"I had an affair with one for the first ten years of your life!"

The words rang like church bells in my helter skelter mind, and it was as if he'd slapped me, because I rocked back on my heels from the impact of the admittance. An affair with a vampire? My father? I came back to reality a second later when Alice tightened her grip on my wrist and walked us backwards with a soft snarl at my father, who was inching towards us, smart enough not to move too quickly and provoke a pissed off vampire protecting her mate. He held his hands up, palms out. "I've calmed down," he said in an even tone, not taking his eyes away from Alice as she readjusted her position between us. "I just want to talk to my daughter."

She snarled again, and I realized with another start that this was the predator, the animal, defending me, and it ignored the call of my blood completely. "Alice," I said gently, lying a hand on her shoulder, and she growled softly in acknowledgement, not looking away from Daddy as he stood there with his hands up in surrender. "He won't hurt me, I promise. You need to hunt, my love." I kept my voice low and soothing, trying to tame the demon, and she glanced at me over her shoulder, but did not relax her stance. I slowly came around to face her, throwing a hand up to my father when he tried to protest, and he shut up. Her eyes, the darkest color I'd ever seen, deeper than black, searched my own blue eyes, then went down my body frantically, short snarls and sniffing sounds erupting from her, until the sounds became more like purrs. I smiled, recognizing that she was checking me for injuries, and had calmed down a tad when she found none. "Yes, I'm okay," I assured her, touching her face, and she leaned into my palm, her eyes closing, and an unmistakable purr rumbling through her. I pulled her into my arms, and she buried her face in my neck, still purring, causing my father to balk in surprise that she had not bitten me. "It's okay, Alice, he didn't hurt me, he would never hurt me. He loves me, too." I buried my nose in her hair for a whiff of her sweet scent to help calm me down, and gave Daddy an "I-told-you-so" glare.

"Andie?" Alice whimpered a minute later, the purrs having died down to silence. She pulled back and looked at me, terror in her eyes, fearful of my reaction to her instincts.

"Go hunt," I encouraged her in a whisper, "and then come back to me." I gave her a soft, lingering kiss, not caring that Daddy was standing there with his mouth on the floor. "I love you," I told her in a tone that dared her to contradict me, then kissed her again before she just disappeared, moving too quickly for human eyes to follow.

Once Alice had vacated the house, I stood locked in a staring match with my father, the only sound being the laughtrack from the show on the telelvision. I was waiting for him to explain himself, but as it seemed he had nothing to say, I broke the silence. "You cheated on Mama? For six years?" He had said the first ten years of my life, and Mama had passed when I was six.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his face uncomfortably, leaning against the kitchen counter with a heavy sigh. "I'm not proud of it," he said miserably, now staring down at his mud covered work boots. "I would have never told you, except you brought one home from college with you. I knew you were enamored with her the first time you brought her here, and you didn't even know she was a- a-"

"Vampire?" I supplied, impatient with his stalling and his prejudice.

"Yeah. Andrea... she came up to me in the middle of the night at the mill, down at the lumber yard. Kate. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, but you of all people understand how... tempting they are." He looked up at me pleadingly, but I gave him no sympathy, and he flinched at my game face and looked back down at his boots. "We kept it going until you were about ten," he said in a strained voice, and I suspected he was holding back tears. "She was there for me when I lost your mama, and when I was stuck with a little girl I had no idea how to raise. She taught me how to raise you. Kate became everything to me, but... she went out one night to hunt for deer, and never came back. I never saw her again." He looked up at me and I did look away from the pain in his eyes, unable to take it. "That was when I started drinking. You remember that, I'm sure."

I didn't reply, just looked at the table top, waiting for him to continue.

"Please forgive me," he pleaded, and still I remained silent. "I can't help how I felt, and it's over now. I was bewitched, Butterbean, just like you are with Alice."

"I'm not bewitched." I had to set this record straight for him. My relationship with Alice was nothing like his with this Kate. "Alice and I are connected, Daddy. Did you not see what just happened a few minutes ago?" I gestured to where Alice had been crouched in front of me. "That was all instinct, and she did not try to bite me, she protected her mate."

Daddy had been looking at his boots again, but when the word "mate" left my lips, his head shot up and he looked at me with wide eyes, putting his glasses back on. "She calls you her mate?" he asked hoarsely. His eyebrows knitted together and his eyes teared up when I nodded. "A vampire cannot live without its mate, Kate told me. She left because I was not hers." He paused and the first tear slid free of his eye. "Are you really her mate? This isn't a-a- sex thing?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. It is much more than that. She is my balance, Daddy. I hate not being able to touch her, it causes me physical pain if she's gone for too long. I feel home safe with Alice beside me, like my puzzle of life is complete and everything I've done has led me to her. It took almost two years of living in denial before I even accepted that I have belonged to her since the first time we locked eyes." He had started sobbing at my words, and I crossed the kitchen to hug him, and he held me tightly, his tears falling on my hair.

"Butterbean," he sobbed, his large body convulsing in them, "you're going to change soon, aren't you?"

I felt my heart break at his words, and I squeezed him just a little tighter. "I plan to be with her forever, yes."

"Promise me that this is what you want, Butterbean, and I won't question you or Alice again," he whispered painfully into my hair.

"All I want is her," I vowed, pulling back to look him in the eyes as I told him. "To hell with immortality, I just want my Alice forever."

"Okay. Okay," he said with a jerky nod, and my chest flooded with a relieved heat that he believed me finally, and was accepting it. He released me from his arms completely and took off his glasses again to wipe them and his eyes free of tears, and grabbed a paper towel to blow his nose. "If you have any questions for me, could we save them for tomorrow? I'm so tired, Butterbean, I think I need to lay down."

I nodded, standing on my tip toes to peck his bearded cheek. "Go on, get some sleep. I'll clean up down here and put the chili away."

"Thank you," he rumbled, kissing the top of my head. "I miss you being here, Andie. I miss you."

I hugged him again. "I miss you, too, Daddy. Alice helps with the homesick I couldn't get over at first. If I can't have you, I'm glad she's as much home for me."

"Me, too. Me, too. I'm glad you've found her. Good night."

I looked up at him with a bright smile at his words. "Good night, Daddy. I love you."

"Love you, Butterbean," he murmured against my hair, then moved away to go upstairs. I listened to his heavy foot falls on the stairs and then the creaking floorboards above me as he entered his room, and finally the echo of his door as he shut it. I let go of a sigh of relief that he had let it go for tonight, because I honestly didn't know how much more I could take for the day, either. I needed to take a step back and reassess the truth he had given me about a love affair with a vampire. Kate, huh? I wondered if I'd ever meet her in my immortality. What would I do if indeed I did?

Alice still hadn't returned by the time I'd cleaned the kitchen, unloaded our bags, and showered. I was beginning to worry about her, but I didn't dare to call her cell phone, not wanting to scare away any potential prey she might be stalking. I left the front door unlocked instead, curling up on the couch beneath an old Gamecocks throw blanket that was on the back of the sofa. I put on cartoons to watch while I waited on my mate, but soon was out like a light, completely at ease in my childhood home.

Her arms lifting me up woke me what seemed like seconds after I'd closed my eyes, and I opened them to see a warm butterscotch in my mate's, making me smile and snuggle down in her chest as she carried me to bed. "Are you okay?" I asked her sleepily, my eyes drooping despite my efforts to keep them trained on hers.

"I might ask you the same thing," she replied seriously, but I saw the twinkle in her eyes that told me she was much, much better.

"Alice," I whined softly in protest of her evasion, and she tinkled a laugh, my belly swooping with the sight of her smile.

"Better than okay, my love. I can't believe how brave you were earlier, standing up to him for me, and then calming me down like that when I was... when I wasn't myself. I've fed well. I'm so full I'm sloshing. I forget how well populated the South is with white tails."

"That's good," I yawned as she set me down like a piece of fine china on my old bed, sliding in beside me before pulling the covers over us both. She'd learned her lesson about trying to stay outside the blankets when I was beneath them. I liked to wrap all around her, and her chest was my favorite pillow, unless she had me spooned into her, which was nice, too. This was the position we took, me locking my arms around hers as she slid them around me from behind, pulling me fully against her, and I smiled at the completion.

"You never answered me," she said quietly, pressing her lips to my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I answered, Honest Abe. "I'll fill you in on what happened before we go downstairs in the morning. I'm sleepy."

"Okay, Andie," she whispered lovingly, and I turned in her arms, finding her lips with mine without ever opening my eyes, and she kissed me until I slowly dropped back off to sleep.