The tall man, the one who’d never introduced himself, returned to the bedroom after a while. He unlocked the door—which didn’t have a locking mechanism on the inside, I’d discovered—and gestured for me to follow him without a word.

My legs were wobbly, and I stumbled slightly as we walked down a long hallway. He helped me regain my balance and then guided me downstairs with a hand at my elbow. I honestly wasn’t sure if his grip on my arm was meant as a gesture of chivalry or control.

Maybe a bit of both.

The house was large and luxurious, with high ceilings and tasteful decor. When we reached the front door, he handed me a small insulated pack full of blood bags and finally broke his silence to give me instructions on how to store them properly.

Then he ushered me into the waiting car outside and stood on the dark street watching us drive away. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t stop myself from craning my neck to keep my gaze on him until we turned a corner, and he dropped out of sight.

I’ll probably never see him again. Never see any of them.

That thought should’ve comforted me.

And it did… sort of.

The rest of the ride home was a blur. I made conversation with the driver on autopilot, though he seemed as unenthusiastic about it as I was. But silence was worse, so I kept up a stream of inane chatter as we drove down brightly lit streets to my neighborhood in Brooklyn. He refused payment or a tip when he dropped me off, insisting his employers wouldn’t like it—they’d already taken care of everything.

Then he pulled away, and I stared up at my run-down apartment building. It looked just the same as it had last time I’d seen it. So did the rest of the street.

As though everything was perfectly normal.

Except nothing would ever be normal for me again. Not since Sol, Jerrett, and the intensely moody man they called “brother” came into my life. All three of them were so ungodly beautiful, yet so unnerving at the same time. Were all vampires like them, or were they special even amongst their own kind? It didn’t seem possible for all vampires to be so striking. If they were, wouldn’t humans have picked up on their presence a long time ago?

I huffed a laugh.

I’ll take “Things I Never Thought I’d Say” for two hundred, please, Alex.

What I really wanted, more than anything in the world, was to go upstairs, fall asleep, and wake up tomorrow with no bags full of blood in my refrigerator. No network of scars winding across my body. I wanted to marvel at the strange dream I’d had, dash out the door because I was late for work, and spend the morning baking sweet confections in Carly’s shop.

But as hard as I wished, I was sure that wouldn’t happen.

I walked slowly up the two flights to my unit’s floor. It was almost disorienting to step back into my crappy studio apartment. I felt a little like I’d broken into a stranger’s home, as though I no longer truly belonged here. Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled inside, a bone-deep exhaustion tugging at me.

I passed by the full-length mirror on the wall by the door, and my steps slowed. Then I backed up, my eyes widening as I came to stand in front of it.

Is that… me?

It was me, of course, though I was a bit ragged around the edges and appeared slightly crazed. But I also looked different somehow, as if someone had taken a picture of me then applied a bunch of crazy filters to it. Flecks of gold and red glittered in my hazel irises, making my eyes seem to dance with light. My dark hair was fuller, shinier, and my skin was so smooth it looked like porcelain. I stuck out my tongue, just to be sure the reflection in the mirror was actually real.

She stuck out her tongue right back at me, and I rolled my eyes, continuing my perusal of myself in the mirror.

As my gaze drifted downward, something else stuck me. I wasn’t wearing the purple top and dark skinny jeans I’d left the bar in. The clothes I wore now were a similar style, which was why I hadn’t noticed earlier, but they most definitely weren’t mine.

My breath hitched as the full implications of that dawned on me. Of course, I wasn’t wearing the clothes I’d had on when I was attacked. Based on the vampires’ description, and my own awful memories of the event, that outfit would’ve been shredded and soaked in blood.

Which meant one or more of the brothers had undressed me and put me in these new clothes.

The thought of their hands on my body should’ve turned my stomach, but a surprising and entirely unwelcome flush worked its way up my chest instead.

God, Willow. Get ahold of yourself.

My blush deepened as embarrassment flooded me. Maybe stress or the recent extreme change in my body was sending my hormones out of whack. I was normally too sensible to let myself develop an attraction to beautiful, dangerous men.

But the truth was, the rush of warmth when I thought of them wasn’t just because of their stunning good looks. In the short time I’d spent with them, each of them, even Mr. Tall, Dark, and Cranky, had gazed at me with tenderness and fierce protectiveness.

No one had looked at me that way in a long time. Probably not since before I married Kyle.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. That feeling of being wanted. Protected.

Screwing my eyes shut, I rested my forehead against the mirror.

Seriously, Willow. Cut it out. Or did you forget the part where they kicked you out and abandoned you to deal with this insane new world on your own?

That was the metaphorical bucket of ice water I needed. Any warm feelings I’d been feeling toward the three brothers died under a crushing wave of reality. Gritting my teeth, I moved away from the mirror, stopping in the kitchen to deposit my new… snacks… in the fridge.

Those three men claimed they’d saved my life. But all they’d done was ruin it.

I changed out of the clothes that weren’t mine into a pair of comfy sweats and an old t-shirt. Then I settled onto the bed, staring out the small window at the alley below. At a world I no longer understood.

When the horizon began to glow pink, my eyelids drooped. Though I was exhausted, I had enough sense to fasten a heavy blanket to the window to stop the light from coming in with the dawn. Then I curled up under my blanket, pulling it over my head.

For once, I was glad I couldn’t afford a place with giant windows and a great view.

I woke in the evening, just as the sun was beginning to set.

A slight haze of warm orange light slipped through a small crack between the blanket and the wall. I lay on my back watching the light turn from orange to gray to black.

Finally, I slipped out of bed, padding over to the closet for a change of clothes.

A sudden pang of guilt stabbed me.

My bakery job. I hadn’t shown up to Carly’s Confections in at least two days.

I checked my cell to find that Carly, the owner, had left me several concerned messages. She didn’t sound mad, which only made the guilt worse. It wasn’t like me to miss work, and she knew that. She was probably worried out of her mind, assuming the worst.

Or at least, the worst thing she can conceive of.

The word “vampire” had probably never entered her thoughts.

I tapped the button on the screen to call her back and chewed on my lip while it rang.

“Willow!” Her squeaky voice sounded a little breathless. “Willow, honey, are you all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

She peppered me with a barrage of questions, talking even faster than she normally did. This five-foot-nothing woman had more energy than anyone I’d ever met. When she finally slowed down, I reassured her I was fine, but told her I’d come down with a bad stomach bug that had knocked me out of commission for a few days. I apologized over and over again, but Carly wouldn’t hear it.

“You can’t help it if you’re sick! Take as much time as you need. Your body will thank you for it,” she said, before making me promise to call her if I got any worse.

As I pressed the “end call” button, her words struck me. How much time would I need? A week? A year? I likely couldn’t ever go back to work at the bakery; Jerrett had told me that. If I’d been smarter, I would’ve made up some reason to quit right now.

In a few days, my excuse of illness would wear out, and I’d have to come up with a better explanation for why I wasn’t ever coming back. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that yet. I needed to hold onto the illusion that my old life wasn’t totally over for just a little while longer.

I glanced at my tiny kitchen, a narrow galley set off from the main room, and my stomach rumbled. I supposed it was technically breakfast time according to my bizarre new schedule, but I didn’t really care.

There’s never a bad time for cupcakes.

Baking was my go-to activity when I was stressed. It soothed me. There was something incredibly comforting about the mindlessness of mixing and stirring, measuring and pouring.

My fridge was pretty bare—not counting the blood bags—but I always kept basic baking ingredients in the pantry. Thirty minutes later, twelve perfectly risen cupcakes cooled on a rack while I whipped up some butter and powdered sugar.

I added four drops of red food coloring to the frosting, then hesitated. The intensely saturated droplets dripped down the fluffy white peaks like bloodstains. Hunger stirred in my belly, followed by an answering wave of nausea as my mind grappled with my new reality. I groped blindly on the counter for another bottle of food coloring, adding blue on top of the red. I stirred it quickly, turning the frosting a vibrant purple.

Better.

Taking my time, I piped out intricate designs on the cupcakes, letting the activity calm me. Finally, I picked one up, tapped it against another in a kind of toast, and took a bite.

My eyes nearly rolled back in my head.

It was delicious. Unbelievably good.

Cupcakes had been one of the first recipes I’d mastered when I started baking. I’d gotten pretty damn good at them, but these tasted better than anything I’d baked before. The soft and springy vanilla sponge was like heaven on my tongue, the frosting intensely sweet without being saccharine.

Wow. What on earth did I do differently with this recipe?

As I licked my fingers, polishing off the last sweet vestiges of purple frosting, it struck me. I hadn’t done anything different. The recipe was the same. The cupcakes were the same. It was me who had changed.

Jerrett had said there were some perks to being a vampire. Maybe a heightened sense of taste and smell was one of them.

A small breath of relief fell from my lips as I packed the remaining cupcakes away. This was the first aspect of being a vampire that actually seemed pleasant. And at least I wouldn’t have to live off blood alone.

Thank God. A life without cake wouldn’t be worth living.

What other perks and drawbacks were there to this strange new life? What did being a vampire really mean?

Giving in to my gnawing curiosity, I pulled out my beat-up laptop and flopped back onto my bed. There must be some information out there that could help me.

Is there some kind of vampire survival guide or something?

I tried a few Google searches and found a lot of information on vampires. Some of it seemed true, like the sensitivity to the sun. That had been verified by the brothers. Some was totally fictional—like vampires having no heartbeat and not being able to digest anything but blood. I could see for myself those myths were incorrect.

Very little of what I found was helpful.

I pressed the laptop closed, the full weight of my situation finally bearing down on me like a pile of rubble. Trapping me. Suffocating me.

Feeling more alone than I ever had in my life, I set the laptop on the nightstand and crawled under the covers, curling up into a tight ball. I pulled the blanket up over my head, tears stinging my eyes and streaming down my cheeks.

What is my life now? How am I supposed to do this?

And why had the most beautiful men I’d ever met cursed me to live like this?