Bite it. Drain it. Feed.
It wasn’t normal for vampires to eat animals that weren’t humans, but apparently Riley was an exception. A freak among freaks.
Riley’s new moms shared a glance, and then Daphne gave hima small smile. “It’s okay, Riley. You can hunt if you need to. That’s why we’re here.”
She’d barely finished speaking before Riley was scrambling out of the car, his body moving before his brain could stop it.
He needed to eat something.
Healwaysneeded to eat something. He was a growing boy, with a growing monster inside him.
But it wasn’t time to think about that. The squirrel was running back down the tree. Riley crouched next to the car, waiting for the little warm-blooded thing to hit the ground.
It was time to chase his dinner.
1
SETH
Seth had no idea why he’d moved to Washington. Like, what the hell had he been thinking?
Okay, maybe he hadsomeidea. He’d wanted—drumroll, please—a change. (God, could he get any more basic?)
To be fair, he’d also wanted to finally open his own bakery, and his tiny town in Maine hadn’t had any opportunities in that regard. So that had led to—of course—impulsively moving all the way across the country, where Seth knew nothing and no one, to adifferenttiny town, and then opening his beloved new bakery for the first time on a cold, rainy weekday, where he’d had his doors unlocked for two hours and had served approximately zero customers.
Seth straightened his little plate of samples for the fifth time in a minute.
This was a disaster.
He’d known this was a small community—in taking thisrental, he’d been replacing the only other bakery in town—but didn’t anyone here eat pastries?
They were damned good pastries too. Seth had made sure of that. His new place might have only been big enough for three tables and a pastry case, but the case was full, the walls were now painted a cheerful yellow, he had hot coffees and teas and?—
Was that a customer? Seth craned his neck to peer out the front window.
But no, it was only a bird flying by. Seth had just been catfished by an avian shadow.
Oh God, he was screwed. So screwed.
So, really, what the hell had he been thinking? Back at home he would have served all his regulars by now. Townspeople Seth knew not only by name but by pastry preference and morning constitution. He’d known who to flirt with, who to sympathize with, and who preferred Seth be a wordless automaton exchanging silence for Danishes and coffee (not Seth’s forte—silence—but he’d done his best). He would have been complimented on his headband by now too, an adorable cloth number he’d made himself out of a bright sunflower pattern, to offset the gloominess of the weather.
But there were no compliments to be found here. No regulars. No nothing.
The front door opened, Seth’s cheery little bell ringing, and Seth tried very, very hard not to look off-putting in his intense, ecstatic enthusiasm over his first customer.
“Welcome to Coastal Crumbs!”
Oh, he’d said that too loud. Way too loud.
The tall, scruffy man with a wiggling bundle in his arms gave Seth a nod, then set down his load. The bundle turned out to be a little human, somewhere in the toddler years, with round cheeks and damp curls, his tiny body all wrapped up in a puffy rainproof jacket.
As soon as the toddler spotted the pastry case, he started chanting, “Doh-nuh! Doh-nuh!”
The scruffy man, who might have been this toddler’s father, gave Seth a look somewhere between a wince and a smile. He was kind of cute, if one liked older, wholesome types. Which Seth sometimes did, depending on his mood. But his mood right now was life regrets and panic, so he wasn’t focused too much on the rest.
“Hey, you got any donuts?”
Seth’s overly enthusiastic smile fell. No, of course not. Of course he hadn’t baked one of the most classic bakery fares in existence. He had croissants, and scones, and a really amazing kouign-amann he’d had to beat into submission with layers and layers of rolling and folding and so much butter he should have had a share in the nation’s dairy business. But no donuts.
