cosmetics management out there.
“We’ll totally stay in touch,” Amy said to me at the airport before she got on her flight an hour ago. I’d met her there to say a last good-bye.
I swallowed back my tears and hugged her fiercely. “Of course we will.”
Her husband stood nearby, giving me the evil eye like he usually did. We’d never really gotten along all that well. You win some, you lose some. “Are you finished