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me
you were spying on people again.”
    Layla stuck her tongue out at Danny, and he
made a rude gesture with his middle finger. “I know what that
means,” she said.
    “Good,” he said back, “then I’m not wasting
my time.”
    “Both of you behave,” Raven warned, and then
she smiled at Layla. “Have you decided what you want for your
birthday?”
    Layla thought for a moment and said the only
thing she could think of. “I wish you were my real sister.”
    “I wish I was too. Let’s go see your mom,”
Raven said and held out her hand.
    Layla gripped her hand, and Danny took hold
of Layla’s other hand. The gentle squeeze from Danny made her
nervous.
    Three hours later, Danny was still holding
Layla’s hand. Now, Layla was leaning into Raven’s side so people
passing by wouldn’t see her cry. She didn’t want them to see that
her mother’s failure to show up hurt.
     
    In the two weeks following her birthday,
Layla kept expecting her mom to show up with some excuse, but she
never did. Raven asked around and from what she could find, two
days before Layla’s birthday, her mother vanished without a trace.
Nothing was taken from her home. All of her clothes were still
there; making it seem like her mother had just disappeared into
thin air.
     

Chapter Three
    Twenty Years Later
    Simon hated being late to meetings, and he
was pretty sure Connor was going to be pissy today. Connor was the
leader of their vampire settlement, and he’d been ordered to travel
to the head of the vampire government, Fangri La, for some big
meeting. Connor hated going to those meetings, and now he was
forced to bring his mate, Raven along. As a wood nymph, Raven
didn’t travel or handle big city life very well.
    So, it was a given that Connor wasn’t going
to be happy regardless of what time Simon showed up. Unfortunately,
Simon had needed to extract a very determined wood nymph from his
bed. Narissa had managed to slip into his home while he was
showering and tried to convince him to stick around for sex. He’d
been forced to escort her all the way to the front gate while she
insisted on staying to help him relax after the meeting.
    Yeah, that was not going to happen again.
He’d first met Narissa six months earlier when he’d been more than
a little infatuated with Raven and hoped to find a wood nymph just
like her. Narissa wasn’t anything like Raven, and she refused to
accept that things were over between them.
    He let himself in through Connor’s back door.
This was just a small meeting of their inner council and some of
Raven’s humans. Raven had brought eight humans into their
community. They were unlike any humans Simon had lived with before.
These humans went out and fought alongside the vampires. Two or
three of them always attended main council meetings. Simon still
wasn’t sure he liked the changes, but the humans were growing on
him.
    “I don’t even want to hear your excuse, Si,”
Connor said when Simon walked into the living room. Yep, he was
seriously pissed. His light brown hair was messy, like he’d been
running his fingers through it. His brown eyes were narrowed, and
he was still in full fighting gear from his patrol that day. Even
the Kevlar vest was still in place, making Connor seem unnaturally
bulky.
    Simon sat on the loveseat by himself and
waited for the meeting to start. When nothing happened, he looked
around at the rest of the room. “Who are we still missing?” he
finally asked.
    “Layla,” Connor grumbled.
    “Great,” Simon said with a grin. “That means
the little smart ass gets her backside chewed out instead of
me.”
    The look Connor gave Simon suggested that he
thought Simon was an idiot. “Yeah, because I want Raven mad at me
before we’re stuck in a jeep together for twelve hours.”
    Raven smacked Connor on the arm. “I am not
that bad.” Then she smiled at Simon. “I asked Layla to help Muriel
out with the baby today because Muriel was feeling a little under
the