Chained By The Ruthless Vampire Lord

Caleb hated his birthday. He hated it the way the Blood Moon pack hated vampires: with a bestial ferocity that had not diminished over the years. He loathed the loudness, the

bitter hatred for the sun, the rare gifts and abilities that sometimes manifested repeatedly in their bloodlines-he knew from what he had been told by others. Yet whenever he crossed paths with Khloe Hamilton, whenever her shadow touched his, he could swear he knew that ghostly presence. He could swear he knew what it was like to have crossed paths with a blood-sucking vampire. She was, in a certain way, a vampire, draining and sucking the joy out of every place her presence touched, and for that, the Blood Moon pack had always regarded her with a savage disaffection very much comparable to that with which they regarded vampires. Khloe Hamilton was girl, a woman now, who stepped into the room and the air went sour. Conversations tapered off and were swiftly replaced by angry stares. Sometimes, though not very often, Caleb felt something akin to pity towards her. But not quite. Most times what he felt when he saw her snowy skin flash past, was resentment. Deep and old resentment, gorged into his memory. Deep because resentment is not often shallow. Old, well, because he had known her almost as long as he had known his name. Deep and old because she, in her arrival, had made his seem insignificant. Khloe was born on the same day as he was, barely three solid years apart. Being the only child born of werewolves that year, she was already special. She was small, had snow white and a half-halo etched into the taut skin of her forehead, Khloe drew attention-and gasps. Then, with her arrival came the long famine. The hunger was a harrowing whip; it broke the pack, pressed it nearly into surrender, onto its knees. The adoration the pack had felt for Khloe became hate, revulsion. The pack wanted her no more. They would expel her from the West, they agreed, even if th