Belonging

Being a vampire sucks. Just ask Cori Lewis. The "Change" didn't change her enough. She's still shy, quiet and she never feels as though she belongs anywhere. Not even with the people who took her in after the vampire attack that left her near death. But other things have changed a lot. Cori needs sex — now!

She goes in search of a one-night stand — hot sex with an anonymous man in a dark alley — and her life changes yet again. He's a connection to the past she thought was lost and he's everything she's ever dreamed. But when he finds out who she is, he might never be able to forgive her.

There probably isn't a logical reason for this but I was fighting back tears as I opened up the second chapter of this book. I knew Cori was a vampire and she certainly had a pulse in chapter one so why the shock and pain of chapter two hit me so hard I can't give you a reason.

Oh wait. I can- Shiloh Walker.

No writer should be this good. Able to inflict such a lethal amount of emotion with so few pages.

The story begins in the aftermath of Cori breaking off her engagement to Owen. She's not in love with him and she can't pretend to be happy with him anymore. She finds comfort from Levi, Owen's cousin and best friend. But it's a bittersweet comfort. Because it was his kiss beneath the mistletoe one Christmas that brought the painful truth of her unhappiness barreling down on her.

That kiss changed Levi, too. As he now found himself wanting a woman that didn't belong to him.

Levi really didn’t need to see her face as he humiliated himself. “I didn’t like seeing you look that miserable. All I wanted to do was make you smile a little. Maybe make you laugh. You always laughed when I teased you, even while you blushed and tried to hide it. That was the only thing I wanted to do. But then I kissed you, and you moved…everything changed for me that day. Everything. But it didn’t change for anybody else. Just me. You were still Owen’s lady, and you never really talked to me unless I started a conversation. You never looked at me unless you had to. I was nonexistent. The day you broke things off with Owen, I felt like a fucking asshole because all I could think about was the fact that since you didn’t belong to Owen anymore, I might have a chance.”

Time passes in this book. First three weeks. Then four years. And fate does not stop screwing with them. Corinne's one decision catapults into a series of events that controls the next four plus years of her, Levi, and Owen's lives.

The corniest part of this book was the school for Others. God help me, I was waiting for Wolverine or Cyclops to show up and just end the stupidity. Everything else though, pure Shiloh goodness. Which blew away all the bad. Being unfamiliar with the Hunter's series by SW which this is related to, I can only assume the supporting characters hail from there. If so, it's definitely checking it out. Grady was hawt. 4.9 out of 5 stars. Yes, I'm calling it like that. =)