Another scream rent the air, and Makeda’s mother dropped her knife and walked toward the hall.

Fozia said, “They’re in trouble now.”

“How do they make a noise that high?” Makeda asked.

“Boys are loud too, but they don’t break your eardrums.”

Fozia said to Adina, “Can you imagine how quiet Makeda’s house is?”

“I don’t have to imagine. I live there.” Makeda smiled. “And it’s very quiet.”

“Until Emaye comes over to complain about her poor daughter who has no babies!” Adina laughed.

“The horror,” Fozia said. “What are you doing with your life, Makeda? Saving lives and curing cancer?” Her oldest sister looked up and winked. “Oh, wait.”

Adina bumped Makeda’s hip with her own. “She was always the smart one.”

Fozia said, “And the best auntie.”

Makeda grabbed another onion after finely chopping her third. “And I can’t keep plants alive, so staying an auntie is probably a good move.”

She adored her four nieces and two nephews. Auntie Mak’s closet was well-known as an open dress-up playground when the nieces came to visit, and Makeda kept a battered microscope and plethora of old slides for those of a more scientifically curious nature. She lived within ten minutes of both her sisters and wouldn’t have it any other way. And though Misrak and Yacob Abel despaired of their thirty-eight-year-old childless daughter ever giving them grandchildren, Makeda’s sisters and their husbands were keeping the family stocked with plenty of little girls and boys to drive them all crazy.

It was enough for Makeda. She loved being an aunt but knew she’d make a distracted mother. Plus she didn’t have time for men, and they were a fairly essential part of the equation.

Her last boyfriend had politely broken up with her over two years ago. Makeda didn’t notice he was gone until three days after he’d removed the few things he’d kept at her house. He’d taken a microbiology teaching position on the East Coast, and they still e-mailed occasionally.

She wasn’t good at relationships. She’d accepted that. And frankly, there were few men who interested her. She was a genius. It said so somewhere on a chart in a doctor’s office she’d visited soon after moving to the United States. Her parents had been quietly ecstatic to have a genius for a daughter. For Makeda, it just meant one more thing setting her apart in an already strange new place.

She wasn’t a snob about her intelligence—being arrogant about your intelligence was as logical as being arrogant about your eye color—but she’d learned to be discriminating. Makeda knew she’d lose interest in a man who couldn’t engage her mind even if she did admire him.

“Makeda?” Her father’s voice broke through her sisters’ chatter and the smell of red onion. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Adina grabbed the onion she was reaching for. “Go. And bring me some wine when you come back.”

Makeda followed her father into his office. She took after him in almost every way. She was nearly as tall and had the long, aquiline features from his mother’s branch of their family. She also had his quiet personality and avid mind, though it was focused on an entirely different area of study.

Yacob Abel was an archivist and scholar of ancient Ethiopian and Syrian Orthodox manuscripts and the director of the Grigorieva Library. His office walls were decorated with posters of events and exhibits he’d helped curate along with childish drawings given to a proud grandfather.

Few outside their family knew the private library he curated belonged to the vampire leader of the Pacific Northwest. Few outside their family acknowledged vampires even existed.

But immortals had not been supernatural to Makeda since her mother and father had told her why they’d moved from Ethiopia when she was eight years old. They weren’t a mystery. They weren’t magic. They were simply an unexplained part of the world.

Humans were still mapping an ocean that covered seventy percent of the planet. They were still unlocking the mysteries of their own brains. How could they assume they knew the truth about every human myth and legend? Makeda was far too intelligent to assume she knew everything. The human body—a subject of study for centuries—still managed to surprise her regularly.

“Sit please,” Yacob said. “I received a letter a from Katya Grigorieva yesterday that pertains to you.”

Makeda frowned. “About me? Why didn’t she or her secretary contact me directly?”

“The letter was from her, not her secretary.” Her father shrugged. “This is how Katya operates. You know this. She considers it a sign of respect to contact me as the head of our family. It’s a formality.”

Makeda sat up and leaned forward. The only reason her father would be contacted by the big boss of the Pacific Northwest was if it had something to do with her research. The lab she worked at was owned and funded by Katya Grigorieva and specialized in studying blood disorders and cancers. The work they did was used to develop new treatments and drugs for everything from sickle cell to leukemia.

Katya’s obsession with blood diseases might have seemed odd for someone who didn’t have to worry about illness or aging. But Makeda knew humans and vampires were inextricably tied. Vampires had never discovered a way to live without human blood. Though there were some who existed on wholly animal diets, she had heard they were not as powerful. And power, in the immortal world, was how one survived.