The Haunted Memories (Forgotten Series, #4)

Chapter 20

I flipped the page of the photo album and grinned at the set of the photos that was revealed at the action. They were photos Lara had taken of Maddy and I having a tea party. My large body was sitting on one of Maddy's tiny tea chairs with a pink feather boa wrapped around my neck and a tiara on my head. She, on the other hand, was wearing one of my button up shirts, the sleeves hanging far over her hands, and her feet were tucked into my work boots.

I remembered that day. She had wanted to play house but she wanted to be head of the house. She had been young at that point and I had corrected her as she had grown. I had soon taught her that the head of the house could be male or female, it didn't matter. She had been shocked and amazed at the news before getting so excited. Her outfits had changed from my shirts and boots to a mixture of feather boas, tiaras, and my clothes.

It had only increased how adorable she was. She would clunk around the cabin in my work boots while wearing a pink dress or she would wear my button up shirt with her feather boa and tiara. I flipped the page and chuckled as I spotted a photo of her trying to walk in my work boots, her curly black hair in messy pigtails, a sparsely toothed grin on her face as she reached upwards. I could almost hear her calling out 'Daddy!' as I looked at the photo.

My smile faded a little bit. It had been over a week since I had last seen her. It might have only been a few days to someone else but to me and my wolf it felt like an eternity. I scratched around the scabbed over wound on my collar bone. Sorrel had been rather nasty with her claws the last time I had seen her, if I hadn't jerked back and to the side she would have tore my throat out. Which I was sure that is exactly what she had been attempting to do.

"Still picking at that love bite?" At the voice the small female who it belonged to sprawled on the couch beside me. I ignored her. Shiloh was kind of a brat. She was older than me but she acted like a hyper active toddler at times. Not to mention I was pretty sure there were moments the smaller vampire was hitting on me. I hadn't really been aware of how... highly sexualized vampires were.

Vampires lived, breathed, and moved for sex. I knew it was how they fed but it was just absolutely strange for me to actually see how wrong the stories and myths about them had been. They weren't allowed to take blood by force, that one had been weird for me to accept. Actually their entire concept had been hard for me to accept. They had been creatures of make-believe for me so seeing them in reality had been hard for me to get used to.

Shiloh poked my face as she wiggled part of her upper body onto my lap. "Stop ignoring me." I glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow. The one thing that had been the strangest for me was the touching. Vampires loved to touch and be touched. Coming from a culture that hadn't really touched much, it was fucking weird. "Arrrrlooo." She practically purred my name and my face twitched in slightly amused irritation.

"Are you hungry?" That was usually the issue she had whenever she got overly touchy and flirty with me.

Her eyes widened with a look of hopeful joy and she grinned, showing off her sharp teeth. "Are you offering me to get toothy with you?" She wiggled on my slap slightly and I gave her an unamused look.

"No." At the clipped word her hopeful look turned crestfallen and her bottom lip slipped out into a pout. I ignored her as I turned the page of the photo album, scanning the many messy faced photos that were mixed with curly pig tails and poofy dresses.

"You are no fun." She crossed her arms over her chest before she turned her head to look at the photo album. "Holy shit, that kid looks just like Sorrel." Her eyes were focused on the pictures, her arms relaxing from their crossed position and I made a faint sound of acknowledgement.