Who knew what a starving, desperate Victorija would do?

Daisy slipped out of bed and put on her slippers. She needed coffee. Daisy shivered now that she was out of the warmth of her bed. She looked around. The window was open, and a feeling of uneasiness spread through her.

She was certain that she never left the window open last night, especially after her experience at the festival. Daisy hurried over and closed it quickly.

Daisy tried to convince herself—she must have gotten up to go to the bathroom during the night and opened it.

She shook it off and walked towards her bedroom door. As she passed her dressing table, she realized her brush and her hand mirror had been moved, and she felt uneasy. They were antiques, purely decorative. Her granny kept them here in her old room, on her dressing table. They’d been passed down to her from the French side of her family.

She used to be fascinated by the brush and mirror as a child and remembered playing with them when she watched her mum get ready for her work trips. Her mum and dad quite often went away on business. Daisy missed them a lot, but she enjoyed staying with her granny while they were away, until the day they didn’t come home.

She brought her hands to her eyes. No, don’t go there. Daisy could be caught up in her grief so easily, and the hurt was too much to bear. She touched the mirror and brought it up to her face.

Her eyes looked red as she tried to hold back her tears. Daisy gazed at her neck. The wound was red and angry this morning. Some days, the wound seemed to be receding, but on other days it flared painfully.

Daisy gazed at her reflection and touched her fingertips to her wound. A waft of cold air made her shiver and she saw a shadow. Then, as clear as day, she heard a voice whisper, “Help her.”

She jumped around and looked behind her. There was nothing there, and nowhere the blast of cold air could have come from. “Bloody hell.”

Her heart hammered in her chest, and she dropped the mirror back onto the dressing table. Daisy was an expert at paranormal situations. With Monster Hunters, she had spent nights in haunted houses, gone into graveyards after dark, met people who claimed to have poltergeists in their homes, and interviewed individuals who claimed to be anything from a werewolf to a necromancer. But nothing made her as scared as she was at that moment.

“It’s just this bite freaking you out,” Daisy told herself.

She quickly left the bedroom and hurried downstairs. Daisy slowed when she heard her granny on the phone, sounding worried.

Daisy crept along the hall and stopped outside the kitchen and just listened.

“I knew this day would come, Sybil.”

Sybil. That name rang a bell with Daisy, but she couldn’t place it. It was an unusual name nowadays.