ANTEBELLUM SOUL HERE & NOW EXCERPT

Excerpt!

Page 2 | © 2016 Reatha Beauregard, Wrought Iron Reads. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1 

RANDI 

Twenty-one, finally. The voice in my head hollered, Hallelujah! 

I was zipping down the road in a shiny new car, one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other holding the phone. My 

birthday had come and gone a few days before, but this sweet ride made being legal seem legit. 

With the windows down, wind blowing through my hair, I almost felt free. The only thing out of sync was the radio a notch above 

a whisper. It should’ve been blasting loud enough to wake the sleepy neighborhood I was driving through, but my mom was on 

the line, her voice tethering me to reality, keeping true freedom just out of reach. 

“And, are you on the road now? Sounds like you’re on the road. You can’t talk on the phone and drive, Myranda. You’ve gotta be 

more responsible than that if you want to keep the car. We talked about this.” 

I rolled my eyes, laughing. “Oh, cut it out! I’m in park.” Or, might as well be in park, I mentally amended since no one else was 

on the road. I rebelliously pressed the accelerator to go faster as I bobbed to the catchy pop tune playing softly in the background. 

Something about being twenty-one with a new car made the good girl in me want to break a few rules. 

Mom, being Mom, sensed it. She muttered, “Myranda, so help me, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.” 

“Mom!” 

“I’m serious!” 

I pictured her massaging her temples and shaking her head helplessly like she always did when the subject of me and my 

brazenness came up. I blew an irreverent raspberry and tapped the brakes to slow down. Party pooper. As far back as I could 

remember, my parents had kept me on a short leash, but how long could this continue? I was officially a grown-up now. 


“Mom, chill out,” I mumbled, losing steam. “I’ve been driving with either you or Dad in the car for years. What do you think is 

gonna happen? I’ll drive into a garden gnome? This town is so safe, the guys Tam and I went to school with clamor for cop jobs 

to spend the day with their feet kicked up.” 

Beyond the windshield was an electric blue sky and clean white clouds, which added to my narrative of a safe, picturesque 

Tennessee town where nothing bad could happen to me. I gnawed on my bottom lip with eyebrows hooked in a frown. 

“Worrying is my job,” Mom said with a tired sigh. 

AS:HN 

I found a smile and let it bleed through the phone so she could hear I wasn’t upset with her. 

“Yeah, well, being a tad bit irresponsible and making a few mistakes is my job. I know I haven’t 

done much of that, but it’s about time I acted my age, right?” 

I knew exactly why Mom worried, 

I knew exactly why Mom worried, why we were here in a place where nothing exciting ever 

why we were here in a place where 

happened. I knew why I couldn’t dot the door without someone asking where I was going and 

nothing exciting ever happened. I 

when I’d be back. My parents didn’t want me to grow up; they had already lost too many years 

knew why I couldn’t dot the door 

with me. It would be the same whether I was twenty-one or forty. 

without someone asking where I 

was going and when I’d be back. When I was ten years old, I was kidnapped. Snatched from my own backyard. Since being 

My parents didn’t want me to grow found, I haven’t remembered a thing about my time in captivity. I tried millions of times to 

up; they had already lost too many catch and hold tight hazy flashbacks and find clarity. If I had a face or name to put to the 

years with me. It would be the same monsters in my head, I could tease free the rest of the forgotten pieces of myself. 

whether I was twenty-one or forty. 

Because I had no memories of before, either. No childhood. No first day of school. No birthday 

parties or best friends. My entire life was comprised of a storyline fed to me by others who had 

known me. I read once sometimes people repress things after a traumatic event, and getting hit by a car when I ran out of the 

woods didn’t help. My mind became a trapdoor that only opened on the night I was found at nineteen years old, running away 

from whoever had been keeping me hostage. 

“Alright, sweetheart. Just be safe on the road, and don’t stay out too late. I’m putting dinner on, making your favorite. See you in 

a little while?” Mom’s voice interrupted another painful attempt to decode my history and brought me back to the road. 


I realized I was swerving to the median and yanked the wheel to the right. “Uh, yeah…I’ll be there in a few,” I promised, deciding 

to cut the joyride short. Get back to present-day, Myranda, I mentally shook myself. 

I was coming up to an intersection and gripped the wheel to make the turnaround. I almost didn’t notice the man standing by 

the stop sign, but he was so out of place that I couldn’t miss him. A tall black man dressed to the nines in an elegant ebony suit, 

holding a walking stick, barefoot. Odd. Even stranger, he was staring right at me with piercing black eyes that made the hairs on 

the nape of my neck stand up. 

“What in the world…?” I murmured, trailing off. 

“What? What is it?” Mom asked at my tone of voice. 

Distracted by him, I didn’t notice the dump truck. The stop 

sign I flew past didn’t register. Not until a horn blew in 

calamitous warning too late. “Oh, my god!” I shrieked. 

There was a thunderous clash of metal as my car was 

struck. 

“Myranda!” 

The side of my head thwacked the driver’s window with a sickening crack that shattered the glass and blurred my vision. Mom 

screamed. I groggily registered it wasn’t my eyes playing tricks, but the scenery whizzing past. The rainbow of colors smeared as 

the car slid out of control and my left side slammed painfully against the door. Everything happened so fast, yet seemed to go in 

slow motion. 

Mom frantically shouted questions, but upon impact I instinctively grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, which sent my 

cellphone flying. I could barely hear her for the buzzing in my ears and screech of tires biting the pavement in protest. 

My heart pounded as I stomped the brakes in vain. The other, much larger vehicle forcefully propelled me across the road, and 

the passenger side of my car was condensed to a jagged ruin of busted fiberglass. The glistening shards of the passenger window 

littered what was left of the seat and turned me into a mess of cuts and punctures. 

“Myranda, what’s happening?! Myranda!” 


My mother’s cries sounded miles away. Blood ran down my forehead into my eyes and dimmed the sun. I wheezed audibly, scared 

of the sound—too loud, too shallow, too feeble—as my seatbelt cut across my chest and the airbag smothered me. 

“Mom,” I moaned. 

The truck driver and someone with him jumped from the dump truck and raced toward me, but I was in too much of a daze to 

see them clearly. What arrested my attention was the man in the suit who had been standing at the side of the road sitting in the 

backseat of my car now. I stared at him through the cracked rear view mirror, smiling at me with such a terrifying, knowing look 

that I squeezed my eyes shut in horror. It couldn’t be real. When I opened them, he was gone. 

“Ma’am! Can you get out?” Hands reaching through the broken window. “Are you hurt? Can you hear me? I need you to help us 

get you out of there!” Someone dragging at my limp arm. I pulled away and weakly fumbled with the jammed seatbelt. My fingers 

were numb, useless. 

“I’m gonna get the seatbelt cutter out of the truck!” 

My head hurt. I couldn’t feel my legs. My lungs struggled to suck in oxygen, but it felt like the air was too thin. The ringing in my 

ears wouldn’t stop. I moaned feebly as black dots swam before my eyes. All I could think of was my mother on the line, always 

worried about my safety. 

Now this, her worst fear, was coming true. I wasn’t afraid to die; I was afraid of what losing me again would do to my parents. 

“Tell my mom…” I faded in and out. “…I’m sorry.” 

The truck driver yelled, “Hurry, Frank! She’s hurt bad!” 

“I’ll call 911!” someone else shouted. 

“Hold on, missy. Lord, I didn’t even see you! Just hold tight, honey. We’ll get you out of this.” 

I heard feet pounding the pavement, more people crowding around my car. My eyes slipped shut a final time. Out of the darkness 

of blessed unconsciousness came a man’s voice, thick with an accent at once familiar and foreign to me. 

“Time to go, couillon.” 


“Don’t take me,” I slurred. 

“We gotta get you out,” the truck driver responded. I shook my head weakly, whimpering. 

The man in the black suit whispered again, “Time to go…” 

*** 

They say when you die, you see your whole life flash before your eyes, but that wasn’t my experience. I saw the handful of years I 

had accumulated from ages nineteen to twenty-one, but the memories weren’t weighty enough to create much of a flash. 

I remembered my mother—this shining force of a woman—saying I belonged to her. I 

remembered her taking me from the hospital where I was listed Jane Doe and giving me a name 

that felt like mine. The traumatic brain injury I had suffered from being struck by a car the 

first time had wiped out everything else. 

AS:HN 

And here I am again, I thought, as I felt my body transferred from the crumpled vehicle to a My name is Myranda Avant. I was 

gurney and shoved into the back of an ambulance. I clung to the details of my life, which had born in the middle of July, a 

been told to me like folklore. 

summer child. There are so many 

pictures of me in my parents’ house 

My name is Myranda Avant. I was born in the middle of July, a summer child. There are so 

that you can tell I’m kind of special 

many pictures of me in my parents’ house that you can tell I’m kind of special to them. I think 

to them. I think it’s because they 

it’s because they were afraid they had lost me for good once. 

were afraid they had lost me for 

My first word was “sock.” My dad, William, laughed when I said it because he thought I had good once. 

actually said the f-word. My mom, Shelly, loves to tell me about this because it’s her favorite 

way to think of me, the rebel of the bunch. To me, it sums up my life in a nutshell: Not exactly what it seems. 

I didn’t learn to walk properly until I was almost two years old because of an Achilles’ tendon problem, and I had surgery when I 

was three to fix it. I used to have a scar from the procedure, but I don’t anymore. 

I was raised in a tight-knit family with my younger siblings—Josh, Greg and Tamara—by our parents William and Shelly 

Avant. We used to live in Louisiana, but my family moved to Gatlinburg, Tennessee after I went missing. This is where Mom 


ought me when she found me, and I picked up with my new life as if the nine-year gap wasn’t a gulf between me and who I 

used to be. 

Sometimes I dreamed of places more vivid than any of 

Myranda’s folklore, had nightmares more real than her 

fairytale childhood. Yet, I catalogued every story my parents 

told me as if my own and kept them in a journal tucked 

within a seam of my mattress so I would never forget again. 

In this book were the names of relatives, backgrounds of 

people I had never met, but should know. The accumulation 

of a lifetime of memories I should have had, but didn’t. 

Now I know why. 

I’m not Myranda Avant. She was kidnapped out of her backyard in Louisiana eleven years ago. When I was found fleeing someone 

in a dark forest, it was assumed I was her based on age progression technology that matched my face to how Myranda might have 

looked at nineteen. I had no reason to doubt the people who assured me of my identity, but they were wrong. 

At the precise moment the sirens blared in a mad dash to get me to the emergency room in Gatlinburg, hundreds of miles away 

the lifeless body of a ten-year-old girl was being extracted from a shallow grave in a marshy tract of land in Lafayette, Louisiana. 

It would take some time to sort out who she was, but the news was destined to make its way to William and Shelly Avant. 

I was an unwitting imposter. 

As my throbbing head flooded with snatches of memory that could never have belonged to the missing girl, I wondered who on 

earth I could be. Imagine finding out you’re not who you think you are. I don’t belong here. This isn’t my life. It was an honest 

mistake. But, just like that, I ceased to be me. 


ISAAC 

I threw open the door of my black vintage Cadillac and stepped out with a crunch of steel-toe boots on the rocky asphalt. I looked 

up at the blinding half-moon and slipped on shades as a night breeze laden with the smell of wild honeysuckles ruffled my hair 

and brought with it another distinctly wrong scent. 

Sniffing, I glanced around the empty parking lot of The River Styx Tattoos and Piercings Parlor. Things were looking pretty 

damned dead. I owned the place, as well as a nightclub off the beaten path where the local kids came to raise hell. It was a Saturday 

night. There should’ve been some cane being raised here. 

“When the cat’s away…” I muttered. 

Moonlight glinted off chrome in my periphery, bikers giving me a hard stare from the shadowy edge of the trees, about twenty or 

thirty Wolves. Well, that explained a lot. The biker gang had a rep for creating the kind of ruckus people avoided, from selling 

heroin to women, and they had no business here. Not to mention, we had an informal agreement to stay out of each other’s way. 

I paused at the door to the shop and stretched tattooed arms, allowing a hint of vampire musculature to show beneath my black 

t-shirt. My silver watch caught the streetlamp, a silver signet ring on my pinkie. A black semi-automatic filled with silver bullets 

glinted from the waistband of my jeans. 

“Good evening, gentlemen!” I smiled, Southern drawl coloring my speech. “Y’all got about five minutes—and, I’m being 

generous—to ride your mangy asses off of my property…” My smile widened a fraction. “…Or, you’re gonna need some help 

limping off.” 

In response, one of them gunned his engine. “We aint bothering nobody, Bertrand.” 

“Y’all don’t wanna ride this train. Get on outta here, now.” I chuckled, heading into the shop without waiting for them to obey. 

They’d leave, although I had half a mind to rumble just to let off some steam. But, I’d probably kill somebody in the mood I was 

in. “Lads and lassies, the master’s home,” I announced, shutting the door behind me. 


“Master, my ass!” Azalea Blue tossed her signature cerulean tresses and beamed at me from across the room. “Where’ve you been, 

Ike?” 

“Oh, you know me. Prowling. How long they been out there?” I absently scratched my beard as I peeked through the blinds at the 

bikers. Azalea stepped beside me to see for herself. She barely reached my shoulder. I tweaked her nose and grinned at her, trying 

not to show my agitation around my crew. “Look at you! Did you grow a centimeter while I was gone?” 

She swatted playfully at my hand. “Oh, shut up!” 

“Past three nights,” Scion grunted in answer. 

I looked at him in surprise. Shoulder length raven hair curtained his bronze face as he went back 

AS:HN 

to nonchalantly flipping through a Rolling Stones magazine like he hadn’t just delivered some 

bad news. 

“Are you serious? Past three nights, and y’all didn’t call me? Jesus!” I swore. “They’re scaring off 

my money.” 

I surveyed my establishment and 

focused on keeping my frazzled 

nerves under wraps. Mint green 

walls covered in the artwork of my 

six tattooists gave the parlor a 

soothing atmosphere. I crossed my 

arms and cocked my head to see if 

I still liked the paint job as much as 

I had last week when I’d had the 

place redone. Probably change it in 

another month. I grew bored easily. 

Scion lifted a slender black brow and side-eyed me. “That’s the least of your problems, billionaire. 

We got trouble coming.” 

“Yeah,” Azalea seconded him. “And, I did call. You didn’t answer. You never do.” 

I smirked at the billionaire comment and plopped down on the leather sofa in the waiting area. 

“Well, Scion, your accounting is way off, unless we had one helluva rich week, which doesn’t look 

like the case with those Wolves at our doorstep. What’s up?” 

I surveyed my establishment and focused on keeping my frazzled nerves under wraps. Mint green 

walls covered in the artwork of my six tattooists gave the parlor a soothing atmosphere. I crossed 

my arms and cocked my head to see if I still liked the paint job as much as I had last week when 

I’d had the place redone. Probably change it in another month. I grew bored easily. 

Neither of them answered me. “Well?” I threw up my hands impatiently. Azalea and Scion shared 

a look. What I wanted to do more than chat about some enigmatic new problem was to rip something apart. I was… 


“You mean you really haven’t heard?” Azalea asked. 

…Hungry. It had been a bad hunt. These days, it was always a bad hunt. 

She rose from her chair to pop on the flat screen mounted on the wall behind her. I glanced at the TV as she increased the volume 

on the news channel. “‘Mystery solved on remains of child discovered in Lafayette, Louisiana,’” I read the scrolling banner at the 

bottom of the screen. “Well, shit. How is that our problem?” 

“Keep watching,” she said. 

The newscaster started describing the body of a slain girl. When he said ravaged by wildlife, I perked up. My gaze flew to Scion 

and Azalea, brow furrowed with understanding and anger. They had finally found her. 

Scion rose from his chair and stretched to his full, imposing 

seven feet. “You know what this means, right?” he muttered. I 

shook my head, knowing but in no mood to talk about it. “Cops. 

Questions. They’ve been in our woods the past two days. No 

investigator worth a grain of salt will believe some gator killed 

that girl and managed to drag her into a grave.” He jabbed a 

finger in the direction of the TV. 

I closed my eyes and exhaled harshly. 

“It’s been handled,” I said curtly. I could still hear her screams. 

“I think we need to make sure he’s where he’s supposed to be. If he’s out, he’ll do it again. You know it, and I know it. We can’t 

have shit like that happening on our turf. It’ll raise eyebrows as to why the three of us have been here for the past hundred or 

more years without aging a fucking day!” 

There were already questions, but we kept to ourselves. People around here knew something wasn’t quite right about us, and 

some even guessed exactly what the not right was. I didn’t need to remind Scion of that, but he had a point. We’d be under a 

microscope if these twenty-first century morons labelled one of us a psychopathic killer rather than what we really were. Not much 

difference, considering. I balled a fist and released it. 


“Richard St. Amant will not be returning here if he knows what’s good for him,” I growled. The door to the tattoo parlor eased 

open, and I brightened instantly at the sight of the woman who entered. 

“Are you sure? Because I can’t bank on a maybe,” she said. 

“Well, I’ll be damned. Angel Langdell!” I leapt to my feet and clasped her slender hand to my lips. “The Queen of the Vampires, 

herself. My, does royalty suit you,” I murmured. 

She smiled seductively at me as five of her guards took up position around my shop, a reminder things had changed in our station 

since the last time we had seen each other. Three more of the vampire elite security force waited outside, and I heard motorcycles 

roar in the night as the biker gang got the hell out of Dodge. 

“Isaac Bertrand, you charmer,” Angel purred. “Looking delicious as ever. How long has it been?” 

Her crème brulee skin was radiant, fresh from feeding. The aroma of blood clinging to her lips was almost too much for me as I 

stepped away, wondering who had given up their life for her rosy glow. Another reminder we were different. I hunted in the 

forests, but her haunts were city streets. 

“Lifetimes, beloved,” I replied. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the new Queen?” 

“Business and not pleasure this time, and I preferred to do this face to face. I wanted to see you. It’s been forever.” 

“Feels like it, don’t it?” 

Her ruby eyes swept the parlor. I inclined my head for my crew to exit. Azalea curtsied and Scion bowed as Angel coasted past to 

take the seat I had vacated. I watched them slip into the breakroom, knowing they’d eavesdrop. They were young enough to be in 

awe of the Queen, but Angel and I went back a few centuries. 

She draped her statuesque body on the leather sofa and studied me. I sat on the edge of Scion’s chair across from her, and neither 

of us said a word for a space of several minutes. I rested my elbows on my knees and steepled my fingers between, staring back at 

her. Undercurrents more dangerous than the muddy Mississippi swirled in the room. 

“Tell me what business we have,” I prompted. 


“The situation with the dead girl. It definitely will draw unnecessary attention, exactly as your brutish youngling stated.” 

I laughed lightly. “Angel, darling, you wound me, you really do. I have everything under control here. I’m highly capable of taking 

care of my own.” 

“I know how capable you are.” 

AS:HN 

She slowly unfastened the collar of her blouse and shook back her mane of umber hair, exposing 

her satiny skin. Her plush lips parted on an exhale. Unbidden, my gaze dipped to the rise and 

fall of her cleavage as she breathed, exactly as she intended. I lifted my eyes to hers and smiled 

tightly. 

“What’s this?” I asked. Are you sure you want to do this here? People are watching. 

She smiled, a flash of sharp, white teeth. That never stopped you before. “I need you clearheaded 

for this. You look hungry. Have a taste…” Her offer echoed in my head, and hunger made a fist 

within me. Have a taste...taste. 

I crossed my ankle over my knee and casually leaned back so her enticing scent wouldn’t drive 

me mad. “I am clearheaded,” I lied. 

She slowly unfastened the collar of 

her blouse and shook back her 

mane of umber hair, exposing her 

satiny skin. Her plush lips parted 

on an exhale. Unbidden, my gaze 

dipped to the rise and fall of her 

cleavage as she breathed, exactly as 

she intended. I lifted my eyes to 

hers and smiled tightly. 

“Liar, liar,” she whispered. “If the bloodlust gets the best of you in this little town, you’ll be facing 

the same trouble as St. Amant. Why are you playing coy with me?” She let her head loll against the back of the sofa, elongating 

her neck and thrusting her voluptuous breasts in my direction. 

I lowered my eyes and remembered her naked body spread face-down in my bed, but the lurid flashback was replaced by another 

woman…a woman who had captivated more than my primal lusts. When I looked back at Angel, the momentary desire dissipated, 

but the starvation remained. I gritted my teeth, trying to resist. 

“Really, I’m fine. Let’s talk.” My voice sounded strained even to my own ears. 

Her throaty laughter filled the room. “I know you’ve been rationing your donations from that silly Arts Council woman. Honestly, 

a man like you taking charity? It’s why the city would be better, where you can hunt without fear of being caught.” 


I chuckled wryly. “Oh, Angel. You’ve been trying to get 

me to the city for ages, cher. I’m fine here.” 

There was an edge to my voice that caused her to 

narrow her eyes at me, but the “charity” she spoke of so 

derisively was life-sustaining for my brood. I’d be 

damned if I let her disparage Marleena. She was 

someone I trusted, and she moonlighted at the blood 

bank, generously providing as much heme as possible, 

which I supplemented by hunting wild game. 

Unfortunately, it was never enough. 

It’ll never be enough, Angel whispered mentally. 

I squeezed my eyes shut. You are taking liberties. I never invited you into my head. 

If you feed, you’ll be able to keep me out. You’re weak with hunger. The thirst. I can make it go away. Stop resisting. 

She unfastened another button and hooked her fingers into the black lace bra she wore. With a gentle tug, her full breasts spilled 

free. I spotted the guards politely averting their gazes and knew if I didn’t do as she requested, this would be an uncomfortable 

situation for all of us. 

I gritted my teeth and reluctantly moved closer. “If you insist…but I must warn you, it’s been a while,” I replied, on my knees before 

her. 

“It has been.” I almost can’t remember how your mouth feels. 

I chuckled softly, as I pulled her closer. “Now, who’s the one lying?” I whispered. My lips grazed her collarbone, and I closed my 

eyes, willing myself to remember the boundaries in place. Angel and I had a sordid past that didn’t need to be revisited, especially 

now that she had the power of sovereignty. 

More power than that, I suspected. Being one of our kind came with innate perks—telepathy, mind-shielding, speed, strength 

and agility—but, I had a feeling Angel was mesmerizing me in the literal sense. Her voice echoed again within me: Stop resisting. 


Inhaling the dizzying aroma of blood rushing through her veins, an almost orgasmic thrill overwhelmed me, but along with the 

anticipation of pleasure came an understanding of insanity. I felt…inhuman. Ironic, but I had always clung to my humanity to 

keep the monster within me at bay. I wondered how close I had come to the bloodlust that could threaten my quiet, comfortable 

existence. 

I shouldn’t have gone so long without feeding, and Angel knew it. She was taking advantage of it. My teeth sank into receptive 

flesh that broke easily. The crimson gush filled my mouth, rolled over my tongue and down my throat like thick nectar. 

“Ah!” Her sultry gasp feathered against my earlobe. I clutched her tighter with a groan. 

She tasted of high tide, fertile earth, mountain breezes laden with the scent of wildflowers, a desert sun. My empty stomach 

clenched with a fierce cramp, rebelling against the influx of nourishment until able to take being filled. 

I moaned as I sucked harder with something like lust, something like aversion. I preferred a clean kill, collecting the blood and 

drinking it from a crystal tumbler. Civilized. Yet, it tasted so much sweeter ripe from the fruit. 

“That’s it,” Angel cooed. “Isaac!” 

She tugged a fistful of my hair to press my mouth to her flesh and grinded her lush body against mine. Her nails dug into my 

shoulder. I heard my lover’s voice. Felt her. Tasted her. Yearned for her. My groin tightened with desire, but Angel slipped into 

my thoughts. Have you missed this? 

I jerked away and locked my mind from further intrusion. She wasn’t her. 

There was a reason the past had to stay in the past. There were too many painful memories. When I was able to speak, my voice 

was cool. “Thank you,” I murmured, sitting back in Scion’s chair. I swept a hand across my red lips. 

“Ever the gentleman, mon amie,” Angel replied. Her face was blank to shield her emotions, but even with her mind closed to me, 

I saw I had hurt her. Firming my lips, I looked away as she fastened the buttons of her blouse. “Always leaving the party before 

you overstay your welcome.” 

“I apologize if I seem ungracious, but my appreciation is sincere.” 


“Appreciation…You don’t thank the wine you sip. Why would you thank the blood? You had better embrace the demon you are, 

or your demons will be your undoing,” she said quietly. 

“That is where you mistake me, old friend,” I replied with a smile, trying to add levity. “Monsieur Isaac Bertrand doesn’t have 

demons. I am the demon. Allow me to keep my mask of gentility. I’m better this way.” And, your guard by the door is very curious 

about the nature of our relationship, I warned her. He’s been probing the both of us for the past few minutes. You may want to 

find out why. 

Her gaze flitted to the guard. Now, there’s that shrewd attentiveness I remember. I’ll take care of him, but that’s why I need you. 

Someone I can trust by my side. “With the discovery of the deceased child, I’m worried about you. 

AS:HN 

I sincerely doubt your idiotic mistake thought to cover his tracks well enough for them not to lead 

right back to this tattoo parlor.” 

“That is where you mistake me, 

old friend,” I replied with a smile, 

trying to add levity. “Monsieur 

Isaac Bertrand doesn’t have 

demons. I am the demon. Allow 

me to keep my mask of gentility. 

I’m better this way.” 

“The rogue vampire who did this worked for me, but he wasn’t my mistake, and I know his tracks 

won’t lead back here because I covered them for him,” I reluctantly admitted. “I don’t know who 

created him. Regardless, Richard St. Amant isn’t my problem anymore. He is all too aware he 

isn’t welcome. The point, I guess you could say, was driven home the last we spoke.” 

“You killed him?” she asked hopefully. 

“I know the rules, Angel.” I smiled. 

Yes, but you might have thought our former connection would shield you from the Council. 

Would it have? I asked, unspoken. I was under no illusions Angel was sentimental enough to let 

me break the Vampire Code. 

She subtly lifted a shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “Anyway, with this situation unfolding, I’ve come to let you and your little 

band of darlings know it’s time to return with me to the city. I know you enjoy the anonymity here, but you can have the same in 

New Orleans. More importantly, we have numbers there. You’ll be protected.” 

“As I said,” I repeated firmly, “Richard has been taken care of.” 


Angel swept her hair back from her face and fixed me with a stare. “I’ve come asking, Bertrand. If I have to come again, I won’t 

be so polite.” 

A muscle ticked beneath my eyelid, and I steeled my jaw. This was my home. I lived with the memory of a vibrant past-life like a 

ghost, and I wouldn’t be forced to leave. “I’ll send Scion and Azalea. They might like the change of scenery. I’ll lay low until trouble 

passes. You know humans. They have short attention spans.” 

“I want you with me, Bertrand.” Look, I can’t explain everything now, but there are other things happening. You have to trust me 

on this. It’s time for you to join me. Her thoughts were a passionate plea in my head. 

“You know I can’t, Angel.” 

She flew to me with vampire speed and roughly clasped my chin to lock eyes with me. “You don’t have a choice! Isaac…she’s not 

coming back.” 

I shifted and put the room between us just as swiftly. “Preaching to the choir. I’ve had a few hundred years to process that fact,” I 

replied as I paced by the wall of artwork. 

Angel threw up her arms in exasperation. “Well, then, why stay?” 

“I don’t know, Angel! Maybe I’m enchanted. Maybe she put a spell on me.” 

Angel smirked. “Maybe you’re a fool.” 

“Maybe that, too.” 

She walked to the door, and the guard standing there stepped aside to let her leave as the others fell in rank behind her. Angel 

paused and turned in profile. I already lost you to her once. I won’t lose you again, she thought. 

I was never yours. 

She looked at me with hard eyes. “You’ll be in New Orleans within the month, or I’ll see you before the Council for treason.” 

“You can’t be serious,” I laughed. 


“As I said, your demons will be your undoing. Exorcise her while you still have the chance. You don’t want me to do it. I hold a 

grudge, and I can think of more ways than one to bleed her out of you. Do you understand?” she asked fiercely. 

I blinked in shock, knowing what she meant. Angel was playing hardball. Whatever was happening in the city, she wanted me 

there badly enough to threaten me with erasure. I’d be like a newborn. No memory. I scowled. “I hear you loud and clear,” I 

muttered. 

Angel disappeared into the night with her entourage. Azalea and Scion crept out of the breakroom, both staring at me with eyes 

full of questions. 

“What do we do now?” Azalea asked. 

I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. 

Scion followed. “Wait! Where are you going? We need to discuss this.” 

“I need to figure out our next move. I’ll be back. Let me get some solitude so I can think.” I strolled to my car. When I glanced over 

my shoulder, Azalea stood in the parlor door with her hands on her hips and Scion glared at me from the parking lot. 

“Just great!” Azalea quipped. “We’ll sit around, twiddling our thumbs, then. How about that? Waiting to be charged with treason 

right along with you!” 

I hopped in my Cadillac and sped away from the tattoo parlor, kicking up gravel as I hit the highway. I knew in my heart the right 

thing to do was to get my crew and head to New Orleans, as directed, but Angel didn’t get it. There wasn’t anything outside the 

city limits that could lure me away from the memory of the woman who held me here. Not even the Council could erase her. I 

knew that for certain. I had already tried. 


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