Free Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) by Simon Cantan

man waits to turn her until she’s about to give birth. This was an accident. It took seventy-one years before you were born.
    “In the meantime, Rans and I had grown apart. There’s a whole world you don’t know about. A society back in England and Ireland. Parties and friends, even vampire police. I learnt about it all slowly. When I found out how much Rans had kept from me, I wasn’t pleased. I didn’t want to be with him anymore.
    “But I couldn’t deny him his rights as the father. He had you on weekends. Then one weekend, when you were four, he took you and never came back.”
    Jaden stared at her, his thoughts a jumbled mess. How was that possible? Was everything he knew a lie? What reason would she have for telling him all of that if it wasn’t? “Tell me about the society.”
    “How much do you already know?”
    “Nothing.”
    Caterina gaped for a moment, then shook her head. “Then I should start with Abel Goode. He’s the reason it exists. He’s thousands of years old; far more powerful than any other vampire alive today.
    “Before he set up the ruling council, vampires were at each others throats. Literally. He wanted it to stop, so he declared the British Isles his domain, with a single rule: no murdering other vampires.
    “People resisted at first. But once he’d killed a few dozen, they accepted his law. From there, things built into what we have today. There are thousands of vampires living there, all peacefully. It’s the only place of its kind in the world. Out here, it’s chaos. Rans could kill me and no one would do anything about it.”
    “Or you could kill him.”
    Caterina shook her head and smiled. “He’s over a hundred years older than me. Much too powerful for me to overwhelm.”
    “You said that before,” Jaden said. “That Abel Goode is the most powerful vampire because he’s thousands of years old?”
    Caterina frowned. “Has he not told you anything? You don’t know how your people work?”
    “I know he has to feed once a month; that he can’t go out in the sunlight.”
    “Oh, but there’s so much more. Vampires gain power the longer they live. If a vampire’s power starts off at level one, it goes up a level every forty years. So your father is about twice as strong as I am. It’s why we have so much trouble controlling ourselves. We keep getting stronger and have to adapt to greater and greater levels.”
    “So Abel Goode?”
    “Could lift a house, if he wanted to. I’m strong enough to overpower any human, but compared to other vampires, I’m weak.”
    They reached the main road and Jaden turned toward the town. “And I’ll become a vampire when I turn eighteen?”
    She nodded. “At least he’s told you that much. After that, you’ll have a month to feed before the jitters set in.”
    “I’ve seen that. Near the end of summer, when Dad had been hibernating for months. He couldn’t stop shaking, moving faster than I could even follow. He had to feed in the two hours of darkness we got.”
    Jaden paused, looking at the people passing by them. A few shot Caterina odd glances at the way she was skipping along, but no one asked questions.
    “Do you have any proof?” he asked.
    “Not here. If you come back to Ireland with me, I can show you. All our friends know what your father did. They’ll tell you.”
    “They could be anyone. I can’t believe other strangers any more than I can believe you.”
    Caterina nodded and reached into her pocket, pulling out a locket. She held it out to him.
    When he opened it, there was a small picture of a young boy inside. A boy he recognised from the photo album at home.
    “That’s you,” she said. “I’ve been carrying it with me for all these years, while I searched.”
    He snapped the locket closed. “I need time to think about this.”
    “Take all the time you need.”
    “I can ring you on that number?”
    She nodded. “Before you leave, can I have another hug?”
    He shrugged and nodded. This time,