The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Part I Read Free Page A

men tried to rape her, she killed him. Trevor would have killed him himself, had he known what the man had tried to do. Felicia had been embarrassed and had no intention of letting Trevor know what had happened. She told him the man had assaulted her. She announced she was pregnant, with you, and that she had only acted to defend her unborn child.
     “Trevor was ecstatic. You have to realize how rare this was. Perhaps… once every couple hundred years is a child conceived with a vampire. But… a vampire child combined with the blood of a vampire hunter… that is completely unheard of.
    “Felicia knew deep in her heart she could not stay with Trevor. She wanted her child to be safe, and have a good life, not to live in a world of darkness with a bunch of vampires. And there was the question of your safety. Children are like candy to vampires… the blood is sweet.
    “So Felicia fled and came home shortly before you were born. When you were born a healthy little girl, we sent the two of you into hiding. Your father has been searching for you for years. That's why you've moved several times. That's why your mother drenched herself in that god-awful perfume and made you do the same thing, and that's why your mother was murdered right before your eyes. Because you are a very, very special child, Chloe Kallistrate.”
    He bowed his head and placed his fingertips on his temples. “Trevor will stop at nothing until he has you.”
    I had been laying back on my pillows, listening to this story. It did explain a lot of the weird behavior I had noticed in my mom. Sometimes she would get all crazy and just decide to move. She would start packing all of our stuff and clean the house with bleach from top to bottom before we left. Really, I just thought she was nomadic and had sudden urges to move. And the perfume, she changed her scent once a year and wore a lot of whatever she chose. She took about three showers a day, too. Yeah, now I get it, everywhere we went we left a scent.
    I did have one question though. Actually, I had lots of questions, but just one for the time being: “How did you know that we needed help when Trevor’s men attacked us?”
    His eyes met mine. “Chloe, our blood isn’t regular blood. We have the bloodline of vampire hunters. Our blood is almost magical. I just knew . Your mother is my daughter, and I just knew we had to go to her. We were too late to save her. Now we will honor her life by keeping you safe, because that is what she dedicated her life to doing.”
    I nodded.
    “We are going to let you rest here for a while, because you have been through a trauma. It will take time for you to feel normal again. Soon, however, you will have to get up and begin your training.”
    “Training?”
    He nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry, but one of the only ways for you to be safe is for you to learn how to defend yourself. If you had lived here with us since birth you probably could have helped your mother in fighting them. Sadly, she was out of practice and hadn’t trained for fifteen years.”
    I could see he was becoming emotional.
    “I would love to train.” I caught his eye, and held his teary gaze. “I’m going to get good, better than my mother, even. I’m going to kill Trevor for having my mother murdered.”
    He nodded again and turned to leave.
    “I swear it,” I whispered to myself when he left the room.
     
    ***
    I lay in bed for a long time without sleeping. I kept thinking of the guy who called himself my grandfather as ‘the old man.’ I didn’t want to call him ‘grandpa’, but I didn’t know what his name was, so that only left ‘the old man.’
    The room they had put me in was a bedroom. It was obviously a girl’s bedroom. There was a dark purple comforter on the bed, and the curtains were the same color. A large dresser pushed up against one wall had an old-fashioned oval mirror in the corner beside it. I saw an open door on another wall that I assumed was an attached