Breathless

Breathless Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

Eighteen years ago

Twilight was gathering when Judy Nyland stumbled out of the trees onto the narrow hiking trail, her right hand clutching her neck. Thin ribbons of drying blood streaked the back of her hand like a badly done spider web tattoo. Her long blond hair was tangled, and her normally pretty face bore a dazed, confused look as she fought to maintain her balance. At the moment, she appeared much older than her twenty-five years.

Even in the shade, the air was still warm, but the woods seemed strangely silent. What was she doing out here? She winced when she turned her head to search the path—god, her neck hurt. Pulling her hand from her throat, she stared at her bloodstained palm. Was that really her hand, covered with blood? Gingerly, she touched her neck and felt a wet round hole slightly smaller than the tip of her finger. How the hell had that happened? She glanced down at her stomach, only recently beginning to swell with her second child. Thankfully, the front of her light blue T-shirt was unmarked.

“Judy!” her older sister Janet shouted, hurrying down the trail. “You had me so worried.” Her eyes widened at Judy’s bloody hand. “What happened?” Janet gently grabbed her sister’s wrist and began examining her palm.

“It’s not my hand,” Judy said. She tilted her head and pushed her hair aside. “It’s this.”

Janet examined the wound. “Doesn’t look too bad,” she comforted. “The bleeding’s mostly stopped. We’d better get you to a doctor though, just in case. You might need a shot or something. What happened? Did you get poked by a branch?”

Judy frowned. “I don’t think so… I don’t remember.”

A faint image began taking shape in her brain. She struggled to bring it into focus. It was a man. Very pale and very thin. His eyes bored into hers, mesmerizing her. She knew she should run, that he meant her ill, but she was frozen, rooted to the ground. As he moved closer, his lips peeled back, revealing a single yellow fang.

“Oh my god,” Judy said, grabbing her sister’s arm with both hands. “I think I was bitten by a vampire. A one-fanged vampire.”

“Uhhh…sure. A vampire,” Janet said, a bit more sarcastically than she meant to. “With only one fang. Makes perfect sense. And much more likely than being poked by a sharp branch, for sure.”

Judy touched her neck again, confused. What the hell had happened? Were her hormones running amok? Her husband had been teasing her about watching too many vampire shows. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. It had been so clear just a moment ago….

1.

Happy families are all alike, eighteen-year-old Leesa Nyland had read somewhere, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. She was pretty sure that was true of her own family—no other family could possibly be unhappy in the same way hers was. It began with her mom, who insisted she had been bitten by a one-fanged vampire, way back when she was pregnant with Leesa. She doubted there were any other mom’s around making that claim!

Leesa was three when she really started noticing her mom’s strange behavior. It started with cravings for tomato juice, of all things. A big glass at dinner was soon joined by one at lunch, and then tomato juice replaced orange juice at breakfast. Sure, that was a bit eccentric, but it didn’t really have any big effect on Leesa and her older brother Bradley, or on their father. If only it had ended there. But it hadn’t. Her mom began avoiding direct sunlight, claiming the sun hurt her skin. For a while, Leesa enjoyed the game they made of it, pretending they were furry little moles and darting from shadow to shadow, having so much fun Leesa seldom even thought about her congenital limp. By the time Leesa was six, however, her mom had stopped going outside except on the cloudiest days, doing what errands she could at night and leaving the rest to Leesa’s dad.