Rose Haven, the boarding house owned by Briallyn Wintermorn was not in the best part of town, but it was not the worst building around. The brickwork and wrought iron railings around the tiny balconies, were freshly painted. Bright floral curtains hung at each of the window, and everything smelled of spring.

It wasn't a prosperous business, in fact it barely broke even most of the time but everyone who stayed there agreed that the place felt like a real home. If pressed they would tell you it was not so much the house itself, it was the ladies who ran the house, Miss Wintermorn, as shy and jumpy as a little cat, and her little blond niece Lilly and the girl they called Shai, or Rabbit. The three were as close as any family, and never made a stranger feel unwelcome.

Bri sat in a rocking chair on the tiny front porch shelling peas for the nights dinner and watching Lilly and Shai playing with the little girls dolls on the porch swing. Things had become much more settled since the rabbit had come to live with them, one of the best things Lani had ever done for her daughter. Not that Bri blamed her. The past two years had driven her sister near to madness, and that she had recovered any sense was a miracle.

Little Lilly was a strange child, and her care had not been easy, especially the first little while that Bri had her care. Maybe it was her vampire genes, but she scared Bri witless at times. So many times before Rabbit came Bri had cried herself near to sleep, afraid of what the child would do during the night. There were scars marking Bri's face and arms from the child's tantrums. Eiellani's daughter was wild, Bri assumed it was from never knowing her mother.

Now that she was calming down some, learning to have a child's sweetness from the ever innocent Shai, maybe it was time to look into having the child schooled. Brian had suggested the place where he was enrolling his daughter, Ravensheart Academy. Maybe one of these nights Bri would get up the courage to ask him more about it.