Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

for, Lorelei? What difference does any of that make now?”
    “I read this story about an adopted girl who accidentally meets her real brother when both of them are in their twenties and…”
    “And they don’t know they’re brother and sister and they fall in love?”
    “Yes.”
    He smiled. “Don’t worry about that. You have no brothers.”
    “How can you know for sure?”
    “Your birth parents died right after you were born and had no other children. Okay? Put that to rest. Go to sleep. I’ll be here tomorrow when you return from school. You’ll drive Marla and yourself. Ava has other things to do for me and then has to attend her own classes at college.”
    “Okay, Daddy.”
    “Good night, my sweet and beautiful daughter,” he said. He kissed me, touched my cheek, his eyes lingering on my face a moment, and then left.
    I thought about what he had told me. It wasn’t much, but at least he had told me something about myself. Maybe I would get him to tell me more about my birth parents now. Even though they were dead, I’d like to know what they were like. What would be so terrible about that? Surely, now I was old enough to understand it all.
    I gazed at my window. Why was he looking out there so hard? What else wasn’t he telling me?
    And what could any of this possibly have to do with Mark Daniels and an innocent invitation to a party?

7
 
Sibling Rivalry
    I was both surprised and happy that Ava had gotten up ahead of me in the morning and had gone to do whatever Daddy wanted her to do for him. Had she been there at breakfast, I thought my first words to her would have been “Thanks a lot, Ava. Are you satisfied now?” But knowing her, I was sure that would have led to more bitter words and perhaps brought Daddy downstairs. That would have displeased him. He was still upstairs with whomever he had brought home. Worried that I might go knocking on his bedroom door for something, Mrs. Fennel told me immediately that he was still entertaining a guest.
    “Daddy’s not a slam-bam thank-you-ma’am kind of guy,” Ava once quipped when I commented on how long a particular woman had been with him in his room. “Most women are amazed at his stamina.”
    “How do you know all this?” I asked her.
    “A little bird told me,” she said, and laughed at the expression on my face. “You have a lot to learn, Lorelei, a lot to learn.”
    She made it sound as if every little new tidbit ofinformation was as sweet and wonderful as a ripe grape, especially anything new that I learned about Daddy.
    Marla looked sullen and disappointed at breakfast when I stepped into the dining room. What had she been expecting to see? Me sour and tearful? Was she hoping I’d be sent away and she’d move up the ladder toward a bigger place in Daddy’s heart ahead of me?
    “I bet Daddy was very angry with you last night,” she began. She made it sound like the first line of a song. Mrs. Fennel looked disinterested as she moved about the table, but I sensed she was listening closely.
    “No, not really,” I said as casually as I could. Clearly, Ava had said something to her. “We had a wonderful conversation last night after you went to bed, in fact, and he told me things about myself, about my birth parents.”
    Marla looked devastated. “He did?”
    “I wouldn’t say it if he hadn’t, Marla. We don’t lie to each other, especially in this house, and we certainly don’t plot against each other,” I reminded her sharply with one eye on Mrs. Fennel. I saw her smile.
    This pleased her? Did she like me to be snippy and more like Ava? Maybe in her way of thinking, I was too soft and easy and not, therefore, made of the steel and grit necessary to be one of Daddy’s daughters. However, I didn’t care what pleased her. I didn’t like being this way, but Marla’s attitude drove me to these darker places in myself.
    “Well, what are you going to do about that boy? I’m sure Daddy doesn’t like the idea of your seeing him, right? Right?” she repeated to force an answer.
    “Don’t worry about it, Marla. It’s not of any concern to you. Just look after yourself.”
    “We are all supposed to worry about each other and look out for each other, because it’s the same as looking out for ourselves,” she said, wagging her head at me. “Isn’t that what Daddy has told us often?”
    “I said I would take care of it. I don’t need you to remind me of anything, either.”
    She smiled a bitter little smile at