“She will ruin you, this house! He cannot be bonded to her! She’s human, it is impossible!” Jackie’s vindictive aspirations reach a hysterical pitch.
“Liam, be a dear and go put out that fire. John, escort Miss Azzara off our property. Will, my love, I think Joseph and Mary will want to know about this.” Esmeriska ignores the outburst, pulling her lips into the prettiest, most menacing smile.
“Goodbye Miss Azzara.”
Jackie lets out a series of insults and snaps at John before she runs off into the direction of the river. John is short on her heels following his mother’s direction and enjoying every moment of it. Liam is still seething. He storms into Mina’s room and the foundation shakes under the thunder that follows. Esmeriska waits patiently for the crashing and breaking of the furniture to end, inspecting her own trembling hands. When the silence falls over the den, she firmly calls again to her son.
“That fire won’t put itself out Liam.”
When his blur passes her, she leaps into the small room. Jackie had removed all the pictures, clothing, and anything that marginally resembled Carmina, from the room. What was left is now in pieces on the floor. She turns away and closes the door softly.
Outside, the fire is doused but nothing remains of the small pile.
“New beginnings, my boy.”
Then Liam sees his mother do something he has never seen her do in his entire existence.
She spits, literally spits, in the direction Jackie left in and follows it with: “If that arrogant little bitch comes near my kids again, I will shred her to pieces myself.” After which, she daintily wipes her mouth at the corners.
Liam would never believe it if he didn’t see it himself. When things calm down, Esmeriska goes to see Margarith in an effort to divert her own attention; Liam shows his father and brother what he witnessed.
“Woah! Remind me never to consciously make mother angry, bro!”
“That, boys, is my wife – your mother. Right there is the reason I paired with her and would not challenge her again…”
The boys look at their father and both ask simultaneously. “Again?”
Will coughs and gives a secretive wink. “The last time I kissed and told...”
The two men sit down next to the cindered pile on the ground.
“I can’t believe she did that bro, I’m sorry.” John shunts his brother’s shoulder.
“Mother is right. New beginnings,” and nonchalantly the grin spreads on Liam’s face again as he recalls Mina’s last entry.
“Jarrod is back from his visit. Join us for the hunt tomorrow?” John asks, suspicious of the look on his brother’s face.
“Take Mina.” His grin widens. He gets up and kicks at the burnt ashes, then stomps into them.
“Here’s to new beginnings, bro!” John joins his brother.
***
First Hunt
The knock on my door brings relief. I heard Jarrod approach but it is still dark outside, so I figure he’s just checking on me.
“Mina! Carmina! Get your gear, your lazy behind is learning to hunt today!”
Excitement surges through my whole body. FINALLY! I do a fast little run in place and wiggle around the room punching the air. I am a hundred percent sure I hear a familiar snort and blush deep red.
“John, knocking is an option!” I shout at him, storming into the kitchen.
“Yeah, but then I don’t see you do happy dances around the house,” He sniggers and mocks me, doing the same dance.
“Eat something, don’t want your tummy rumbles scaring the animals away. Meet you by the gate.”
I rush, eating and dressing as fast as I can. When I meet Jarrod and John at the gate, they both start snorting.
“You – Food – Hair,” is all I can make out between the choking. I feel the blush and comb my fingers through my hair, pulling out pieces of cheese and butter.
“Ugh, can we go?”
“Yeah, soon as you get the rest of the snacks you keep in…” I spin around to see Liam holding another piece of toast in his hand. How did I not hear him? How did he get so close to me?
John and Jarrod both look surprised too.
“Where did you… uhm,” I grab at his hand, removing the evidence and turn to walk back to my cottage. Liam’s fingers close around my wrist and pull me back.
“Don’t be childish. The clan are a few hands short while visiting family and I can help.” I cannot fault the perfectly good reason Liam has for being here.
“Which is why I called you too. Lilly is useless, she’ll cuddle the things and want to name them. We can do with the hands today, Carmina, as much as I hate to say it.” Jarrod backs Liam up, even though I can hear his teeth grinding and the contempt he passes in Liam’s direction isn’t fake.
“Fine. Can we go now?” I ask again, moving as far away from Liam as I can, putting both Jarrod and John between us. Liam shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs.
“After you.”
Patiently I listen to Jarrod’s instructions. I commit every word to memory and file it away. Jarrod is an amazing hunter. We do not eat a lot of meat but what we eat is always fresh. Wild meat is part of a weekly diet and usually the group going out is made up of six, sometimes ten, formidable hunters. We have to catch and bring back enough for the clan and I realize we’re not hunting rabbits and hares alone. It is possibly a good thing we have both the wolves with us as they can carry quite a bit more than I can. Jarrod helps me to identify all the sounds as we move along, eliminating the ones that are – as he call them – noisemakers.
I hear the elk long before I see it and inform the men.
When the gentle push comes from both Liam and John, I see no point in refusing the link. It makes hunting a lot easier. My family does not know about the linking yet but I guess every secret has a time and a place to reveal itself. How would Jarrod deal with this? He already picked up that my senses are a bit sharper than before, but this is something different.
John puts a hand on Jarrod’s chest and gives him a trusting look.
“Mina, show us where.”
Responding to John’s request, I turn my head and see the bottom of the bottle appear. The elk is quite a distance off, but there is no mistake about it being there. Under Jarrod’s direction, we move around and John suggests that I be the one to flush it towards them. I wait for Jarrod to acknowledge the request and explain to me where to go and how to herd the animal. Liam is quiet but the comfortable familiarity of his energy is hard to dismiss.
I focus on the task at hand and do as instructed. The moment I am sure Jarrod cannot see me anymore, I speed up in the indicated direction, keeping John and Liam moving along with my progress. I feel the pride from both the boys, which obviously encourages my determination not to mess up. The animal speeds off the minute I appear behind it. I don’t chase, just like Jarrod instructed, but I keep track of it as it bounces and move towards them. I inhale sharply when I see how fast Jarrod is able to move. I hold my breath with fingers crossed; when he leaps onto the animal, I want to clap in excitement. Liam and John are there in a flash and the animal goes down fast and silently. I go around to get back to the trio just in time to see Jarrod wiping his mouth and hands on a cloth, which he then puts back into a sealed bag.
“Good work, Mina,” John cheers inside my consciousness. Liam is silently regarding me with the smallest of curls around his lips.
“Nicely done, Mina!” Jarrod pats me on the back and then thumbs his nose before handing me a small knife. I look at it confused.
“This doesn’t count as a first kill for you so the next one is yours and uhm, since you don’t do the ... you know…” he snaps his teeth at me and the other two chuckles amused. Nerves set in fast. I will have to reveal myself to Jarrod if I am to pull down any animal.
“You can do it Mina… he’ll be fine. Gotcha back, little Vixen.”
I look at Liam and the casual distance he keeps from me brings a tenacious pull in my belly. Li
am is first to pick up the scent of another elk and, as before, John touches Jarrod’s chest while Liam shows us the animal. Jarrod’s instructions were precise… if you’re a slow human. I listen and modify in my mind what needs doing. I don’t have the strength they do, but I have the speed. When Liam is in place to herd the animal our way, John and Jarrod flank me to make sure the elk won’t get away if it gets past me. When Jarrod lifts his hand, I set off straight for the animal. Jumping over its back, I slice four times around the vitals on either side of its neck. The animal was stunned and seconds later bolted onward and collapse bleeding out on the ground. I was sitting, dumbfounded, on the other side and heard the cheers from the trio rushing my way. The smell of the blood rises up in my nose and I swallow hard, trying to figure out the carnal urge to taste the blood for myself. Liam is by my side, taking the knife from my hand, whispering barely audibly: “From Rockflower to Huntress... Be still my heart.”
John and Jarrod catch up to us and Liam hands the latter his knife back. I crawl closer to the animal, making sure it is dead and not suffering. Jarrod pushes his hands into the wounds I made, then steps closer to me. His hands move lightning fast as he draw the hunter’s markings on my skin in silence. I grab his hand to look at the blood, still trying to make sense of the incredible urge that is forcing itself on me.
Liam looks between John and I, who obviously feels the conflict raging inside my body as well. Slowly, my frame reacts and my head lowers, smelling the blood and inhaling it until I can taste it in the back of my throat. It is Jarrod who drops to his knees next to me, his hands moving fast as he expertly slices a piece of bloody flesh from just below the elk’s chest, offering it to me first. After which, with Jarrod’s lightning movements, each of them is standing with a thin slice of warm, bloodied meat.
“Congratulations, my little big sister. Artemis and Diana blessed us today.”
Mechanically, I bring the meat to my mouth. My eyes close as I feel the warm, tender and sticky blood-soaked meat fill me with satisfaction. I wipe my mouth and feel embarrassed knowing how much I enjoyed the hunt and how much I enjoyed the raw meat. Knowing that they know; knowing Liam knows.
The world defrosts around me and speeds up again, and I cannot help but let the absolutely joyous “whoop!” escape.
I look at Liam; he winks at me, just to turn and walk away.
“Good job Vixen!”
“Mina! What the hell! You’ve been holding back on us!” Jarrod grabs me, spinning me around in a twirling hug.
“Dude, I told you to expect the unexpected today. Mina picked that speed trick up when she met the Lynx House.” John explains.
I watch John pick the animal up and drape it over his shoulder without any effort at all, while Jarrod directs me towards the other. When we reach it, Liam has already picked it up in the same fashion, which leaves Jarrod empty handed. Not to be out done, he crouches in front of me and grins.
“Your ride awaits, huntress?”
I giggle and hitch a ride on my brother’s back. The trip home was filled with laughter and playful banter, but the lasting pride that is airily cuddling up to me from Liam is what keeps the grin plastered to my face.
When we step through the courtyard, the family cheers loudly as Jarrod ceremoniously presents the latest hunter in the clan to them.
Momma and Lady E jog forth and only because they outrank my brother does he put me down to face them, standing on my own two feet.
“You should have seen it, Momma!” Jarrod excitedly tells the story “And then she was off like lightning, just a blur!”
Momma listens to Jarrod through narrowed eyes and Lady E snorts behind her hand. It is clear that Momma thinks Jarrod is telling tales.
“Our Carmina, hey? Like lightning?” Momma teases “And if she was fishing, the one that got away was how big?”
“Margarith, believe your boy. Mina has been holding back on you.”
I don’t want to talk about myself anymore. My eyes search for Liam but he’s already taken his loot to the prep room and disappeared. I still feel his link, but it is gentle and distant.
“Not you too, Esmeriska!” Momma looks at the woman next to her who steps back and waves me off.
“To your cottage and back sweetheart, ready… steady… go….” She counts me off. It took a moment for me to register what she meant and I thought I might as well. I don’t go back to them though –instead, I head straight for the bathroom.
When nobody comes to chastise me for cheating, I guess that Lady E knew I wasn’t going to return. I sigh happily, playing the whole morning over in my mind. I put the carnal thing down to the fact that it was my first hunt and I probably just slapped my animal brain into action. I am surprised how well my plan worked and how well Jarrod took the whole thing.
I am to be a regular participant of the hunting party. Jarrod takes his time to explain and answer every question I have. Liam and John both are regular party members too and, at times, Uncle Will joins us. Lilly wasn’t too pleased to know my first kill was ‘Bambi’ but she had no problem enjoying the stew it provided. I have no time to think about the moral implications of our hunts. We are always careful to be as humane as possible and make the kill as fast as we can. Our family relies on the food source and we don’t waste any part of the carcass. There is nothing about our hunts that is thrown away. The skulls and bones that cannot be carved into jewelry are ground up and used as a paste to harden into tiles.
“Thank you, John, for helping with Jarrod,” I let him know directly and the immediate response came back: “Your fridge is empty, see you at breakfast.”
SpringTime
I climb onto the window seat and look out at the Volcano in the distance. I cannot believe how fast time has gone by. It is around 6 months since my first encounter with the Morettis and so much has happened. Tomorrow is officially spring day and a week later will be my 23rd birthday. Our family makes a big deal of spring’s arrival. It is a time to celebrate new life and we tend not to hunt much during this time either. If we do, we will not take any animal that is pregnant, nursing or young. It is also a festival day and there will be food and drink, games and dances in disorganized order. We’ve spent the past week preparing for this event and tomorrow is shaping up to be busy. I am very excited, as it is also the day I choose to celebrate my birthday. It is merely days apart and I see no point in having two separate celebrations. Momma has agreed to this when I was little and told her my thoughts on the matter. We still laugh when Momma tells the story of how the little girl stood and told her “Spring-day or no more birthdays.”
Liam has been present but not in obvious ways. He has figured out a way to get around me and shows up at times with logical reasoning behind it. I will confess that I look forward to the hunts if for no other reason than to be connected to Liam. With the hunts being paused for a while, I don’t know how I’ll get my fix. I’ve also noticed that my taste for raw meat has increased. For some reason, I am not constantly hungry after the smallest bite of meat. Momma’s theory is that my body is straining with the new developments and, seeing as I am anemic, it makes sense that it is not food my body needs, but supplements.
As I sit and watch the sun set, I lean against the windowsill. John and Jarrod’s footsteps come towards the cottage, bringing forth a groan from me.
“Mina!” and “Vixen!” drifts towards me as they call out for my attention. I get up unwillingly, opening the door before they reach it.
“What do you want?” I ask them curtly. They jostle at each other, apparently not sure who should go first. I feel my foot tapping impatiently. Eventually, it is Jarrod that speaks up.
“We brought you an early birthday present – but, but – no, Mina, wait!” Jarrod steps back when I move to close the door.
“We know you don’t like fussing, and this is not fussing…” John interferes and holds the door open with his foot while he speaks “…we just want you to enjoy tomorrow.”
“And it was Momma, Lilly
and Lady E’s idea… we just came to deliver… it…” Jarrod ducks when I take a swing at him and John steps out of my view. Behind him stands Liam. He is dressed in a black long sleeved shirt with white leather string crisscrossing to keeping the shirt from opening over his chest. My hand, still in mid-swing, drops to my side and I gawk like a schoolgirl who’s just seen her favorite movie star. John and Jarrod both take this opportunity to run away, still pushing and shoving at each other.
I look both ways making sure my eyes are not deceiving me. My mouth dries and Liam does not move. Unsure of what to do next, I leave the door open and walk into the living room. When Liam doesn’t follow I turn back to stand in the door again.
“It is custom, Miss Nightshade, to invite a vampire into your home - certainly a custom created by the movies, but one I like.” Liam’s voice is slow, soft and alluring.
“Uhm, ok.” I decide to play along. “Mr. Moretti, would you like to join me inside my humble home?” A blur passes the threshold and Liam produces a bunch of sunflowers from behind his back.
“I would very much like to take up on that offer Miss Nightshade.”
My hands reach for the flowers and there is no way to hide the shaking. I turn with the flowers clutched against my chest hoping they would cover the erratic beating in there.
“Right then, please make yourself at home while I put these in water. They are beautiful!” The curl on the one side of his mouth as good as stops my heart from beating. This man is downright gorgeous!
I storm into the kitchen, grateful for the opportunity to try and compose myself. I take a few deep breaths to steady the nerves, reminding myself he is with someone else. He is here because very few can say no to the woman who conspired against me. The flowers make their way into the vase and I have to concentrate hard on holding it tight while carrying it out and placing it on the single empty shelf of my bookcase. Liam has made himself comfortable in my window seat, his one leg on the floor and the other pulled up casually for his arm to lean on.
Hidden Carmina Page 19