Prologue

A child of the dark, aka a vampire, I am meant to be beautiful, elegant and powerful. Instead I am tiny, scrawny, eternally prepubescent, quiet and invisible. I have naturally dark green long hair which always sits in tight curls. Big brown eyes and pale skin. The complete opposite of my sister. My fraternal twin, she got all the good genes. She is taller, curvier, with blue long pin straight hair, big baby blue eyes and olive skin. Vampires are naturally pale, so olive skin is envied to blend in with humans.

She and I have never gotten along well. Mainly due to the fact that she see’s herself better than me because that is what others have told her. “Oh, poor Zelda, she’ll never get a good husband, not like Zayda.” I am Zelda and my sister is Zayda. I’ve heard things like that a lot over the years. But I always thought my parents loved me, thought I was beautiful since that is what both my daddies have always told me. But that was until I overheard my mother and sister speaking.

Zayda basically ignores me at home but at school is my bully. Despite this I love her deeply. I can’t help or stop.

My parents are always kind to my face. My daddies always defend me.

“You’ve gotten even more beautiful,” I over heard my mother saying to Zayda one morning. Around a born vampires eighteenth birthday they go through a growth spurt. After that vampires hardly grow and stop aging all together in early adulthood. It is rare but occasionally vampires stop growing and aging younger.

We are eighteen and I haven’t grown in years. I knew everyone – me included – thought that I had stopped already. But again, I never thought it mattered to my parents until I heard my mother and sister.

“No self-respecting vampire would imprint on your sister,” My mother says making my sister laugh.

“Yes. She’ll have to settle for a human,” Mum adds though forgetting our maternal grandfather was human.

To a human I am beautiful but to vampires I am average. But that’s not the problem. The problem is I have the body of a child. I’ll probably struggle to even get a human.

I honestly would be happy with a human or vampire. Only my mother and sister have something against breeding with humans.

Only they don’t stop there.

“Your sister will be awake soon.” I am up earlier than normal. “Drink the AB negative quickly.” I listen in shock. “Don’t forget the synth.”

Flashes of memories, not my own, run through my head. Memories of my mother’s from when I was born to current day. Hours of memories, but only seconds past for me. I have always been telepathic. But it rarely happens and I cannot control it. As a child I thought it was normal so never mentioned how I knew things I shouldn’t, so no one knows.

But as I grew I realized it is not a common power and only works for me when I am stress, scared or angry and the person I’m reading doesn’t realize it’s happening.

Normally it happens with people at school. Never my sister or mother before now and never so much information.

I see her memories, secretly favouring her first born, my sister. She only ever wanted one child, but had twins since our daddies are twins. She fed me half real blood and half synthetic, while giving my sister only blood, plus the second half that should have been mine. This continued until I turned thirteen which just so happens to be when I stopped growing all together. Hence why I look like a child. I was already aging slowly, so I look like a preteen.

From then on I was exclusively fed synthetic blood but always in real blood containers. My sister has been drinking double and replacing my blood since then. All to help her grow powerful. Synthetic blood is exclusively for adults because this reason, it doesn’t have any of the nutrients to aid our growth.

I stand there for a minute in a daze before snapping out of it and going in search of my daddies.

Knocking on their office door I head inside and they both greet me with bright smiles. I really love them. I’ve always favoured them over my mother.

“Good evening Zelda. We were just about to come down for breakfast.”

“Mother’s been feeding me synthetic blood and giving mine to Zayda,” I blurt out.

They sigh and images of me tattling on Zayda comes to me from them. Every time I was telling the truth but they never believed me but humoured me. But not this time.

“Zelda, this has to stop! You know we have never and would never buy synthetic blood. It is filth!” One says then the other. “You know we love you, but-”

I try to interrupt but they continue. “No! You can’t keep telling tales and lying about your sister because you are lesser than her.” My heart broke in that instant and I see regret cross both their faces.

“I’m lesser?” I ask angry and upset, forcing myself not to cry.

“No, angel. We didn’t mean that.”

“We love you.” They try to move closer but I exclaim “STOP!” My voice holds a power I didn’t know I held. They stop and their eyes glaze over. Before they have another chance I run.

I leave the house and don’t look back.

With no friends and only my parents and daddies parents I take to the streets.

I don’t even know what I planned. I went dazed and confused, depressed and crying.

Humans don’t know about the existence of vampires and in the night light my hair appears black, so I am always mistaken for a child.

That night wasn’t any different.

Sobbing on a bench an elderly woman, the grandmother type, approached me.

“What’s the matter, honey? Are you lost?” I stopped growing at thirteen but only look about eight. I have no curves, pubic hair or period.

I broke down saying my parents don’t want me. Instead of doing the norm and taking me to the police station, she took me home with her. I think she was lonely.

She cooked me dinner and I ate it before I drained her of all her blood. I had the biggest rush.