Free Allegiance (The Penton Vampire Legacy) by Susannah Sandlin Page A

hunched on the sofa of the community house she shared with Mirren and Glory—and, after tonight, a couple of new Ranger members from the Omega Force project. They needed people, especially feeders, but she was tired of new faces.
    The noise of a car engine reached her from the street, and she tugged back the ugly light-blocking black curtains that Will had installed in all the community houses. He claimed it was to prevent the vampires from frying in case any of them got stuck upstairs, away from the safe spaces, during daylight hours—but she’d overheard him assuring Mirren the fabric was both fireproof and bulletproof. So much for rebuilding without the shadow of danger hovering over them.
    The car passed without stopping; she recognized the driver as Shawn Nicholls, one of the vampires who’d come into Penton just before everything fell apart. Both Shawn and Britta Eriksen had been bonded to Will, but Melissa knew virtually nothing about them except that both she and Shawn fed from Glory because Mirren wouldn’t let another man near his mate.
    Damn it. There had been a time when no one moved to Penton without Melissa Calvert taking the time to invite them to lunch or introduce them around town so they’d feel at home. Aidan teased her about “snooping,” but she’d always thought of it as friendly interrogation. She knew everybody, and everybody knew her. She had enjoyed being seen as a direct link to Aidan. She liked it that people would come to her in order to get an issue or problem in front of him. And she liked helping people settle into life in Penton, especially the new human familiars.
    She’d learned a lot about people in those lunches at the no-longer-standing Penton café, and she thought she’d been a big part of why Penton worked so well. People were friendly and open, and it started with her.
    No more lunches for her now. At least not unless they involved a vein at 3:00 a.m. She didn’t want to feel bitter about what had happened to her, but she didn’t know where she fit in anymore. She was no longer Aidan’s fam. No longer Krys’s daytime help at the clinic.
    No longer Mark’s wife, at least not technically.
    Where are they? Krys had called from the clinic to tell her about Mark’s injury and assure her it wasn’t life-threatening. Still, Melissa wanted to see him for herself. She knew him better than anyone; just by watching him get out of the car and walk to the community house across the street, she’d be able to tell where he hurt and how badly. She knew his facial expressions better than her own: the way he’d grit his teeth, suck in a breath, and turn his head to the side with his eyes closed if something hurt; the way his mouth would quirk up on the left side two times—never once, never more than twice—just before he burst into laughter.
    Old habits, and all that.
    From her perch, she could also see the community house at the head of Cotton Street. She’d know when Cage came home from the accident site and know that he, too, was safe. Melissa no longer took a single day for granted. She’d learned the hard way that monumental change could take place in a heartbeat.
    She thought she’d seen Cage earlier, but it had been Fen coming out of the house. He’d sat on the porch for a while, then walked down Cotton Street toward the old mill. She watched him until he turned the corner, and she thought about calling Aidan.
    She was probably being paranoid, but Fen was one more person she didn’t know. And after the last nine months, that meant more people she didn’t trust. In Penton, trust was now a rare commodity. She resented like hell what had been done to her town; she resented all the bad things that kept happening to people she cared about.
    And she, Melissa Calvert, former familiar of Aidan Murphy and wife of Mark Calvert, sat here with fangs, at midnight, afraid, not sure who she was anymore. Cage, Aidan, Krys—they all kept telling her she wasn’t a monster, that she