Broken Heart 03 Because Your Vampire Said So by Michele Bardsley Page B

time, her battle-prone attitude became wearisome.
    All the same, Lia embraced life with a fierceness I admired.
    I traveled for a while after leaving Koschei. One evening, I came upon a battleground in the lands that would later be known as China. Soldiers lay upon the blood-soaked ground like chaffs of wheat cut down and tossed about. As I found a path around the carnage, I heard the soft moans of one dying.
    She had taken off her helmet and dragged herself between two large rocks. Given the severity of her wounds, I knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before she died.
    With dirt smudging her cheek, her dark eyes alight with determination, she faced me down. The almond shape of her eyes softened the intensity of her obsidian gaze. Energy pulsed around her. Cupping her hands, she created a ball of fire.
    I knew then she would be a magnificent vampire.
    I made her the offer, warned her of the risks, but she was already an unconventional woman. She had disguised herself as a man to join the army—to protect her ill and aged father from conscription.
    As the centuries passed, I always wondered if Lia had made up this story to satisfy those who looked no deeper for her motives. She rarely exhibited the kindness and self-sacrifice so often attributed to the heroine in the “Ballad of Mulan.”
    The Turning was successful and after traveling together for a while, Lia claimed she had matters to take care of.
    Years passed before I learned that Lia had a young daughter. About the time I tracked down my own sons and Turned them, Lia did the same. Unlike the other Ancients with blood children Turned, she never revealed her daughter’s name or location.
    But that was later. Before we went our separate ways, Lia agreed to meet with me and Koschei and take her place among the Council of deamhan fola.

Chapter 10
    “What?” My stupid vampire senses kicked in about that time. I smelled the smoke and heard the crackling flames even before I burst through the door and jumped over the stairs.
    Helpless, I stood in the field between my trailer and my beauty shop, and watched the business my grandparents built go up in flames.
    “Where is everyone?” I screamed.
    No wolfies. The guardians of vampires and of Broken Heart weren’t around, not anywhere. So much for the extra protection that had been promised.
    I stared at the flames, clenching my fists. Had the demon returned to destroy my beauty shop?
    Nonna and Dottie stood next to me. I turned to my grandmother. “Who did this?”
    “I dunno.” She looked at me. “I never said you weren’t a good hairstylist, honey.”
    The dead had different priorities. I had noticed that at moments when it felt like my life was falling apart, neither Nonna nor Dottie seemed to give a ripe shit. This was the business that Nonna and Poppa had built with their own hands, but she wasn’t the least bit upset. And yet, if I had the ability to shed tears, I would have. I fell to my knees and dry-wept.
    I didn’t realize how bright the flames were or how my body was reacting to the raging light. My first clue was the pain shimmering up my thighs. I dropped my hands from my face and stared stupidly at the wisps of smoke rising from my arms.
    Only then did I realize that my skin was sizzling. Pain throbbed in every part of me that was exposed to the fire.
    “Patricia!”
    I looked up and saw Gabriel running toward me. He scooped me into his arms and ran toward the forest. Relief cascaded through me. He was all right. I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been. I thought he’d … abandoned me. How stupid to have those kinds of expectations of someone I’d just met.
    Every jouncing step brought fresh waves of pain, but I was damned glad to be getting away from the fire. I was gladder to be in the arms of Gabriel.
    “My house is over there,” I pointed out as he ran past it. As he hurried toward the protection of the trees, I stared over his shoulder. A ball of fire shot from the sky and engulfed my