Page 1
Chapter 1
The Universe Has Jokes
AUGUSTUS
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The alarm on my phone blares on the nightstand beside me like a cardiac monitor of a patient in tachycardia. Groaning, I blindly reach over and grab the device, momentarily silencing the offensive noise. Flipping to my back, I rub the sleep from my eyes.
Coming off night shifts and onto a swing may not have been the best of ideas. But someone needed to cover the shift since Jerry got married and moved to Florida.
Mated and married.
First it was Grace, the local caterer, who fell in love with her hockey star husband Jackson while she was catering his team’s tournament. Then it was Evren, workaholic fire demon financial advisor, who met and fell in love with his mate Kallie on a cruise he didn’t even want to go on. And now Jerry.
Love seems to be finding its way to everyone in Ravens Hollow.
Except me.
My phone alarm goes off again, pulling me from my sad spiral. With a groan, I turn off the alarm and sit up in bed, stretching.
“Don’t be such a downer, Augustus. Be happy for your friends.” I grumble to myself as I get out of bed.
The bright bathroom lights have me squinting as I walk in, headed for the shower. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror.
Yeesh. I’d pass for a movie monster.
My skin has taken on a gray tone, like ashes from a spent fire. The typical curl in my hair has gone limp, making it appear longer, and the color has leeched out of it, too. The blue of my lips, in addition to the deathly pallor I’m currently rocking, makes me look like a cadaver. Then there are the eyes. Vibrant ruby red eyes, normally a deep brown, the only part of my complexion that actually looks alive, stare back at me.
In short, I look like I walked off the set of a horror movie.
Sighing deeply, I carry on with my routine. The scalding hot water feels good against my tired body. I always feel achy when I get like this. It’s a tell-tale sign I’m malnourished.
Again.
Which means I need to double down this morning.
I feel the rise of familiar irritation, making me scrub my skin more aggressively than necessary. When I look at my arm, it’s covered in brilliant white streaks instead of angry red ones. With a groan, I quickly rinse off and wash my hair before getting out to dry off.
With my towel wrapped around my waist, I dab some menthol under my nose and pad down the hallway from my room through the small living room and into the kitchen. The tile should feel cold on my feet. Fall has finally arrived in Ravens Hollow, with chilly mornings and cold nights. But with my body in its current state, I feel nothing.
In the kitchen, I grab my standard breakfast ingredients: a red apple, a mandarin orange, a handful of mixed berries, and milk.
I slice everything, toss it into the countertop blender, and top it with a scoop of ice and the milk. Only one ingredient left, the one that already has my stomach churning.
Blood.
The roiling in my stomach intensifies as I go to the small fridge in the pantry where I keep my blood supply. Since my body looks like it's going into rigor mortis, I grab two pouches, gagging already for what’s to come. I grab the scissors from the butcher block and snip open the bags, holding my breath as I pour the contents into the blender. The menthol blocks the worst of the smell, but when you have heightened senses, there’s only so much you can do. Once the pouches are empty, I quickly jam the lid on the blender, grab a zip-top bag, and shove them quickly inside so I’m not overwhelmed by the rancid coppery scent.
Bag in the trash, I set the blender to puree and wait for my hellish breakfast to be done blending. While the blender whirs away, I reflect for the trillionth time on my unique situation.
A vampire with an intolerance to blood. Absurd.
How can a vampire, whose very existence is dependent upon blood, not only have a reaction to it, but loathe drinking it? Its coppery smell, sludgy consistency, and metallic taste—I hate it all.
The universe has jokes. Clearly ones that only it finds funny.
The struggles my poor parents had to go through. Imagine having a baby, and the very thing that should keep that baby alive makes it violently ill. I grew up having blood mixed with every weird ingredient imaginable, as my parents and the doctors tried every trick they could think of just to keep me from starving. I’d choke it down, gagging with every new iteration, each time hoping the newest one would be the one I could at least tolerate.
