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Even though they were gone, Mae still kept
in contact with us, particularly with Milo. She’d been sad we spent
the holidays apart, and after Christmas, she began plotting to see
us.

Milo started school next week, so he decided
now would be the best time to visit. Jack didn’t think it’d be good
for him to come with because he didn’t really want to see Mae or
Peter. He didn’t even want me to go, but he didn’t try to stop
me.

It was just my younger brother Milo, his
human boyfriend Bobby, and me spending a week and a half with Mae,
her child vampire Daisy, and Peter. With a broken air
conditioner.

Milo told me that January was summertime
here, but if I had understood exactly how hot that could be, I
might’ve put off visiting until July.

Peter bought a huge farmhouse about an hour
away from Alice Springs in Australia. From what I’m told, it’s a
nice town, and Sydney’s supposed to be divine, not that I’ve seen
much of either of them. Sydney’s a four-hour flight away, but
that’s not what stopped us from going. Daisy can’t go out in
public. She’s only five and has almost no control over her
bloodlust.

Milo’d tried to spin this as a trip in
celebration of my eighteenth birthday last week, and in a way, it
kinda was. Mae threw a little party for me, with a cake that only
Bobby could eat. She gave me a lovely dress, and Daisy made me a
card.

I got in the shower, and the cold water did
wonders for me, but I couldn’t shake the trepidation. Something was
off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I thought about calling Jack back in the
States, but I hardly ever got any reception. Besides, I didn’t want
to alarm him. He’d been convinced that this trip was a horrible
idea, but it hadn’t been that bad. A little dull, maybe. Jack’s
real fear, of course, was Peter.

When I got out of the shower, I went over to
the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Amongst my bras and
underwear, I’d hidden Peter’s present to me. A beautiful diamond
encrusted heart-shaped locket. I loved it, but I had no idea how to
explain it to Jack.

Nothing was overtly wrong with Peter giving
it to me, but Jack wouldn’t approve. For my birthday, Jack had a
Muppet specially made to look like me and taken me scuba diving
with the sharks at the aquarium. They were pretty awesome gifts and
I loved them, but they weren’t the same caliber as expensive
jewelry.

Then again, Jack had also given me
immortality, so he kinda had Peter beat.

“
Is it cooler in here?”
Milo opened my bedroom without knocking, and I dropped the necklace
in the drawer and slammed it shut.

“
Um, I don’t know,” I said,
taking a step away from the dresser.

“
I think it’s hotter in
here,” Milo groaned but walked into my room anyway. Like Peter, he
had decided that shirtless was the way to go. “It’s got to be at
least a hundred degrees here!”

“
Have you tried the pool?”
I asked.

“
Yeah, right.” Milo
wrinkled his nose and flopped back on my bed. “The sun’s still out,
and even if it wasn’t, you’ve seen the pool.”

Something was wrong with the filtration
system, so skeavy green moss covered the pool. There seemed to be
something wrong with everything in the house. Apparently, it had
been even more rundown when they bought it, but Peter and Mae were
fixing it up. But the pool didn’t work, the air went out, the
wrap-around porch sagged, and the roof needed replacing.

I went over and pulled back the heavy
curtains, looking outside. The sun stung my eyes, and I stared out
at the emptiness. They didn’t have a neighbor for miles, and
everything looked dry and faded. I slid open the window and a hot
breeze wafted in, but at least it was better than nothing.

“
I’m starting to think this
was a bad idea,” Milo said wearily.

“
It’s not that
bad
.
I mean, other than the heat.” I sat on the bed next to him. Beads
of sweat stood out on his chest, and he looked up at me, his big
brown eyes dejected. “You’ve had fun seeing Mae, right?”

“
Kinda,” he shrugged and
looked away.

Milo had been the baby, the one that had
garnered all of Mae’s attention until Daisy came along, and she
required a lot more than he did. He wasn’t a real jealous person,
but this struck a nerve with him. Being ignored by our real mother
had been bad enough, let alone her replacement.

“
What’s Bobby doing?” I
asked, hoping to cheer him up by talking about his
boyfriend.

They’d been together for four months, and
they weren’t “meant for each other,” not the way vampires are, but
there was still something there. Bobby made Milo happy, and he was
a good guy.

Bobby mostly lived with us back in
Minneapolis, and despite my initial hatred of him, he’d really
grown on me. Some of that probably had to do with the fact that I’d
bitten him, bonding us together slightly. It tended to drive Milo
nuts, but we couldn’t do anything about it.

“
He’s sitting in front of a
fan in our room,” Milo said, scratching absently at his arm. The
spiders here were crazy about him. The bites didn’t really hurt
him, but they left irritating, itching bumps for hours. “Even the
heat is getting to him, so you know it has to be bad.”

“
He’s probably just used to
living in our climate,” I yawned. We hated being hot, and we
constantly kept our house at frigid temperatures. Plus, we had just
come from winter in Minnesota. “Ugh! It’s too hot
sleep!”

“
Tell me about it.” Milo
looked up at me. “What time is it back home? Maybe Jack’s
up.”

“
I don’t understand the
time difference. You tell me.”

“
I don’t know what time it
is here,” he said and made no effort to find out. “Have you talked
to Jack lately?”

“
The other day. The
reception here is so shoddy, it’s hard for me to get
through.”

My heart ached at the thought of him. I was
bonded with Jack, so it was painful to be away from him. It had
lessened a bit over the last few months, but it still wasn’t
anything where I’d enjoy not being around him.

“
How are things there?”
Milo asked.

“
The same, I guess. Ezra is
moping around the house, and Jack can’t wait for us to get
back.”

“
I still can’t believe that
Ezra hasn’t talked to Mae,” Milo looked a little wide eyed over it,
and I felt the same way.

No matter how mad or frustrated I might get
with Jack, I couldn’t imagine going
months
without talking
to him. It would be like going months without eating.

Bobby shrieked from his bedroom down the
hall, but Milo and I were slow to react. Spiders had been infesting
their room since we arrived, and Bobby screamed like a girl every
time he saw one. Admittedly, some of them could actually kill him,
but most of the time, he’d already stomped on them by the time Milo
or I came to the rescue.

I heard a door slam, followed by a bizarre
clawing sound. Bobby’s heart beat frantically, but his wasn’t the
only one. Another heart pounded hard and fast, but it was quieter
and not as rapid as a human.

It was the sound of a vampire’s heart. A
very small, very hungry vampire.

By the time Bobby yelled again, Milo and I
were already running out of my room. His room was way at the other
end of the hall, but we could see Daisy, clawing at the door with
her bare hands. She was strong enough to tear the wood, leaving
bloody trails as it splintered out around her fingers.

Before we had a chance to reach her, she
managed to tear a hole in the door big enough for her little body
to wriggle through, and Bobby started screaming like hell.

# # #

Read an excerpt from the first book
in Amanda Hocking’s new paranormal romance the Trylle
Trilogy:

Switched
–
available now

Prologue: Eleven Years
Ago

A
few
things made that day stand out more than any other: it was my sixth
birthday, and my mother was wielding a knife. Not a tiny steak
knife, but some kind of massive butcher knife glinting in the light
like a bad horror movie. She definitely wanted to kill
me.

I try to think of the days that led
up to that one to see if I missed something about her, but I have
no memory of her before then. I have some memories of my childhood,
and I can even remember my dad who died when I was five, but not
her.

When I ask my brother Matt about
her, he always answers with things like, “She's batshit, Wendy.
That’s all you need to know.” He's seven years older than I am, so
he remembers things better, but he never wants to talk about
it.

We lived in the Hamptons when I was
a kid, and my mother was a lady of leisure. She' d hired a live-in
nanny to deal with me, but the night before my birthday, the nanny
had left for a family emergency. My mother was in charge of me, for
the first time in her life, and neither of us were
happy.

I didn't even want the party. I
liked gifts, but I didn't have any friends. The people coming to
the party were my mother's friends and their snobby little kids.
She had planned some kind of princess tea party I didn't want, but
Matt and our maid spent all morning setting it up.

By the time the guests arrived, I
already ripped off my shoes and plucked the bows from my hair. My
mother came down in the middle of opening gifts, surveying the
scene with her icy blue eyes.

Her blond hair had been smoothed
back, and she had on bright red lipstick that only made her appear
paler. She still wore my father's red silk robe, the same way she
had since the day he died, but she added a necklace and black
heels, as if that would make the outfit appropriate.

No one commented on it, but everyone
was too busy staring at my performance. I had complained about
every single gift I had gotten. They were all dolls or ponies or
some other thing I would never play with.

My mother came into the room,
stealthy gliding through the guests to where I sat. I had torn
through a box wrapped in pink teddy bears, containing yet another
porcelain doll. Instead of showing any gratitude, I started yelling
about what a stupid present it was.

Before I could finish, her hand
slapped me sharply across the face.

“You are not my daughter,” my mother
said, her voice cold. My cheek stung from where she had hit me, and
I gaped at her.

The maid quickly redirected the
festivities, but the idea percolated in my mother's mind the rest
of the afternoon. I think when she said it, she meant it the way
parents do when their child behaves appallingly. But the more she
thought, the more it made sense to her.

After an afternoon of similar
tantrums on my part, someone decided it was time to have cake. My
mother seemed to be taking forever in the kitchen, and I went to
check on her. I don't even know why she was the one getting the
cake instead of the maid, who was far more maternal.

On the island in the kitchen, a
massive chocolate cake covered in pink flowers sat in the middle.
My mother stood on the other side, holding a gigantic knife she
used to cut and serve the cake onto tiny saucers. Bobby pins were
coming loose from her hair.

“Chocolate?” I wrinkled my nose as
she tried to set perfect pieces onto the saucers.

“Yes, Wendy, you like chocolate,” my
mother informed me.

“No, I don't!” I crossed my arms
over my chest. “I hate chocolate! I'm not going to eat it, and you
can't make me!”

“Wendy!”

The knife happened to point in my
direction, some frosting sticking on the tip, but I wasn’t afraid.
If I had been, everything might've turned out different. Instead, I
wanted to have another one of my tantrums.

“No, no, no! It’s my birthday, and I
don't want chocolate!” I shouted and stomped my foot on the floor
as hard as I could.

“
You don't want chocolate?” My
mother looked at me, her blue eyes wide and incredulous.

A whole new type of crazy glinted in
them, and that’s when my fear started to kick in.

“What kind of child are you, Wendy?”
She slowly walked around the island, coming towards me. The knife
in her hand looked far more menacing than it had a few seconds ago.
“You’re certainly not my child. What are you, Wendy?”

Staring at her, I took several steps
back. My mother looked maniacal. Her robe had fallen open,
revealing her thin collarbones and the black slip she wore
underneath. She took a step forward, this time with the knife
pointed right at me. I should’ve screamed or run away, but I felt
frozen in place.

“I was pregnant, Wendy! But you’re
not the child I gave birth to! Where is my child?” Tears formed in
her eyes, and I just shook my head. “You probably killed him,
didn’t you?”

She lunged at me, screaming at me to
tell her what I did with her real baby. I darted out of the way
just in time, but she backed me into a corner. I pressed up against
the kitchen cupboards with nowhere to go, and she wasn’t about to
give up.

“Mom!” Matt yelled at her from the
other side of the room.

Her eyes flickered with some
recognition, the sound of the son she actually loved. For a moment,
I thought it might stop her, but it only made her realize she was
running out of time, so she raised her knife.