The Abandoned Vampire Bride Walked Away novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Missing Seat
On Rosalind's birthday, Alaric arrives with Genevieve and her daughter, there is one seat short, and Rosalind steps out of the car. A video of him feeding her birthday cake to the girl is her breaking point, and she calls Darian Verrin.
At noon on my twenty-seventh birthday, my fiancé drove into my parents' driveway, smiling, with a hot coffee for me in the cupholder.
A woman rode in the front seat, and her little girl sat behind her in a booster seat, swinging both feet.
Alaric Crowhurst was a vampire of the old House that owned half our harbor town, and I had worn his silver pledge ring for three years.
He had promised me a birthday drive to his family's manor by the sea.
Just the two of us and my brothers, with a trunk full of party things.
My two brothers were already buckled into the back seat with their eyes on their phones.
My parents stood on the porch to wave us off.
The woman got out smiling and walked straight to me with her arms open.
"Rosalind! Alaric told me you invited us. I almost cried. Thank you so much."
Her name was Genevieve Aldine, and she had grown up in the Crowhurst gatehouse, two doors from Alaric's childhood bedroom.
She held out a small paper bag.
"Lemon sugar cookies for the road. You hate frosting, I remembered."
I had never invited her.
I had never even mentioned the trip to her.
I looked at Alaric, and he looked at the keys in his hand.
"Genevieve's daughter gets carsick," he said. "She has to ride in the front where her mother can reach her."
"Then where do I sit?" I asked.
"The car has five seats, Ro. We're one short."
My younger brother Hugh didn't look up from his phone. "Just take the next ride, Rosie. Don't make it a thing."
My older brother Perry nodded. "He'll come back for you. It's your birthday, be easy."
Nobody in that car got out to give me their seat.
Alaric stood by the open door and used the gentle voice he saved for when he wanted me to stop talking.
"She's five, Ro, and she's scared of the road. Let them go ahead. I'll send the car back for you."
Genevieve touched his sleeve and said, "Are you sure, Alaric? I hate to be the reason."
She said it softly, and she was already climbing into my seat.
I used to argue at moments like this.
I used to say *this is my birthday* and *you promised* until my voice cracked and my brothers rolled their eyes.
Alaric would sigh, and tell me I was tired, and buy me something small.
This time I set my bag down on the gravel.
"Fine," I said.
Alaric's mouth relaxed. He thought he had won.
In three years of rides, he had held my hand in every car we ever shared.
He said the glare was easier to bear that way, and he always put me on the sunny side so he could reach me.
Today he reached for the little girl's seat belt instead.
The SUV backed out of the drive, and I stood on the gravel and watched my brothers' faces in the rear window.
My mother patted my shoulder from the porch.
"Don't sulk, Rosalind. There's cold chicken in the kitchen."
I sat down on the front step with my bag between my feet.
An hour passed, then two.
Nobody called to ask if I was all right.
At two o'clock a text came in from my friend from the museum, who was already at the manor.
It was a video.
Our whole party was in the sunroom, with the long table and the banner that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSALIND in gold.
The cake I had ordered a month ago sat in the middle, white with lemon curd and blackberries.
Alaric was at the head of the table with a fork in his hand.
He was feeding my cake to Genevieve's little girl.
"Where's Rosalind?" my friend's voice said behind the camera. "Aren't you going to go get her?"
Alaric didn't look up from the child's face.
"She's hungry, and Rosalind can wait. She always does."
He licked a crumb off his thumb.
"I'll bring her a present tomorrow and she'll smile for me. She doesn't stay angry."
Genevieve laughed and squeezed his arm.
My brother Hugh reached over and wiped frosting off the girl's chin.
Nobody at that table looked at the empty chair with my name card.
I watched it twice, to the end.
Then I turned my phone face down on my knee.
Shouting only helps when someone is afraid to lose you.
My parents had never been afraid of that, and my brothers had never taken my feelings seriously.
Now my own fiancé thought my waiting was something he already owned.
So I stopped waiting.
I opened my bag and took out a thick cream card from the bottom, under my keys.
A man had pressed it into my hand at the Harbor Gala a month ago, when no one else was looking.
*Darian Verrin. When you are finished waiting, call.*
I had laughed and put it away.
I dialed the number with my thumb steady.
He answered on the first ring.
"Miss Merrow."
"I'm done waiting," I said. "I'm on Pine Road, at my parents' house."
"Stay where you are," Darian Verrin said. "Ten minutes."
I had not asked him how.
Ten minutes later the cold chicken was still on the kitchen table, and the wind rose across the lawn, flattening the hedges.
The roar of rotors drowned out the porch screen door, and a black helicopter dropped out of the sky onto my mother's roses.
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