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[book one]

You could say she had trust issues, maybe she was damaged, or you could say what most assumed: Annabel Kimani was just a stone-cold bitch, simple as that. Nobody knew exactly why she was the way she was. Not the two friends she had allowed herself to make, not her foster family, not her social worker; nobody. They all knew various pieces of the story, but none managed to put it all together. The one most confused with the story, however, seemed to be Annabel herself. She had learned to ignore the gaps in her memory, the mysteries behind her brother's and mother's deaths. After so long wondering, she decided it was useless; she would never get the answers she desired, nor the closure she desperately needed.

Until one day, when a thousand year old vampire fresh out of a coffin decided to take up residence in Denver, Colorado. And suddenly, Annabel's determination to continue living life as if nothing was wrong, that all faded. What replaced it was a Mikaelson vampire she would soon call her best friend. He took her out of the shell she had called home for the past six months since her brother's death. And in Kol, she had found a comfort she hadn't felt in years.

Just as quickly as he entered Annabel's life, he left it. Dead, murdered by the boy she once considered a friend. But that didn't change how much of an impact he had on Annabel's life, or how much of an impact she had on his. Annabel was the only person Kol had loved in a thousand years, and his siblings recognized this. They recognized that, whether they liked it or not, Annabel was Kol's family. So they decided, in his absence, she would be theirs too.
[rewritten and republished june 2020]