“I always said Ives was a shit shot.” My dad, Rayne, slid onto the stool next to Wynn, making it squeak. “Your mom is going to freak.”
“That’s what I told her,” Wynn lazily added. “This will only solidify what she has planned…”
I stiffened. “What?”
Rayne tapped a finger on the table. “You know how she feels about you hunting, Jack.”
Pulling my food from the microwave, I stabbed my fork into it. “And you know I think it’s hypocritical bullshit. She was my age when she started hunting vampires. Why is what I’m doing any different?”
“I thought I heard my favorite daughter in here,” a cheerful voice called out.
“I’m your only daughter.” My eyes flicked up from my food to meet two sets of blue-green eyes. Drake and Allister, twins and two of my vampire dads, though they’d always felt more like big brothers than dads.
Except when it came to ganging up on me. Then they were all for what everyone wanted as a collective to keep me safe.
Drake rounded the islands, his bulky body more fit for a gym bro than the aristocrat’s son that he and his brother were when they were human. “That doesn’t mean I can’t still be happy to see you and in one piece too!”
“She’s hurt.” Allister pointed out, sliding into the remaining seat at the island next to Rayne.
Drake cupped my chin and turned my face. “Oh, man. Now, I owe Al fifty bucks.”
I jerked my face from his grasp with a glare. “You bet on when I got hurt?”
“Well, yeah.” Drake shrugged, then ruffled my hair. I lifted my arm to push him off as he laughed. “When you’ve been alive as long as we have, you find ways to pass the time. Your little hunter schtick is just our latest entertainment.”
I opened my mouth to snap that hunting wasn’t my schtick, it was my life, but a large dark figure filled the doorway of the kitchen. My mouth clipped shut at the sight of my other dad, Marcus.
His dark eyes skimmed over the room before landing on me. His gaze zeroed in on the cut on my face, but he didn’t comment. That was one of the few reasons Marcus was my favorite; he didn’t waste time stating the obvious.
“Your mother wants to see you.” His voice had a low, gravelly tone, leaving no room for argument.
Sighing, I stabbed my fork into my food and pushed away from the island. I got about four feet toward the door before Allister, Drake, and Rayne began humming the funeral march.
I didn’t bother turning as I flipped them off, their collective laughter following after me.
Marcus strode up the stairs ahead of me toward Antoine’s office. As the head vampire of the household, all decisions went through him, as well as most of their business interests.
The House of Durand had only existed for about as long as I’d been living. My dads all used to live in Europe with their master, Boris, until they up and decided one day that they’d had enough of his manipulative and torturous ways.
Now, they were one of the most powerful vampire houses in the world. Even more so now that my dad, Antoine, was the head of our region’s vampire council. Which, unfortunately, brought its own set of problems with it.
A cold shudder went down my spine as a memory came out of nowhere. The Halloween lights and decorations became more sinister as Marcus held my hand. The laughing faces of the vampires taunted me. Then their heads were rolling on the ground as I pushed down my terror.
“Jack?”
My eyes jerked toward where Marcus waited for me in front of Antoine’s office. I blinked and shook my head, offering him a small smile. “I’m good.”
Understanding filled his eyes.
It had been fifteen years since the first time I’d been kidnapped. At ten years old, I didn’t really get what was going on, but it stuck with me long afterward, even more so than any of the other times disgruntled vampires tried to hurt my parents through me.
I knew Marcus still felt guilty about that first time, and I tried my best to hide how it affected me, to be quiet even in mynightmares, to be strong so they wouldn’t worry. Building myself into a weapon so that no vampire or any other supernatural would ever use me against them. Never again.
Breathing in a shuddering breath, I pushed the office door open and stepped inside.
Antoine’s pale blue eyes lifted from his computer at my entry, his silvery white hair hung long over his dark blue three-piece suit. To his right stood my mom, Piper. Everyone told me she was a shorter version of me, but I didn’t see it.
We both had almond-colored eyes, but that was where our similarities changed. Her hair was golden blonde, while I took after my dad, Darren, who stood to the left of Antoine. Though, if he had curls to his pitch-black hair, I had never seen them with the way he kept his hair slicked back to his head, as if he was afraid to have even a single hair out of place.
