We ate breakfast with Jason, Blake, and a handful of other early risers who’d dared to tempt the noon-day sun, safely obscured behind layers of drapes and blinds and the automated steel shutters Marco was installing around the house. Nathaniel wandered in after we’d taken shares from the buffet set up along one wall of the dining room. He filled a plate and plopped down beside me, and I blinked at his mussed hair, loose cotton sleeping pants, and bare feet.
I plucked at the sleeve of his gray Bristol Caverns t-shirt. “I didn’t know you could do casual.”
“Pajamas.” He hid a yawn behind his hand and slumped into his chair. “Heard you in the hallway and thought I’d come down.”
“You came down to have breakfast with me,” I said flatly.
“And Eric.” Nathaniel lowered his voice and leaned close, his sleepy eyes glowing softly. “He’s not the only one who needs allies.”
“Right. Gotcha.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and his hand lingered on my cheek. “The queen said you might be looking for pets for your stable.”
I straightened away from him and stared down at my plate, my cheeks hot. “I haven’t talked it over with Eric yet.”
As if on cue, Eric’s warmth pressed into my mind. If you like him, make the arrangements. Strategically, we could do far worse. Besides, he’s a good man. He’ll treat you well.
I huffed out a laugh. Only among the Vampyr would a husband be so willing to share his wife.
I love you, that’s why I’m willing to share. Soft humor echoed through our bond. If you didn’t need his blood so badly, I wouldn’t let him anywhere near you.
I grinned at the bacon and eggs on my plate. “Ok, then.”
Nathaniel’s shoulder brushed mine. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s an Eric said it’s ok.”
“Tonight?”
“Eager beaver,” I muttered.
He grinned, flashing a dimple I hadn’t noticed before. “I’m eager to have you in me again, and to discover what it’s like to be in you.”
I fixed my attention on the earliest meal of my day, ignoring the heat flooding my skin. My first pet was a full-fledged vampire and I had no idea what to do with him, none. Maybe Marco could help. He coordinated the rotation schedules for Elizabet and her daughters. No, wait. I had my own favorite. I peered at Jason under lowered lashes, worry niggling at me. He was already jealous of Eric. How would he react when I, by necessity, took other men to my bed in order to feed?
Blake laughed at something Jason said, and I relaxed, happy to watch the two of them crushing on one another. Whatever common ground they’d found, it was a good place.
And now, I had to find my own place with the people around me.
“Can I let you know?” I asked Nathaniel.
“Whenever it’s convenient. I’ll have to open up a spot in my own rotation schedule, but it’s a little looser than yours will need to be.”
“You don’t need as much blood,” I guessed.
“I need very little from my pets, unless something has gone terribly wrong.” He nodded toward Eric. “He’ll be the same way, perhaps as early as a decade after his full turn. It should be interesting to watch the three of you grow into your full strength.”
I fiddled with my silverware, arranging it in neat rows beside my plate. “And you want to be there to see it happen.”
“Darling Gianna, I want to be a part of it.” He covered my hand with his larger one, comforting me. “We could be friends, if you’ll let me in.”
A trembling need washed over me. Friends. I’d gone from having scads of them in the Before to being surrounded by people who were virtual strangers in the Now, all with the slash of a clawed hand. Even Eric and Jason, who loved me so, had been unreal to me when I'd first awakened. Now, though, I had a chance to rebuild the community that had meant so much to me in that long ago time. I turned my hand over and clasped Nathaniel’s. “I’d like that.”
He brought my hand to his mouth and pressed a sweet kiss there, sealing our promise. “I have to go back to Charleston tonight. Before I do, I’ll leave my contact information with Eric, and sip from your throat so that I might find you always.”
“What?”
“The bond between mistress and pet.”
“Oh.” Another man in my mind. Just what I needed. “And you can find me from a tiny amount of blood?”
“Always. You can do the same, if you like.” He nodded toward Jason. “Especially when the bond is strong.”
I ate my meal, pondering the implications. I’d never considered using the bonds I shared with Eric and Jason to hunt them down outside of Elizabet’s, though I was well aware of them lingering in my mind while they were so far from me. Could I really track them with those bonds?
Darien stalked into the room as I was finishing a second plate. He wore running shorts slung low around his hips, leaving the rest of his admittedly magnificent body bare. I turned my gaze carefully away. Lord save me from handsome men.
He pulled out a chair on Nathaniel’s other side and sat down. “Heard you were looking for pets.”
I covered my flaming cheeks with both hands. “What is this, pick on the new girl day?”
Nathaniel hid a smile behind a well-placed fist. “Word’s bound to get out.”
“And, what? Y’all couldn’t pick on Alice?”
“Had Alice,” Darien said. “Didn’t stick.”
I glanced at Nathaniel. He lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “If the chemistry’s not there…”
Right. Chemistry. That’s what they called it.
Eric’s hand came down gently on my thigh. “If you’re finished eating, we have a little family business.”
“Sure.”
I rose and gathered our plates, took Nathaniel’s while I was at it. He caught my arm and squeezed gently, and I smiled. That was friendship for you.
Jason stood at the same time and excused himself. I dropped the plates off in the bin Dinky left out for us during the earliest part of our day, when the staff was low and we helped ourselves, and the three of us made our way upstairs to my room.
Once inside, Eric led us to the sitting area and pulled me down onto the sofa next to him. Jason sat on the coffee table, his knees touching the edge of the sofa in front of me.
I glanced between them and my gut knotted with worry. “Is it that bad?”
“No, sweetheart.” Eric gripped my hands between his. “There are just a few things we need to clear up.”
Jason draped one hand over mine and Eric’s. “Most important first.”
Eric rubbed a thumb over his forehead. “I don’t really know how to say this.”
“It’s the shadows,” Jason said. “They cloud his ability to read you, especially the memories you have of that night.”
“Selena’s attack.” I shifted on the sofa and faced Eric. “But you read everything else so well. Half the time, you react to what’s going on around me when I can’t even feel you in my mind.”
“Lanu was right. Love blinds me. I can’t stand to see you suffer, and watching you relive that night?” His eyelids fluttered shut, hiding the sorrow echoing through our bond. “Don’t ask me to, Gigi. Please. I can’t do it, and because of that, I’ve missed some things, important things.”
“You never mention the baby,” Jason said. “We thought you were so immersed in the shadows, you’d forgotten her.”
“Or worse, that you just weren’t interested in knowing her.” Eric’s hands squeezed mine. “If I’d had any idea of the truth, I would’ve told you right away. I’d have never, ever let you believe she died.”
“What do you…?” A funny feeling ripped through my stomach. The air thinned and the room spun in slow circles. “She’s not dead?”
“No, baby, no.” Eric wiggled his hands free from my nerveless fingers and slid an arm around my shoulders. “Her name’s Willow and she’s nearly a year old. Her eyes are shaped like yours, and her mouth, and she has the most a
dorable giggle you’ve ever heard.”
“Willow.” I touched the place where she’d rested for so long, growing inside my womb. “She survived the turn.”
“Sort of.” Jason chafed my fingers, warming them between his. “That’s a really long story.”
“We’ll talk about it later, when you’ve had time to process this,” Eric said. “What you need to know is that she’s alive and happy and doing very well.”
“She’s alive,” I whispered. “My baby’s alive.”
I choked on the last word and buried my face in Eric’s neck. My baby was alive. All this time, I’d thought her gone, consumed by the shadows that had taken me. I cried for a long time, each tear containing the anger and grief I’d lived with since coming out of the cage, and the joy and relief of knowing she’d made it. She’d made it. I almost hadn’t, but she had, and it was so wonderful holding that knowledge within me.
“I want to see her,” I blurted through tears and a hoarse throat.
“As soon as we can arrange it,” Eric said.
Jason grinned. “I’ve got pictures and a really great video of the first time she tried to walk.”
“Show me,” I said. “Show me everything.”
“We will,” he said, and he went to get his laptop while Eric told me about the day she was born.
And I spent a precious afternoon rearranging my memories of the Before and the Now, eager to find a place in my life for a child I’d thought lost to me forever.
Episode 4
What Once Was Lost
Chapter One
Eric and Jason lived in a modest three-bedroom brick ranch house on the outskirts of Athens, close to the University of Georgia where Eric attended graduate school and worked as a teaching assistant. I stared at it through the tinted windshield of Jason’s immaculate ’85 Chevy Silverado. In the day’s failing light, it looked homey, comfortable. The yard was tiny, barely big enough to turn around in, but the grass was lush and evenly trimmed beneath the shade of two massive oaks, and the sidewalk leading from the curb to the house was in good repair. Music drifted from inside, muted and soft. Styx. Eric loved his rock and roll.
Jason reached across the bench seat and covered my hands. I’d twisted them into knots about five minutes after we’d left Elizabet’s mansion and now they seemed frozen that way.
“I can pull into the garage if you’re scared of the sun.”
The sun. Right. That’s what was holding me in my seat, not worry over how Willow would react when she met me, her absentee mother. I’d missed so much of her life already, nearly a whole year. Most of that time, I’d been locked in a cage awaiting the painful transition from monster into something resembling a human, but the past few months when I’d been awake? Those were an unforgivable lapse.
Why hadn’t Eric told me about her sooner? Why hadn’t I found the nerve to share my grief with him?
It had been three days since I’d learned of her, three days since the queen had forced a confrontation between me and Eric, three horrifically long days of agonizing over all that we’d both lost.
“She’s gonna love you,” Jason said softly. “I swear it. She thinks about you all the time.”
Tears threatened, pressing up through the regret, brimming up and over and down my cheeks in one narrow rivulet, then two. “I wanted to be with her, every day. I thought she was gone. I thought the turn had taken her and y’all had buried her in the grave where I was supposed to be.”
“No, baby. Sh.” Jason brushed his fingers over my cheeks, drying my tears. “No regrets. No sorrow. You can’t meet her like this. You don’t want your first time to be sad, do you?”
I shook my head. Curls bounced around my cheeks, tickling my skin. I’d taken extra care with my appearance, God knows why. Willow wasn’t even a year old yet, hardly old enough to be aware of her surroundings to any permanent degree, but I couldn’t stand the thought of her seeing me at anything less than my best. She was my angel. I wanted her to know me the way I’d known my own mother, with laughter and love and light, always.
The sun’s rays chased it out of the sky, leaving the horizon clothed in mottled shades of pink and gold. I gathered my nerve and slid a hand out from under Jason’s warm, heavy comfort, drawing courage around me.
The front door opened. Eric stepped out onto the stoop, feet bare under worn jeans, an aging Monty Python t-shirt stretched over his shoulders, one arm tucked securely under Willow’s diapered bottom.
My breath whooshed out of me. I’d seen pictures before. Jason had dozens on his laptop and he’d sent me more over the past few days. The reality, though, was something else. I pushed open my door, got out, and rounded the front end of Jason’s truck, barely aware of my own movements.
A strong light burned from within her, much brighter than any I’d ever seen. She was a beacon. Of course, she was, but still, the strength of her otherly aura surprised me.
She had one chubby hand curled over the neckline of Eric’s t-shirt. One finger of her other hand was poked into her mouth, hiding her chin and the shape of her lips. She wore a plain white t-shirt over her diaper and her feet were bare, the toes flexing and pointing with each step Eric made down the concrete sidewalk.
Her hair was silky and straight and parted over her right eye. I touched my own curls, kinky and slightly coarse, the same color as her locks, and ran a finger down my throat. Her skin was as pale as Eric’s. He stopped in front of me, and I gasped. Willow’s eyes were almond-shaped, the lashes long and curly. The irises were a piercing cornflower blue.
I slid a questioning glance at Jason.
He held both of his hands up and grinned. “Don’t look at me. I’m not responsible for that.”
He wasn’t, could never have been. I was already pregnant the first time Jason and I had sex, on mine and Eric’s wedding night, the very night the three of us had joined and become one.
I traced my fingers over my wedding bands, drawing comfort from them. “How, then?”
Eric cleared his throat. “She’s my child.”
Jason’s mind touched mine. We think she can manipulate her appearance the same way Eric can manipulate pretty much any part of somebody else’s body.
Oh. Of course. I’d heard the tales from Alice and Elizabet. Even Dinky had chimed in on Eric’s deeds and, more often, misdeeds. Apparently, he’d gained a reputation as a pet with whom one never fucked, not without suffering the consequences.
I fiddled with my rings, my gaze caught by my daughter. “Can I hold her?”
The words had barely left my mouth when she launched herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck as I scrambled to catch her. I settled her against my chest, her weight solid and wholly mine, if only for this moment.
“Easy there, Willow,” Eric murmured. He left a hand on her back, stroking her gently, and leaned in, kissing me on the cheek. “This one has a mind of her own.”
She rested her head on my shoulder and I turned, breathing in her little girl scent. Talcum powder, baby shampoo, and the unmistakable tang of blood. Exactly what one would expect from a child born of two near vampires. I inhaled again and again, pressing my nose into her hair, my throat closing around another spate of tears. Her fingers dug into my shirt, holding me with the same fierce grip, as if she understood exactly what we’d missed.
“Let’s get inside,” Eric said. “There’s still too much light in the sky for my peace of mind.”
Jason draped an arm around my shoulders and tucked me close. “You’re gonna love it here, Gigi. The backyard is fenced in and huge. Eric finally broke down and bought a grill, so we’re cooking out.”
He rambled on, describing this and that as we trailed behind Eric, never leaving the shade provided by the humongous trees. I missed a lot of it, and probably, I’d regret that later. Jason deserved my full attention, especially when he was trying so hard to put me at ease. He deserved my love, just as Eric did, just as Willow did, but all I could think about was how wonderful it was to hold m
y little girl, when I’d never thought to hold her at all.
I smoothed my cheek over the top of her head and ducked into the house ahead of Jason. The main entrance led directly into the living room, a rectangular area holding a couch upholstered in a rough, deep red cloth and matching recliners. A plain coffee table was positioned in front of the couch, which was bracketed by end tables, both holding wrought iron lamps with off-white shades. A TV was mounted to the wall beside the main entrance, across from the couch and above shelves containing a wide variety of DVDs and CDs. A door to the left led into a hallway, the door to the right into the kitchen. The door in the wall opposite the entrance was closed.
Eric slid a hand around my waist. “Come on. I’ll give you the nickel tour.”
He guided me down the hallway first, pointing out Willow’s room at the end. I snuck a peek in and marveled. The sun was painted on the wall to the left, its rays radiating outward across the sky blue walls. Puffy white clouds floated around it, some tinged with gray, others with gold. Below, flowers of all shapes, sizes, and colors were placed atop a line of mottled green I took to be grass. Halfway across the ceiling, between the far wall and the near one, the blue faded into black. The night sky reigned on this side of the room. A crescent moon was painted on the wall above Willow’s walnut-stained crib. Stars of various sizes formed constellations across the black. Here and there, a nebula appeared as a sponged blob of various colors, and a spiral armed galaxy occupied the ceiling above the door. The centerpiece, though, was a mobile of the solar system, hanging just out of reach over the crib.
“Watch this.” Jason reached through the door and flipped off the light, and I gaped. The moon and stars glowed dimly in the growing darkness. “Glow in the dark paint,” he said. “Willow loves it.”
“She’s Eric’s daughter,” I murmured. Then again, what child wouldn’t love a room that had been created with so much care and love?
Willow’s head popped off my shoulder. She reached toward the moon, one chubby finger pointing at it. “Dadada da dada dada,” she said.
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