“Yes, Julian.” She wraps her arms around my neck and tugs. “Now, stop talking and kiss me.”
For a short moment—make that a long moment—we kiss and kiss and kiss some more. Finally, though, I draw back.
“When?” I ask.
It’s a simple question, but the answer cannot be quite as simple.
"As much as I would love to marry you right here, right now…" Romelia shakes her head and takes a few steps before reaching back to hold my hand. Giving it a squeeze, she turns back to me. "It might make things easier if we wait until summer before next year."
“You want to wait a year.”
"Think about it. We'll be eighteen then. We'll have time to make everything perfect."
“We don’t need to plan an elaborate wedding. We can’t really have witnesses, and there won’t be a reception,” I remind her.
“I know, but I think summer will be best. We can’t risk our friends discovering it. No one can, and if we do summer classes again…” She smiles at me in a way that tells me she knows that I know that she’s already won.
“Fine. Yes, next year. Next summer,” I declare, almost making it sound as if this had been my plan all along.
I can’t even be upset about the long wait because honestly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. That’s how we’ve been living all break long—one day at a time. We always figure out what we’ll do for the day once the day begins, not even the night before because what if something happens at night? Living by the whims of our passion, soaring by the fancy of our love.
As much as I wish we could marry immediately, she makes a good point about being eighteen. Her parents won’t think that her age will change anything, and I have no doubt they will try to control her life still, but it does give us a small measure of clout even in the paranormal world instead of the human one. We can and should be free to make our own choices… and our own mistakes.
Not that this is a mistake. It will be the best thing to ever happen to me.
If it happens.
No. No, I will not be afraid. Everything is a bit tempestuous, yes, but together, we can handle everything. Our love will persevere, and we will survive.
“Before our third year, we will be wed,” I say, needing to hear the words so maybe the truth will sink in.
“Romelia… Romelia and Julian,” she murmurs, her eyes glittering with the reflection of candlelight.
I can’t help noticing that she hesitated and then didn’t say what I assumed she would’ve—Romelia Moonblaze.
After clearing my throat, I opt to go for it. “Romelia Moonblaze. Do you like the sound of that?” I ask.
“I do like the sound of that,” she says wishfully, but then she grimaces and looks away. “It’s just… Yes, you have a wonderful last name, but…”
I cup her chin and gently turn her back to face me. “What is it?”
“You deserve to have your family there. I’m sure you’ve always imagined your parents would be there when you got married, your siblings.” She bites her lower lip. “What will they think when they realize you’re marrying the daughter of the vampire who slaughtered so many of your ancestors?”
“My parents don’t need to be there.” I chuckle softly. “Do you honestly think that as a pup, I thought about what my wedding would be like? I think it’s safe to say that most guys don’t. That’s more a girl thing.”
“Wow. Sexist much?” She winks and giggles, shaking her head.
“What about you? Will it bother you that—”
"My parents won't be there. Honestly, I've wondered about that long before you came into my life. I've always known they would have ideas for how I should live my life, including who I should marry, but I've also always known that I would live my own life. They can tell me what to do, but I will do what I want, and my future has to include you. It just has to."
“This year is going to be incredible,” I promise her.
“I hope it’s not incredibly violent.”
I blow out a breath, feeling as if she’s taken a bit of the luster out of the moment, but we can’t continue to act as if nothing will change tomorrow because everything will.
“Summer school again, hmm? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be known as the slacker,” I joke.
"I know. Maybe we can see if it's possible to sign up for an extra class or two over the summer instead." She bites her lower lip. "I really enjoyed it when we would sit here and study."
“We actually can get work done when we’re together. Who would’ve thought?”
She nudges her shoulder against mine. “What I want us to do with the future… I try not to think about it, but I can’t help it.”
“What do you want for us?” I ask, curious.
Romelia shakes her head. “I can’t say.”
“You want it to be a surprise?”
“I’m afraid it won’t happen if I tell you.”
I furrow my brow. “We’re talking about our future, not a birthday wish. There are no… Okay, so there are candles here, but they aren’t the wishing kind?”
“Aren’t they?” she murmurs.
Despite the risk that fire poses to vampires, she picks up a candle and holds it up to her face. "I wish that every day can be filled with as much love as this one." And she blows it out.
“That’s easy. Every day I’m alive, you’re going to be loved.”
With a grin, she hands me the blown-out candle and plucks another off the cave ground. “I wish that we can have happiness on our wedding day.”
“That’s going to happen. You know it.”
Her next wish, though, just about breaks my heart.
“I wish that we can live in peace every day for the rest of our long lives.”
I wordlessly accept this candle.
“No promise with that one?” She blows out another. “I wish that we can try to convince our friends and classmates that we don’t have to be sworn enemies. I wish that our children, our friend’s children, the next generation will never know war and chaos and bedlam. I wish for us to have a helping hand in bringing about peace for as many times as the world descends into madness and fighting. I wish for the world to know love, for there to be more deaths from natural causes, for vampires to be able to live in human cities without harming the humans, for werewolves to have control over themselves and their wolves, for demons to stop their machinations, for everyone to have free will and pick peace always without fail.”
Romelia goes around, and in the blink of an eye, every candle is extinguished except for one.
“Your turn,” she says, holding the candle up for me to blow.
“I wish to kiss you,” is all I say before I blow out the candle and have that kiss.
Chapter 3
Julian
The future Romelia spoke of, I want it too, of course, but there’s one part that I can’t stop hearing in my mind.
She said our children.
One time, I mentioned our children to her, and I saw the wonder in her eyes and then fear and worry clouded that wonder away until it died.
She’s afraid we won’t be able to have children. I think she might also be worried that I won’t be happy long-term if I don’t have children.
Yes, I come from a large family, but that doesn’t mean I have to have six, seven kids to be happy. I could be happy with six, don’t get me wrong, but I can also be happy with just one.
And none. That would work too.
I've spent nearly all of the break with Romelia, and I won't change that for the world, but I am a werewolf, and we're called to our packs. It's more than just safety in numbers. Together, we survive. To thrive, we need to rely on one another, and the larger the pack, the safer we all are, and despite the efforts of Romelia's mother, the Moonshine pack is alive and thriving, stronger than ever.
It’s dawn the first day that our second year begins, but for once, I’m not on campus. I open the door of our stone house and stroll in without bothering to knock
first.
Felix runs right on by without seeing me, but his twin, Lily, stops in her tracks so fast from chasing after him that she nearly falls down.
“Julian!” she shrieks before launching at me.
"Whoa!" I catch her, and we embrace. "You're getting to be so big now. You're sixteen now, right?"
“Silly.” She slaps my shoulder. “I’m six, and you know it!”
I chuckle and put her down then rub my shoulder. “You have a nasty slap there, but why not a punch?”
“Mom says not to punch my brothers.” Lily shrugs a shoulder and then leans forward to whisper, “She never said I couldn’t punch my sisters, though.”
“Don’t punch Ophelia,” I tell her.
“I won’t. Not unless she hurts me.”
“She’s four. How is she going to hurt you?”
Lily scowls. “There’s a reason why my hair is in a braid.”
I frown, confused, but Lily’s already running off. I’m not sure where Felix disappeared to.
Before I can take more than two steps, Kraig wanders over. “Oh. Julian. Have you seen my twin?”
“Ophelia? Not yet.”
“She was supposed to help me with…”
And he walks away.
That’s Kraig. He’s always thinking, always muttering to himself. He’s either going to go crazy or be the next Einstein. There’s no in-between.
“Felix, can you get me a diaper? Felix? Felix!” Mom calls from her room. “You know what? Felix, you change Berric’s diaper. Breakfast is never going to be finished. Lily, is your father back yet? You would think he’s killing the hog to get us the bacon.”
Mom, somehow not looking harried despite the chaos that is the Moonblaze home, leaves her room to head to the kitchen when she stops short, seeing me. I wink, rush over to kiss her cheek, and then dash off to the kitchen.
Mom marches right beside me, in time to slap the chocolate chips out of my hands. “Those are for the batter,” she scolds.
“Chocolate chip pancakes? You remembered!” I beam and sneak a few chocolate chips anyhow.
“Of course I remember, and I had a feeling you would be here today.” She kisses my cheek and then shoos me away because I’m trying to add more chips to her batter. “Stop that! You’re going to ruin them.”
“I thought no woman could ever think there’s such a thing as too much chocolate,” I tease.
“You know that’s not how Lily feels,” Mom says.
“Are you going to make any blueberry ones for her?”
“I might,” Mom says with a grin.
That’s when I notice the smaller a bit of blue poking at the top.
I shake my head. “You didn’t even know for certain I would come.”
“I was hoping.”
The back door opens. “There he is!” Dad booms as he enters. He kisses Mom, hands her the bacon, and then tackles me for a hug, and when I say tackle, I mean tackle.
Lily comes in carrying Valerie, and I take my littlest sister from her. Then, Felix hands over Berric, and somehow, I'm holding both of them. It's easy enough because the twins are almost two months old already. It's crazy how time flies.
Despite the hectic morning rush, somehow, Mom has us all sitting down and eating in five minutes. Dad gives a short blessing that our fangs are always sharp, that are senses never fail us, and that our bellies never are empty for long, and then we’re all eating. After watching Mom hold Berric in the crock of her arm and snaking that arm enough that she can still hold the bottle and enjoy her breakfast of champions, I attempt to do the same.
"You have to keep your elbow up," Lily says, sounding like a Little Miss Know It All.
“His elbow is up,” Felix says.
Ophelia narrows her eyes and then nods. “It is up.”
Lily huffs a sigh. “It’s not up high enough.”
I lift it higher. Valerie whines a bit, her mouth open wide, and I shove the bottle into her mouth. Her forehead remains all scrunched up before settling, and her arms wiggling about before she settles. Careful, I switch my hand on the bottle to the one holding her. She squirms a bit before deciding that’s fine, and I look up to see Mom beaming at Dad.
“He’s a natural. I knew he would be.”
“You act like I never fed a baby a bottle before.” I jerk my chin toward Kraig and Ophelia. “I gave them bottles all the time.”
“You never gave me a bottle,” Felix says.
“You would be wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Do you forget how old I was when you were born?”
“Eleven.”
“Right. Old enough to babysit.” I point a fork at him. “I even gave bottles to…”
I trail off. It still stings, the loss of Deidre and Isaac. They died… almost a decade ago, when they were three, and I was seven. It was an early fall night. We were all wolves, not just my immediate family but the entire pack. It was a chance to run around under the light of the moon to be free. We stuck to the shadows of the mountain, but the twins decided to run up it. A rockslide claimed their lives far too early.
Dad lets out a huff of air through his nose. “You can talk about them, son. They lived. They died, yes, but they still live now in our memories. Yes, we let Julian feed Deidre and Isaac bottles.”
“Wait. Julian had to be really little, right?” Ophelia asks in her no-nonsense way that she has despite her youthfulness. “Why have you been telling me no?”
“Maybe because Julian was more mature at your age,” Mom says.
Ophelia snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“You know, I feel the love. I did not come back for you to disrespect me like that.”
“Then respect us more and come home more often,” Ophelia says, lifting her nose.
Hmm. I glance at my parents out of the corners of my eyes. Dad always sits at the head of the table, Mom across from him. Are they upset I haven’t been visiting more?
“Now, now,” Mom says soothingly, “Julian’s busy.”
“Yeah, busy failing,” Lily says.
“Are you going to gang up on me too?” I ask her. “How are your blueberries?”
“Typical. Changing the subject.” Lily just purses her lips and shakes her head.
“Your lips are purple. They are not.” She turns to Felix. “Are they?”
“Yep.”
“No, they aren’t!”
Ophelia checks. “They are! They’re so pretty. Mom, are my lips purple too?”
“No, yours are brown,” Dad cuts in.
“I don’t want brown lips,” Ophelia pouts.
“They’re brown from the chocolate chips,” I explain. “Hers are purple from her blueberries.”
“Do you want some blueberries?” Lily asks.
“Are you crazy? No. Chocolate is better.”
“Be nice,” Mom warns as she shifts to burp the baby.
I chomp down on some bacon as Ophelia and Lily start to fight. Berric begins to fuss, which makes Lily fuss. Mom takes both babies and dances with them so I can eat, and then, in the blink of an eye, Dad is with her, helping, the four of them dancing.
To give them a moment, I try to get my siblings to stop arguing. Lily's health-conscious for whatever reason, but Ophelia will have none of that. She'll eat chocolate every day, thank you very much.
Despite the loudness, despite all of it, I feel back at home. Yes, it’s a bit different now that Berric and Valerie are here. I spent a few days here at the house right after they had been born. Then, I felt more like an outsider. I can’t place why I did, but today, everything feels like it should. It’s as it always has been. I love my family. I adore each of them even if they drive me nuts at times. They’re so wonderful in their own ways.
They don’t have that hatred for vampires deep inside them, do they? I haven’t really talked to my parents about what happened during the school year, and they haven’t brought it up either. Maybe the academy didn’t want to alert the parents to the goings-on for
fear that parents wouldn’t want their werewolf pups to attend. Not that we’re pups anymore. We’re almost fully grown.
Fully grown. I learned over the summer that living vampires, like Romelia, will age until their mid-twenties or so. They'll then look like they're that age for the rest of their long life. Eventually, I'll have white or gray hair mixed with my dark locks, just like Dad. I'll age but slower than a human will. Dad doesn't have much white at all yet if I'm being honest.
Once I finish my last bite, having consumed who knows how many chocolate chips in the five massive pancakes I devoured along with five pieces of bacon, three sausage patties, maybe three eggs, and two toasts, I push away from the table.
“Do you have to leave?” Mom asks.
I pretend to look at my watch, only I’m not wearing one. “I have about ten minutes yet.”
“Can we show you some of our toys?” Felix asks excitedly.
“Next time,” Mom says in a tone that has Felix shutting his mouth instead of complaining.
She jerks her head toward the living room, and I trail behind her and Dad. “Sit.”
I sit on the couch. Mom and Dad stand on the other side of the coffee table, staring down at me.
“Am I in trouble?” I joke.
“No,” my dad says. “We’re just concerned, that’s all.”
“We know what’s been going on at your academy,” Mom says softly.
“And we’re happy to know you aren’t involved in any of that nonsense. Killing livestock like that. What a waste. If you intend to eat the meat, that’s one thing, but to kill just to kill…” Dad scowls.
“By the way, your dad did kill a hog this morning.” Mom winks at me.
Dad chuckles. “Yes, but…” His laugh caused Valerie to stir, and he settles her before continuing, “That’s not the hog the bacon was from.”
“Next time,” Mom says. “Will you join us? You can bring your… friends.”
“My friends? Bermon and Mercy?”
“And any new ones you made.” Mom just grins knowingly.
I laugh. "You know just about everyone who attends the academy."
“Maybe so, but I don’t know the name of the girl you’ve been seeing.”
Blood Haven: Year Two: A Mayhem of Magic World Story Page 2