Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

“I didn’t do anything. A scientist who works for the Council got a little aggressive with his swabs and got fired over it, and now he’s pretty mad about it and made some threats against the people I love, and since that’s you . . . you’re going to have vampires and Council-approved humans following you around to keep you safe.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Keagan sighed.

“Will they be hot vampires and Council-approved humans?”

“Morgan!” Keagan cried.

“I haven’t been on a date in weeks,” Morgan shot back.

“Which is more important than the safety of our aggressively swabbed friend how?” Keagan asked.

“Please word that differently,” I told her. “Anyway, the Council will send official notice on Monday, but if you see Tina when the dorm reopens this weekend, you might want to tell her that Council personnel will be landing on campus. They might even take advantage of the vampire-friendly features at New Dawn—Why are you two looking at me like that?”

Both of my friends had “bad news” expressions on their faces, like my skinny jeans were anything but and they didn’t have the heart to tell me.

“Meagan, Tina’s gone,” Morgan said carefully.

“As in she’s supervising a different building?”

“No, Meg, she died about a week ago.”

“What?” I yelled. “Why didn’t anybody tell me? Ophelia!” I turned to see Ophelia and Jamie snuggled up on the couch in the parlor. “Why didn’t you tell me Tina died?”

“Oh, right, sorry. Tina died in a car accident last week,” Ophelia said.

“Why would you not tell me that?”

“Honestly, I didn’t think you and Tina were that close,” she said. “If Morgan or Keagan had died, I would have told you. Does that help?”

“Thank you, Ophelia,” Keagan called. “That’s really nice . . . for you.”

“OK,” Morgan said. “Tina’s car got stuck on some train tracks, and she didn’t pull off in time. The wreckage was awful. It burned for hours. Our photo guys got some really detailed gory shots, but the editor refused to print them because it seemed insensitive.”

I Googled “Tina Messinger wreck” on my tablet and pulled up a Lexington Herald-Leader news article about the crash. I cringed at the sight of the twisted wreckage of the car. “These were the ‘sensitive’ shots?”

Morgan nodded. “Yes, our guy got splashes of blood on the sidewalk. We didn’t use those.”

“Why do you ask these questions?” Keagan sighed.

“Was she in a car accident or a ‘car accident’?” I asked, turning to Ophelia.

“You know, the sarcastic air-quote fingers aren’t necessary,” Ophelia said.

“You did say you were annoyed with her over the whole contacts list thing,” Keagan supplied.

“Keagan, you’re supposed to be the nice one!” Ophelia grumped.

“Nice doesn’t mean stupid.” Keagan snorted.

“OK, I love you both, but I’m going to hang up and yell at Ophelia for her inability to tell important details from useless stuff she doesn’t think I’m interested in,” I said. “Morgan, if you turn up on YouTube for snatching a vegetable steamer out of a child’s hands, I will share it on every available social media platform. Keagan, get your sparkle back.”

They waved at the screen as I shut down my programs and turned on Ophelia.

“You didn’t think our dorm director dying in a fiery crash was worth sharing?”

“It slipped my mind,” she said with a shrug. “You spent ten minutes at dinner detailing the outfit you wore to tell your economics study group to go on the Mammoth Cave tour and ignore the warnings against wandering. And why are you so interested in what happened to Tina?” When Jamie shot her a significant look, she added, “Other than her being a person you knew and would naturally be interested in.”

“Other than her being a person I knew and would naturally be interested in, I’m pretty sure Tina was the one who asked for your contacts and claimed it was Jane. But I don’t know why, and I can’t prove it.”

Ophelia’s lips pursed. “Why would she do that?”

“I just said I don’t know why,” I reminded her.

“It was rhetorical.” She pulled her phone from her back pocket. “I’m going to make some calls.”

I stared after her. Jamie came over and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I know it can be confusing when she just walks out in mid-conversation like that.”

I pouted as Jane called us to the dinner table. “No, I just remember what it was like having a grown-up cell phone.”



I dragged myself up the stairs. I was so very tired, and I had who knew how many weeks of not going to work, the one place I was allowed to go regularly, to look forward to. I slumped into my room and kicked off my shoes, nearly hitting Ben, who was sitting at the foot of my bed.

“Hey. How are you doing? I haven’t even asked how you’re handling the reunion with your parents, who seemed like perfectly nice but reasonably distraught people from the five minutes I talked to them.”

He shrugged. “It went better than I thought it would, to be honest. They get points for not freaking out, calling me a demon, and disowning me, which is how I’ve seen it play out for other members of Jane’s Newly Emerged Vampires Support Group. I get points for not freaking out and biting them. So points all around.”

“Not weird for you, then? Seeing them months after you died and introducing me as your girlfriend . . . after not talking to me about calling me your girlfriend.”

“Oh, no, that was weird as hell. And as for calling you my girlfriend, I probably overstepped there. I’m sorry. But I’m not planning to see anyone else. I like you, maybe more than like you, but I don’t think either one of us is ready to say more. I’m not saying we’re forever, which takes on a whole new meaning for me recently, but I don’t see myself wanting to date anyone else anytime soon. I would like it if you, also, did not date anyone else. This sounded so much better in my head.”

“I’m sure it did.” I kissed him, a quick peck on the lips. “And I agree that I don’t want to date anyone else, either.”

Ben grinned. He was nice enough not to mention my deliberately leaving out the bits about my feelings. “Excellent.”

I nodded toward a pretty silver-wrapped box he was holding. “What do you have here?”

“Something for you,” he said.

“It’s a little early for Christmas presents,” I said, opening the box to find a stack of CD cases, each labeled with a year, starting with 1996 and ending the year my dad died.

“What is this?”

“I took those videos from your dad, and I converted them to DVDs for you. I was going to give them to you before dinner. You know, because holidays are about family, and I wanted to give you a piece of yours back. But then Jane had me cleaning the bathrooms and moving furniture, and then I got ambushed with a reunion with my parents and Jane put the house in DEFCON 1. And I lost track of it.”

“Aw, Ben. Thank you.” I pulled his shirt, yanking him close and kissing him fiercely.