The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection by Jennifer Malone Wright Page B

Instead, I flung open the door and found Christina on the
other side.
    “Oh.” Surprised that it wasn’t Gavin, I
stepped back a few steps. “It’s you.”
    She wore the most hideous
dress I’d ever seen. Well, maybe not the most hideous dress I’d ever seen,
but probably a close second. It was dark green, skin tight and
strapless. Her dark hair was in a beehive-looking up-do. She
completed her look with hooker boots.
    “Chloe.” She nodded at me and stepped into
the house.
    “Christina.” I nodded back at her and yelled,
“Drew, Christina is here!”
    When Drew came into the room, Christina let
out a girly squeal and jumped into his arms. She planted a kiss
right on his lips. I felt like barfing a little.
    “I missed you,” she whispered to him, but it
was loud enough for me to hear. That was intentional, I was
sure.
    Ugh… Gavin could not arrive fast enough for me. I wanted out of
there. I don’t know why Drew didn’t pick her up at her house. Why
did she have to come to our house?
    Drew must have wanted out of there as badly
as I did, because he rushed Christina out the door, asking her if
she had a coat.
    “See you there!” She giggled over her
shoulder to me while Drew herded her out. I simply stood there and
watched them go. Drew gave me one last look that pretty much told
me to behave myself, and then he was gone. Why did he have to act
so strange all the time? One minute, he would act like my brother;
the next minute, he would act like my father. Sometimes, in those
rare moments, he acted like my friend. That was the Drew I
preferred. I had no idea what I had done or what was going on that
he would have so much animosity toward me lately. It had to be a
repercussion of the attack.
    Since then, the board members had been in the
process of planning a full-scale attack on the vampires. It was
fast becoming a full-out war. I knew I was the cause. The vampires
would have never attacked if I weren’t here. They wouldn’t have
hurt Luke, and they wouldn’t have killed the three hunters,
including Drew’s uncle. I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. That
was the reason I had made plans to leave soon after the New Year’s
bash. There were just a few things I needed to get done before I
could go. I knew I wasn’t ready, but it was going to have to be
good enough.
    The doorbell rang again, and I surfaced from
the fog in which I had drifted. I opened the door for Gavin, who
looked super-hot in his tux. He held a big bouquet of yellow
roses.
    “Hey,” he greeted me.
    “Hi.” I smiled shyly. We stood and looked at
each other for a moment.
    “Well, can I come in?” he asked.
    Embarrassed, I backed away from the door and
motioned him in.
    “Of course. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    He smiled and his pretty green eyes
brightened.
    “You look amazing!” he told me, extending the
flowers. “These are for you.”
    Hesitantly, I took them. He didn’t know it,
but it was the first time anyone had given me flowers.
    “I hope you like yellow.”
    “I love yellow,” I whispered, stepping
sideways toward the kitchen. “Let’s go put these in some
water.”
    He followed me into the kitchen and watched
me while I stood on a chair to get a big vase down from on top of
the refrigerator. I think mostly he was looking at my legs and
butt, which made me feel totally uncomfortable. My dress was tight,
and the slit opened up to just above my knee, so I don’t think he
had much choice other than to look at me.
    After balancing unevenly on the chair and
getting down without killing myself, I trimmed the roses and stuck
them in the vase, filled it halfway with water, and then placed it
in the center of the kitchen table. The whole time, he chatted with
me about stuff going on with friends of his I barely knew and
really didn’t care to know.
    “Are you ready?” I asked, practically cutting
him off.
    “Oh, sure. Let’s go.”
    I grabbed my coat off the back of the couch
and pulled the bulky