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outside of or stepping into a room where Sebastian slept?
    “Elizabeth, honey?” she called out, breaking the silence.
    No response came and she had to stop herself from running, panic clutching at her heart, propelling her forward to her daughter’s bed.
    She pulled back the covers, exposing Elizabeth’s sleeping face. She looked peaceful, her lips slightly parted, her long lashes brushing against her pale cheek. Serenity reached out and placed her hand on Elizabeth’s forehead. Her skin was cool, her breathing even.
    Yet still, irrational thoughts claimed her, a fear she couldn’t put into a coherent thought or words making her act. She grabbed Elizabeth’s shoulder and gave her a rough shake.
    “Elizabeth! Wake up!” Her daughter groaned and rolled over, pulling the covers with her. “Elizabeth, I said you need to wake up now.”
    Elizabeth’s eyes opened and she twisted her head around, taking in the sight of her mother, a frown on her face. “Mom …” she whined, grabbing the covers and pulling them back over her head. “Go away. I’m still sleeping.”
    “But are you feeling all right?” Serenity persisted.
    “I’m fine. I’m just sleeping. Go away.”
    Serenity sighed and left her be, backing out of the room. Had Elizabeth entered her moody teenage years already? Although there had been plenty of times over the past thirteen years where she figured her daughter had hit that point already, she had been dreading the day it would actually happen. She gave a rueful smile. Well, she didn’t intend on physically dragging Elizabeth out of bed, so she guessed she’d just have to wait.
    There seemed to be too many hours in the day now. When Sebastian had been around and Elizabeth was small, Serenity stayed up during the night to spend time with him. Now, with him gone and Elizabeth becoming more and more independent, she found herself with too much time on her hands and no way to fill it except think. Even when caught up in her work, her mind drifted, wondering what Sebastian was doing and where he was. She felt as though an invisible thread still bound them, that even though he wasn’t physically with her, he still made up a huge part of their lives. She knew the blood she still needed to take had something to do with how she felt. After he first left, she’d found their continuing bond to be too great a source of pain, as though that were the thing that made her unable to let go of him, the reason for him to be constantly in her thoughts.
    Hoping to help herself to heal and get on with her life, she’d attempted to take Vincent’s blood instead. Although the connection shifted, her love for Sebastian didn’t change. She thought of Vincent as only a friend, but she’d still been overwhelmed with guilt, feeling as though she was essentially betraying Sebastian.
    In a way, she supposed she had been. She’d only attempted it the once, and, despite Vincent’s insistence that these things would take time, she’d not wanted to try again.
    Her job didn’t help matters. Working from home was isolating, with no one else to speak to except for the occasional phone call to head office, and she tended to communicate by email. She also knew she came across as standoffish, perhaps even aloof, to the other mothers at Elizabeth’s school. That she lived alone—except for Elizabeth, of course—in this big house always gave people something to gossip about, and she couldn’t help but find herself bristle toward the curious glances she earned at the school gate. She didn’t intend to come across that way, but she struggled to fit in with other people. Whenever someone tried to strike up a conversation with her, she found herself staring at them, thinking, you have no idea about the secrets the world holds, and losing track of the exchange.
    Her sense of isolation wasn’t a new thing, though, she reminded herself. Loneliness had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember.
    Having too much time