Maggie watched the city flash by from the passenger seat of the black Toyota. She’d spent her life in and around Boston. Normally it felt like her home; today it felt like enemies lurked in every corner of the vast city.

“I feel like I can’t trust anyone,” she murmured.

“You can trust me.”

“I haven’t known you for twenty-four hours yet, so I’m not ready to hop on the trust train with you. I only came with you because I trust you more than a stranger. You ever hear the saying the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t?”

“And I’m the devil?”

“I haven’t decided.”

He smiled at her. “Let me know when you do.”

“I will.”

“The amount of time you know someone doesn’t always matter when it comes to trust. Sometimes you can know a person for years and still never trust them.”

“True. We never can know what another person or vampire is thinking.”

“But there are some we trust as much as ourselves.” There are some I trust more than myself, Aiden thought.

“Do you have anyone like that?”

“My parents, my siblings, and the Stooges.”

“Who are the Stooges?”

“Mike, David, Doug, and Jack. They all grew up with my dad and were all turned into vampires around the same time as each other. They’ve been together ever since. The Stooges are like uncles to my siblings and me. Do you have anyone you trust?”

She rested her hand on top of Blue’s bowl as she shifted it in her lap. “I have Roger.”

“What about your parents?”

Maggie absently traced the opening of Blue’s bowl. “I don’t know who my father is, and my mom is nuts.”

He chuckled. “I think all moms can be a little nuts, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with their children.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t either,” Maggie said with a smile. “But my mother really is certifiable. She’s also a murderer. She was locked away before I was born. I haven’t seen her since the day I turned eighteen. Which is also the only time, other than my birth, I’ve ever seen her. While I was a ward of the state, I wasn’t told anything about her. On my eighteenth birthday, I learned the truth about her, where she was, and I went to see her. I swore I’d never go back.”

There were only two people she’d ever told about her mother. One was Roger, and the other was dead. She didn’t know why she’d revealed it to Aiden, but she figured he should probably have a heads-up if they were going to spend an unspecified amount of time together. If she were going to go crazy too, it would probably happen before all this was over, so he deserved to be warned she had homicidal lunatic ingrained in her DNA.

However, after last night, she knew her mom wasn’t crazy after all, at least not entirely. At the very least, her mother had hit on the truth in her ravings.

Aiden glanced at Maggie’s bowed head as her finger trailed over the opening of the bowl while she stared at the fish. He now understood why she’d handled last night as well as she had; she’d endured more than he ever could have imagined in her life. He rested his hand on her knee and braced himself for her to push it away, but she didn’t.

“It was a fun eighteenth birthday,” she continued. “I became eligible to vote, and my mother revealed she wished she’d succeeded in killing me.”

Aiden’s hand clenched on her leg. “Your mother tried to kill you?”

Maggie thrust her shoulders back and turned to face him. “Yes, but to be fair, my father wasn’t exactly the type of man women are clamoring to have a baby with. The police chased my father off when they stumbled upon him raping her in an alley. Severely beaten, my mother couldn’t speak about the trauma she’d endured. The police took her to the hospital where her rape was confirmed, but they couldn’t get anything out of her aside from screams and mumblings of red eyes and vampires.”

Aiden’s head turned toward her but shot back to the road when he drifted into the other lane and a horn blared at him.

“The state and doctors put her under a psych eval for thirty days while the police searched for a family they never discovered. I have no idea if I have any grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I might, but the police couldn’t find anyone, and no one came forward to claim her. During the thirty days she was under evaluation, they learned my mother was pregnant with little ole me.”

Brakes squealed and horns blared when Aiden jerked the wheel. He pulled the car to the side of the road and put it in park. He stared at the car in front of him as he tried to process what she’d revealed.

“What happened after that?” he inquired.

“They kept my mother’s story mostly out of the news because of her rape and consequent mental state, but I’ve read the police, doctor, and social work reports about her. I also gathered some information from her when I saw her. In the reports, I learned that upon hearing she was to be the bearer of vampire spawn, my dear old mom grabbed a scalpel and tried to cut me from her belly. She would have succeeded too if it hadn’t been for the doctors, nurses, orderlies, and guards who rushed in to stop her. Of course, this was after she already stabbed one of the other doctors and a nurse. The nurse didn’t survive.”

“Shit,” Aiden breathed.

“Yeah, pretty much. They deemed dear old Mom incapable of standing trial, took me from her as soon as I was born, and locked her away. She still screams of vampires, devil spawn, and Hell. And I… well, I am the source of her madness. I believed she was crazy, but the one thing I did figure out while we were running last night is that she’s not crazy. You yourself said you were born.”

“You smelled the Savages,” he murmured. “I noticed a couple of times you covered your nose or picked up a garbage scent, but I assumed it was because there was garbage nearby, but you scented them.”

“There was no garbage in the ambulance when they first attacked us, and I smelled the faintest hint of it then. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as strong as what you described, but yes, I think I can smell them.”

Aiden felt like someone had punched him in the gut as he gazed at her. He recalled the way she’d reacted to him in the ambulance, then in the bathroom, and realized she might not be feeling the mating instinct as fiercely as he was, but she felt something for him.

“It would be possible for a vampire and human to conceive, or at least I think it would,” he said as he tried to puzzle it out. “We’re unable to contract or carry diseases, but we do have many human functions, including producing sperm. However, most vampires are careful to keep our existence listed firmly in the mythological, and spreading half-vampire children around could rock that boat, big time, so we take care not to breed with humans.”

“Judging from what I read about my mother’s condition that night, I don’t think she was meant to survive her attack. They reported a knife had slashed her throat, but I realize now it wasn’t a knife. The doctors feared she would die from her blood loss.”

“Vampires who attack humans never intend for them to survive.”

“So, my father is, or most likely was, a Savage.” For some reason, Maggie didn’t feel as sick as she’d thought she would over that realization. But then, she’d known she was the product of rape for six years. This knowledge was no worse than that.

“It sounds like it.”

“Why wouldn’t he go after her again to make sure she didn’t speak if you’re all so concerned about keeping your existence from humans?”

“It’s hard to say,” Aiden replied. “Maybe he thought she’d died, especially if she was kept out of the news. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough to go through all the police, doctors, and everyone else who was involved to change their memories and cover his tracks. I believe that’s the most likely scenario if he didn’t kill the police, and her, at the scene. It sounds like he was a vampire who had recently given in to his Savage nature.”

“I wonder how long the asshole held out before he started killing,” Maggie snorted. “Do you think he’s still alive?”

“If he got smarter about his attacks, he could be. If he didn’t, then no, he didn’t survive very long. Any vampire, Savage or not, would have taken him out to stop him from leaving more witnesses behind, as he did with your mother.”

“Hmm,” Maggie murmured.

Aiden didn’t want to say his next words, but he knew he had to offer it to her, especially if she became a member of his family and met his brother-in-law, Brian. “I know someone who might be able to help you find your father if you’d like to try?”

Maggie bit her lip as she pondered this before shaking her head. “No. I got all I ever needed from that asshole.”

“Okay,” Aiden said. “What about your mother’s family?”

She considered it before shaking her head. “No, the past is best left to the past.”

“If you change your mind—”

“I won’t. What exactly is a vampire?” Maggie asked to switch the subject. “I mean, how is it possible you have so many human traits and tendencies?”

“Vampires are the children of demons who once walked this earth. Those demons mated and had children with people to create vampires. We have human tendencies from our human DNA, but supernatural abilities from our demon DNA.”

“I see.” Maggie dropped her head into her hands and rubbed at her temples. “This is all so crazy. Ever since I learned the truth of my mother six years ago, I’ve dreaded becoming like her. I’ve constantly searched for some sign reality might be slipping away from me. Acknowledging my father was most likely a vampire feels like a step toward the crazy train for me, but I can’t deny everything I saw last night or the fact you ran fifteen miles with me today when your spine was exposed yesterday.”

Aiden squeezed her knee. She glanced at his hand as if she were contemplating removing it from her leg, but she let it remain. “Vampires are real. Admitting it won’t make you crazy.”

“Have there been others, who had only one vampire parent, like me?” She wiped away the sweat trickling down her neck as she braced herself for his reply.

“I don’t know, but I know someone I can ask if you want me to?”

Maggie bit her lip and turned to gaze out the window. She’d love nothing more than to remain in blissful ignorance of everything, but unless she asked Aiden to wipe her memory, she couldn’t stick her head in the sand.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to know.”

“I’ll call as soon as we’re settled.”

“Okay.”

She realized he’d pulled over near Fenway. From where she sat, she could see the Citgo gas sign. The streets here were busier with people wandering the stores and bars.

“Baseball season starts soon,” she murmured as she watched a woman hustling her child across the street toward a deli. “A.J. and I came to Fenway every opening day from the time we were twelve on. If we couldn’t get tickets for the game, we’d hang out and soak up the atmosphere. There’s nothing better than the smell of hot dogs cooking, the crack of a bat on the ball, and the cheers of the crowd. When we got older, we would sit in the bars and celebrate with everyone else. A.J. could always get the best fake ID’s.”

Maggie dragged a hand through her hair as she pulled herself from her strange reverie. When she focused on Aiden again, she noted the clench of his jaw, but his hand remained gentle on her thigh.

“What happened to A.J.?” he asked.

Maggie glanced at Blue. She hadn’t wanted to tell him anything about her when he was so unwilling to talk about himself, but now that she’d opened this box of memories, much like Pandora, she couldn’t close it again.

“He made the mistake of getting in his car and driving at the same time a stupid kid decided planning his seventeenth birthday, via text, was more important than not killing someone.” Maggie had worked through most of her grief, but the lump in her throat made talking difficult. “The kid survived; A.J. died on his way to the hospital. At one time, that knowledge infuriated me. I wanted to kill the boy myself, but I’ve mostly gotten past that.”

She said this, but she heard the bitterness in her voice as she revealed this to Aiden. “I’ve stopped wishing it had been the other way around and A.J. survived, but occasionally I wonder what would have happened if the kid had been smart enough not to use his phone or to at least look up a few seconds before the crash.” She didn’t doubt A.J. would have a child by now, and she would have been a kick-ass aunt.

“However, the lack of skid marks on the teen’s side of the road revealed he never realized he’d switched lanes and was driving head-on at someone. A.J. saw because he’d braked and jerked the wheel. The kid didn’t know his life was about to change forever; A.J. watched his death coming at him.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Aiden said. Jealousy seethed within him when she spoke of A.J., her love for the man was obvious, and he could never compete with a ghost. However, her sorrow tore at him, and he would give anything to take it from her.

“I once heard someone say, ‘Life sucks get a helmet.’ It’s something I tell myself every time something bad happens. I strapped my helmet on really young. It’s dented, scratched, and it’s almost broken a few times, but it’s kept me going. Things can always be worse. I know, they’ve been worse for me. They’ve also been better, but every day I take a moment to find something good in all the bad.”

Of course, she’d never expected to have vamp DNA tossed into her mixing bowl of lemons, but it might also explain some other facets of her life. Facets she’d never realized required explaining.

Aiden released her knee and brushed back a strand of her silken hair. His finger lingered on her cheek until her charcoal eyes lifted to his. He didn’t see bitterness in her gaze, only a steely resolve to face every day with a determination many didn’t possess.

From what he’d learned about her life, some would have been broken by it, others would have become bitter, but Maggie had chosen to be strengthened by it. Drawing her closer, he kissed her forehead. Now was not the time for anything more than the briefest of kisses, but he needed to connect with her.

“Is what happened to A.J. the reason you became a paramedic?” he inquired when he sat back again. He lowered his hand to cup her nape and leisurely ran his thumb over her silken skin.

“I became a paramedic because I can handle the sight of blood and gore better than most people. I saved a woman’s life one day, and Roger happened to be working on the ambulance called to the scene. When Roger saw how I handled the woman, he took me under his wing and helped me get through my EMT and paramedic training. I enjoy helping people, but no, I didn’t look to this field because of A.J. I was already four months into my training when A.J. died.”

“Were you still dating A.J. when he died?”

“No.” Maggie glanced out the window again. “He was my first everything from kiss to sex, but more than that, he was my first best friend. For years, he was my only friend, and I was the same for him. I think we only started dating because we had no one else and because we did love each other so very much.”

She focused on Aiden again. “Being together seemed like the next logical step when we were all we had. Growing up, we were both bounced through numerous foster homes, group homes, and anywhere the state could find a place for us. We’d be split up, only to rejoin two weeks or months later. From the time we were sixteen on, we lived in the same group home while we waited to turn eighteen.

“I think we both worried we’d lose the other if we didn’t progress into a dating relationship, or at least I know I feared losing him. We started dating when we were seventeen, but by the time we were eighteen, we realized it wasn’t us. We were better friends than lovers. There was no big breakup, no tears, we simply went back to the way things were supposed to be for us, and we were happy with it.

“After we turned eighteen, we lived together for a while as roomies. When A.J. died, he’d been preparing to ask his girlfriend to marry him. I went with him two days before the accident to pick out the ring, and I hid it away until he was ready to propose. I gave her the ring after his funeral.”

A single tear streaked down her cheek, and she wiped it away. “I dated a few guys after we broke up, but nothing serious. I’ve always been a bit of a loner and fine with being single. Once I started EMT school, I became focused on my studies and getting through my training.”

Aiden drew her closer to hold her against his chest. When she turned her face into his neck, her warm breath tickled his throat as she leaned into him. He had no idea what he’d done to be rewarded with a mate like her. It certainly hadn’t been anything good as he’d been on a one-way, self-destruct mission for years, but whatever it was, he vowed to become worthy of her if she joined him. There would be no more dented helmets for Maggie; there would only be love and security.

“I will keep you safe,” he vowed.

“Why?” she asked, pulling back to look at him. “Why do you care what happens to me? Why don’t you change my memories and move on from me? You said you’re going to protect me because you got me into this, but I’m sure you could figure out some way to make me forget everything I’ve learned and still protect me. You and your friends managed a pretty big cover-up last night.”

He didn’t know how to answer her. He had a feeling she’d bolt if he started talking about eternity and vampirism, but he couldn’t lie to her either. A hand thumped down on the hood of the car, causing Maggie to jump.

Aiden turned to find a young man standing in front of the car with his hand resting on the hood. The man grinned and waved to Maggie. “Heeeyyy beautiful,” the kid slurred and flexed his biceps.

When Aiden glowered at him, the kid was sober enough his smile faded, and he stepped away from the car. A few of the kid’s friends ran up, laughing as they rushed past the front of the car. They all wore the same emblem on their sweaters.

“College kids,” Maggie muttered and shook her head. “Probably still drunk from last night and continuing the party. You’d think they’d be smarter and do some sobering up before going out in public.”

Aiden’s gaze following them as they jumped on each other and high-fived. Theirs was a life he’d once enjoyed with his high school friends and during his brief college time. It felt like it had been years ago and the life of a different man.

Shifting the car into drive, he pulled away from the curb and onto the busy street. Thankfully, Maggie seemed to have forgotten her question as she gazed out the window.