Rebecca had primary responsibility for planning Brenna’s trip to Ireland after the High Council meeting in April. After talking to Brenna’s grandparents and their security, talking to Callie, and getting Brenna’s ideas, the trip was planned to last two months. It would start with a week in London attending the meeting, then three weeks in Ireland, a tour through Amsterdam, Paris and Marseilles, ending with two weeks at Antonia’s villa in Tuscany.
The first order of business was to send a team to Ireland to evaluate the O’Byrne and O’Donnell security capabilities there. No one had forgotten Lord Gordon or his unexplained campaign against succubi.
Antonia had some intelligence on that front. In addition to the money to be made by pimping exotic women, Gordon had lost a power struggle inside CBW and also lost a couple of large business deals, all to rivals with succubi working for them. He evidently felt eliminating that advantage would level the playing field.
Since both Seamus and Callie were going to London, the full resources and attention of Collin and Kallen were focused on their trip along with Brenna’s. Adding in that Noel would be traveling from San Francisco, Todd Harwood from Dallas, and Caroline and Karen from the East Coast, Rebecca was just one of the security chiefs coordinating with Nigel in London.
The amount Rebecca was learning went far beyond what she had ever expected at her age. Between that, her training, and the normal security for Brenna’s regular travel to Washington and Baltimore, she was falling into bed dead tired. She’d finally resorted to scheduling men to sleep with, glad the Protectors not only accepted her problem but seemed glad to help her out. She began to think about the advantages a steady boyfriend might bring to her life.
Her problem had made her life a living hell at times. As upset as she had been when Brenna explained the cause, it helped her come to grips with it and accept it. Her energy levels sliding out of balance were the cause of her undeniable urges. Understanding the problem finally allowed her to deal with them objectively.
Brenna and Irina had been helpful, learning along with her how to monitor her balances. As succubi, their skills with energy flows surpassed her own. They had been trying to find a way for her to shift the levels by herself, but so far it was out of reach. The discovery of how to prevent the succubi drain fueled Rebecca’s faith that someday Brenna would figure it out.
Now she tried to arrange to have sex every night, knowing her cycle would allow her to get through the next day without any issues or loss of focus. That’s where the scheduling came in. She hadn’t slept in her own bed in over a month. She arranged for one of her friends to take her in each night and she visited her own room only to shower and dress, no matter which house they were staying in.
Although she didn’t broadcast her problem to the world, for the first time since puberty, she felt as though she could face the world with pride in herself.
~~~
Brenna’s travel party was a minor logistical nightmare. Past London, Rebecca would be solely responsible for the security of four succubi. She felt pretty good about her planning until she hit Paris. When she began to research hotels there and figure the costs for two weeks, she stopped, stunned at her calculations.
She went back and put all the costs for the trip, those not picked up by the Clan, into a spreadsheet. The total sent her into a state of despair. For thirty-six people, she was looking at hotel, food, and travel expenses of over two hundred thousand a week.
Callie, how much did the New York trip cost?
You don't want to know.
Yeah, I do. I'm working on the Ireland and Europe trip and I just can't accept the numbers I'm getting. Can I come see you?
She went down to Callie's office, where she was confronted with reality. The week in New York, not counting shopping, had run over two hundred thousand dollars.
"I need to figure out how to cut this down. It's just too much," Rebecca said.
"Rebecca, planes, hotels and restaurants are expensive, and when you add in all the personnel for security, the costs just balloon."
"Yeah, but I can't let her spend her money like this. I have to find a way to do it cheaper."
Callie looked thoughtful for a few moments then said, "Have you considered renting a house for your longer stays, like in Paris?"
"A house? You can rent a house for two weeks? It would have to be some house to hold this many people."
"Go see Antonia, tell her what you're trying to do and see what she thinks. She's lived all over Europe."
Rebecca called Antonia, and the next day drove to DC to meet with her. She showed the older succubus her problem and Antonia said she would make a few phone calls.
Less than twenty-four hours later, Antonia walked in with several sheets of paper. "Someone I know gave me a contact in Paris and I found this place for twelve thousand euros a week. It's on the southern outskirts of Paris, has twelve bedrooms in the main house, six bedrooms in the guest house and five bedrooms in the servant's quarters. The family is on the Riviera for the spring and it’s just sitting empty."
"Twelve thousand euros a week?" Rebecca squeaked.
"I'm sorry, is that too much? I don't know if I can ..." The rest of what she was going to say was cut off as Rebecca leaped from her chair and enveloped her in a bear hug.
"Oh God, Antonia, that's great. I've been looking at twelve thousand a night. And with a house, we can save on breakfast, maybe on some lunches. You're a life saver."
Antonia regarded the young, obviously flustered woman. "Have you ever done anything like this before?” Then a thought hit her, "Have you ever been to Europe before?"
Misery showed in Rebecca's eyes, "I don't even have a passport. I've never been out of the country before. I've only been on a plane once in my life."
"Il mia cara, do you need some help?" Antonia said, slipping partially into Italian as she often did.
"Well, Collin and Kallen are helping me. Sometimes. But they have their own stuff to do, and, well, sometimes they're kind of brief, and ..." she looked as though she was about to cry.
Antonia pulled up a chair. "Let's see what I can help you with. First, send an email to Callie telling her that you and Brenna and Irina need passports. I'm sure no one has thought of that simple item. Then tell me what you have and what you still need and we'll see what we can do to get it done."
Rebecca looked at her, face tight but trying to be strong and professional. "Thank you," one tear escaped and she brushed at it with her sleeve.
Antonia looked at Rebecca’s preparations, then said, "Have you asked that man in London, what's his name, Nigel? Yes, Nigel, have you asked him about charter flights? Between Dublin and London and then from London to Amsterdam?"
"No, we're supposed to use our travel agency."
"Dear, you have thirty-six people and you're not shipping chickens. You have the most precious asset of the Clan in your charge. Send him an email. Ask about either O'Donnell aircraft or charter flights. Ask for his recommendation and get the costs. Also, ask if his travel people in London can recommend hotels in Amsterdam and travel to Paris. Then ask for recommendations for itinerary and hotels from Paris to Tuscany. Also, ask about a charter flight from Rome to Washington or New York."
"But I'm supposed to use the travel agency here. I'll get in trouble." The girl looked completely miserable.
Antonia came close to shedding tears herself. "Rebecca, you're arranging travel for Brenna, paying for it with Brenna's money, yes? Then, mia cuore, if anyone gives you any crap, tell them to take it up with Brenna."
Rebecca looked startled then smiled. "Yeah, let them deal with her. Antonia, that's brilliant."
Antonia nodded. "Our friend is very sweet, and very stubborn, isn't she? And very protective of you. If you do this and tell her you did it to save her money, and on my advice, do you really think Collin is going to put you in trouble?"
Smiling, Rebecca shook her head. "No one screws with Brenna. It's just not worth the grief."
Within a week
, she had all her arrangements made and figured she'd cut well over half a million off the trip with Antonia's help and advice.
~~~
Brenna, Rebecca and Irina were spending a week in West Virginia relaxing and riding. Brenna also wanted to spend time with Collin. Callie found the young women in Brenna’s room late one afternoon still wearing their riding clothes and having a couple of beers. She set a stack of papers on the table, sorted them into three piles, and shoved a pile in front of each girl.
"There are a couple of things you need to sign and I need to explain a couple of things. Got an extra beer?"
Brenna jumped up and went to her fridge. "Light or dark?" She popped the top off and brought it to Callie.
"I'm a mother?" Rebecca asked, looking at the paper in front of her.
Callie smiled, "You and Brenna. I have plenty of time with Irina, but you're getting old enough you need to think about your future."
"I do?"
Brenna looked at the document sitting in front of her. "Aoife Brenna O'Donnell? Mother: Brenna Aoife O'Donnell? Callie, what is this?"
"In thirty or forty years, you ladies are going to need new identities. The easiest way to do that is set them up now. Then you can explain that your jealous bitch of a mother kept you locked in a closet all these years and you finally escaped when she died."
"Oh," Rebecca said brightly. "Yeah, that's a good place for kids. Thanks for the tip."
Irina piped up, "Why do I need two passports? And how do I rate an Irish one?"
"You especially need the Irish one,” Callie said, “because Ireland is an EU country and that gives you the right to work in Europe. If you have to do any travel for Jayson, that will come in handy. The United States is not loved in some places. Traveling on an Irish passport may save you some grief. It also gives you access to Irish healthcare services. Only use the U.S. one to leave and enter this country and put it away safe the rest of the time.
"As to how you rate one, your grandmother was Irish, and with a statement from your great aunt, Siobhan's mother, I was able to establish your Irish citizenship. Brenna was born in Ireland, so hers was easy."
"I was? My birth certificate says I was born in West Virginia."
"Your parents smuggled you into the country as a baby and Dorothy signed a birth certificate to give you native status here. Rebecca, I had to take some liberties to establish your Irish citizenship. I made you Brenna's sister."
"Really?" She looked inside the green passport where her picture sat next to the name Aine O'Donnell. The birthdate was hers.
"If anyone asks, your parents were Jack and Maureen O'Donnell and you were born in Ballyshannon, Ireland."
"Where's that?"
"Where Seamus was born, County Donegal, we’re going there," Brenna replied. "Where was I born?"
"At your grandparents' estate south of Dublin. Your mom plowed the north forty in the morning, popped you out at lunch, and plowed the south forty in the afternoon."
Rebecca choked on her beer, but managed to keep from spraying the table and the papers on it.
Brenna gave Callie a sour look.
"Almost," Callie told her. "Jack told me it was only an hour and twenty minutes from first contraction until she popped you out. Not me, fifteen hours with the first one and twelve with the second. I'd have given anything to have hips like yours."
Brenna chuckled and looked slyly at Irina, “You should reconsider that fetish you have for big men.”
“Yeah,” Rebecca chimed in, “You’ll look really strange with a ten pound baby.”
“You’re the one who has to worry,” Callie told her, “You’ve got hips like mine. Succubi can give birth to a water buffalo.”
~~~
Rosie Thompson had become one of Brenna’s close friends. An S-gene carrier, her sexual energies required balancing every three to four hours. It made her very popular among the men, to the religious Rosie’s shame. Forty years old, she’d lived her entire life in the valley.
Noel Campbell, regional director in San Francisco, had posted a position as head of food service at his headquarters. Encouraged by Mrs. Doyle and Brenna, Rosie had applied and to her great surprise, Noel hired her. She came to see Brenna the next day.
“Brenna, I want to thank you for your recommendation, I hope I can live up to it and do the job.”
“Rosie, Mrs. Doyle thinks you can do the job. All I did was tell Noel that you’re a hard worker and a wonderful person and he’ll be lucky to have you.”
“Well, that’s saying a lot. It’s a big step for me, leaving the valley.”
“You need to get out of here, need to be able to start fresh. Are you taking anyone with you?”
Rosie smiled, “Robbie’s coming. You know, Robbie has probably asked me to marry him a hundred times, but I always said no because I didn’t want him to have to live with my reputation. But I told him if he came with me I’d say yes.”
Brenna jumped up and embraced her. “Oh, Rosie, I’m so happy for you. Congratulations!”
Rosie beamed. “Brenna, what I really came to talk to you about, well, I want to have a baby. When you told me what was really wrong with me, and that there’s ways to keep my kids from having it, I talked to Callie, and she showed me how to pick an egg, you know, whether it has that gene or not. I can control that.” She snorted, “Be the first thing about my life I’ve ever been able to control.”
She sat down and said in a rush, “Brenna, I want to have a succubus. I want to have a daughter like you, like Irina, a beautiful daughter, and if I pick the right man I can do it.”
Brenna eyed her. “But Robbie isn’t a carrier.”
“No, he isn’t, but he’s okay with me having a baby with someone else. I told him, let me do this and I’ll give you a son and a daughter that are normal, you let me do this and I’ll love you till the day I die and I’ll do anything for you. And Brenna, he loves me, he’s always loved me, the fool. Ever since I took his virginity when he was fifteen he’s followed me around like a motherless pup. Twenty years it’s been, and it must be God’s plan that we be together. So when I told him I wanted a succubus, he just smiled and told me that I could have a whole houseful if it made me happy.” Her eyes misted. ”He’s such a good man. I should have said yes a long time ago.”
“So who do you have in mind as the father?” Brenna asked timidly.
“Brenna, you know I was Collin’s first, too, don’t you? He’s always been very kind to me, never made fun of me or said things behind my back. He never loved me, but he would help me out when I needed it, and I know for a fact he blacked more than one eye ‘cause someone said somethin’ about me.
“So that’s what I came to ask you. ‘Cause if it would cause you any upset, I’ll just drop the whole idea. You’ve been so good to me, treated me like a friend. You know, I never really expected you to take me out, you bein’ the Lord’s granddaughter and all, but I had the time of my life goin’ to DC with you and Rebecca. Damn, girl, you two know how to show someone a good time.”
Brenna started to chuckle. “Rosie, why don’t you just come out and say it? You’ve hinted like crazy that you want Collin to be the father.”
Rosie turned scarlet red. “Uh, well, I, uh, I mean … I ain’t never asked someone to screw their husband before. I mean, I’ve done it, and I ain’t proud of it, but I couldn’t do that to you if it would hurt you.” Her West Virginia accent was becoming more pronounced the longer they talked.
Brenna got up and went to her sideboard. “Beer? Wine? Whiskey? I think I’ll have a little fine Irish whiskey myself.”
Rosie nodded and Brenna poured Midleton’s into two glasses. Handing one to Rosie, she said, “This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done Collin since I moved here. Why are you asking me now?”
Taking a drink of her whiskey, Rosie squared her shoulders and looked up at her, “That was just fun, and I know both of you have fun. But this is different. Robbie would be her papa most all the time, but I’d want her re
al daddy to be part of her life, and I’d want her to know who her real daddy was. I want her to love Robbie, too, and I figure it’s better for a girl to have two daddies than none at all. But Brenna, if it would cause you any hurt at all, God, girl, I’d crawl across broken glass rather than hurt you.”
“You don’t know who your father is, do you, Rosie?”
“No, my mama never told me. Had to be someone with that S-gene ‘cause my mama ain’t got it.”
Brenna put her arms around her and drew her into an embrace. “Rosie, you have no idea how much it means to me for you to say that you wouldn’t want to hurt me,” she whispered into the shorter woman’s hair. “If Collin is willing, then the both of you have my blessing, and you and your daughter will always be welcome in my house.”
Rosie’s eyes filled with tears, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for anything, you still need to talk to him, and don’t you tell him you and I talked. If he’s going to be a daddy, it’ll be because he wants to.”
That evening when she and Collin went to bed, he said, “Brenna, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Oh? Sounds important when you put it that way.”
“Do you want to have children?”
“Are we talking about making a baby tonight? I want to have children, and I want to have them with you, but Collin, I’m nowhere near ready yet.”
He chuckled, “No, I wasn’t talking about tonight, but I was wondering if you knew when you wanted them.”
She frowned at him, “Another decade or two. Do you mind telling me what this is about?”
“Am I the only man you want to have children with?”
Brenna took a deep breath and thought for a minute, carefully weighing her answer. “Collin, I want to have a lot of babies, spaced out, maybe two or three litters over sixty or eighty years. I’ve thought about this quite a bit, actually, and I want to have the first one with you, and the second one with Noel. And after that, I want to give you a son.”
He smiled, “I assume the first two will be succubi?”
She nodded.
“Brenna, Rosie asked me today if I’d help her make a baby, a succubus.”
The Telepathic Clans (The Telepathic Clans Saga, Books 1 and 2) Page 40