The Rhiannon Chronicles

by Maggie Shayne

  Roland threw his empty bag to the floor and came to me, snapping his arms around me and kissing me so passionately that the few remaining windows in the place began to rattle with the energy we emitted.

  A throat cleared loudly. Roxanne's.

  We parted just enough to note that everyone in the place was staring at us. Charlotte and Killian included, although they looked flushed themselves, and their eyes were glowing, too. And poor Larissa had no one to focus her desire upon...though the looks she was sending Lucas’s way spoke volumes. They were not lost on him, either. And they made him nervous. I could feel it in him.

  Roland licked his lips, his eyes on mine as he got himself under control. The man sometimes exercised a bit too much of it for my taste. “Roxanne,” he said, “Where did you get all of this? Surely someone will notice two missing vehicles, a break-in at a blood bank, and—”

  “Come on, Roland, you know me better than that by now,” she said with a toss of her flame-red hair. “The vans belong to a local grocer who’s closed on the weekends. He won’t even miss them ‘til Monday. And I discombobulated the in-dash GPS systems.”

  “There must have been security cameras,” Roland went on.

  “Yes. And I didn’t bother breaking those. Kept my face concealed,” she said, tugging up her hood to demonstrate. Then she tugged it down again, smiling. “I figured, let 'em see their car thief on camera. That should prove it was an ordinary human, not a vampire.”

  Lucas was nodding as she spoke, agreeing with her every word. “I was very careful at the blood bank,” he said when she finished. “Easy in, easy out, didn’t damage anything, and they might not even notice the missing bags.”

  “And the food?” Roland asked.

  Roxy shrugged. “All right, all right, I had to pick a pocket for that. The fellow was drunk, staggering along the sidewalk. I didn’t clean him out. Just took a couple of twenties, and slipped his wallet right back where I found it.”

  “We even returned the cell phone when we were finished with it,” Larissa added.

  Roland didn’t look as if he approved. I did, however. “Did you happen to find out where we are, Roxanne?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Near the Canadian border,” she said. “I have a safe house fifty miles northeast. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and like most of my places, it has everything we need. Weapons, untraceable cell phones, a computer with a constantly changing ISP, and satellite internet. There are moose for neighbors. We’ll be safe there indefinitely. I can work from there to get us some convincing false identities while we figure out what to do next.”

  “What we do next is nothing,” I said softly. “We just get there, and we give ourselves some blessed rest. The gods know we need it.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “And as for false identities, Roland and I have those in abundance,” I went on with a look his way.

  “Indeed. We need only make our way to one of the safe deposit boxes we have scattered about the country under various names.”

  Our bank accounts were set up in much the same way. We had money to burn, account numbers and passwords committed to memory.

  “I don’t have any of that,” Killian said.

  I shot him a look. “And you’ve survived as a vampire for how long now?”

  He shrugged. “Thirty years or so.”

  “Well, that explains it. Lesson One, fledgling. Build many identities. Set up many bank accounts under many names. And put aside piles of emergency cash and precious metals, driver’s licenses, passports, debit and credit cards in many places. That’s how our kind gets by in the mortal world.”

  Killian sighed and Charlotte leaned her head on his shoulder and said, “I hope it won’t always have to be that way. I hope someday we can live our lives in the open, use our real names, our real bank accounts.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Roxanne said. Then she looked at Roland and me. “We should hit the road now, get as far as we can before sunrise. We might even make it all the way. We still have a couple hours ‘til dawn. Those vans are both full of gas, and there are no windows in the back. I have another vehicle garaged at the safe house. So we can return the borrowed ones tomorrow before the grocer even knows they were gone.”

  Roland nodded and I could see him releasing his worry and doubt. “You’re the smartest mortal I know, Roxy.”

  “Maybe the smartest there is,” she said with a wink. “Now let’s get a move on.”

  * * *

  When I fell asleep, I was lying down in the back part of a dark colored van beside my beloved Roland and young Larissa. The third row seats had been folded down to make room for us. Lucas was driving. Christian sat in the front passenger seat, and the three seven-year-olds, Nikki, Ramses, and Gareth, were in the second row of seats, staring out the windows in wide-eyed silence. It occurred to me that they had never seen much of planet Earth before. They’d been created and raised in a floating laboratory at sea. They had never set foot on dry land. I had noticed them swaying now and then, sensed their bouts of dizziness since we’d come ashore. But that seemed to be lessening with time.

  The other van, the one leading the way, carried the four eleven-year-olds, who were probably as mesmerized by the passing scenery as their younger counterparts. Charlotte and Killian were in the far back of that vehicle. Roxanne was driving, and Trish rode shotgun.

  Three generations in that van. Charlie was a vampire, her mother Trish, an ordinary mortal. And Roxanne, Charlie's grandmother, Trish’s mother-in-law, was the oldest living Chosen. She could become a vampire, but she claimed she didn’t want to. I often wondered why. It was not something she had confided to me. By all rights, she should've been dead years ago. The Chosen rarely lived to see forty, unless they accepted the Dark Gift. Roxanne was well beyond forty, though she refused to say exactly how old she was, and it was impossible to tell. The woman was ageless.

  Those were my thoughts as the day sleep claimed me as swiftly and surely as death itself.

  When I woke again, I was still in the back of the van, though in a different position. Someone had lowered the second section of seats and rearranged our bodies to give us more room. That same someone—Roxanne, I suspected—had covered the van’s front windows with dark green trash bags and duct tape to protect us from the sun.

  I usually take my time about rising in the evening. But that night, I was too nervous to languish in my lover’s arms. I sat up quickly, gathered up my discarded shoes, and clambered over my now-waking beloved, to open the sliding side door and jump out onto the ground.

  My bare feet sank into cool damp grass. I gave my senses permission to relish that feeling as I looked around at rolling hills and dense forest. Old trees, giant conifers, made the air almost sticky with their piney aroma. I turned around, my senses delighted as the stars winked to life in a cloudless dark blue velvet sky. There was a large log cabin that had perhaps been a lodge of some kind once. It was a stunning building, its portico supported by logs so huge I doubted I could wrap my arms around a single one of them. Its arched front windows gleamed with a warm yellow light from within. It felt welcoming, that light. And I saw too, the oversized shutters that bracketed each window and could be closed to block sunlight by day.

  Roland exited the van and came to stand behind me, his hands curling over my shoulders as he joined me in admiring the place. I followed his gaze to the eastern horizon, where the uppermost curve of the biggest, roundest, most beautiful moon imaginable was just inching her way up for the evening.

  The other van’s door slid open and Killian and Charlotte emerged from it, met my eyes and nodded a greeting. Larissa came out next and said, “So this is it, then? The safe house?”

  “By the gods, I hope so,” Roland whispered.

  The front door of the log cabin opened. Roxanne stood on the other side, her hand on her hip. “Well? You gonna come inside or stand there star-gazing all night?” And then Nikki squeezed past her and came racing down the bro
ad front steps toward us. I opened my arms. She sped right past me and directly to Roland, but she stopped short of running into his ready embrace, looking uncertain.

  Roland scooped her up in his arms all the same, but I saw him watching her face, ready to put her down should she seem uncomfortable.

  “I wanted to spend the day outside with you, but Roxy wouldn’t let me.” She said it as if she was fully expecting Roxanne to be punished for committing such a despicable offense.

  “That’s just as well, little one," Roland said. "Roxy’s a smart lady and you should always listen to her. She was protecting us from the sunlight. We can’t allow it to touch us.”

  “Or what?” she asked, resting on his hip and searching his face.

  “Or they go up in flames, that’s what,” Ramses called. He had come outside as well, made his way to us, and stood close beside me. There was no rush, no hug, but something told me to take his hand in mine, and when I did, he didn’t pull away. Instead he looked up at me and asked, “Right?”

  By the Gods, this one was making inroads into my heart, as well. “You could’ve put it more delicately than that, Ramses. But yes, we are quite susceptible to sunlight.”

  Gareth, named by Roland after a man he had both served and loved back in his human days, had come out as well, but he stood uncertainly, halfway between us and the cabin's door.

  “So you’ve been cooped up indoors all day, have you?” Roland asked, setting Nikki on her feet, taking her hand, and walking up to Gareth to take hold of his.

  “It’s all right. It's a nice house,” Gareth said. “And the bedrooms are bigger than the ones we had on the boat.”

  “And way bigger than our cages were,” Ramses added.

  “You will never be in cages again,” I told them. “Never ever.”

  “And tonight, we are going to teach you to play tag,” Roland said.

  I widened my eyes at him. He smiled and shrugged. “They need exercise and distraction. And we need to see what they’re capable of. Roxy, get the older children out here. They’ll enjoy this too.”

  “Roland, your leg–” I began.

  He waved a dismissive hand. “The prosthetic Killian made for me is more than capable of a game of tag, Rhiannon. You worry too much.”

  Odd, I was usually the one accusing him of that.

  I gave in, though. And so it was that I, Rhiannon, daughter of pharaoh and queen of the vampire race, played tag with my beloved Roland and seven genetically engineered children, one full moon night in a forested bit of glorious western Canada.

  * * *

  Roland watched his beautiful Rhiannon running around with the children over grassy lawns, beneath star-dotted skies. She seemed to be glowing from within. Motherhood suited her. The love in her eyes for the young ones did something to him, made him feel larger and stronger, more protective than ever.

  They had shut Pandora inside, in case things became too exciting. The cat had very little experience with children, the past two weeks aside, and it would be horrible if she took a swipe at one of them. A game of tag could easily arouse her instincts, cause her to revert to hunting mode.

  Pandora didn’t mind. Last he’d glimpsed her, she’d been stretched in front of the fireplace, soaking up its heat as if it was her sustenance.

  Ramses sped toward him, having noticed him standing still, and Roland waited until the boy was almost within reach to step out of the way, moving so fast, it must seem he’d vanished from Point A and reappeared at Point B. Ramses gave his head a shake, then looked around and spotted him.

  This was no ordinary game of tag. The children were nearly as fast as Rhiannon, and equally matched with him, due to his missing leg. They ran and jumped, leaped and tumbled, climbed trees as nimbly as chipmunks and leapt from limb to limb like spider monkeys.

  Rhiannon outran little Nikki, caught Roland’s eyes and wiggled her brows at him. Then she pressed her back against a tree trunk, closed her eyes, and vanished just as the little girl reached her.

  Nikki stood still, frowning and tipping her head to one side. “You’re still there,” she said. “You only made yourself look like the tree’s skin.”

  “It’s called bark,” she said, stepping away from the tree, her colors returning.

  “I want to try!” Nikki said. She quickly turned round, and backed up until her body was pressed to the tree trunk.

  Teaching your child how to become invisible might not be the best idea, Rhiannon, Roland warned.

  Nikki frowned at him–had she heard his thoughts just then? Then she shot a look at Rhiannon again. “You don’t have to show me anyway. I’ve seen you do it two times.”

  She shifted her little weight against the tree, closed her eyes, and Roland thought she started to shimmer, but then Ramses ran at her, grabbed her around the waist, and jumped up onto the lowest limb, shouting, “Why learn to disappear when you can run faster than anyone who might be after you?” he demanded.

  He sounded truly agitated.

  From the cabin, Roxy called, “If anyone’s hungry, I’ve got enough to feed an army in here!”

  Nikki sprang down from the tree and zoomed toward the cabin, a seven-year-old blur of motion and energy. Her brothers looked at each other, shrugged, and went after her. No goodbye or parting words. No eager laughter or joking. They were such stoic little things.

  “We’ll teach them,” Rhiannon said. “Seven years in a cage will take some time to undo. But we have time. We’ll heal them.”

  “And they us, I think.”

  Rhiannon tilted her head to one side, and Roland found himself wanting to trace the lines of her royal cheekbones and deceptively delicate jaw. “Do we need healing, Roland?” He could see the worry appear in her eyes. Rhiannon’s emotions ran high. She couldn’t conceal them if she tried. Her eyes were like compasses, pointing him to the direction of her mood. He loved her so much it was like an ever-present ache in his soul. Yet, somehow, a good ache. A vital ache. An ache he would not wish to live without.

  “Roland?”

  Now her brows furrowed over her piercing onyx eyes. She could see to his soul. “I don’t know what made me say that,” he said. “Something’s got me feeling a sense of...I can’t put words to it. Trepidation?”

  “You’re worried?”

  “More like what I’ve heard described as the sensation of someone walking over my grave.”

  She hunched her shoulders. Gave a shiver. “Roland, you’re frightening me.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe my brain is having a bit of trouble accepting that we’re safe here.” He looked around, inhaled to smell the air. It was redolent with pine, fresh as the water from a melting glacier. “It’s force of habit, my love,” he said, taking her hands and willing her to look around. “This is a good place, Rhiannon, I can feel it.”

  She smiled then, leaning into him, tipping her face up beneath his. “We got away. The children are perpetually ravenous and will spend the next hour devouring everything Roxanne has prepared and asking for dessert. Now we can focus on each other for a little while.”

  Her hips rocked against his, pelvis brushing pelvis. His physical reaction was instant and demanding. She need only get that look in her eye for his body to react that way.

  And what man, living or undead, wouldn’t have a similar reaction? He suspected a great number of women would, as well. He clasped her backside in one hand, cradled her nape in the other, and tipping her head back, lowered his mouth to hers.

  She sighed his name into his mouth, clung to his shoulders, and lifted one knee upward to hitch over his hip. He moved his hand over her hip, and down the back of her dress, lifting it. Then he replaced his hand on her buttock, nude this time. Rhiannon did not believe in undergarments.

  She drew her hands up to his shoulders, then around his collar, pulling at him and tangling her tongue with his.

  He brought his other hand down to free himself, as she unbuttoned his shirt and shoved it down his shoulders. Her nails raked his skin j
ust short of cruelly, on the way back up his arms and across his shoulders. They dragged over his neck as he kicked free of his remaining clothes and then scratched a light trail down his chest. She shoved him away, then peeled her dress over her head and tossed it to the ground. And then she was on him, licking the tiny beads of blood her nails had drawn from his chest, and setting his very soul ablaze.

  She licked her way lower, then dropped teasing kisses all over him from head to root and back again, until he thought his brain would melt. When he was at the edge of his endurance, she took him into her mouth, but that only intensified his need.

  Clasping her hips, he urged her upward. Then he slid his hands to the backs of her thighs and lifted her around him. She locked her legs behind him and pulled him into her. Naked, they clung, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. She was everything, by the gods, she was.

  They moved together, their beings synchronized, their rhythm as ancient and deep as the waves upon the sea. They kissed, and they clung, and they whispered love words that couldn’t begin to describe what was truly between them.

  And together they found release, they found bliss, they found heaven itself in each other.

  * * *

  Colonel Patterson of DPI had been starting to think he would be returning to the East Coast headquarters empty-handed. And then he got the call. Now he sat watching an interview through one-way glass at the local police department, and his hopes began to rise once more.

  Independent Grocer Alvin Schultz sat across the table from a police officer, explaining again what he had already explained three times before Patterson had arrived. His frustration was understandable, but the colonel needed to hear this story for himself, straight from the grocer’s mouth.

  “Yes, two vans,” Mr. Schultz said. “Almost identical. I’ve given you the make, model, year, plate number, VIN, and the photos on record with my insurer.” He tapped his forefinger repeatedly on the table. “I would really like it if I could go home now, and you could start looking for my vans.”

  The cop said, “Look, I’m not trying to be a pain in your ass, Mr. Schultz, but I’ve got orders to report any stolen vehicles, break-ins or other suspicious activity to the Feds. Which I did. And they say you’re stuck here until they show up. And you better believe I’m gonna have every i dotted and t crossed when they do. All right?”