Elda's Zephyr

By Renee Hewett

Can Zephyr blow away the darkness in Elda's life? Or will their families convince them that fae and vampire must remain apart?

 

Elda is a vampire enforcer, having served her family for millennia. Stoic in nature, she's never found anyone who's stirred her emotions like the pixie barista at her favorite café does.

 

Zephyr is half fae, half wolf-shifter, and she's lived her life like any other paranormal creature until she meets Elda. She knows the vampire is her mate, but it's forbidden. She tries to hold off on her attraction but can only deny fate for so long.

 

Zeph's fae council is convinced that a vampire will drain any fae they can get their hands on, but Zeph is ready to challenge that thinking and prove that true love between light and dark can exist.

 

Zeph believes in her, but Elda doesn't know if she does. What if there is a darkness inside of her that can't be controlled if she lets herself have a moment of bliss with a fae?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eighth Ripple Press
• Release date: Mar 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215472040

Book preview

Chapter

One

ELDA

Elda, you’re not leaving, are you? You never come to our parties, and you just work too hard. Come on, stay. My sister, Paloma, stopped me as I left my post in the security room at Huntsman Manor, the headquarters of the Greenville Vampires family.

Of course she’s staying. Everyone has to be here, another sister chimed in.

I nodded at that. I could get out of most of our family’s parties, but tonight was different. It was Byron Huntsman Day, and everyone belonging to the Greenville vampire brood was expected to attend.

Byron Huntsman Day honored our patriarch. The celebration, which included blood-tastings and all kinds of feasting for non-vamps, was vampire Christmas to the extreme.

It was the one day a year that had been created to honor our patriarch. It wasn’t his birthday, nor the day he was changed from human to vampire. He was far too old to know either of those. Calendars had changed too much in all that time.

Let’s go. I motioned them to the ballroom. Already, the revelry streamed out from the opened doors. Thankfully, laughter and the clinking of glasses accompanied the string quarter, adding much-needed levity to the whole shindig.

Ugh. Not only would our whole extended family be there, but there would be many others attending to kiss Byron’s ass. Some friends we liked, others who were harder to tolerate being around couldn’t really be considered friends.

The grating presence of kiss-asses and competitive family members didn’t have the usual knife’s edge on my thoughts.

There was only one person filling my head.

Her.

Call me Zeph, the barista at Ainmhi Café had said. Her voice was melodious and sweet, like something quite forbidden and completely too wonderful for this world.

Ainmhi Café was my usual spot for a post-work coffee each day before sunrise, but now, I didn’t go for the jolt of java.

Call me Zeph.

I’d rather call her mine.

Zeph haunted my dreams. She appeared in my life with a force stronger than her namesake. No, she wasn’t a gentle breeze. She was a tornado who’d stirred up all kinds of feelings inside of me since the first moment I saw her.

Should I have told her I wouldn’t be by tonight?

It was a question I’d debated internally for weeks leading up to Byron Day. Of course I didn’t need to tell her anything. Zeph didn’t track my attendance any more than the other baristas at Ainmhi Café did. She wouldn’t notice or care if I showed up or not.

Or would she?

A lady could hope.

I was there every day. Staff would miss a regular, right?

I tried to stop thinking about it, but it was nearly impossible. Why was it so important to me whether or not the woman thought about me?

Because I think about her all the time.

And now, instead of seeing my breath of fresh air, I was stuck enduring conversations with well-meaning but very annoying family, friends, and acquaintances.

Conversations inevitably included comments about my smile or lack thereof. Who knew a vampire would be told over and over again to smile?

I know you’re traditionally a warrior, one woman said. But this is a different world, now. You should lighten up a little!

Did I need to revise my whole personality because I wasn’t marching to war? Apparently. This was a new world, one where