Series Starters

Chapter 1:
Two Days Earlier

My dorm room door was open, which could mean only one of two things: I was being robbed or my roommate had finally chosen to show up.

The semester didn’t start until tomorrow, but I’d arrived a week early to check out my new living digs. An old habit—necessary when you’re a vampire living in secret among humans. Of course, vampires weren’t a secret any longer.

And I was no longer a creature stalking the night. Though, that said, technically it was night, and I was returning from another one of my scope-it-out strolls.

Remember what I said about old habits?

One of the benefits of arriving early was getting to know the place. The other was having my dorm room all to myself.

Well, until now.

Reassuring myself that the old days of constantly being under attack were over, I walked to the threshold and looked in.

When signing up to live in the dorms, I’d had to check a box asking whether I’d be happy having an Other as a roommate. I’d checked it. I mean, ex-vampire girl here. Who am I to judge, right?

The dorm admissions board had put me on an all-girls floor (although the floors above were full of rowdy boys), and looking inside my room, I could clearly see they had taken me at my word about living with an Other. The person unpacking wasn’t human.

Not by a long shot.

She was a bit taller than me, with pointy ears and an impossibly perfect body. Athletes could work out all day and night and still not come close to the frame and muscle tone of this creature.

Other than that, she looked human enough, although no one would ever mistake her for one. Well, not unless they assumed she was twelve pies short of a baker’s dozen. Humans tended to not stand completely naked in a dorm room with the door wide open. You know, modesty and all that.

It seemed my new roomie had no qualms about baring it all.

I groaned as she unpacked her peculiar possessions. Of all the Others I could have been paired with, they had to put me in a room with a member of the fae—specifically, a changeling.

A changeling who was severely messing up the feng shui vibes of our room by stapling Astroturf to our walls. (Astroturf might be the wrong word because this stuff looked like pretty real turf to me mud, earthworms and all.)

Fae were obsessed with the outdoors; they drew their strength from the natural world. And changelings were of the warrior variety, which meant their homes needed to be of the earth and soil and loam so they could easily heal themselves after a battle, or some hippie crap like that.

Not that it mattered anymore. For one thing, their gods—just like everyone else’s—were gone. So no more glorious battles to heal from and no more magical natural medicine. Besides, her roommate—me wasn’t fae. I was a human girl. Well, an ex-vampire human girl, but a human girl nonetheless. I definitely wouldn’t appreciate finding worms and fungus on the walls.

In the center of the room, a wheelbarrow held one of those large rolls of Astroturf employed on football pitches. The changeling was using her unnaturally powerful body to unroll the bales and stick them to the walls. Mud was everywhere, and the grass—which, I was tempted to remind her, was meant to be on the ground, horizontal—was falling onto the floor faster than she could put it up. Clearly, this frustrated the process, but she was damn persistent; she just sprayed the walls with water from a misting bottle, trying to get the soil to clump. Drops of dirty water were streaming down the walls and—

No way … was that my brand new Louis Vuitton striped denim blazer on the floor?

I darted in, picking it up and shaking it to get the dirt off. She turned and gave me the biggest smile, like she hadn’t just destroyed our room with dirt and grass and staples.

“Oh, hello!” she said. “I was wondering when you would make your entrance.”

I’m not sure what my face looked like when she said that, but I bet it was a healthy mix of incredulity and rage.

She didn’t seem to notice, because she stuck out her hand and said with a lilting Irish accent, “I’m Deirdre.”

I looked at her hand, not taking it. Honestly, I was more likely to bite it than shake it.

After a long, awkward moment, she retracted it, peering at her hand as if it had broken down. “The Being Human handbook said that humans greet one another with handshakes, but we did not. Did I do it wrong? Was I meant to wait for you to offer your hand because you were the new one to arrive? Or perhaps—”

Fae—sticklers for protocol. And this one was trying to learn human like an etiquette. “You didn’t do it wrong,” I said. “It’s just that …” I gestured helplessly around me.

“Oh, yes. I got these rolls of grass from something called a ‘hardware store.’ Strange name, given the softness of the grass.” She picked up a handful and took in a deep breath. “Perhaps you could aid me—I’m having trouble getting it to stick to the walls. You wouldn’t happen to have the appropriate adhesive?”

When I shook my head, she handed me the staple gun.

I swear to the GoneGods, I thought about shooting her with it.

But instead, like a good little ex-vampire, I put it on my desk, counted to three and asked, “And why do you want it to stick to the walls?”

“Decoration,” she said. Her hands pointed at the walls, and I couldn’t help but notice her long, slender fingers. Staring down at my own hands, I wondered why the GoneGods hadn’t seen fit to make mine so elegant. I’m big enough to admit it … I was jealous.

“I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to staple grass to the wall,” I said.

“We’re not?” she said, genuinely confused.

“For one thing, we’re not allowed to put holes in the walls—so that’s a no to the staple gun.” I had to hand it to myself: I was remarkably calm, given how angry I was. “For another, we’re meant to keep our rooms clean. Which means no mud and definitely nothing that can grow mold.”

“But mold isn’t dirty—it’s natural, and the right kinds have many healing properties. Of course, there is poisonous mold. I use them to line my weapons and—”

“That’s a third thing we’re not allowed. Weapons.”

“Not even broadswords?”

She turned away and bent over. I averted my eyes before getting too good a look at her “dark side of the moon,” if you know what I mean. Reaching under her bed, she pulled out a huge broadsword that would have made Braveheart’s claymore seem like a toothpick in comparison. “It’s more ceremonial than for actual battle. That said, I did wield this when facing off against a horde of golems. Funny story—”

“No broadswords. No grass on the wall.”

“You mean no decorations at all? Even my poster?” She pointed her broadsword behind me—barely giving me time to duck out of the way where a poster of Ryan Reynolds hung, stapled to the wall.

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, swooning. She put a hand on her breast—or her heart, I suppose. “He’s so handsome, he is almost elf-like. One day I will be Mrs. Reynolds …”

I rolled my eyes. Fae. Of their many-faceted quirks, falling in love with an image was probably their strangest. And the love was real. At least, for them. I looked up at the poster in true sympathy. Ryan Reynolds would most likely be filing a restraining order against this changeling at some point in the future.

Then I looked at her perfect naked body and thought, Then again, maybe not.

Either way, that wasn’t my problem right now. My problem was that this changeling was tracking dirt everywhere. “I’m sorry to keep interrupting you,” I said, “but …” I pointed at the floor around me.

She gave me a confused look.

“You’re going to have to clean all this up?” I clarified.

“Really?” she said, her voice full of despair.

“I don’t mind, but humans have rules and—”

“I broke them. First day here and I’m already failing.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Being mortal is hard,” she said, plopping herself onto her bed and sending up a fresh shower of loose soil.

I felt for her. Really, I did, despite the ruined jacket still in my hand. I was finding mortality hard, too, and I was human … well, I was born human, at least. But that was over three hundred years ago. I’ve only been re-human-ated for four years and I was finding it tough to get my mojo back.

Mojo? That’s a ‘70s term, almost fifty years ago. I really must update my vernacular.

Still, my years as a Highland girl did give me a lot more experience at being human than she had. I sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, still acutely aware of her nudity. Damn, even her skin felt like it was manufactured in a lab. “Mortality does bite, Deirdre but I’m here to help. If you have any mortality questions, just ask me. I’ll steer you right.”

“You will?”

“Cross my heart.” I dropped my jacket back to the floor and made an X on my heart. She looked at me curiously. Before she could ask, I said, “It’s a human expression. Means ‘I promise.’ A slightly old expression. Probably had its heyday thirty years ago, but—”

The changeling wrapped her arms around me and hugged me so tight I struggled to breathe. Damn, she was strong, too. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

I’d never been hugged by a naked fae before. It was nicer than I’d expected.

After a long second, she pulled away and put her hand over her heart—a common fae salute. “Thank you, human girl. In return for your generous offer, I give you my sword arm. This is my pledge to you. This is my …” She loosened her fist and made an X over her heart. “This is my heart-cross to you.”

Oh, yay … I’d only been here for a week and I already got a warrior fae as a protector.

Maybe college wouldn’t be so bad after all.