The day I snuck into the infamous Devil’s Ring Fight Club. I had followed my cousin Amelia, who turned out not to be quite as innocent as I first believed. In fact, it turned out she didn’t live in the same world as I did…Not at all. I knew this the moment I entered his kingdom. My world changed the moment he found me. He gave me a warning that night. He told me if he ever found me again then next time, he wouldn’t be so quick in letting me escape him. His little Red Riding Hood. It was a threat I took seriously as it was only my dreams that took me back to that place.

I was just a data analyst. I paid my taxes on time. I used to feed a cat that wasn’t my own and bake cookies for the office. I was a good girl. How was my reward finding myself penniless, broken down and stuck on the side of the road with everything I owned piled in the back, and all because I was being chased by the Mob? But then again, I must have had some luck left or he wouldn’t have stopped.

Hell. Just do your time, they said. It will be easy, they said. What's a hundred years sentenced to prison in Hell? Well, I can tell you, for an Imp like me, it was a pretty long time. Like most Imps, I am a mischievous sort, and that tends to annoy people, said people like the prison guards. Which meant that my time in Hell had just gotten a lot more complicated. I was about to receive the type of punishment no living soul had ever come back from. Not a single one had ever survived.

It’s been seven years. Seven long years since that cold and cruel Vampire King, Lucius, broke her heart. Her naive little heart destroyed after one painful night when she sneaked in to his Gothic nightclub, Transfusion. Seven years since he humiliated her, casting her aside and telling her just what he thought about her little obsession with him. Then he saved her life. Well, now he is back, and this time he is out for blood, and all she can hope for is that it isn’t hers that’s on the menu.

"Happily Ever After" wasn't supposed to come with a do-over option. But when my husband of 20 years packs up and heads for greener pastures, and my son heads away to college, that's exactly what my midlife becomes. A do-over. This time, though, I plan to do things differently. Age is just a number, after all, and at 40 I'm ready to carve my own path. Eager for a fresh start, I make a somewhat unorthodox decision and move to a tiny town in the Sierra foothills.