woman choked out a cry before turning and stumbling from the room.
Shit…
Jumping to my feet, I made my way to the kitchen pulling my phone from my pocket, dialing as I followed her.
She wouldn’t go far. Right now, I was betting she was looking for a weapon or a phone.
Bren’s irritated voice rang over the line and I knew a bad temper when I heard one. Not that it really made any difference; he was always in a foul mood when it came to me.
“Let me guess — you need something.” He answered, the hostility in his voice stretching along the airwaves.
I hate caller ID.
“A cancellation,” I said softly into the receiver. I pressed the earring I wore, routing the call to the wireless earpiece.
“Age?” he asked dryly.
I hesitated briefly and rubbed a hand over my tired eyes as I spoke into the receiver. “Eighty. Give or take a decade.”
Honesty is always the best policy, I thought.
Bren cursed, which wasn’t anything new. The man spends most of his undead life in a state of rage. I honestly can’t figure out what women see in him and can only assume that since they don’t live with him, they don’t know what he’s really like. I mean, he was definitely attractive, nearly all vampires are—it was part of that natural ability they’re reborn with in order to lure their prey in for an easy kill. But, Bren has a serious attitude problem that needs to be reined in on occasion.
Despite his obvious animosity towards me, I knew he would do anything to preserve my life — but only because of the oath that he had sworn to Joseph years ago in exchange for our family’s protection.
“Haven’t I helped you out enough?”
I took a deep breath before answering. Why we had to go through this every time I called for something was beyond me. I had done plenty for him in the past and don’t feel the least bit of guilt in reminding him of that fact. Frankly, I was getting tired of the implication that I hadn’t done enough. Saving his life should be enough, especially when he wanted to live for eternity. There were plenty of vampires out there who wouldn’t last long in this environment. And there are more than a few hunters out there who would be glad to help him and any other vampire along to a true death.
“Just get over here. Now! ” I repeated, a little more firmly. I relayed our location, knowing if he were in a foul mood, it wouldn’t be a gentle memory wipe and I wasn’t sure what he would replace her consciousness with. I wanted to ensure that they were pleasant thoughts — the last thing this dying woman needed was more pain.
He hung up without further comment. He was angry — I knew that—but he’s always angry. Besides, cancellations aren’t easy on anyone. Swiping someone’s memory is tricky. It takes time and preparation, yet we had neither of those going for us.
You can’t just leave a blank spot in a human’s mind. Instead, they’re like hard drives on computers—to completely erase a memory, you have to fill the space with something; a glance from a handsome stranger, a trip to the grocery store, it doesn’t matter and it really depends on the creativity of the vamp doing the cancellation. Children’s memories are the easiest to manipulate as they don’t have much experience to base anything on. Adults are far more difficult. They have years of memories stored up and while a master vamp could easily swap one memory for another, or even duplicate a memory without any side effect other than déjâ vu, younger vampires can cause some long-term damage if they lose their concentration or just don’t care about the end result.
I had every reason to be justifiably worried about Meg. Bren was not only young in undead years, he was unstable enough to create a problem. I also couldn’t see that I had much choice — he’s all I had at the moment.
I turned my attention back to Daniel who was still lying on the floor. “Hold tight,” I said softly, as if the cat were even
Shit…
Jumping to my feet, I made my way to the kitchen pulling my phone from my pocket, dialing as I followed her.
She wouldn’t go far. Right now, I was betting she was looking for a weapon or a phone.
Bren’s irritated voice rang over the line and I knew a bad temper when I heard one. Not that it really made any difference; he was always in a foul mood when it came to me.
“Let me guess — you need something.” He answered, the hostility in his voice stretching along the airwaves.
I hate caller ID.
“A cancellation,” I said softly into the receiver. I pressed the earring I wore, routing the call to the wireless earpiece.
“Age?” he asked dryly.
I hesitated briefly and rubbed a hand over my tired eyes as I spoke into the receiver. “Eighty. Give or take a decade.”
Honesty is always the best policy, I thought.
Bren cursed, which wasn’t anything new. The man spends most of his undead life in a state of rage. I honestly can’t figure out what women see in him and can only assume that since they don’t live with him, they don’t know what he’s really like. I mean, he was definitely attractive, nearly all vampires are—it was part of that natural ability they’re reborn with in order to lure their prey in for an easy kill. But, Bren has a serious attitude problem that needs to be reined in on occasion.
Despite his obvious animosity towards me, I knew he would do anything to preserve my life — but only because of the oath that he had sworn to Joseph years ago in exchange for our family’s protection.
“Haven’t I helped you out enough?”
I took a deep breath before answering. Why we had to go through this every time I called for something was beyond me. I had done plenty for him in the past and don’t feel the least bit of guilt in reminding him of that fact. Frankly, I was getting tired of the implication that I hadn’t done enough. Saving his life should be enough, especially when he wanted to live for eternity. There were plenty of vampires out there who wouldn’t last long in this environment. And there are more than a few hunters out there who would be glad to help him and any other vampire along to a true death.
“Just get over here. Now! ” I repeated, a little more firmly. I relayed our location, knowing if he were in a foul mood, it wouldn’t be a gentle memory wipe and I wasn’t sure what he would replace her consciousness with. I wanted to ensure that they were pleasant thoughts — the last thing this dying woman needed was more pain.
He hung up without further comment. He was angry — I knew that—but he’s always angry. Besides, cancellations aren’t easy on anyone. Swiping someone’s memory is tricky. It takes time and preparation, yet we had neither of those going for us.
You can’t just leave a blank spot in a human’s mind. Instead, they’re like hard drives on computers—to completely erase a memory, you have to fill the space with something; a glance from a handsome stranger, a trip to the grocery store, it doesn’t matter and it really depends on the creativity of the vamp doing the cancellation. Children’s memories are the easiest to manipulate as they don’t have much experience to base anything on. Adults are far more difficult. They have years of memories stored up and while a master vamp could easily swap one memory for another, or even duplicate a memory without any side effect other than déjâ vu, younger vampires can cause some long-term damage if they lose their concentration or just don’t care about the end result.
I had every reason to be justifiably worried about Meg. Bren was not only young in undead years, he was unstable enough to create a problem. I also couldn’t see that I had much choice — he’s all I had at the moment.
I turned my attention back to Daniel who was still lying on the floor. “Hold tight,” I said softly, as if the cat were even
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