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ONE
VALENTINE
“I’ve never been angrier. In my whole life, I have never beenthisangry. CALL. ME. NOW!” Valentine smashed her phone down as she ended the call.
It wasn’t the first message she’d left for her sister, Lilliane, and honestly, it wouldn’t be the last. Even though a full month had passed since Lilliane hadwillingly… actually,chosen… to leave with the remaining members of the vampire council, Valentine was still pissed.
Angry. Pissed. Reeling. Enter the rage emotion here, and she was feeling it with no end in sight.
Every time she thought the anger could pass or at least let her do something other than mope, she would have a memory of Lil doing something dumb or silly to make her laugh, and then Valentine would be mad all over again.
She couldn’t stand herself anymore. She was sure no one else wanted to be around her either.
She’d stopped answering the phone … though if Lil called, she would pick up. The issue was that Lillianehadn’tcalled her. Her older sister, Celestine, hadn’t stopped calling.
She hadn’t stopped dropping by either.
Ceecee was there every day. Always with some lame-ass reason that made Valentine angry. If Celestine came by with waffles fromTails and Syrup, Val didn’t answer. If her sister left a box of goodies on the front porch, Val waited until it was dark to drag the thing inside.
Celestine had even brought a lawn chair … leaving Val her preferred seat of the rocking chair … and sat on the porch for a full morning, but Val hadn’t joined her.
It was too hard.
She couldn’t imagine sitting out there with Ceecee when Lil wouldn’t be there.
By her own choice …
Who chose to leave their sisters for insane vampires who would marry you off to whichever loser vamp who wanted to make an alliance with the father? Who did that?
No one who Valentine knew of.
Lilliane and Valentine hadalwaysunderstood each other. Sure, the three sisters were close, but there was always a special bond between Val and Lil. Maybe it was because Celestine took the role of big sister really seriously, and she always said that she had to protect them.
It left Val and Lil feeling like a bit of a burden.
They would chat and giggle all night long together until Celestine would come into their bedroom and give them crap for being up too late … and for keepingherup.
Their late-night chatter wasn’t always logical or even useful. Sometimes, they would spend hours thinking up their perfect dream relationships and the dream guys they would have them with.
At the time, falling in love was an impossible thing they would never be able to do since they were Half-Bloods who weren’t even supposed to exist.
Maybe in their conversations, Valentine should have seen the start of Lilliane’s trouble. Because if Val was honest, those conversations were allher. Lil didn’t much believe in love. She thought it was a complication.
“You only say that because you think your mom was in love with Sylvester, and that’s what ruined her life,” Valentine always said like she was chiding her beloved little sister.
Knowing what she knew now, perhaps she would have used a different tone to deliver that message. Maybe she wouldn’t even have said it at all.
Maybe Valentine had pushed Lilliane right into the vampire council’s arms with all her talk of impossible romance.
“Love didn’t just ruin my mother’s life,” Lil would insist. “It ruined hers and mine. Yours and Celestine’s, too.”
“That wasn’t love. That was a vampire looking to get his jollies off with a human with no regard for human life.”
“Do you even know what loveis?” Lil would ask like they were talking about a mythical creature.
“Sure I do. It’s a powerful thing that makes you feel good even when life is stupid-hard.”
“And how are you supposed to recognize it?”
