She just wished Melli would let her be part of the healing process. But her daughter was an adult now and she couldn’t butt in and demand answers. She had to let Melli—and Jodi—live their own lives.
And right now, it looked like both her daughters’ lives were about to get much more complicated.
“Will you accept the guards I’m assigning you?” Sylvan asked, looking at both Melli and Jodi. “If not, I’m afraid I can’t be responsible for anything that might happen to you once you leave the safety of the Mother Ship.”
“Yes, I’ll accept,” Melli said at once. She gave Liosh another shy smile and the big Blood Kindred returned it and squeezed her hand.
Jodi shot an angry look at Vorn, who returned it with a blank stare of his own. Clearly there was no love lost between these two—they had been at odds from the moment they met each other for some reason. But it was also clear that Jodi had no choice in this matter.
“All right,” she said at last, grudgingly. “As long as he really does stay in the background.”
“Don’t worry,” Vorn growled, his golden eyes flashing. “I have no wish to insinuate myself into any part of your life, Josephine.”
“Ugh—don’t call me that!”
Jodi hated her first name. She had been named after her paternal grandmother who was a strict, unyielding old lady who always gave the girls lectures about everything they were doing wrong. Jodi had disliked Grandma Josephine as a child. On her tenth birthday, she had declared that she never wanted to be anything like her and wished she didn’t have her name. From that point on, she had been “Jodi” to the whole family by her own request.
“Just call me Jodi, like everyone else,” she told Vorn now, frowning up at him.
“If you don’t wish to be called by your first name, I will call you ‘my Lady’ as Liosh calls Melinda,” Vorn said stolidly. “It is disrespectful to shorten a female’s name in my culture.”
“My Lady? Like we’re at the freaking Renaissance Fair?”
“What is the—?” Vorn began but she was already shaking her head.
“Never mind. Whatever. Just don’t call me Josephine.”
Jodi looked away, her cheeks burning and Vicky knew her oldest daughter was wondering how in the world she would explain having a seven-foot-tall Beast Kindred bodyguard dogging her every step and addressing her like they were both players in a Shakespearean theater troupe. Hopefully Vorn really could stay in the background.
As for Liosh and Melli, well, the way her younger daughter was looking at the Blood Kindred gave Vicky hope that perhaps Melli’s self-imposed dry spell was coming to an end. Maybe Liosh would be good for her—maybe he could help her get over whatever it was that had been keeping her in her shell for the past three and a half years.
Vicky could only hope and pray that both her daughters would be all right but it made her feel better to know that both of them were going to be guarded by Kindred warriors.
Because, as she knew from her own personal experience, no human man could love and care for and protect a girl halfway as well as a Kindred.
The End?
I really thought it would be! Of this particular book, anyway. But it occurred to me that I LOVE the whole bodyguard trope and I really want to see what happens to sweet, shy Melli and her devoted Blood Kindred, Liosh. I also want to know what happens when fiery, independent Jodi butts heads with the dark, stubborn Vorn. Also, I know most of my books are set on alien worlds, but I’d like to see how Kindred warriors function in regular Earth society—what the reactions of other humans are to them and how they deal with any human problems that get thrown their way.
Are you interested to know more about Melli and Jodi? I don’t know if they would each get a book—I think I’d like to write both sisters at once and watch how their different stories with their two very different Kindred flow and intertwine. If you’re interested too, please let me know on my Facebook page. I love to hear from readers so drop me a line and let me know how you feel about a continuation of this storyline.
For now, if you have enjoyed Stealing her Heart, please take a moment to leave a review or like a positive review HERE. Good reviews are like gold for an author in the crazy, overcrowded e-book market. They let other readers know it's okay to take a chance on a new series or a new author. Plus they give me the warm fuzzies. : )
Thanks for being such an awesome reader!
Hugs,
Evangeline
Fang and Claw
Book Two of the Nocturne Academy Series
Coming February 2020
My name is Kaitlyn Fellows and I'll never be the same.
The Fire stole everything from me.
My home...my family...even my beauty.
The right side of my face is normal--even pretty. But the left side, I hide in shame. That's where The Fire marked me...scarred me forever.
At Nocturne Academy I'm nothing--just a little Norm girl with no supernatural powers and a disfigured face.
Which is why it's so strange that a big, handsome Drake like Ari Reyes should take an interest in me.
But it isn't only Ari who wants me.
For under his high cheekbones and clear amber eyes, Ari hides another, much more frightening visage--A Drake, the fire-breathing monster that lives within him.
A monster who has decided I should be his alone.
Can I survive Ari's love for me? And more importantly, can I survive the love of his Drake?
Because once a girl has been claimed by a Drake, the only way out is through The Fire.
What am I going to do?
