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DRAGON’S OBSESSION FOR DARKNESS

SNOW HAVEN SHIFTERS SERIES

BRITTANY WHITE
Copyright © 2023 by Brittany White

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 CONTENTS

1. Josiah
2. Helen
3. Josiah
4. Helen
5. Josiah
6. Helen
7. Josiah
8. Helen
9. Josiah
10. Helen
11. Josiah
12. Helen
13. Josiah
14. Helen
15. Josiah
16. Helen
17. Josiah
18. Helen
19. Helen
20. Josiah
21. Helen
22. Josiah
23. Helen
24. Josiah
25. Helen
26. Josiah
27. Helen
Thank you for reading!

Bear’s Tangled Love Affair (SNEAK PEEK)

Chapter 1
Also by Brittany White
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 1

JOSIAH

“J osiah,“Why?”
I need you to go talk to Draco Valkerie,” Ian said.
Josiah asked, not wanting to spend his morning arguing with a cantankerous dragon
shifter.
“Because he says that the vampires have been at it again. They have been feeding on one of his
cows,” Ian said.
Ian MacKullen, a lion shifter, owned a security business that was mostly staffed by shifters who
were previously members of special forces in different branches of the military. They did routine
jobs, such as acting as security guards or body guards, to more dangerous ops, such as extractions.
Today, it was preventing an angry dragon shifter from going crazy on a bunch of vampires who never
hurt humans.
“Is the cow still alive?” Ian asked.
“It is and it’s not hurt, but you know how these ranchers are,” Ian said. “You have an uncanny
knack of calming people down.”
“I do. Okay, I’ll do it, but you owe me one,” Josiah said.
Josiah made the thirty-minute drive to Draco’s ranch.
“It’s about damn time that someone got here. Someone attacked one of my cows,” Draco raged.
“Let’s see the cow,” Josiah said.
Draco led Josiah over to the cow in question. She was standing patiently by the trough, chewing.
“She doesn’t look like she’s hurt any,” Josiah said.
“Look at this,” Draco said.
Josiah looked at the puncture marks on the cow and said, “Yes, those do look as though they were
done by a vampire. But again, your cow wasn’t hurt. The vampires are just trying to survive, and they
aren’t feeding on people.”
“That’s true, but they could be feeding off of deer or what not,” Draco said.
“If they are feeding off of animals, they might not be as healthy as they could be. Deer are plenty
fast and not easy to overtake, even for a vampire at their peak,” Josiah said calmly. “A cow is a lot
easier to catch, and it doesn’t seem to hurt the cow. She’s not even panicked or the least bit upset.”
Draco still looked angry, although not as much as he did when Josiah first arrived.
“You haven’t lost anything, and the cow feeding kept the vampires from feeding on humans,”
Josiah said. “It’s a win-win situation.”
Draco stared at him for a few seconds and then nodded.
“You’re right. It’s just that it’s hard enough to protect these guys from four-legged predators. You
and everyone else in Snow Haven rely on my herd to keep you fed, especially during the winter
months,” Draco said.
“I know that. And if the cow had been hurt in any way, you know that I would find the vampires
who did the deed and make sure that reparations were made,” Josiah said.
Draco nodded.
The situation handled, Josiah got back in his truck.
Sighing heavily, he thought, Draco is a very reasonable man. However, not all the ranchers in
the area are going to be so level headed and understanding. If this vampire, or nest of vampires,
continue to feed on cattle, I foresee a problem.
“The situation is handled,” Josiah said once he was back in Ian’s office.
“Did Draco give you a hard time?” Ian asked.
“Not really. Once I reminded him that his cow was not hurt – she wasn’t even upset – he calmed
down pretty quickly. I reminded him that it was better that the vampires were feeding off of cattle than
humans. Of course, dragon shifters tend to be rational creatures and he saw the logic in that
argument,” Josiah said.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone will feel the same,” Ian said, echoing Josiah’s
earlier thoughts.
“I wonder if this is a new vampire or nest in town,” Josiah said. “I haven’t heard of any issues in
the past.”
“I haven’t either. I hope there aren’t any more in the future,” Ian said.
“I wouldn’t hold my breath. Usually, if it happens once, it will happen another time,” Josiah said.
“We’ll keep our eyes out,” Ian replied. “That’s all that we can do.”
Josiah nodded.
Personally, as long as they didn’t attack people, Josiah had no issue with vampires. He had met
several while he was in the service and after he returned to civilian life. He found them to be pretty
much the same as mortals.
There were vampires in the area. They tended to keep their identity a secret because of the
stereotypes and stigmas associated with being a vampire. In Snow Haven, a small town about forty-
five minutes outside of Juneau, there were a couple of vampire nests that everyone knew about but no
one talked about. In Snow Haven, everyone looked out for everyone else, regardless of whether a
person was a mortal, a shifter, a witch, or a vampire.
Josiah had no idea how they got their meals – likely from deer or other wildlife. This was the first
time there had been any issues with cows, and he would know if there was a string of missing people
or exsanguinated bodies strewn about.
That evening, Josiah decided that he was going to head to The Shifter’s Paradise. It wasn’t the
only watering hole in town, but it was the best in most people’s opinion. Although the owner, Beau
Dillon, a tiger shifter, catered to the shifter population, he didn’t discriminate against mortals or other
groups of people. As long as people behaved themselves, he didn’t care who came in.
He ordered a hamburger and a beer, and then he sat at the back table where he and his friends
regularly sat. Jacob Milne, who had just recently married Zoe, a wolf shifter, and was part of the
security team for his bear shifter clan, came in first.
“Zoe is working late again,” he lamented. “You would think that a town such as Snow Haven
wouldn’t have such an issue with the nurses’ shortage, but apparently that is not the case.”
Joshua Jamison, who was head of security for his wolf shifter clan, came in next. He had just
come back from a search and rescue mission for a couple of lost hikers. His wife, Raven, a bear
shifter, ran a group home for shifter younglings who had no other place to live.
Luke Sanders, alpha of his dragon shifter clan, came in five minutes after. His wife, Rowena, was
potentially the most powerful witch on the planet.
“I heard that you had a conversation with Draco Valkerie this morning,” Luke said to Josiah after
greeting everyone.
“I did,” Josiah said. “How did you hear about it?”
“Although you did a good job of talking Draco down from his anger at finding the puncture marks
on his favorite cow, he still contacted me. He thought that I should know about the situation,” Luke
said.
“What situation?” Josiah asked, confused. “I thought that we had the issue dealt with. He agreed
that since the cow wasn’t hurt and the vampire didn’t snack on a human that there was no harm – no
foul.”
“He is one of those old-fashioned people,” Luke said. “Anything interesting, annoying, or
whatever that affects a dragon shifter must be brought to the attention of the alpha.”
“Gotcha,” Josiah said. “The kind that knows how much you absolutely love meetings and must
add to the agenda every single chance that they get.”
“That would be the kind.” Luke laughed.
“David makes me go to all the meetings for him. I have to give him a run down of anything
interesting that was said,” Jacob groused.
“I need to start doing that. I don’t really have a second in command, but I think that I need to get
one,” Joshua said. “That way, I can avoid meetings. I’m sorry that the couple got scared when they got
lost this morning, but I was grateful that they got me out of our meeting.”
Everyone laughed at that comment.
“I am a little concerned about the vampire situation,” Josiah said.
“Why?” Ian asked.
“You know how people get freaked out at the mention of vampires. There are so many stereotypes
and stigmas attached to them,” Josiah said. “If they keep using the cows for food, then they are going
to start drawing attention to themselves.”
“I see what you mean,” Ian said. “The second that anyone starts making a big deal out of the fact
that there are vampires in the area, then we will be inundated with vampire hunters, especially the
ones who don’t care who they end up killing.”
“Exactly,” Josiah said. “Not only are the peaceful vampires in danger, but so are the shifters and
anyone who gets in their way. They also don’t always stop to verify that the person they are hunting is
a vampire either. They might simply end up targeting a person who they think resembles one.”
“Which could be anyone who fits a certain stereotype,” Luke said. “I agree that it could mean
trouble. It might do us good to try to figure out who decided to start targeting cows and have a
conversation with them about finding an alternative source of food.”
“We’ll keep any eye out and see if we can figure out who it is. I know several of the vampires
who live in town, but they have never fed on cows,” Beau said.
“You might talk to them. Tell them about the issue and what our concerns are. They might be able
to help us figure out who is responsible,” Luke suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Beau said.
“Well, I had better get back home,” Josh said. “I’m sure that a few of the kids are looking for their
nightly ball game.”
“Hanging out with all of those kids, plus your own cubs, must be a great way to stay young
yourself,” Beau said.
“Or get old really, really fast. We have a couple of teenage girls that have suddenly become boy
crazy and want to eat, drink, and sleep boys instead of doing their homework, chores, and other stuff,”
Josh said.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Luke said. “Having three little dragons of my own is enough to
drive me batty.”
“It’s an act of love,” Josh said. “Besides, your little dragon shifters are also wizards and, while
they aren’t as talented as your wife, they are pretty powerful. That has got to be challenging all by
itself.”
“I’m just glad that they can’t do both. They can’t do magic in dragon form. That would be quite
nerve-wracking.” Luke laughed as he tossed some money on the table and stood up. “I’d better be
getting home or Rowena will scalp me – and she can do it without a knife. I like my hair.”
Luke ran his fingers through his silvery blond hair and pretended to preen. Jacob stood up to leave
as well.
Josiah bid farewell to Beau, who usually stayed until closing and headed out the door. He went to
a special spot in the woods and stripped, hiding his clothes in the trees. Then, he shifted, spread his
wings wide, and took off into the night sky.
He thought about his friends who were happily going home to their mates and felt a little lonely.
Josiah had thought about settling down on occasion, but there wasn’t anyone in Snow Haven that
attracted him.
Who knows. Maybe Fate will drop the right one in my lap like she did for the others.
 2

HELEN

“HHelen
elen, wake up,” Armand Zeidan said urgently.
was instantly wide awake as the panic in her father’s voice pierced through the cloud of
sleep.
“What’s wrong?” Helen asked, sitting up in bed.
“Someone tipped off the vampire hunters. They are on their way. Louis was at the bar where they
were having one last drink and they were talking. He called me to let me know,” her father said.
Helen immediately got out of bed and dressed. Her heart was racing a million miles an hour as
she packed a small bag for herself. Terror gripped her soul as she took half a second to stare into the
smiling eyes of her mother. She wiped away a lone tear that trickled down her face before she packed
the picture. Her mother had been murdered by vampire hunters a few years ago, by hunters who
wanted to kill all vampires.
Most hunters, the good ones, only hunted the vampires who used humans as food. Most hunters left
the families and clans alone who only used blood banks or animals as food. The Zeidans only used
blood banks. However, there had recently been a band of reckless hunters roaming the countryside
killing everything in their wake. It had been rumored that they had even killed mortals by mistake.
Once her bag was packed, she took one last look around her bedroom, knowing that it was
unlikely she would ever see the place where she had slept most of her life. Then, she put her bag
down in the living room and woke up her little sister, Sylvia, and brother, Nathan, telling them both
that it was an emergency and that they had to leave immediately. As they got dressed, Helen packed a
bag for each of them, making sure to include their most prized possessions. She was sad for them as
she looked around their rooms.
It would be harder on them. They knew that their mother had been murdered by the hunters, but
Helen was pretty sure that they still didn’t completely understand the concept that people were
hunting them, and wanted to kill them simply because they were vampires.
Helen went into her father’s room and found the safe. She grabbed everyone’s passports, birth
certificates, and other important documents, including all the cash that her father had saved up just in
case of emergencies, like this one.
She carried the children’s bags and the envelopes of documents and money to the living room
where their father was waiting.
“I booked airline tickets for us for Kansas just to throw them off the trail,” he told her.
“Where are we going?” Helen asked.
“Alaska,” he told her. “It is furthest away from here that we could get and still be in the United
States. It is remote enough that we should be able to find a place to disappear.”
Helen nodded. Her father had served in the army and was fiercely loyal to the country. It would
have broken his heart to leave the United States, although he would if he was forced to by hunters.
The drive to Alaska took seventy-five hours. Helen and her father took turns driving. The kids
understood the urgency behind the trip and contented themselves with reading books, drawing, and
sleeping. They were a little upset that they had to leave their electronics behind, but there was no
choice since electronics could be tracked.
After what seemed like a month of driving and crossing waterways on ferries, the family arrived
in Juneau. Then, their father kept driving another forty-five minutes. They went past a sign that said
“Welcome to Snow Haven.” Right after that, Armand took a right down a dirt road that was barely
distinguishable from a cattle trail. After another mile, they arrived at a small farmhouse.
“I had Isaac buy us a house here in his name,” Armand said. “I gave him enough money for the
furniture and appliances, so everything should be ready to go. He also stocked the fridge with enough
food to last us until we can get to the blood bank in Juneau.”
Isaac was one of Armand’s army buddies and was a mortal, so the hunters would have no reason
to be interested in him or what he bought.
It was dawn when they rolled up to the house. Although they had all slept during the trip, they
were exhausted and were looking forward to bed. They weren’t even interested in exploring the
house.
Helen gave the kids the last of the blood that they had brought with them and then let them pick out
their rooms. She was glad that they both wanted a different room and there was no fighting. She was
also glad that they both were asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. She was exhausted and
didn’t even bother changing her clothes before she fell into a deep sleep.
The family was so tired that they spent most of the day and night sleeping. When Helen woke up
the following morning, she felt refreshed and more like her old self.
She took the kids to a box store in Juneau to let them buy some more toys and clothes, although
they were disappointed when she only let them get a handheld game system that didn’t transmit any
kind of electronic signal that could be tracked.
“We need to wait and make sure that we are secure here before we think about phones or tablets,
or anything,” Helen told them.
She could tell that they were unhappy, but they seemed to understand why she wouldn’t let them
have all the gadgets that they had in Georgia.
Once they were back at the house, the kids were fed and happily stashing their new toys in their
rooms, Helen decided that she needed some fresh air.
“Dad, I’m going for a walk,” she said.
“Are you sure that its safe?” he asked.
“Yes. You know that we have to get back to our regular lives,” Helen said. “We can’t just hole up
in the house and never leave. That isn’t living.”
“I know. It’s just that it killed me when you mother was taken from us. I can’t lose one of you
guys, too,” Armand said.
“I know. I’m sure that we’ll be safe here. No one in the town will know that we are vampires. The
hunters that were in North Carolina and heading toward us in Georgia will never know that we are
here. They will be looking for us in Kansas. They will likely find some other prey and go after them,
forgetting about us,” Helen said. “Besides, we will draw even more attention to ourselves if we act
like a bunch of strange recluses.”
 “You always were an optimist, Daughter,” Armand said. “I know that you are right – we have to
keep living like everyone else.”
Helen was relieved that her father understood and accepted what she said. Sometimes, he could
be hardheaded. Once he got an idea in his head, he stuck to it, come hell or high water, as her mother
used to say.
The warmth enveloped her as soon as she stepped outside. The sun was shining brightly and there
was a slight breeze that lifted her blond hair. She crossed the yard and then headed into the woods.
The scent from the pine trees filled her nostrils and the sounds of the birds and the insects were
almost heavenly. For the first time in a long time, Helen felt as though she was in complete peace. She
felt completely safe and as though none of the hatefulness and nastiness of the outside world could
touch her.
She continued walking and was about to turn around when she happened to glance up in the sky.
Her heart caught in her throat when she saw a dragon flying above.
“A dragon shifter,” she whispered to herself.
Helen knew that shifters existed, but had never seen one before. She and her family had lived in
the city, so it was much too crowded for them to shift. In that area, shifters would be hunted just as
much as the vampires were. They would have to keep a low profile.
The dragon flew out of sight and Helen decided that she needed to be heading back home. She had
an excellent sense of direction, so she decided to head back to the house a different way than she had
come.
She walked for about half an hour before she came upon a small clearing. Helen’s eyes opened
wide and her jaw dropped when she saw the same dragon land. Then, right in front of her eyes, he
shifted into his human form. Helen had to suppress the urge to clap in delight at the view in front of
her.
Not only did she actually get to see a dragon, but she got to see someone shifting from dragon
form to human form. There was also the fact that the man standing in front of her was the most
exquisite male specimen she had ever seen, either on television, the internet, or in the magazines.
Helen had no idea how long she stood there staring at the man, until she realized that she had
forgotten to breathe. She sucked in a huge gulp of air. The man turned around, startled, and stared at
her. She wasn’t sure who was more shocked – the man or her.
Her mind raced, searching for something to say that wouldn’t make her sound like her twelve-
year-old brother opening a Christmas gift instead of her more mature, twenty-four-year-old self.
“That was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen,” Helen said. “I’ve always known that
shifters existed, but I’ve never seen one in person.”
“Thank you,” the man said simply.
Then, as though he suddenly realized that he was standing in front of a completely strange woman
stark naked, he walked over to a tree and pulled his clothes down. Helen was disappointed as the
man slipped into a pair of jeans and pulled a t-shirt over his head. He sat down on the ground briefly
and pulled on his socks and a pair of boots.
Noting that she was watching him, the man told her, “We usually take our clothes off before we
shift. Otherwise, the clothes will be torn into pieces.”
Helen nodded. That made complete sense to her. Then she realized that she had been staring at a
naked man like a schoolgirl with a crush, and she didn’t even know his name.
“Hello,” she said. “My name is Helen.”
He replied, holding out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Helen. I’m Josiah.”
 3

JOSIAH

T he hairs had stood up on the back of Josiah’s neck as he had a feeling that someone was
watching him. He turned around to find a beautiful blond woman gaping at him. He froze, not
sure how to react.
When she smiled, it seemed as though the sun had come out. His heart started beating a little
faster, and he sucked in a huge gulp of air. Her hair was silvery blond and she had the greenest eyes
that he had ever seen. It was as though a perfect pair of emeralds watched him. He was taken aback
because no woman had ever had this effect on him before.
Josiah was relieved when she smiled and said that seeing him shift was amazing and that she had
known that shifters existed. That meant that she wasn’t going to run off screaming into the woods and
get lost. Then, he would have to find her, return her to her family, and then she would report that he
was a shifter. Although everyone in Snow Haven knew that there were mortals, witches, shifters, and
vampires who lived in the area, everyone tended to mind their own business. However, it would still
stir up some dust and that was the last thing that he wanted or needed.
She smiled and said, “Hello. My name is Helen.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Helen. My name is Josiah,” he told her, holding out her hand.
“I love that name,” she said.
“Thank you. I’ve had it all my life,” he replied with a smile.
He thought that the pink blush that flushed her cheeks was the most adorable thing that he had ever
seen in his life.
“I don’t think that I’ve ever seen you in these parts before,” he said.
“Actually, my father, brother, sister, and I recently moved to Snow Haven,” she told him.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Way down south,” she replied.
Then, she looked up in the sky and said, “It was nice to meet you, but I need to be heading home.
My father will be worried.”
Without another word, she turned around and left. Josiah watched her walk away.
She is interesting, Josiah thought. She is the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen.
Something about her stirred up his insides, and he had a sudden strange feeling that he had never
felt before in his entire life. He sensed that there was something different about her and wondered
whether she really needed to get back home to a worried father or if he had scared her away by
asking where she was from.
I would definitely like to get to know her better, Josiah thought.
 Then, he stopped himself and thought about the fact that every other woman who suddenly
appeared in Snow Haven had brought chaos. When Rowena arrived, she was followed by every
single corrupt shifter, witch, and vampire from around the world. Raven got the town involved in
defeating a group of shifter traffickers. He had to admit that wasn’t a bad thing, though. Beth had been
followed to town by a paparazzi nut determined to get a story regardless of the cost and a stalker that
wreaked all kinds of havoc on the town. Then, there was Sara, who had been followed to Snow
Haven by a group of Irish mafiosos. Lily had been followed to town by an angry father hell bent on
killing her and an evil ex-fiancé determined to destroy her.
Who is going to show up chasing this dame? Josiah asked himself. As beautiful and intriguing
as she seems, I think that it will be in my best interests to just stay away from her.
Regardless of what he told himself about the dangers of getting involved with the beautiful Helen,
he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Her voice was almost musical, and she wore a sweet perfume that
seemed to linger in the air but wasn’t overbearing. It was some kind of exotic spice scent. She was
the last think that he thought of as he fell asleep.
In spite of his best intentions to stay away from her, he ran into Helen again with her little brother
and sister in town. She was talking to her brother and wasn’t watching where she was going. She
literally bumped into him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
Then, her eyes opened wide when she saw who it was that she had smashed into.
“Josiah,” she said.
“In the flesh.” He laughed.
“I’m so sorry. I really need to watch where I am walking,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he replied.
“You know this man?” the young man asked.
“I do. I met him yesterday. Nathan, Sylvia, this is Josiah. Josiah, Nathan and Sylvia – my little
brother and sister,” she said.
“I’m not so little,” Nathan groused, making Josiah grin.
“No, you aren’t. You are almost as tall as your sister,” Josiah acknowledged, shaking his hand.
“Does this mean that you are our friend?” the little girl asked.
She was the spitting image of Helen.
“Of course, I’m your friend,” Josiah replied.
The little girl clapped her hands and grinned.
“My father says that you can’t have too many friends,” Sylvia said.
“I like to think that, too,” Josiah said.
He noticed that Helen’s brother and sister were at least ten years younger than she was. He
wondered about that, but decided not to ask. It really wasn’t any of his business. He just had a natural
curiosity about everything in the world that was out of the ordinary.
“How do you like Snow Haven so far?” Josiah asked.
“It seems to be very nice. All of the people who I have talked to so far seem to be very pleasant,”
Helen said.
“We have great schools,” he told Nathan and Sylvia. “I think that you guys will be very happy
here.”
“I’m excited about going to school,” Nathan said. “I like science and math the best.”
“What about you, Sylvia?” Josiah asked.
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess that it is okay. I do like music and art class,
though.”
“Mrs. Johanes is the best music teacher in the world. The art teacher is new, but I bet that you will
like her, too,” Josiah said.
Sylvia smiled.
“It was good seeing you again,” Helen said. “I need to get these guys back home and fed.”
“Bye, Josiah,” the kids said in unison, waving at him, as they walked away.
There is just something about her, Josiah thought. There is something that I just can’t shake.
He almost turned around and ran after her to ask her for her phone number, but stopped himself at
the last minute.
Josiah decided to see if he could find out more about her and her family. If anyone knew anything,
it would be Ian.
Ian looked up from what he was working on and asked, “What’s bothering you, Brother?”
“There is a new family in town,” Josiah said. “A woman, her younger brother and sister, and her
father.”
“Uh-oh. A woman, huh?” Ian said. “I guess that we need to put the town on full alert.”
Josiah laughed and said, “That’s what I was thinking. You know what happens every time a
strange woman comes to town.”
“Maybe this time things will be a little different since she is here with her family,” Ian said
hopefully.
“Do you really believe that?” Josiah said.
“Not for a second,” Ian replied.
“Do you know anything about her and the family?” Josiah asked.
“Not a whole lot. The farm had been for sale for a long time, ever since the Richardsons decided
that Alaska just wasn’t for them and moved back to Florida. I think it’s been a little over a year since
they’ve left. Anyway, a man named Isaac Parker, who lives in Juneau, bought the property about a
week ago. He paid cash and paid the full asking price. The realtor said that he didn’t even try to
haggle about anything,” Ian reported. “Nate said that he saw a furniture truck going toward the
farmhouse when he was on his way back home from picking up supplies.”
Nate was a panther shifter who owned a large horse and cattle ranch that wasn’t too far away
from the old Richardson homestead. He had fallen in love with and married Sara after she had come
to him for help when she was running from the Irish mob.
“So they needed to leave their old place rather quickly and didn’t bring their furniture and stuff
with them,” Josiah said. “Interesting.
“They also either have money or Isaac is a very, very good friend,” Ian said.
“Maybe a little of both,” Josiah replied. “Do you know anything about the family that moved in?”
“Not even their names,” Ian replied.
“I do know the woman’s name is Helen. Her little brother’s name is Nathan and her sister’s name
is Sylvia. I don’t know what her father’s name is or what their last name is,” Josiah reported.
“Why the interest in this family?” Ian asked. “It wouldn’t happen to be because of the rather
fetching blond-haired, green-eyed woman I saw in town, would it?”
“Of course not,” Josiah protested.
His words sounded weak even in his own ears.
“Mmm-hmm,” Ian said. “Don’t worry – we’ve all been bitten by the bug. It’s only fair that you get
that same bite.”
“I’ve only met the woman twice,” Josiah said. “We talked for a total of five minutes each time.”
 “It only takes one chance meeting. You don’t have to say a word. It is just a feeling that happens,”
Ian said.
“How would you know?” Josiah retorted. “You knew Beth long before she went off to the world
and became a country music star. You just got reacquainted with her when she came back after her
grandmother had passed.”
“Touchy,” Ian said. “You’re right about Beth and me. However, I saw it at work with Beau and
Lily. Even Josh, who had vowed to never fall in love again was smitten as soon as he met Raven.”
Josiah shook his head and said, “I promise that I’m not smitten nor have I been bitten by anything.
I’m just worried about the safety of the community. This family just kind of appeared and no one
knows anything about them.”
“It looks like you have a mystery to solve, then,” Ian told him.
“It looks like I do,” Josiah agreed.
He wasn’t sure whether he liked the prospect of solving the mystery more or if it was the idea that
he would have to, somehow, be in contact with Helen. Josiah left Ian’s office determined to figure out
why this family happened to show up in Snow Haven and what kind of trouble might be following
them.
 4

HELEN

“G“Ohuessreally?”
what, Dad. We have a new friend,” Sylvia said.
Armand asked. “Who is this friend?”
“He is a man. His name is Josiah. We met him when we went into town. Helen already knew him,
though,” Nathan said.
Helen cringed. She knew exactly what was coming next.
“How did you already know this man?” Armand asked Helen, the anxiety clear in his voice.
“I ran into him when I was taking a walk into the woods,” Helen said, deciding not to tell her
father that he was also a dragon shifter, not a mortal.
She figured that one shock at a time would be sufficient.
“Why are you out there making friends? We need to keep our head down, at least for now,”
Armand said. “Have you not forgotten the reason that we moved here to begin with?”
“Nathan, Sylvia, why don’t you guys go play in your rooms?” she told the wide-eyed children.
She knew that they had already been scared by the threat of the vampire hunters.
“Is Josiah a hunter? Is he going to kill us?” Sylvia asked.
“No, he isn’t a hunter and no, he isn’t going to kill us,” Helen said, sending a glaring look to her
father. “He’s a very nice man who wants to be your friend. Now, go ahead and go to your rooms.”
Sylvia and Nathan looked at each other and then looked at Helen and nodded. They slowly moved
out of the living room and went upstairs, although Helen had a feeling that at least Nathan would be
listening in on the argument that was about to come.
“Why are you scaring the kids like that?” Helen asked.
“They need to understand that they have to be careful around people they don’t know,” Armand
said.
“That is ridiculous,” Helen stormed. “First, it’s not like we walk around with a sign hanging
around our necks announcing to the world that we are vampires. Unless we tell someone, no one will
know the difference. Second, they can’t spend the rest of their lives being afraid of the world around
them.”
“Just for now,” he said.
“No. We have moved to Snow Haven. It’s not like people aren’t going to notice that we are here.
Like I already pointed out, there is no way that the four of us can stay cooped up in the house all the
time and not interact with the world around us,” Helen reminded him.
He just looked at her, his brows furrowed and his lips pressed tightly together.
“Besides, did you ever think about the fact that if we do make friends and we do become part of
the community that they might have our backs in the event that the hunters do figure out where we
are?” Helen said. “Small communities like this tend to watch out for one another.”
Her father heaved a huge sigh and nodded, and Helen knew that her father realized that she was
right. However, he would never tell her that she was right, and Helen wasn’t going to force an
admission out of him. The nod was all that she was ever going to get.
“I need some fresh air,” she said, her voice a lot gentler. “You know that I hate staying cooped up
in four walls for very long.”
“Be careful,” he said.
Helen wasn’t sure whether he was warning her to be careful about hunters, strange people, or
about any wild animals that might be lurking about. She decided that it was best not to ask.
She walked the same path that she had gone before. Occasionally, she stopped and stared into the
afternoon sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the dragon flying around, but she never spotted him.
Helen’s gut told her that Josiah was a very nice man. He had spoken to the kids as he would have
spoken to anyone who he respected.
Of course, he was also incredibly sexy. The man could have walked off the pages of a magazine
sporting pictures of naked gods. His chest was hard and he had very thick arms. His legs were
muscular. He had a nice, tight ass. It was obvious that the man kept in shape. His sea blue eyes were
captivating, and Helen had the feeling that she could drown just looking in them.
A warmth swept through her as she continued walking, imagining what it would feel like to run
her hands over his chest and down his arms. Her fingers tingled at the thought of wrapping her arms
around him and kneading his thick back muscles with her fingertips.
She imagined what it would feel like if he held her close to him. Her nipples hardened as she
thought of them brushing against his chest. She almost closed her eyes, as she thought about what his
lips would feel like pressed against hers.
Helen had walked quite a way through the woods when she finally snapped out of her reverie. She
shook her head, as though she was trying to shake the image and thoughts of Josiah out of her mind.
Instead, she purposely turned her thoughts to the kids. Not for the first time, she wondered why her
parents had waited so long between having her and Nathan. She was twelve when Nathan was born,
and fourteen when Sylvia came along. Tragedy struck the family a few years after Sylvia was born.
Hunters had tracked down their mother and killed her. Nathan had been six and Sylvia was four. That
had been six years ago. There wasn’t a day that went by that Helen didn’t miss her mother. She felt
even worse for the kids because they didn’t have very much time with their mother.
Sylvia and Helen were both almost identical to their mother in looks. Hannah had silvery blond
hair and emerald green eyes. She had a smile that could win over almost any heart. Hannah had been
a teacher and her students had loved her. Then, one day, she just didn’t come home. The police
showed up at their front door with the bad news that she had been ambushed and decapitated. They
had no suspects. Later that night, her father got word from a couple of acquaintances that the hunters
were in town and searching for a couple of families and nests that they had heard of. Knowing that
decapitation was the hunter’s preferred way of killing and fearing for the rest of the family, Armand
loaded up everyone and they left California that night, eventually settling in Georgia.
After Helen graduated from high school, she chose to stay with her father and help out with the
kids. She got her nursing degree during the day while the kids were in school and eventually found a
job at the local hospital. Her father was an engineer, and they all settled nicely in the community.
Helen had hoped that they would be safe. She had no idea how the hunters had found them. They
never fed on humans or animals. Very few people had known that they were vampires. That likely
meant that someone close to them had betrayed them.
That was probably why her father was so adamant that they stay away from other people.
However, Helen figured that as long as they didn’t tell anyone that they were vampires, they would be
fine. No one could betray them if they didn’t know.
Helen finished her walk very disappointed that she never caught a glimpse of Josiah. She had to
admit that she was drawn to him for some reason. She briefly wondered whether there would be a
chance for her and Josiah to get together sometime. Then, she quickly banished that thought from her
head. How could she even think about dating a man when she had to be there for the kids?
She walked in the door and rolled her eyes. The kids were watching Dracula.
Sighing heavily, she asked, “Why are you guys watching this garbage?”
“It’s fun,” Sylvia said. “We like watching movies about vampires.”
For the hundredth time, Nathan asked, “Why can’t we turn into bats?”
Shaking her head and laughing, Helen said, “You already know the answer to that. Vampires
cannot turn into bats. The only humans who can turn into bats are bat shifters. We are not bat shifters.”
“I think that it would be cool if we could sleep in coffins like Dracula does. It looks like it is all
soft and cushy in there and has a nice, fluffy pillow,” Sylvia said.
“You have a nice, soft, cushy bed and nice, fluffy pillows and a lot more room to move around.
I’ve seen how you sleep, sprawled all the way across your bed,” Helen said, laughing.
Sylvia thought about it and nodded.
“You are right,” Sylvia said.
“All those other stereotypes are stupid, too,” Armand said, walking in on the conversation. “I
love some garlic in my food when I eat regular food, and I can wear a cross necklace if I want to.”
“We can also go outside in the daylight without burning into ashes or having to wear one thousand
SPF,” Helen said.
“The only thing that people have right about vampires is that we need to eat blood to survive. But
we can eat normal food, too,” Armand said.
“I know. I love the taste of ice-cream,” Sylvia said.
“Speaking of eating stuff, have you guys fed lately?” Armand asked.
“I fed yesterday,” Sylvia said.
“Me, too,” Nathan stated.
“Good, then why don’t you guys go outside and kick a ball around or do something constructive
rather than sitting around and watching these shows?” Helen asked.
Sylvia and Nathan looked at each other and then got up to obey their sister.
That night, as she did every night, Helen sat with her sister and they read a chapter out of a book
together.
When they were done and Helen was about to turn off the light, Sylvia said, “Helen, I’m scared.”
“Why are you scared, Baby Girl?” Helen asked.
“Are the hunters going to find us here?” Sylvia asked.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Helen said. “I really don’t know if they are or not. I hope that they
don’t.”
“I hope they don’t, too. I don’t want to die,” Sylvia said.
Helen heard the little quiver in her sister’s voice and knew that the child was terrified.
“Your father and I will do everything we can to protect you,” Helen said. “Do you want me to stay
with you until you go to sleep?”
“Yes, please,” Sylvia said.
 “Let me go say goodnight to your brother and I’ll be right back,” Helen said.
When she returned, Sylvia was lying in her bed, her eyes wide opened. Helen’s heart hurt that her
little sister was so afraid. She held the little girl’s hand until Sylvia was finally asleep.
Helen left a lamp on in case Sylvia woke up in the middle of the night and was afraid. She went
off to her own bed, hoping that she would be able to keep her promise and protect her sister and
brother.
 5

JOSIAH

J osiah was stressed after another morning of searching and rescue. This time it was for a
young boy. He and Jackson, another member of Ian’s team who was a dragon shifter, had
been sent out to look for the six-year-old.
“Why in the hell can’t these people keep a better eye on their kids?” Josiah asked,
telepathically, as he and Jackson flew over the area where they thought the boy might have wandered.
They started searching in tight circles at the point where the parents had last seen their son and
widened the circles from there. By the time they finally found the boy, he had wandered two miles
away from where he had started. He had been sitting with his back to a tree, sound asleep. The river
was very close by. Knowing that water was a natural attraction to kids, they were astonished that he
hadn’t fallen in and been swept away.
Josiah and Jackson landed nearby and hastily put on the clothes that they had brought with them in
a pack. Seeing two dragons swooping in on him and shifting would have likely scared the child half
to death.
“Mikey?” Josiah asked. “Mikey.”
The little boy stirred a little bit and then finally woke up.
“Are you here to save me?” he asked.
“Yes, we are here to take you back to your mom and dad,” Jackson said.
“Good. Because I got losted and couldn’t find my way back,” Mikey said. “I was going to keep
walking, but I decided to just sit down and wait for you.”
“Smart man,” Josiah said. “But you shouldn’t have wandered off from your mom and dad to begin
with. They are worried sick about you.”
“He’s not my dad. He’s my step-dad, and he hates me,” Mikey told him. “I wanted to go fishing,
and Dennis said that we couldn’t because we were going to go hiking. I decided that I was going to go
fishing by myself.”
Josiah wanted to ask him how that worked out for him, but didn’t since the kid was young.
Besides, it really wasn’t his business. He had found the kid safe, would get him back to his parents,
and that would be the end of that. As for Mikey, he was pretty sure that this would be a life lesson that
he wouldn’t soon forget – don’t wander away from his parents.
The parents, including Dennis, the step-dad, were very happy to see Mikey. He was equally sure
that they wouldn’t let Mikey out of their sight during the rest of their camping trip.
“It would make our lives a lot easier if they would just stay at the camping grounds and sing
kumbaya like all the other people.” Jackson laughed.
 “It’s not nearly as fun. I used to love to go camping when I was a kid,” Josiah said.
“Yeah, but you’re a dragon. Not much is going to eat you while you are camping even if you
somehow got lost.” Jackson laughed.
That afternoon, Josiah decided that he was going to go flying. He was restless and Ian didn’t have
anything else interesting to do. Besides, he was hoping that he would catch a glimpse of Helen. She
was beautiful and he would like to get to know her a little better as a woman. There was also the fact
that he would like to know what her and her family’s story was. If there was going to be trouble
coming to town, he would like to know ahead of time.
He flew over the forest and even took a pass over the farmhouse, but there was no sign of her. A
little disappointed, he headed back, got dressed and made his way to The Shifter’s Paradise.
Jackson was hanging out with some of his buddies and invited Josiah to party with them. He
decided that since he had nothing else to do, he might as well.
He was glad that he hadn’t drunk too much, because early the next morning, Ian called him.
“I need you to come into the office. We had a situation and I need you to lead the task force,” Ian
said.
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” he promised.
Ian was waiting for him with a cup of coffee.
“I figured that you would need this,” Ian said, handing him the cup.
“You thought right,” Josiah said. “What is going on?”
“The daughter of a diplomat has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. This particular
group who took her has a habit of keeping the hostages alive until they get the ransom, and then they
kill the hostages, anyway,” Ian said.
“Nice group of people,” Josiah commented.
“The Andersons would like to have their daughter, Alyssa, back alive,” Ian said.
“Where am I going?” Josiah asked.
“Urgistan,” Ian told him.
Just then, Jackson filed in, along with four other men.
Ian filled them in on the details of the mission and gave them a map that showed where the woman
was likely being held, where they would be dropped off, and where the rendezvous point was. They
each had brought a to-go bag that had everything that they needed for the mission.
Josiah was excited because it had been a long time since he had been on a mission – at least six
months. He was a firm believer that if a person didn’t use their skills, at least every once in a while,
then they would lose them.
Once they were dropped off, it didn’t take long for the six men to find the place where the woman
was being held.
“We’ll go in at midnight,” Josiah said. “I’ll keep watch if the rest of you want to get some sleep.”
The men found some trees and climbed up, after making sure that the trees weren’t already
inhabited by local wildlife. The last thing they needed was to get comfortable in a tree and find
themselves cozied up with a venomous snake or a hungry large cat.
Josiah stayed alert, watching the movements of the camp that was about a half mile away.
They aren’t very observant, he thought as he waited for night to fall and for the witching hour to
come. If this was my enterprise, I would have regular patrols at least a half mile out or more likely,
a mile. They barely have patrols on the perimeter of their area.
Although Josiah was starting to get restless, as were the rest of the men, they made sure that they
stayed as still as possible. They didn’t want any unnecessary movement to alert the enemy that they
weren’t alone.
Finally, the time came and Josiah sent a telepathic message to the other five men.
Time to rock and roll.
They all slid down the trees that they had been resting in and walked in a single file line toward
the camp. There they split up. Two went in on one side of the camp, two on the other, and two at the
back of the camp.
There were two guards at the front of the hut where Alyssa was being held. Jackson and another
man, Liam, snapped their necks. Josiah ducked inside, where Alyssa was sitting on the bed. Her eyes
were wide with fear. Her knees were up to her chin and her arms were wrapped around them.
“My name is Josiah. I’m here with my men to save you. Are you hurt?” he asked.
Alyssa shook her head.
“Can you run?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But my leg is chained to the bed.”
Josiah said, “Close your eyes.”
She did and Josiah breathed fire on the links closest to the bed to weaken them. Then, he pulled
them apart. That left just a cuff and a small bit of chain attached to her leg.
“That’s going to make noise if you try to run, so I’m going to carry you until we are a safe distance
away,” he said.
She nodded.
He scooped her up and said, I’ve got the package. Are we clear?
Yes, Jackson replied.
Josiah and Alyssa exited the hut and then headed out the back of the camp the same way that he
had come in. They met up with everyone else at the same point where they had bided their time
earlier. They hadn’t made it much further when they heard the alarm go off.
The group was almost at the rendezvous point when they were attacked. Jackson grabbed Alyssa
and pushed her between a couple of rocks and told her to stay there until one of them came back to get
her.
Josiah and Jackson shifted into their dragon forms. Two of the others shifted into bear forms and
two others were wolves. The men chasing them were mostly wolf shifters.
One of the wolf shifters managed to get under Josiah and slashed his belly with sharp wolf claws.
Blood dripped from the wound as Josiah whipped around and unleased a stream of fire on him. Two
wolves had attacked one of the bear shifters. Josiah pounded over and grabbed one of the wolves
with his claws and flew into the air. He dropped the wolf from a height of twenty feet, and then flew
back toward the fray. Jackson had managed to put down two of the men and the other bad guys were
either taken down by the rest of the crew or had run away. They all shifted back into human form.
Matt, one of the bear shifters, had a massive chunk of flesh ripped out of his shoulder blade. Liam,
who was covered in bite marks, helped pack some gauze on Matt’s shoulder.
Peter, one of the men, looked at the gashes on Josiah’s belly.
“You’re going to need stitches on that, man,” he said.
“I’ll live. Let’s just wrap them up real quick like. We need to be going. We have to meet the
chopper in an hour,” Josiah said.
Jackson, who had come out fairly unscathed, rushed over to Alyssa and pulled her out of her
hiding spot.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded and said, “I’m fine. I’ve never seen a real shifter before.”
 “Now, you’ve seen all kinds,” Jackson said.
He held her hand as they made their way to the meeting spot. They made it five minutes before the
chopper arrived.
Ian insisted that Josiah and Matt go to the hospital as soon as he saw the wounds.
“The clan doctor is still on duty for another ten minutes. I’ll call and let him know that you two
are on your way,” Ian said.
Peter drove them over to the hospital where Josiah got stitches and some poultices to help
promote healing and prevent infection.
“It’s a good thing that you are a shifter. These probably would have killed you if you weren’t,” the
doc said.
As he was walking out of his room and over to Matt’s to see how his friend was doing, Josiah
spotted Helen. He wanted to talk to her, but she looked busy, so he decided not to.
“I’m going to live to fight another day,” Matt said. “Just probably not today.”
“Probably not for a couple of days,” Josiah observed. “I probably won’t be fighting for a couple
of days either – or flying for that matter.”
They talked for a few more minutes and congratulated each other on a job well done. Matt was
released and the two men walked out together.
“I’m thinking that I need a beer. You wanna come? It’s on me,” Matt said.
Josiah was just about to agree, but then he saw Helen leave with Lina, another nurse, who was
married to James, the alpha of the local bear shifter clan.
“I’ll take a raincheck on that,” Josiah said.
Feeling a little bit like a stalker, he followed the two women to the park. He approached as they
sat down at one of the picnic tables.
“Hey, guys. I don’t mean to intrude, but I was wondering if I could talk to Helen for just a
second,” he said.
“Sure,” Lina said, smiling at Helen.
“I forgot to get your number the last time that I saw you. I was wondering if you would like to
have lunch with me tomorrow?” he asked.
 6

HELEN

S now Haven was not immune to the nursing shortage experienced by the rest of the country. She
found that Snow Haven Memorial Hospital was very pleased to have someone of her
credentials. Helen had graduated second in her class and had high recommendations from her
previous employer.
She just hoped that the vampire hunters hadn’t known where she worked and went to that hospital
to find information about her. She was positive that her supervisor, who was also a vampire, would
have her back.
Lina Wilkins was the nurse in charge of the ward that Helen had been put in. They had quickly
become friends.
One afternoon, as the pair was heading to the park for their lunch break, Helen spotted Josiah
following them. He sat down at their picnic table as Lina and Helen started to break out their lunch.
“I forgot to get your number the last time that I saw you. I was wondering if you would like to
have lunch with me tomorrow?” Josiah asked.
“I would love to,” Helen said.
“Excellent,” Josiah said. “About the same time as today?”
“Yep,” Helen said.
“Great,” Josiah replied.
“Are you okay?” Lina asked. “I saw you come out of the hospital.”
“I went on a quick mission for Ian. We got caught toward the end of the mission. They were wolf
shifters and one of them managed to get underneath me and shred my abdomen with his claws,” Josiah
said.
“Ouch,” Helen said. “And you are okay?”
“I had to get a few stitches put in and the doctor put on some poultices to help it heal and to help
prevent infections. I tend to heal a lot faster than most people, so I’ll be good as new in a few days,”
he said.
“Who is Ian?” Helen asked.
“Ian is the guy who owns the security business. We mostly get hired to do work like bodyguards
or security guards, but every once in a while something just a little more dangerous comes along,”
Josiah said.
“You go on these dangerous missions?” Helen asked, with a frown.
“I do. All of us do. Every person who works for Ian used to be involved in some kind of special
forces unit in the military, so in essence, it is what we are trained to do,” Josiah said. “We always
come back victorious and alive.”
“But sometimes banged up.” Lina laughed.
“Once in a while when a sneaky wolf gets under me.” Josiah laughed. “This was the first time that
I’ve been hurt in a long time. I have a bit of an advantage.”
You’re a dragon. I would say that is more than just a bit of an advantage, Helen thought to
herself.
Josiah stood up and said, “I need to get going. I have some reports to fill out for Ian. I’ll see you
tomorrow,”
“I’ll see you then,” Helen replied.
He walked away with a huge smile on his face.
“I see that you have already made a conquest here,” Lina said, teasingly.
“I don’t know about that,” Helen replied.
“I’ve never seen him ask any other girl out on a date,” Lina said. “He’s not the type to do that
unless he is very interested.”
Helen just nodded.
“I will tell you that Josiah is a terrific man,” Lina said. “He is always the first one who they send
out to rescue people, especially kids. He is so gentle and calm with them. He is also the first one that
is sent out if there is any kind of dispute or argument between people. He just has a way about him.
He is also a perfect gentleman.”
“You sound like you are trying to sell him to me – like a used car salesman.” Helen laughed.
“Nah. Just pointing out the attributes of a great man. How did you two happen to meet, anyway?”
Lina asked.
“I needed a breath of fresh air and went for a walk. I ran into him in the woods,” Helen said, not
sharing the fact that she had come upon him shifting.
Apparently, she didn’t have to.
“I bet that you got to see him in his dragon form?” Lina said.
“How did you know?” Helen asked, startled.
“Very few of the shifters go for a walk in their human form. Dragon shifters tend to fly over their
land and the outskirts of Snow Haven,” Lina said.
“You know about shifters, too?” Helen asked, astonished that Lina would talk about it so openly.
“Girl, I’m married to a bear shifter. As a matter of fact, he is the alpha of his clan,” Lina told her.
“Are you a shifter?” Helen asked.
“Nope. I’m a regular mundane human,” Lina said.
“The alpha is married to a human. I would have never guessed that anything like that would be
possible,” Helen said.
“It almost wasn’t,” Lina said. “James and I fell in love when we were teenagers. We had a few
nights together, and I got pregnant with my son, Sam. He left for the army promising he would write.
He did, but I never got the letters, so I moved to Anchorage. A few years later, my father had a heart
attack and I moved back here. James had left the army because it was his duty to become the alpha.
His father and a couple other people tried to kill me and Sam, but some of the people in Snow Haven
saved us. James gave an ultimatum that if Sam and me weren’t going to be accepted, then he wouldn’t
take the role of alpha. The end is history,” she said. “Now we are working on baby number three.”
“Congrats,” Helen said. “Does everyone know about the shifters in the area?”
“Yes. In addition to bear shifters there is also a clan of wolf shifters and a clan of dragon shifters.
There are a couple of lion shifters, tiger shifters, and one panther shifter in the area,” Lina said. “And
those are just the ones that I know about.”
“Wow,” Helen said. “That is really cool.”
“Snow Haven is pretty diverse for being such a small town. There are also witches and vampires
who live in Snow Haven or in the area, as well as regular people. Everyone has a live and let live
policy. But let an outsider attack one of us and we will stand together and fight. Someday I will tell
you Sara’s, Raven’s, Rowena’s, Beth’s, and Lily’s story, and you will see what I mean,” Lina said.
“Are they all shifters, too?” Helen asked.
“No, Rowena is a witch and Sara is a human, like me,” Lina said. “Rowena is mated with the
alpha of the dragon clan and Sara is married to our only known panther shifter in the area.”
Helen nodded. She opened her mouth to tell her new friend that she was a vampire, but closed it
again. It was too soon to trust anyone with that information. She was used to keeping that kind of
information close to her vest, anyway.
“What brings you and your family to Snow Haven? No one finds this place by accident,” Lina
said.
“We lived in a big city before this. It was getting too crowded and violence was becoming a huge
problem. My father was ready for a change, anyway, so he talked to a few of his friends. One of his
friends lives in Juneau and knew of a small farmhouse that was for sale that had about ten acres
attached to it. He thought that would be perfect for us – especially the kids. They could have all the
room in the world to run around and play in,” Helen said.
Technically everything that she said was the truth. She just happened to leave out the part where
they were threatened with violence from the vampire hunters.
“That sounds like a good reason to move,” Lina said. “I think that I would want to move as well.”
Lina looked at her watch and jumped up.
“We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry up and get back to work,” Lina said.
That evening, her father put down his book and asked, “How was work today?”
She knew what he was really asking. He wanted to know if she had made any friends or got too
cozy with anyone.
“I have a new friend, named Lina,” Helen said. “She is in charge of the ward that I’ve been
assigned to.”
“I see,” Armand said.
“She is a sweetheart,” Helen said. “She is married to the alpha of the bear clan.”
At that, Armand raised his eyebrows and said, “Really? She was open about that?”
“Yes. Apparently, there are a lot of different types of people in the area. There are several
different kinds of shifters who live in the area and three main shifter clans – the wolves, the bears,
and the dragons,” Helen said. “She also said that there are witches and vampires who live in the area.
Everyone knows about them all and no one cares. She said that Snow Haven was a live and let live
community. She also said that the people of Snow Haven were very protective over their own.”
“I hope that you didn’t tell her that we are vampires,” he asked slowly.
“Of course not,” she said. “I like Lina and I believe her, but I don’t trust anyone with that kind of
information.”
He nodded, clearly relieved.
“She did ask why we chose to come to Snow Haven. She said that it wasn’t a place that people
found by accident,” Helen said.
“What did you tell her?” Armand asked, the worry clear on his face.
Helen repeated the story that she had told her new friend and then said, “I told you, Dad, that
people were going to notice that we were here and that they would be curious. Now, they have a story
that is technically the truth that they can mull over.”
Armand stared at his daughter as though he was trying to process what she had told him. She knew
that he was worried about people finding out that they were vampires and alerting the vampire hunters
that they were there.
“We are safe here, Dad. People mind their own business. No one is going to pry into our lives.
They will accept the story as I have told it and go on about their lives. We really aren’t that
interesting,” Helen said. “We’ll just act like everyone else and pretty soon no one will even notice
us.”
Armand slowly nodded his head.
“I guess that you are right,” he told her.
Helen purposely didn’t tell her father about having lunch with Josiah the next day. That would
upset him, although Helen was clearly old enough to make her own decisions and date whom she
pleased. She just wasn’t up to dealing with his reaction.
As she fell asleep that night, Helen pictured Josiah’s face. She wondered what his kiss would feel
like and hoped that maybe she would find out the next day.
 7

JOSIAH

“J osiah,Josiah
I have another task for you,” Ian said.
groaned. When Ian used the word task instead of mission, Josiah was pretty sure that
he wasn’t going to enjoy it.
“We’ve had another incident,” Ian said.
“By incident, I assume that you mean someone has snacked on a cow,” Josiah replied.
“That is exactly what I mean. I need you to go out and talk to Abraham Masters and calm him
down a bit,” Ian said.
“I would rather talk to grumpy old dragon shifters,” Josiah protested. “You know, Jackson is just
as good of a smooth talker as I am.”
“He is playing security guard this week for some pseudo celebrity in Juneau. From what I hear,
she is quite the diva,” Ian said. “I’m sure that he would love to trade places with you.”
“Um, I’ll take Abraham. At least he’ll be over and done within a couple of hours, depending on
what kind of tirade he gets into.” Josiah sighed.
“That’s what I thought,” Ian said.
Josiah flew over to the ranch, stopping in the bordering wood line to shift back into his human
form and getting dressed. Abraham, who was a mundane human, knew there were shifters in the area,
but he still wasn’t likely in the mood to see a naked man approaching him to try to talk sense into him.
“Good morning, Abraham,” Josiah said as he approached the man who was shoveling hay into a
trough.
The grizzled older man with a shock of white hair on the top of his head that tended to stick out in
several different direction stood up and stared at Josiah.
“I didn’t hear you drive up,” Abraham said.
“I came by way of my own power,” Josiah said. “It’s too nice of a day to drive if I don’t have to.”
Abraham studied Josiah for a second and then nodded.
“I guess that I wouldn’t either if I had your abilities,” he said. “I suppose you are here about my
cow.”
Josiah nodded.
“You know, I never believed in vampires until I woke up this morning and went to milk Bessie,”
Abraham said.
“You believe in shifters but not vampires?” Josiah couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“I’ve seen shifters with my own eyes. I just figured that vampires were mythical creatures like
Big Foot and wendigos,” he said.
 “I think that there are a lot of creatures and types of humans that exist in this world that we don’t
know about,” Josiah said, hoping this exchange meant that the following conversation would go easier
than he anticipated. “Where is Bessie?”
A cloud crossed over Abraham’s face and he waved his arm.
“Follow me,” he said.
Bessie was standing in her stall munching on some hay, looking content when Abraham and Josiah
approached her. The only reason that Josiah even knew that there was something wrong with her was
the two puncture wounds on the cow’s neck.
“She seems to be fine,” Josiah said, cringing as he waited for the explosion that he knew was
coming.
“Fine? She has two holes in her neck,” Abraham yelled.
Bessie turned her head and mooed at the sudden outburst from her owner.
“She’s not sick or upset in any way. Did she put out milk this morning like she was supposed to?”
Josiah asked.
“She did,” Abraham said. “But that’s not the point. I don’t know what kind of diseases these
creatures carry.”
“They are people who just have a different lifestyle than we do,” Josiah said. “They need fresh
blood to survive.”
“That’s disgusting,” Abraham said.
“It may seem that way to you, but it is simply a way of life for them,” Josiah said, trying to keep
his voice even and calm. “As you can see, these people are not taking their food from humans, which
is ideal for them. They are sustaining themselves on animal blood. It does not hurt the animals
physically and does not seem to upset them in any way.”
“Bessie is my cow. I don’t want them feeding on my cows,” he said.
“I’m sure that they won’t be back,” Josiah said.
Abraham looked at Josiah and said, “You knew about this. They have been feeding on other cows
as well.”
Josiah wasn’t going to lie to the man. He would find out the truth, anyway.
“There have been a couple of other recent cases in the area where a vampire has fed on a cow or
bull. It does not hurt the animal in any way, and it keeps the vampires from needing to feed on
humans,” Josiah said.
“Let me tell you something,” Abraham said. “If I see them lurking about on my property, I will
take care of the situation.”
“That is not a good idea,” Josiah said. “They are just hungry and they aren’t hurting anything.
Killing a person for that reason will be a good way to either end up in jail, start a war, or both. You
don’t want that.”
“I have a right to protect my animals,” he said. “It’s hard enough to protect them from the wolves,
mountain lions, and coyotes that wander around in this area. I can shoot a wolf or a coyote.”
“Well, you can’t randomly shoot humans, even if they are there to feed. They are not hurting
anything,” Josiah said.
Abraham narrowed his eyes and stared at Josiah. Josiah could read the man’s thoughts.
Watch me.
Josiah groaned and shook his head. Abraham was stubborn and refused to listen to reason.
Abraham crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Josiah as though daring him to continue
arguing.
 The good thing was that this group of vampires didn’t seem to hit the same ranch more than once,
so they shouldn’t be back to bother any of Abraham’s cows again. The other good thing was that
Abraham would likely be asleep if they did come back to feed on another one of the rancher’s cows.
Plus, Abraham’s eye sight wasn’t what it used to be. He would probably miss his target if he was
trying to shoot a human.
Josiah didn’t know what else to say to him. There was absolutely no point in arguing with the
man. It was like arguing with a brick wall.
“Just use your head,” he told Abraham. “Think about the consequences before you do anything that
you would regret.”
The old man simply stared at him.
“I’ll be seeing you around,” Josiah said and headed back into the wood line so that he could shift.
“That went well,” Josiah said, sarcastically when he reported back in to Ian.
“That good huh?” Ian said.
“I got him to admit that Bessie wasn’t hurt in any way. She wasn’t upset. But he was still carrying
on about how he had to protect his herd and would shoot any trespassers that he saw on his land. He
reasoned that if he could shoot coyotes and wolves, then he could shoot vampires,” Josiah said.
“Lucky for us, he would never be able to hit a vampire unless he was three yards away from one.
They are very swift, so he would never be able to catch one on his stubby old legs,” Ian said.
“That was my thoughts,” Josiah said.
“We need to try to figure out who it is that is hitting the cows and have a conversation with them,”
Ian said.
The two men talked for a few more minutes and then Josiah realized that he was about to be late
for his lunch date with Helen.
“Howdy,” Helen said as she slid onto the bench seat of a picnic table. “I was beginning to think
that you forgot about me.”
“No. I just had some things to take care of this morning and I was running behind,” Josiah said.
“I’m glad that you could make it,” Helen replied with a smile that made Josiah’s heart skip a beat.
He watched Helen unwrap a ham sandwich and offer it to him.
“I brought two,” Helen said.
Josiah realized that he had come to a lunch date without bringing his lunch and gratefully accepted
the sandwich.
“I guess I got in a rush this morning,” he said, ruefully.
“It happens to the best of us,” she replied.
“What brought you to Snow Haven?” he asked.
“It was getting too crowded in the big city and way too violent. Dad didn’t want to raise the kids
in that kind of atmosphere, so he started thinking about moving. He has an old friend up here who
convinced Dad that this was a great place to live,” Helen said.
“It is a great place to live,” he said. “Except for my time in the military, I’ve lived here.”
“Why did you get out of the military?” she asked.
“I was injured pretty badly during one of our missions. It was bad enough that sometimes, I can
still feel the strains left from the wounds and shifters heal faster than regular humans. I guess that I had
forgotten that I wasn’t immortal.” He laughed.
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “So, you help your father raise your brother and sister?”
“Yes. Mama was killed several years ago. I was eighteen and the kids were only four and six.
There was no way that I could just leave him alone with them and go to college or do whatever. So, I
got my nursing degree during the day and helped out with the kids after school and on weekends,” she
said.
“Most people wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Family first,” she told him.
“Amen to that,” he replied.
As they talked and shared stories about their lives, Josiah had a feeling that she wasn’t telling him
everything. He didn’t know what it was that she was hiding, but there was something and it bugged
him.
After an hour, she looked at her watch and said, “I’m going to be late. Lina is going to murder
me.”
Josiah walked her back to the hospital. He hugged her and brushed a kiss across her lips, although
he really wanted to consume her mouth in front of the hospital. However, it was their first date and
they were right in front of her work place, so he curbed his desire.
“I would like to see you again,” he said.
“That sounds nice,” she replied.
She put her hand on his shoulder and slid her hand down his arm before she turned and walked
back into the building.
Josiah was intrigued. He really liked Helen and she had an impact on him that no other woman
had ever had on him. Before, he was the love them and leave them kind of person. But it bothered him
that there was something that she was hiding. He couldn’t even explain why he felt that way. It was a
gut feeling and Josiah always followed his instincts. Secrets always meant trouble, and he certainly
didn’t need any kind of drama or trouble in his life.
That evening, as Josiah was heading back to Ian’s office, he saw Helen driving out of town
toward Juneau.
“What better way to find out what she is hiding,” he told justified to himself.
He stayed far enough back during the forty-five-minute drive that she didn’t notice that there was a
truck behind her. Josiah was shocked to see that she drove straight to a blood blank. When she parked
her car and went inside, Josiah followed her.
 8

HELEN

“G“Hello.
ood evening, Noah,” Helen said.
How are you doing?” the man asked.
“I’m well. And you?” Helen asked.
“Right as rain,” he said, grinning. “When are you going to go out with me?”
Helen grinned at him and said, “You know I would never date a married man. Besides, you are
too in love with your wife to even look at another woman seriously.”
“You’ve got me pegged, but it’s fun to flirt, especially when the other person is as smart as you
are,” Noah said. “Do you need your usual?”
“I do,” she said.
Suddenly, Noah froze as the door opened and heavy footsteps walked in.
Helen turned around slowly. She had an idea who was there before she even saw his face.
“Why are you here?” Helen asked.
“I followed you,” he said.
“That much is obvious,” Helen replied, annoyed.
“You were pretty vague about why you moved to Snow Haven and about who killed your mother
when we were talking earlier. I had an idea that you were hiding something and I wanted to know
what it was,” he said. “I’m guessing that you aren’t here to donate.”
Helen sighed heavily and rolled her neck before replying.
“No,” she said. “I’m doing the grocery shopping for the family,” she replied.
She turned around, nodded at Noah, and said, “He’s okay. He won’t say anything to anyone.”
Noah stared at Josiah for a long moment and then looked back at Helen and nodded. Silently, he
went about his task of filling her regular order.
“Grocery shopping. At a blood bank. You are vampires,” he said, the surprise evident in his
voice.
“Very good deduction,” she said, noting that while he seemed to be surprised, he wasn’t
disgusted.
That was a good sign. Even though she was annoyed by the fact that he had followed her, it would
have broken her heart to see him turn away from her in disgust.
“We get our food legally and ethically,” she said. “Whole blood can only be stored for forty-two
days. We buy the surplus. Most of the blood that we buy has been stored for about thirty days. If we
didn’t buy it, then it would just be thrown away. This way we get the food that we need, no humans
are harmed, and nothing goes to waste.”
 Josiah nodded at her as though he understood what she was saying.
Helen pulled out her wallet and handed some cash over to Noah.
“Are you sure that he is safe?” Noah asked, the worry evident in his voice.
“Your secret is safe with me,” Josiah assured him. “Like Helen said, this seems to be a win-win
situation, and I wouldn’t do or say anything to mess that up.”
Josiah held the door open for Helen as she carried the cooler full of blood and ice out the door.
“Are you guys the ones who have been feeding off of the cows?” he asked after she popped the
trunk of her car and put the ice chest inside.
She shut the trunk of her car a little forcefully as she spun around to look at him. She clenched and
unclenched her fists as she was still agitated that he had followed her to the blood bank and was
questioning her.
She gritted her teeth and said, “Of course not. Why in the world would we be feeding on cows?
You just saw me buy several pints of blood.”
“There is at least one vampire that has been feeding on a few of the cows in the area,” he said.
“Some of the ranchers are getting uptight about the situation.”
“It’s not us. Although vampires can be sustained by drinking animal blood, human blood is better
for us. The kids are young and they are still growing, so the human blood is better for them. When they
become adults, they can decide for themselves how they want to feed,” Helen said.
“That makes sense,” Josiah replied.
“Lina mentioned that there are vampire families in and around Snow Haven. She didn’t say
anything about them feeding off of cattle,” Helen said.
“I don’t know that is a widely known thing,” Josiah said. “We’ve tried to keep it quiet.”
Helen nodded, a million thoughts rolling through her mind.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m just worried about them bringing vampire hunters to Snow Haven,” Helen said.
“I doubt it. Most people don’t know that Snow Haven even exists. As you already figured out, we
pay attention to strangers who come to town. There have been vampires in the area for ever and
hunters have never come this way. Even if they did, we wouldn’t let hunters go after everyone. The
people in Snow Haven take care of each other.”
Helen nodded, hoping that he was right.
“By the way, I need your phone number,” Josiah said.
Helen dictated it and then said, “I need to be going. I need to get this stuff home. Blood has to be
properly cared for or it will go bad. I don’t need any of us to get sick.”
“I understand,” he replied, opening her car door for her. “I’ll see you later.”
Helen noted that Josiah was following her back to Snow Haven. She mentally kicked herself for
not seeing that she was being followed as she headed into town.
I’ve got to learn to pay more attention to what is going on around me, she chastised herself.
She hoped with every fiber of her being that the fact that someone knew their secret wouldn’t
make him decide that they needed to pack up and move somewhere else. She knew that he was going
to be furious, but this wasn’t something that she could keep from him. Helen knew that Josiah
wouldn’t betray them, even though she didn’t know him very well. She had really only talked to him
four times, but she felt, deep in her soul, that he was trustworthy.
Her father knew that there was something wrong as soon as she walked in the door. The kids were
playing games so he didn’t even beat around the bush.
“What happened?” he asked.
 “Do you remember the man that the kids met, named Josiah?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I remember.”
“I met him for lunch today. We talked a little bit about our lives,” Helen said.
She held up her hand and said, “I didn’t tell him that we were vampires. I just told him that the
reason that we left our old place was because it was getting too crowded and too violent. He asked
about Mom and I just told him that she was murdered. Apparently, since I didn’t go into details about
either topic, it made him think that I was hiding something from him.”
Her father groaned, but didn’t say anything else.
“I went straight from work to Juneau, like we talked about. It seems that Josiah happened to see
me leaving town and was curious, so he followed me,” Helen said.
“He what?” her father exclaimed.
“He followed me all the way to the blood bank and confronted me. I told him the truth,” Helen
said.
Her father sat down heavily on the couch and rubbed his face with his hand.
“Great,” her father said. “We’re all in danger.”
“No,” she said. “I’m positive that Josiah isn’t going to say anything to anyone about us being
vampires. I trust him. As a matter of fact, not only did Lina tell me that there are other vampire
families living in the area, but there is at least one vampire that is feeding off of the cows. Josiah
asked if we were the ones who were feeding off of the cattle.”
“There are vampires here who are feeding off of cattle?” he asked. “Great. That is going to draw
attention from the vampire hunters.”
“Josiah said that there have been vampires living in and around Snow Haven forever and there
have never been any hunters. He also said that everyone in Snow Haven keeps an eye on any strangers
that come to town and that the people take care of their own. I’m guessing that this is about the safest
place in the world to be in,” Helen said.
Armand nodded his head and ran his fingers through his hair. She could tell that he was thinking
about everything that she said. His first instinct was to pack up and run, but they couldn’t keep running
forever.
“At least he knows that we aren’t the ones who are messing with the cows. I wonder why they are
doing that and why they just started?” her father said.
“I don’t know. It’s not likely that they are new to the area or they would have been noticed,”
Helen said. “Something must have happened to make the them change their food source.”
“Tell me about this Josiah,” Armand said, abruptly changing the subject.
“There isn’t a whole lot to tell. You know that I met him when I went for a walk when we first got
here and then when I took the kids shopping. I ran into him a third time at the hospital. Apparently, he
works for a security company that does special missions around the world, and he was injured during
one of them. He had to get stitches,” she said. “We had lunch today. We just talked.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Daughter?” Armand asked.
Helen sighed heavily and said, “He is a shifter. A dragon shifter.”
“I see,” Armand said, simply.
Helen waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t.
“You trust him to keep quiet about who we are,” Armand said.
“I do,” Helen said. “He’s a good man.”
“I hope that you’re right,” Armand said.
With that, he got up and walked outside. Helen knew that her father was upset about the fact that
someone from Snow Haven had found out about their identity so quickly, but there wasn’t much that
he could do. He would be on high alert for a while, driving the rest of them crazy.
Nathan had been on the stairs the entire time, listening to the conversation.
“Do we have to move again?” he asked. “I don’t want to move. I like it here.”
“What were you doing on the stairs?”
“I heard you come home and I was hungry. I heard you and Dad talking,” he said.
“I’m going to have to keep an eye on the stairs every time I have a private conversation,” Helen
said, more to herself than Nathan. Then, she added, “No, we aren’t going to have to move. I like it
here, too. Josiah isn’t going to tell anyone that we are vampires.”
“Is he still going to be our friend now that he knows?” Nathan asked.
“Of course, he is. Friends don’t turn their backs on friends just because they are different,” she
said. “If he decided that he didn’t like us anymore because we are different, then we don’t want him
as a friend, anyway.”
Nathan nodded and headed into the kitchen.
Helen was off the next evening and was piddling around the house when her phone buzzed.
“Can I come by your place and pick you up so that we can talk?” Josiah asked.
“How about if I meet you at the spot where we first met instead?” Helen asked.
“I can meet you there. About half an hour?” Josiah asked.
“Sounds good,” Helen said.
Although her father hadn’t reacted as strongly as she thought that he would when he discovered
that Josiah knew their secret, she didn’t think that he was quite ready to see him in the flesh.
“Dad, I’m going out to meet a friend. I’ll be back late, so don’t worry about me,” she said.
“Is this friend a male?” he asked.
“Yes,” Helen admitted, heading out the door before her father could argue.
 9

JOSIAH

J osiah was surprised when he discovered how much he was looking forward to seeing Helen
again. There was just something about her that called to him.
He was waiting for her in his dragon form when she arrived right on time. When he saw
her walk up, he laid down on the ground so that she could mount him.
Knowing that vampires could communicate telepathically, he said, “Get on my back. We’ll go for
a ride.”
Helen looked at him for a second as though she was contemplating how safe a dragon ride in the
middle of the night would be. Then, apparently deciding that it was safe enough, she slowly
approached him.
“Just like you would mount a horse, only there is no saddle. Just climb up,” he told her.
She got on and he told her to hold on, and then took off.
It was a short flight to his house. By the time that they landed, Helen had a big smile on her face.
“Liked that did you?” he asked after he shifted.
“I did. It was very smooth and lots of fun. Better than an airplane or rollercoaster ride,” she told
him.
“Glad that you liked it,” he said. “We’ll definitely have to do it again.”
“I’d like that,” she replied.
He poured her a glass of wine and grabbed a beer for himself.
“My back deck has a beautiful view,” he told her.
“I’m sorry if I upset you while you were doing your grocery shopping in Juneau,” he said. “I want
you to know that I wasn’t angry that you were a vampire. I was mad because you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t know you very well before. I figured that I could trust you after we had lunch together,
but there didn’t seem to be a good time to tell you. It would have been awkward if I had said
something like, ‘I brought a ham sandwich for you. If you’re still hungry you can have the other one
because I’m a vampire and don’t really need it.’ Those kinds of announcements tend to not go over
well,” she said.
“I would have to agree with you, there,” Josiah replied. “I guess that I can see your side of it. I
just wish that I hadn’t found out the way that I did.”
“You didn’t have to follow me to Juneau,” Helen said. “Do you have a tendency to stalk people?”
“Only if I think that they are hiding something. You have to understand that the last several times
strangers came to town, trouble followed them. I just wanted to know what was going on,” he said.
“You could have asked,” she said.
 “Would you have told me?” Josiah countered.
“Probably not,” Helen acknowledged. “You have to understand that most people have a very
violent reaction to vampires. My gut said that I could trust you, but I still have to be careful. If it was
just myself that I had to worry about, then I would have been fine with sharing the information. But I
also have to worry about my father and the kids.”
“I guess that I can understand that,” he said.
Josiah wasn’t sure whether he was still angry that she hadn’t told him or just a little hurt that she
hadn’t completely trusted him.
She took a sip of her wine and stared out at the sky. Josiah looked at her face as the moonlight
shown down on it and thought about how absolutely beautiful she was. He could feel something
stirring inside of him.
“I told my father about our encounter,” Helen said, breaking the silence.
“How did he take it?” Josiah asked.
“A lot better than I thought that he would,” Helen said. “I figured that he would be angry and want
to move again. He is terrified of hunters. But I assured him that you were trustworthy and that you
wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Is that the real reason that you moved to Snow Haven?” Josiah asked. “Because of vampire
hunters?”
“Yes,” Helen said. “Someone close to us, who knew that we were vampires, betrayed us to some
hunters from North Carolina. However, another friend found out about the hunters and warned us. We
left in the middle of the night to come here.”
“Is that what happened to your mother?” he asked.
“My mother’s name was Hannah. Sylvia and I both look a lot like her,” Helen said.
“She must have been very beautiful then,” Josiah replied.
“She was. She was beautiful inside and out. She was a teacher and all of her students loved her to
death,” Helen said.
“What happened to her?” Josiah asked gently.
“We had heard that there were some vampire hunters in the area looking for nests or families. We
had kept a very low profile. Very few people knew that we were vampires, so Mom and Dad decided
that we were safe enough, especially since none of us has ever fed on humans,” Helen said. “One day,
she didn’t come home from school. She would always call or text if she had some kind of meeting or
after school duty or whatever, but this time, she just didn’t come home. She was found later that night,
decapitated.”
“Oh, my heavens,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything like that.”
“Decapitation is the hunter’s favorite way of killing vampires – or anything else for that matter,”
Helen said. “If they figured out that Mom was a vampire, they would find us very soon. As soon as
we found out what happened to Mom, Dad and I packed up the kids and we moved. At first, we
traveled around a little bit, but we eventually settled in Georgia.”
“And you lived in Georgia for several years?” he asked.
“Six years. Dad got a job as an engineer and was doing great. The kids went back to school. I
graduated high school and got my nursing degree and started nursing. Then, we heard the news. This
time, Dad wasn’t going to wait around and find out whether the hunters were really going to come
after us. He bought some tickets to Kansas so that people would think that we flew there. Then, we
started driving to Alaska,” Helen told him.
“That is a long drive,” Josiah noted.
 “It was, especially for the kids. But they did a good job of being patient. They are great kids,”
Helen said.
“I guess they are,” Josiah exclaimed in admiration. “I know as an adult it would be harder than
hell to stay still for that long.”
“I think that they were a little bit scared. They weren’t old enough when Mom died to understand
much besides the fact that she wasn’t coming back. However, they would pick up on the fact Dad and
I were terrified,” Helen said.
Josiah’s heart went out to the family. It was bad enough to be hated because of who you are. That
happened a lot around the world. However, knowing that you could be hunted down and killed just
because you were different was awful.
“How are the kids handling the changes?” he asked.
“They were sad that they had to leave their friends behind. Both of them were really involved in
school activities and would have been again this year. They were also sad to leave all of their things
behind, but they are handling everything okay,” she said. “I think that kids are a lot more resilient than
adults.”
“I think so, too,” Josiah said.
After a pause, Josiah said, “You mentioned that hunters liked killing things through decapitation.
Why?”
“Because of all the myths surrounding vampires. Some lore suggests that the only way to kill a
vampire is to cut off its head and burn its body. I’m guessing that the hunters didn’t have a chance to
burn Mom’s body. Another way is to stab the vampire in the heart with a stake, preferably made of
hawthorn wood or ash,” Helen said. “Of course, those methods would kill pretty much anything,
especially cutting off the head.”
“Why do you think that vampires are more hunted than other human species?” he asked.
“Because we have to drink blood in order to survive. Unlike shifters or witches, we are
considered to be the undead. Most people probably think that we are just a step above zombies. The
difference is that vampires choose where they get their meals from while zombies pretty much snack
on anyone or anything they can get their hands on,” Helen said.
“I know another important difference between the two,” Josiah said. “You can have emotions and
can love. You can be a part of the community and do great things. You can have families, including
children. I wouldn’t put you and zombies in the same category at all.”
She grinned at him and said, “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“I’m guessing that a lot of the other stereotypes about vampires aren’t true either,” he said.
“Not really. As you know, I was able to be outside in the sunlight. I didn’t crumble into ash or
sparkle. I was just me. I can eat regular food, including garlic, and it doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t
sustain me, but it doesn’t hurt me, either,” she said. “I’m not afraid of religious icons or holy water. I
know some vampires who actually go to church.”
“That sound very interesting,” he said.
“Thank you.” She smiled.
“I take it you don’t turn into bats either.” She laughed.
“No, much to Nathan’s chagrin. He really wants to be a bat shifter. He thinks that would be fun,”
Helen said. “He doesn’t realize that, even though bats are adorable and very helpful to the
environment, they are feared almost as much as vampires are.”
“That is true. People are always afraid of things that they don’t understand,” he said.
“Well, now you understand me, so you don’t have to be afraid of me. And don’t worry, I won’t
wig out by the sight of blood, obviously, or I couldn’t be a nurse,” she said.
“That makes sense,” he said. “Why did you want to be a nurse?”
“To help people,” Helen said. “I want to make a difference in the world.”
With that, Helen fell silent. The moonlight lit up her face and once again, he was bowled over by
how beautiful she was. She wasn’t just an incredibly gorgeous woman on the outside, but she had a
good heart and was a wonderful woman.
Helen opened her mouth as though she was going to say something. Josiah was afraid that she was
going to tell him that she was ready to go home, but he wasn’t quite ready for her to leave yet. He took
a couple of steps toward her, touched her cheek with the palm of his hand, and lowered his lips to
hers.
10
 HELEN

A t first, the kiss was tender and gentle. It was barely a whisper as his lips brushed hers.
Then, he groaned and consumed her mouth with his. The kiss was everything that Helen had
ever dreamed of.
He pressed his lips against hers and then pushed his tongue against her lips demanding entrance.
She opened her mouth to let him in. Her knees buckled as his tongue danced with hers. One of his
hands touched her cheek while the other was on her neck. She wrapped her arms around him, holding
him close to her body. A thrill went up and down her spine as his tongue continued to explore her
mouth.
She could smell his scent that reminded her of the woods that he liked to fly over. Helen could
feel the hardness of his chest through their clothes and wanted so badly to see his chest again, but was
too shy to put her hands at the bottom of his t-shirt to lift it over his head. In her mind, she would
picture his hard muscles and the little trail of hair that started at the hollow of his throat and trailed
down between his pecs, over his tight abdomen and down to his waist.
Her body tingled as his warm lips continued to consume hers. She could feel their combined heart
beats as their bodies pressed together. The heat from their bodies enveloped them, and Helen was
sure that she was about to melt.
Josiah pulled away and asked, “Shall we take this to the bedroom?”
Helen nodded, her heart beating a million miles an hour. She had fantasized about this moment
since the first time that she had laid eyes on him.
He grabbed her hand and led her down a hallway to a huge room. A fireplace was on one wall
and a huge bed was against the other, across from the fireplace.
Josiah stroked Helen’s face and stared into her eyes.
“You are so incredibly beautiful,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she replied, softly.
Josiah pressed his warm lips against hers again, pushing her up against the wall. His fingers
nimbly unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse as he continued to taste her. Helen let her hands
drift from his shoulders all the way down to the bottom of his shirt. He broke off the kiss long enough
for her to pull it off over his head and toss it onto a nearby chair.
She touched his chest with her fingertips. His skin was so soft of the hardness of his muscles.
Helen spread her fingers in the hair that was sprinkled across his chest. She leaned over and kissed
his neck, feeling brave enough to taste the saltiness of his skin.
He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, and her chin softly before moving down her throat. He slowly
unfastened each one of the buttons on her blouse before pushing it off of her shoulders and throwing it
to the chair. He reached around, unfastened her bra, and added it to the pile.
Helen sucked in a huge gulp of air as her chest was pressed against his. Her nipples were hard
and tingling from the intensity of her feelings. She felt a warmth flow through her as fires started to
burn.
His fingers found their way to the button at the top of her pants. He slowly pushed the button
through the hole. Then, he haltingly unzipped her pants.
Josiah dipped his head and sucked in one of her nipples as he pushed her pants and panties down
around her ankles.
A fire exploded inside of her as his tongue flicked the hard bud and then suckled it. A hot wetness
formed between her legs, and she ached for his touch.
Josiah led Helen over to the bed and gently sat her down on it. He quickly divested himself of his
pants, throwing them haphazardly behind him.
Helen’s eyes trailed over the sexy man as he stood naked in front of her. He looked every bit as
delicious as he had when she first saw him. She licked her lips as she took in his hard chest with the
sprinkling of dark hair covering his hard pecks. She bit her bottom lip as she followed the trail down
to his waist. His want was clearly evident as his ten inch, thick cock, protruded from his midsection.
Helen briefly wondered how it was going to fit inside of her.
After letting her look at him for a moment, he asked, “Do you like what you see?”
“You look like some kind of god that stepped off the pages of a magazine,” she said.
Her fingers twitched as she wanted to explore him, but she wasn’t sure how to tell him what she
wanted.
He laid her down on the bed and then laid next to her, once again pressing his lips against hers.
Josiah ran his hand slowly down Helen’s side, causing her to tremble. Then, he kissed her chin, the
hollow in her throat, and then down to her nipple.
Helen sucked in a huge breath as his tongue circled the areola that encircled her hard rose bud,
moving closer and to the nipple. He sucked the nipple into his mouth, suckling on it gently.
He lightly pinched her other nipple with his thumb and forefinger, pulling on it gently. Then, he
squeezed her tit, rubbing her nipple with is fingers.
Helen closed her eyes and kneaded Josiah’s hard back muscles, trying to remember to breathe.
Her heart was beating a million miles an hour. Bolts of electricity raced through her body. Her pussy
ached for his touch.
Josiah kissed the area between her breasts and then moved down her stomach, licking and kissing
as he went. He moved so that he was kneeling between Helen’s legs. He spread them wide, bending
them at the knee so that he could look at Helen’s pussy waiting for him – waiting for his touch.
Suddenly shy, Helen started to close her legs, but Josiah whispered, “Let me look at you.”
She sucked in another breath of air as Josiah leaned over and licked from the bottom of her slit to
the top.
“Oh, my heavens,” she moaned. “Josiah.”
He lapped at her pussy, tasting her, before pushing his tongue inside of the entrance, touching the
velvety soft walls that lined her hot tunnel.
Lightning flashed in front of her eyes, and she was certain that she could hear the explosions of
loud thunder in the background. A kaleidoscope of a million colors burst into the air as though they
were from a fireworks display.
She shook as he continued to explore her pussy with his tongue. A finger pushed inside of her,
replacing his tongue, followed by a second. He spread his fingers out, spreading her pussy.
“You taste good,” he said.
“It feels so good,” she moaned.
He reached up with his hand and squeezed her breast, running his thumb over her nipple. Then, he
flicked her clit with his tongue.
“Oh, Josiah,” she moaned.
He drew her clit into his mouth and gently sucked on it while he was rubbing her nipple and
spreading her pussy.
The world spun around in circles. The bed seemed to fall away out from under them, and the
ceilings and walls dissolved.
Heat built up inside of her. Electricity exploded in every cell and she began to tremble. She was
sure that she was about to burst into flames as the raging inferno flowed through her body.
“Oh, my lord,” she cried. “Josiah.”
As she moaned, she felt as though she was a volcano of heat. Her body shook as the volcano
erupted, sending a rushing river of lava flowing out of her.
The heat finally subsided, and Helen could breathe again.
He moved up beside her and laid next to her for a second.
“You are so incredibly beautiful,” he said.
Hesitantly, she reached up and touched his face. He stayed still as though he was afraid that he
would spook her.
Her hand moved down to his chest, her fingers tangling in his chest hair. He breathed in a huge
gulp of air as she explored his chest.
“You are incredibly sexy,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted to touch you since the first time that I saw
you.”
“Mm, me too,” he replied.
He moaned as she moved her hand lower. She laid her hand flat on his abs and spread her fingers
out.
“I guess you work out a lot,” she said, smiling at him.
“I do. I have to keep in shape for my job. Plus, it is a lot of work flying,” he told her.
“It shows,” she said.
She continued moving her hand down and then stopped. Helen was too shy to touch his cock.
Josiah seemingly understood and grabbed her hand and wrapped it around him.
He moaned as she slowly moved her fist up to the top of his cock and back down again. She
marveled at the silkiness of his skin against the texture of the veins. His cock was so thick that she
couldn’t close her hand all the way around it.
Helen looked at his chest and the rest of his body and her pussy ached for him. She wanted to feel
him inside of her.
She wondered if she was brave enough to say it, when he put his hand on hers and said, “I need
you to stop. You’re about to make me cum and I want to make love to you.”
“I need you to,” she whispered.
He moved back between her legs and pressed the head of his cock against the entrance of her
pussy. Slowly, so very slowly, he pushed himself inside of her until his entire length was buried deep.
“Oh, my goodness,” she moaned.
The silky sheets were cool against her skin, in contrast with the heat that surrounded their bodies.
Lightning and thunder exploded around her and inside of her body as he pulled almost all the way out
and then pushed back inside.
“Yes,” she cried out.
In all of her fantasies, she had never thought that having Josiah inside of her would feel so
exquisite.
Josiah moved faster, pulling almost all the way out and pushing back in. He was panting. His eyes
were closed and his head was tilted back as he continued the thrust inside of her.
Her pussy walls were stretched to accommodate his thickness and massaged him as he pumped
the beautiful woman who laid beneath him.
She lifted up her legs, spreading them, giving him complete access to her. Helen moved her hips
up and down in rhythm to his movements. She could have sworn that she heard music playing softly in
the background as the fires once again built up so hot that she was afraid that she was going to
explode into flames.
After another moment, she began to shake.
“Josiah,” she cried out.
Wave after wave of hot creamy liquid flowed over his hard, thick cock. He moaned loudly and
slammed inside of her. His cock began to throb.
Another random document with
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 “She said I might be a companion,” said Innocent. “And Sir Alexis said
something too—a companion! I am Nelly’s companion and my aunt’s, she
says—Frederick’s wife meant something different. Alice, you are old; you
know a great many things——”
“I know you’re but an innocent, my poor bonnie bairn,” said the old
woman with a sigh.
“Of course I am Innocent; but that is only my name. Companion is not a
name; it is a thing. She is Frederick’s companion. My aunt says he will
never be rid of her—never—so long as she lives. What a pity that she
cannot be made to stop living! She scolds—like—like—she grows red like
the women we once saw quarrelling in the street.”
“When you stoppit to tell them it was ugly,” said Alice; “and why should
they scold each other?”
“Yes,” said Innocent, “to scold children is natural, I suppose, at least,
everybody does it, even you, Alice; but Frederick’s wife—and he cannot
send her away. I wish she might die, and then Frederick would be free.”
“Bairn, bairn, hold your tongue!” cried Alice. “Are you no aware that it’s
a sin, a great sin, to wish anybody dead? Never let me hear you say such a
thing again.”
“But I do think it,” said Innocent; “she makes herself ill; she suffers; she
makes everybody else unhappy. She scolds, it does not matter whom. Why
should people go on living when they do so much harm?”
“But you would not do her harm?” said Alice, curiously gazing at her;
“and why should Mr. Frederick be free? He has taken his own way, and he
must put up with it. He has made his bed, and he must lie on it. What is he,
that he should be delivered from what he has brought on himself?”
“I am fond of Frederick,” said Innocent dreamily. “If he is good or not I
do not know, but I am fond of him. Alice, do you know I have found out
something? When papa said women were hateful, he meant women like
Frederick’s wife.”
“My bonnie lamb,” said Alice, “think as little as you can either of Mr.
Frederick or Mr. Frederick’s wife. Such kind of thoughts are little good. Say
your prayers, and mind that you must wish harm to no person. It’s against a’
Scripture; though, eh! human nature’s weak, and if it was me I doubt if I
could keep my hands off her,” she added to herself.
 When Mrs. Eastwood left the room with Innocent, Mr. Vane asked
permission to stay. “May I wait till you come back?” he asked, “I have
something to say.” Perhaps it was injudicious on all sides, for, indeed,
Nelly, who was thus left alone with him in a state of high and indignant
resentment, was, perhaps, too much disposed to confide in the sympathetic
companion who was always ready to feel with her, always willing to be
interested. They were standing together over the little fire, which on this
mild October evening smouldered unnecessarily in the grate. But when
there is any trouble in a house the fire becomes at once the centre;
everybody goes to it mechanically. Nelly stood there, clasping her hands
together by way of restraining herself; her cheeks were flushed, her eyes
abashed. She was not only wounded and angry, but ashamed to the bottom
of her heart. She had been doing all she could to conceal and cover over the
“scene” which, like all Englishwomen, she dreaded to have known. But she
had not been successful, and now her mind was so full of it, so running over
with indignation and excitement, that she knew she ought not to have
trusted herself with any companion; and yet absolute self-denial was so
hard. She could not be so wise as to go away and bury the tumult of feeling
which was eager to be expressed.
“Oh, Mr. Vane, what must you think of us?” she burst forth at last.
“What must I think of you? I am afraid some things I dare not tell you,”
he said. “But what can any one think—that you have had to submit to a
very ordinary form of domestic misfortune, and that, by dint of doing your
very best to bear it, you have to suffer much that is disagreeable? That is all
that the most curious could think. Every one who is worthy to be called
your friend, Miss Eastwood, should be only too glad to stand by you in such
a trial.”
I don’t know what John Vane meant, or if he fully realized what he was
saying; but as for Nelly she turned crimson, and gave him a quick, furtive
look of inquiry. Had he looked as if he meant anything she would have been
offended; but he was sufficiently innocent or clever to dismiss all meaning
from his face.
“Oh, as for that,” said Nelly, “it would be foolish to speak as if we
wanted any one to stand by us. Mamma and I are able to support each other
—mamma, and I, and Innocent. We are quite a strong body; we want no one
else,” said Nelly. She looked up at him, smiling, to prove her assertion, but
somehow just at that moment a chance tear, which had gathered on her
eyelashes without her knowledge, seized the opportunity to fall. “Why what
is this? I wonder,” she said, with a little laugh, wiping it from her hand with
her handkerchief; “it seems I must have been crying without knowing it.
How silly! It is horrid that because one happens to be a woman one should
always make a fool of one’s self and cry.”
“I wish we were all fools of your description,” said Vane.
“What, to cry? Oh no. It comes natural to a girl, but it is dreadful in a
man. And there is not much to cry about either,” said Nelly. “It is not Mrs.
Frederick that makes me unhappy, Mr. Vane; it is that poor mamma must
feel what I once said to you, that we are all trying to get as much out of her
as ever we can. Why should she have given up her own comforts to let
Frederick marry? If papa had been alive, no one would have expected him
to do it; but because mamma is a woman, Frederick and everybody think
she should give in continually. Do you think it is just or right? Why should
she give up all she has been used to, to give us things we have no need of?
First her carriage, and now her old servants; and she talks even of letting the
dear old house. Mr. Vane, perhaps I ought not to talk like this to you—but
do you think it is right? Should not a man try when he marries to make
something for himself?”
“If I were ever so happy,” said Vane, “that is what I should do. I should
like my wife to feel that I was working for her. My wife! That sort of thing
is not for me.”
“Why shouldn’t it be for you?” said Nelly in a softened tone; but she felt
the ground was dangerous, and perhaps she felt that there was a certain
inference in all that was being said—a something which implicated others
as well as her brother; therefore she hasted to place Frederick in the
foreground as the sole subject of discourse.
“Perhaps I am too angry with Frederick,” she said; “it is because I feel as
if mamma might think we were all alike—all thinking of what she has, not
of her; all grasping and wanting something. Rather than she should think
that of me I would die.”
“She could not think that of you. It would be impossible,” said Vane.
“I don’t know,” said Nelly, the tears gathering once more on her down-
dropped eyelashes. “Oh, how true it is what mamma says—that nature
wrongs women more than law does! Sometimes we are compelled to look
different from what we are that people may not see or find out—other
things. Sometimes we have to put on false looks to make other people seem
true. You men, you don’t know half nor a quarter what poor girls have to
do!”
This curious and enigmatical outburst filled Vane with feelings which I
will not attempt to describe. He thought he understood it, and his whole
heart melted over the girl, whose case already, perhaps, he had thought over
too much. He put his hand for a moment on hers, not holding it, but giving
just one touch of a sympathy which went beyond words. As he did so
another tear, slowly brimming over, fell on his hand. Instantly, before he
knew, the water stood in his own eyes; Nelly startled, dashed the tear off
with her handkerchief, and crying hastily, “Oh, I beg your pardon! I beg
your pardon!” covered her hot eyes and flushed face with her hand.
It was at this moment that Molyneux came in. I do not wonder for my
part that he was a little startled by the position of the two, and the attitude of
affairs generally; Nelly crying, and Vane beside her with an agitated look
about the eyes, which tells much that men would prefer to conceal. “Hullo,
what is wrong?” he said, striding up to her side. Nelly recovered her
composure instantaneously; and Vane, drawing back, felt that the charm of
the moment was over, and all its magic flown.
“What is the matter?” cried Molyneux, more angry than affectionate;
“crying? What are you crying for? Has Winks been taken bad, or have you
lost your canary bird, or what? I think you might have kept your tears till I
came.”
“They are not pleasant things to keep,” said Nelly, “and indeed I was not
crying. Mrs. Frederick put us all out of temper——”
“Oh, Mrs. Frederick! Dick told me there had been a shindy,” said the
young man. “I’m sorry I was not here to see the fun. Vane, you are luckier
than I am—you are always on the spot.”
A retort was on John Vane’s lips; but he considered all the
circumstances, and held his peace, offering no explanations. Nelly’s
betrothed looked from one to the other with, I do not deny, a certain
justification for his suspicions. “Well,” he said, “now that I am here you
don’t seem communicative. What was it all about?”
“Oh, the subject does not matter,” cried Nelly. “It was an attack upon
mamma. Don’t let us speak of it; it makes me wicked, it makes my heart
sick. Poor mamma, who has always been so good to us—is this how we are
to repay her at the end?”
“I can’t say, of course, if you don’t choose to tell me,” said Molyneux;
“but Mrs. Eastwood is not any worse off than other people of her age, so far
as I can see. We can’t all be romantic little gooses, Nelly, like you.”
“Don’t!” said Nelly, with sharp pain and shame. Why was it that her
lover’s familiar tone went so near to disgust her at such a moment? She
drew away, not venturing to look up, ashamed, because the other was
present, she would have said. And this was true; but not entirely in the
simple sense of the words.
“I must speak to your mother about Innocent,” Vane said, apologetically,
feeling too that he was in the way, and they stood all there about the fire in
the most awkward of positions until Mrs. Eastwood, with her clouded brow,
came back. She gave Ernest a little nod of recognition—no more. It was
well that he had not been there, and yet it was ill that he took no pains to
stand by Nelly in any emergency. She seated herself in her usual chair,
taking little notice of any one. Her pulses were still tingling, and her heart
beating. She was a proud woman, though she made but small external
pretensions; and she had been insulted in her own house.
“I want you to let Innocent go to my sister,” said Vane, approaching her
softly, “for a week or two perhaps. Don’t you think she should make
acquaintance with her father’s relations? She is grown up; she has
developed so much under your kind care. Could you not trust her, even for a
few weeks, out of your own hands?”
“Oh, Mr. Vane!” cried Mrs. Eastwood hastily, with tears coming to her
eyes; “this is because of what you have just been hearing—because of what
my daughter-in-law was so wicked and so cruel as to say.”
“What is the matter?” said Molyneux to Nelly. “What did she say? and
what has he to do with it? and what does your mother mean by looking so
excited? It all seems a pretty muddle for a man to fall into.”
“What she said was about Innocent,” said Nelly, restraining herself with
an effort; “that we ought not to keep her here—that she should be sent out
as a governess—I don’t know how much more hard-hearted nonsense. I
can’t tell how she dared to speak so to mamma.”
“That woman would dare anything,” said Molyneux. “About Innocent?
Well, I don’t know that she was very wrong; that girl will turn into a
dreadful burden one day or other if she is not made to marry somebody. I
can’t think what your mother meant, when she had such a chance, by letting
Longueville slip through her fingers. So that’s why he’s here, I suppose? I
hate that man, John Vane; always poking himself where he is not wanted.”
“I suppose mamma must have wanted him or she would not have asked
him,” said Nelly. “We could not have an empty place at table.”
“Oh, that’s why you are cross, is it?” said Ernest, with a vain laugh; “but,
Nelly, you must not really expect that I can always be doing duty at those
family parties. A family party is the thing I most hate in the world.”
“Fortunately for mamma, Mr. Vane is not of your opinion,” said Nelly. It
was the first time she had attempted anything like self-assertion. She had
never stood at bay before.
 CHAPTER XXIX.

INNOCENT’S OUTSET IN THE WORLD.

In consequence of this interview between Mrs. Eastwood and John Vane it
was arranged that Innocent should pay Miss Vane a visit at the High Lodge,
near Sterborne, where that lady lived in an eccentric way of her own in an
old house which her brother had abandoned to her, and which she had
turned to a great many uses quite uncontemplated by her predecessors. “We
are an eccentric race,” her brother had said, laughing; “but as it is my way
to be good for nothing, so it is Lætitia’s way to be good for a great deal. The
one of us neutralizes the other. I tell her she is trying to lay up a stock of
superfluous merit on my account, one good result of having a brother a
ne’er-do-well——”
“Why should you call yourself a ne’er-do-well!” said Mrs. Eastwood.
Nelly had already asked the same question furtively with a glance, and there
was a warmth in the little outburst of partisanship by which these two
women defended him against himself which warmed the man’s heart.
“Because, alas! it is true,” he said; “you got this character of me before
you knew me? Ah, I was sure you had! and you see it is realized; but
Lætitia is good for us both. Some part of her goodness is after a droll
fashion, I confess. She is prodigiously High Church; she keeps a poor little
parson in petticoats and a cloak, whom she calls father, and treats, I fear, as
she treats her housemaids; but mind, she is very good both to the
housemaids and the parson. I think Father Featherstone is a mistake; but if
there ever was a good woman bent on doing good and succeeding in the
attempt, it is my sister Lætitia. She will be very good to Innocent. You need
not fear to trust her in my sister’s hands.”
“I like men who believe in their sisters,” said Mrs. Eastwood with a
smile.
And Nelly looked at him. She did not say anything, but her lips moved
as if she would have echoed her mother’s words. Nelly’s face had grown
somehow longer, with a wistful expression which, by moments, was almost
like Innocent’s. Especially when she looked at John Vane was this the case;
a perpetual comparison seemed to be going on in her mind, almost a
complaint against him that he was different from the other who was so
much more important to her. Why should Vane always be of use and service
when that other neglected his duties? Why should he be, as Ernest said,
always on the spot when the other was away? Nelly was half angry with the
man who was so ready to stand by her; and then there came over her heart
the softest compunction and self-reproach, mingled—in that inextricable
complication which belongs to all human feeling—with bitterness and
mortification. Was it possible that she grudged the kindness of the one
because it threw into further relief the indifference of the other? This, as the
reader will easily see, was a very unsafe, as well as a very uncomfortable,
state of mind for an engaged young woman. Perhaps on the whole, the
kindest thing John Vane could have done would have been to take himself
out of the way, and leave Ernest to show himself in the best light possible, a
thing which his constant presence put out of the question.
To return, however, to the conversation with which this chapter begins. It
took place on the morning after Mrs. Frederick’s outburst, and was the end
of the adjourned discussion which Vane had begun on the previous evening.
He had found some trouble in soothing Mrs. Eastwood, and persuading her
that his proposal had nothing to do with what Amanda had said, but had
been in his mind for some time previously. When he succeeded in this,
everything was easy enough. It was certainly well that Innocent should be
made acquainted with her family, her father’s relations. “If anything were to
happen to me,” Mrs. Eastwood allowed with some pathos, “it would be an
excellent thing that she should have other friends to fall back upon.
Frederick could not, I fear, give her a home, as I might have hoped, and as
for Nelly, I don’t know how Nelly may be situated,” the mother said,
looking at her daughter. She did not know what was in Nelly’s mind; but
that Ernest should be ready to give succour and shelter to a penniless
dependent was a thing which, at this stage of affairs, with her present
knowledge of Ernest, Mrs. Eastwood could not hope.
“It was with no such lugubrious idea that I made my proposal,” said
John Vane, laughing. “But Innocent is nearly eighteen, and there could not
be an easier plunge into life for her than a few weeks at the High Lodge.
My sister has made half a convent, half a school, of the old house. I wish
you would come too, and see what she is doing. But if not, I will take my
little cousin down and leave her with Lætitia. It will teach Innocent the use
of some new faculties. You have taught her only how to be carried about
and cared for and tended——”
“I have not spoiled her, I hope,” said Mrs. Eastwood, who was not,
however, displeased with the compliment. When a woman comes to that
stage of life in which all that she does and says is no longer admirable,
because she says and does it—when she begins to feel the force of hot and
hostile criticism and to be shaken even in the natural confidence with which
she has been accustomed to regard her own motives, then praise becomes
very sweet to her; it restores her to the moral standing-ground which she
seemed to have lost. Mrs. Eastwood had just accepted with a natural
pleasure John Vane’s testimony to her goodness, when Frederick came in
suddenly, with a harassed look upon his face. Frederick had been in the
country shooting, as he said—for some time—without his wife; and had
come back looking pale, as he used to look after his absences in the old
days.
“Something is wrong?” said his mother, divining what his looks meant
as Vane discreetly withdrew.
“Oh, nothing particular—nothing out of the ordinary,” he said; “I
wonder though, that, knowing all the circumstances as you do, you should
not make an effort, mother, to prevent Amanda from exciting herself. Of
course, she is ill to-day. I told you before I married what was the state of
affairs; she may deserve it if you please, but I don’t deserve it, and the
worst always falls on me. I do think you and Nelly between you might, at
least manage to keep the peace.”
“Frederick! you seem quite unaware of how it all happened,” cried his
mother, suddenly roused to a movement of self-defence.
“I know how it all turned out,” said Frederick, “and I do think my
mother, if she had any regard for me, would try to avoid such scenes. She
has been ill all night; and now she’s taken it into her head to go down to
Sterborne, to the old place—the last thing in the world I could wish for. If
you only knew,” said Frederick in a tone of the deepest injury, “how I hate
her father; how I have struggled to keep them apart! And now here is my
wife—your daughter-in-law—going down to our own county among all the
Eastwoods, to Batty’s house! By Jove, it will break my heart.”
Words of unkind meaning were on Nelly’s very lips. “You should not
have married Batty’s daughter, if you hate him,” was what she was disposed
to say. “Frederick would not have spared me had I done anything of the
kind,” she added to herself. She was guilty in intention of this unkind
utterance; but in act she was innocent; she bit her lips, and kept it in. Mrs.
Eastwood was a great deal more sympathetic.
“But if you were to speak to her, Frederick—if you were to say you did
not like it?” she suggested anxiously.
“Speak! say! much she would care,” cried Frederick. “It just shows how
little you know Amanda. That confounded heart disease of hers—if she has
a heart disease—makes her believe that she is free to insult everybody. She
must not be crossed herself; but there is nothing she likes so much as to
cross others. No, I shall have to give in. I shall have to take her there,
though I hate the whole concern. I do not think there ever was a more
miserable wretch than I am on the face of the earth,” cried Frederick,
flinging himself wearily into a chair.
“My poor boy!” said his mother, going to him, and passing her soft kind
hand over his forehead, raising the waves of his hair, which were not in
their usual good order. Frederick was not generally very tolerant of his
mother’s caresses, but of late he had been soothed by them. Amanda cared
very little for his amour propre, and made no particular effort to magnify
his importance, and a man likes to feel himself important, if only to his
mother. On the other hand, his mother was half-pleased even in the midst of
her pity for him that he should, as it were, throw aside his wife, and
recognize himself as a victim. It is not a fine quality, this, in women; but I
am afraid a great many good women are conscious of possessing it. When a
man has connected himself with his inferior, with some one we disapprove
of, we like him to find out his mistake. We feel that it is better for him to
know that he has done badly, very badly, for himself; and though in higher
minds a certain contempt for the being who thus gives up the cause of his
once-beloved, mingles with the softer feeling, yet we are all more or less
mollified towards the son or brother who has made a foolish marriage,
when he delivers over his wife, metaphorically, to our tender mercies, and
abandons her standard. I don’t know whether the same sentiment exists on
the other side, but I avow its existence on my own side. Mrs. Eastwood was
pleased that her boy gave his Amanda up. She was far more tenderly sorry
for him than had he been still in love. In words, she tried “to make the best
of her,” and recognized fully that now the deed was done it was to be
desired that Frederick should be “happy” with the woman who was his
wife; but she thought more highly of him because he was not happy. She
was more pleased, more tender, much more softened towards her son than if
his household had been a pleasant one. Nelly did not share these sentiments.
She was impatient with Frederick, and disposed to despise him for giving
up Amanda’s cause. She put herself in Amanda’s place, small as was her
sympathy for that young woman, and involuntarily conjured up before her a
picture of the Molyneuxes, who would feel towards Ernest’s wife much as
the Eastwoods felt to Frederick’s. Would Ernest abandon her, Nelly, to their
strictures? would he allow them to suppose that he too had made a mistake?
This thought made Nelly’s cheeks burn, and her eyes glow, and disposed
her on the spot to assault Frederick, and lift up Amanda’s falling standard.
“It is curious,” said Mrs. Eastwood, after a pause, “that we should be so
much entangled with Sterborne, where all the Eastwoods live, without
having anything to do with the Eastwoods. Perhaps Innocent might travel
with you, Frederick, if you are obliged to go. She has been invited to the
High Lodge, to make acquaintance with her father’s family.”
“Who lives at the High Lodge?”
“Mr. Vane’s sister, the only one of the Vanes who has taken much notice
of Innocent.”
“What does John Vane want with Innocent?” said Frederick, his tone
changing. He got up from his chair, and slightly pushed away his mother,
who was still leaning over him. “Does he want to marry her too?”
“Does Mr. Vane want to marry some one else—too?” said Nelly
instinctively, with an impulse for which next moment she was sorry.
“You should know best,” said Frederick; and then he turned to his
mother with that air of superior knowledge and virtue which he knew so
well how to assume. “I told you when that man first came to the house that
his character was very doubtful. He has always been a queer fellow. Had I
thought that you would receive him almost into the family, and make so
much of him, I should never have allowed him to come here at all.”
“But, Frederick!—I have never seen anything in him that was not nice,”
said Mrs. Eastwood, alarmed.
“Oh, I daresay, mother. A man does not come into a lady’s drawing-
room to show off his shady qualities; but I warned you to start with. There
are many queer stories about him current among men. Ask Molyneux—I
don’t think there is any love lost between him and John Vane.”
 “Is that the case, Nelly?” asked Mrs. Eastwood.
Nelly felt to her dismay that a hot and angry blush—a blush not
altogether of embarrassment, of something that felt like passion—covered
her face. “I should be sorry to quote Ernest on any such subject,” she said,
faltering yet eager. “He told me that there were stories current among men
about Sir Alexis, that he was not a man to be brought into your house, into
my company——”
(“What impertinence! one of my oldest friends!”) said Mrs. Eastwood, in
a parenthesis.
“And then,” continued Nelly, “he turned round upon me, and laughed at
my knowing such things, when I told you, mamma. He made me out to be a
gossip, to be fond of disagreeable reports; he made me feel as if I had made
it up; that is how men show their friendship for each other. Probably both
Frederick and he would do the same about Mr. Vane.”
“Molyneux would be flattered by your opinion of him,” said Frederick,
laughing; and had it not been for the lucky arrival of Dick and Jenny, I do
not know how far the quarrel might have gone. Mrs. Eastwood, however,
would not have “the boys” made parties to any discussion of this kind, and
Frederick departed after a time to his office, where he was so very hard
worked, poor fellow, and where he appeared between twelve and one
o’clock, having settled his domestic affairs first, as became a Briton of the
most “domesticated” race in the world.
During the interval which has passed without record in these pages,
Dick, the much suffering and much labouring, had encountered a great
event, and had got through it, I do not say triumphantly, but at least
successfully. The examination—the great exam., which had exercised his
mind and temper for years—had come and passed; and Dick had pulled
through. There he was, still walking about with books in his pocket, still in
the trammels of “a coach,” and still subject to other terrible and ghastly
episodes of exam., which had (I think) to be repeated for two or three years
before the full-blown competition wallah was sent to India. I do not
remember to have encountered in society many young men of this
tremendously educated class, and therefore I cannot tell if Dick may be
considered as a fair specimen; but this I can say, that considering the
amount of information which must have been crammed into his head, it was
astonishing how lightly he wore it. He was profoundly careful not to shock
and humiliate the uninstructed mass of his fellow-creatures by letting it
appear when there was no occasion for such vanities; and, in short, Dick
examined and passed, was as much like Dick unexamined and dubious as
could be supposed. Jenny had undergone a greater change. He had left Eton
and had matriculated at Balliol, and felt himself a greater man than it is
given to mortal in any other stage of existence to feel himself. He had done
even more than this; he had gained a scholarship, and was thus actually
paying part of his own expenses, a fact which his mother could not
sufficiently admire and wonder at, and which still had all the freshness of a
family joke in the house. It was astonishing how the brows of the two
women cleared, how the atmosphere lightened when these two boys (oh,
boys, I beg your pardon—men) came in. No complication had yet arisen in
their young lives. Jenny had hung his mother’s photograph over the
mantelpiece in his college sitting-room, and boasted that she had as much
sense as all the dons put together, though she knew no Greek. I wonder
whether in the progress of the human intellect this kind of boy will long
survive; but the very sight of Jenny’s face (though he was not handsome),
and Dick’s big figure, with a book in its coat pocket, was good for sore
hearts as well as eyes.
“We were talking about Mr. Vane,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with a little
furtive artfulness such as women use. She would not enter into any
discussion of him with her boys, nor direct their attention to the stories
“current among men.” She reverenced their youth more perhaps than, had
she been anything but an ignorant woman, she would have thought it
necessary to reverence it. Probably they both knew a great deal more than
she did in that kind—or so at least all men inform women for their comfort;
but still I think it was good for Dick and Jenny that their mother ignored all
these “stories current,” &c. “We were talking,” she said, “about Mr. Vane.
Frederick does not seem quite to like him——”
“I should think not. He isn’t the sort of fellow for Frederick to like,” said
Dick. “He is not your superior sort of prig. He is jolly to everybody. I like
him—gives himself no airs, and is never above saying he’s wrong when
he’s wrong. Why just the other day—I told you, Jen—about the build of
that yacht——”
“I like him,” said Jenny, “but I’m not a fair judge. He came down to
Eton last fourth of June, and didn’t he just give me a tip! so I can’t speak;
I’m bribed; but if I knew anything he wanted——”
 “So that is your opinion,” said the mother, well pleased. “They say
though,” she added mournfully, “that those men in the clubs——”
“I don’t belong to any club,” said Dick. “It’s very hard. What does it
matter, if I am going to India? I shall come back from India, I hope. I
suppose you all wish to see me again? Well, then, why shouldn’t I be
proposed for Trevor’s club? It doesn’t bind a fellow to anything, and it’s a
handy place to have people call upon you, and to send your letters. Trevor
offered to put me up a year ago. His father is on the committee, and I know
two or three other fellows there.”
“My dear boy, Frederick thought it a waste of money—as you are going
away,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with an incipient tear in her eye. This glimmer
of moisture was always produced by any reference to the fact that Dick was
going away.
“Then thanks to him,” said Dick, in high dudgeon, “I can’t tell any one
what is said in the clubs.”
“What is the question?” said Jenny, always practical; “is John Vane on
his trial for something?” And here the boy, without knowing it, glanced at
Nelly; and Nelly turned abruptly away, and went out through the
conservatory into the garden, with a very great tumult and many painful
thoughts in her breast.
“Innocent is going to pay his sister a visit,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “at a
house near Sterborne. He thinks it is time she knew her father’s relations,
and I have consented, for I thought so too. But Frederick says——”
“Is she going now, or at Christmas?” said Jenny. “If now, I give my
consent, for I’m going off to-morrow. I like Innocent to be at home when I
am at home. You may laugh, if you please, but I like it; why shouldn’t I?”
said the boy hotly. “And I like Nelly to be at home. What is the good of
girls if they don’t make the old place look nice? But she may go now, if you
please, what has that to do with John Vane?”
Upon this Dick laughed long and low, “John ain’t in love with Innocent,”
he said chuckling. “I say, mother, what a set of jolly spoons!—if you know
what that means. I’ll take her down to the country, if you like, and see John
Vane’s sister. Perhaps she might take a fancy to me.”
“Silly boy, she is as old as I am,” said his mother, with a smile. And thus
the discussions of the morning fell into cheerful home banter, and the jests
of the boys. This consoled the mother, the light of whose firmament was at
present supplied by these two boys; but it did not comfort Nelly, who was
wading up to her neck in personal dismay and trouble; and it would have
called forth nothing but angry contempt from Frederick, who felt his own
griefs big enough to eclipse both earth and heaven.
 CHAPTER XXX.

THE HIGH LODGE.

Thus every one discussed and gave their opinion as to Innocent’s outset in
life—except Innocent herself. She acquiesced—it was all she ever did. A
slight paling of her very faint colour, a certain look of fright in her eyes
were the only indications that it affected her at all. Somehow this change in
her life associated itself in her ideas with Amanda’s proposal to render her
of use—a proposal which she had received with more favour than any one
else in the house; it had offended them all on her account, but it had not
offended Innocent. She listened to all the descriptions which were given her
of Miss Vane, her unknown relation, and of the pretty country which she
was about to visit, and of the novelty and change which her aunt thought
would do her so much good, with passive incomprehension. Novelty
alarmed, it did not excite her; she wanted no change—but yet she was quite
contented to be sent where they pleased; to do whatever they thought
proper. She looked upon her visit as a very devout and enthusiastic believer
looks—or is supposed to look—upon death; as an unknown and terrible
event of which she could form no idea, but which would be soon over, and
which it was absolutely the will of those who were as gods to Innocent that
she should undergo “for her good.” Thus she allowed herself to be prepared
for it with a mixture of fright and docility; everybody talked of it except
herself, the heroine. Innocent’s visit was in every mouth except Innocent’s.
She did not even form to herself any picture of what it would be like, as
Nelly kept doing perpetually. She had no faculty for making pictures.
Indeed, the peculiarity of Innocent’s organization began to centre chiefly in
this point—that she had no imagination. It did not seem a moral want in her
as it does in some people, so much as a wistful vacancy, a blank caused by
some accident. No sort of cynic scorn of the imagination of others, such, as
the unimaginative often show, was in her passive soul; but she followed the
gaze of the eyes which could thus see into the unseen with a wistful look
which was full of pathos.
“How do you know when things are going to happen?” she said to Nelly,
who had just been indulging in a long account of Miss Vane’s probable
appearance and manners to cheer them over their work, as they sat with
Alice in Mrs. Eastwood’s room, helping to make some new “things” for
Innocent’s outfit.
“I don’t know in the least—I only imagine,” said Nelly, laughing.
“Imagine!” repeated Innocent. She did not understand it. She was all a
dream, poor child, and Nelly was all real; but the dream-girl possessed no
imagination at all, while the other was running over with ready youthful
fancy. No matter-of-fact creature, no dull clodhopper, could be more
absolutely and rigidly bound within the lines of what she knew, than
Innocent. She knew the old wandering life in Italy, and she knew The Elms.
But all the rest of the world was a blank to her. She had formed no idea
either of what she was about to meet with, or how she was to conduct
herself under other circumstances. With such an absence of the faculty
which guides us through it, the future and every change can be nothing but
a terror to the ignorant soul.
“Look here, Innocent,” said Jenny, who had always taken a special
charge of her, on the evening before she left home. He had taken her into
the garden for the purpose of examining her, and satisfying himself that she
was what he called a free agent. “Are you sure you like going? That’s what
I want to know.”
“Like going?” said Innocent, opening her eyes. “Oh, no.”
“Why are you going, then? Is it because you are obliged?” asked Jenny,
knitting portentous brows.
“Obliged!” Innocent repeated once more, with a little wonder. “I am
going because my aunt thinks so—neither because I am obliged, nor
because I like. It is not me, it is her.”
“But it ought not to be like that,” cried Jenny. “Speak to my mother, she
is very reasonable. She never forces a fellow into anything; tell her that you
would rather not. That’s how I always did.”
“But you are a boy,” said Innocent, with a mixture of respect and gentle
contempt, which I fear she had learned from Nelly.
“What difference does that make? have a little courage, and tell me. The
thing you want to learn,” said Jenny, with much gravity, “is that everybody
here wishes you to be happy, wishes you to do what pleases you. Don’t
misunderstand my mother. You take up an idea of your own—you don’t
look at the real state of the case, and try to make out what she means. Don’t
you understand me, Innocent?”
“No,” said Innocent, looking at him with veiled and wondering eyes.
Poor Jenny! he thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, and muttered
something to himself, which was not adapted for publication; and then he
looked at her in his turn with that anxious but impotent gaze with which so
often one mortal attempts to fathom another—to fathom the unfathomable
—whether there be nothing or much in those veiled and inscrutable depths
of personal identity. She smiled at him softly, and the dreamy light of this
smile went over all her face, touching it into visionary life and beauty.
Jenny was baffled in his inquiry, in his investigation, in his counsel; he
could not make anything of Innocent. With a mixture of kindness and
impatience he hurried her back into the house.
“It is growing cold, and you have no shawl,” said Jenny. Would poor
Innocent never be sensible to any higher solicitude than this?
Next day she went away under the care of John Vane. She did not cry or
show any emotion; but her eyes were full of fright, and the excitement of
terror. She had not even the same unreasoning instinctive confidence to
support her which she had felt in Frederick on her former journey. John
Vane was very kind to her, and very good, she knew; but he was not
Frederick. She sat still as a mouse in her corner of the carriage, and said
“Yes” and “No” when he asked her a question, and saw the world whirl
round her once again, and the long stretches of country, and strange faces
look in. To Innocent it seemed a kind of treadmill, turning round and round.
She was not conscious of making any progress; but only of unknown faces
that looked at her, of long green lines of fields and hedgerows flying past.
When they had got half way through their journey, they discovered that
Frederick was in the same train, with his wife, whom he was taking to her
father’s house. He came to the carriage, when the train stopped, and leaned
his arms upon the window and talked to Innocent, who brightened at the
sight of him, and instinctively put out her hand to cling to the most real
thing she knew, the first human creature whom she had personally
identified and discovered, as it were, out of the unknown. John Vane could
not be supposed to understand this altogether inexplainable feeling, which
poor Innocent could no more have put into words than she could have
written a poem. He thought very differently of it. He thought like a man that
the other man, smiling and talking lightly to the poor girl, had meanly
accepted the worthless flower of this child’s love to laugh at, or tread under
foot. He was unjust, for perhaps the most really good feeling in Frederick’s
mind (when she did not cross or irritate him) was his tenderness for his little
cousin; but the other cousin, who felt himself her protector, realized this as
little as he understood the nature of Innocent’s sentiments. He made the
poor child change her seat to the other end of the carriage, and when
Frederick came back, entertained him with remarks upon the weather, to
which Frederick responded in the same tone. There was, as people say, no
love lost between them.
“Oh, is it Innocent?” said Amanda, when they reached Sterborne. “So
your mother has taken my advice, Fred. I suppose she is going to be trained
for a governess at Miss Vane’s school? Quite right, quite right! You may
come and see me, Innocent, if you like; it will be a little change for you.
After all the petting you have had at The Elms, you may not quite like it at
first; but it’s for your good. Fred, is there a carriage for me? Is papa there?
Come and take me out, then; don’t leave me here like a piece of luggage.
Come and see me soon, Innocent. You will always be some one to talk to—
Good-bye.”
“Innocent,” said John Vane, when he had placed her in the light open
carriage which had been sent for them from the High Lodge, “I do not wish
you to go and see that woman; neither does your aunt, I think. So unless
you wish it very much——”
“I don’t wish it at all,” said Innocent, more distinctly than usual; and
with a promptitude which surprised her companion.
“Then you don’t like her?” he said.
“She took Frederick away from us,” said Innocent; “he would have lived
at home always but for her. She makes my aunt, and every one, unhappy.
Him, too—sometimes he looks as if he were miserable. People who make
everybody miserable,” the girl continued, very gravely, “ought not to be
allowed to live.”
“My dear child,” he said, half laughing, “that is a terrible doctrine. In
that way none of us would be safe.”
“You don’t make any one miserable,” said Innocent. “Few that I have
ever seen do. But she does. And Frederick——”
 “I don’t wish to say anything to you against your cousin,” said Vane,
very gravely; “but Innocent, you must not think too highly of Frederick
Eastwood. He is not so perfect as you suppose. Remember that it is entirely
his own fault that he has such a wife; you must not make a hero of
Frederick. The less you see of him, also, the better for your own sake——”
Innocent looked at him wonderingly with vague consternation. Did she
understand what he said? Certainly not the inference conveyed in his words
—the more serious meaning. But she had no time to reply, for the short
drive was over, and the High Lodge in sight. It was a curious old straggling
house, with an old chapel standing detached, but connected by a covered
way with the house. The grounds were large and well kept, and the quaint
little lattice windows showed their several clusters of faces peeping out.
The door stood open, flooded with evening sunshine. Great feathery
branches of the clematis which had done flowering, and was now all
cottony with seed pods, hung about the porch. The wall was one mass of
creeping plants; late roses were flaunting out of reach high up about the
clustered chimneys and gables; and the flower borders about the house were
bright with asters and scarlet geraniums, and all kinds of autumn flowers.
The chapel bell began to tinkle as they drove in at the gate, and from all the
corners of the irregular old house appeared groups of women and children.
Even Innocent was roused into curiosity by the strange sight. In the slanting
afternoon light, with that background of old wall, matted all over with
interlacing wreaths of jessamine, clematis, honeysuckle, and roses, and
pierced with twinkling casements, each looking out as with so many eyes
through the little diamond panes—the sight was a very pretty one. One or
two women in the dress of Sisters lent an additional quaintness to the
picture; the children were of various ages and of various dress, fluttering
like flowers along the trim and well-kept walk. John Vane laughed as men
laugh who are half-amused, half-affected by the scene before them.
“Now we shall see Letty in all her glory,” he said.
This sight, which was so unusual and so little expected, had actually
driven from Innocent’s mind for the moment all recollection of herself, and
all thoughts of the meeting with another stranger which was about to follow.
She woke up with a start to find herself lifted out of the carriage, and taken
suddenly with a rapid salute into some one’s arms. The new figure was that
of a little woman with very bright eyes, and a very alert and lively aspect,