by J. L. McCoy
“Come on,” Hagan rumbled, getting up from the bar stool beside me. “Break time is over. You should be busy training right now, Morrison, not thinking about all the pointless shit you can’t change.”
Glad for the interruption, I leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on Archer’s lips before I got up and followed Hagan to the dance floor.
Archer took the seat I had just vacated and settled in to watch my progress, or more accurately, lack thereof.
Five minutes later, Quinn, Lochlan, and Hunter showed up and took the new-hires to their prospective stations to train. Twenty minutes later, my own training with Hagan was interrupted by a commotion at the front entrance.
Chapter Two
“Let me through, please,” a familiar female voice demanded and I froze. Quinn was doing his best to try and keep the unexpected guest out.
“Something wicked this way comes,” I heard Hunter whisper from behind the bar.
Archer immediately got up off the barstool and strode toward the doors. My knees felt wobbly and I grabbed on to Hagan’s arm to steady myself. Oh no! What the hell is she doing here?
“Dr. Morrison,” Archer greeted smoothly. “What an unexpected surprise.”
“No time for fake pleasantries, Mr. Rhys,” my mother barked sternly. “Where is my daughter?”
I swallowed my panic and finally found my voice. “Mom? What are you doing here?”
I watched my mother’s eyes frantically search for me and when she finally saw me across the room, her face looked relieved.
“Where the hell have you been, young lady?” she demanded angrily as she pushed past Archer. “And why haven’t you returned my calls? I’ve been worried sick about you! I hear nothing from you for almost a month? You make me drop everything to fly up here and when I go to your house, Nikki tells me-”
She stopped talking mid-sentence and her feet slowed as she approached me. “Your eyes…” Her face became confused and she was staring hard at my colorless globes; gone were the hazel eyes I had entered her world with.
I watched as her faced morphed from confusion to shock and then absolute horror. “No,” she gasped as her hand flew to her mouth, her head shaking side to side as she took a few slow steps backward. “Nonono. Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me it isn’t true!”
“It’s true,” Archer said gently, his eyes finding mine as steely sorrow filled his eyes. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”
Anger flashed across her features and she quickly turned on him. “You’re sorry? Sorry? YOU TURNED MY DAUGHTER?!” she furiously screeched as she threw her expensive Hermes bag on the ground.
I swallowed thickly at the sight. Panic seized me and I knew Mama had to have been unforgivably livid if she threw her purse like that without any thought to the thousands of dollars she invested in it. Mistreating any high fashion item, especially her favorite Hermes bag, was something she’d never, EVER would have done under normal circumstances.
“YOU TURNED MY ONLY CHILD INTO A VAMPIRE?!”
“You’d better go calm her down before this gets ugly, Morrison” Hagan whispered quickly, giving me a little push from behind.
“Mama, please let me explain,” I whispered gently as I tentatively reached out to touch her arm, her gaze still locked with Archer’s, when what she had said finally began to permeate my mental shock.
“Wait. You know what he is?” I asked, confused.
She whirled around and her angry eyes bored into mine. “Of course I know what he is! I’ve known about their existence since I was your age.”
“How?” I breathed.
“My senior year at MIT was spent secretly studying the brain and nervous system of a vampire volunteer,” she sneered. “Not that I ever planned on having that discussion with you or anyone else! What I want to know right this instant is why you are now one of them?”
Her eyes suddenly got wide and the look of anger slid into one of worry. “Did someone force you? Did they do this to you against your will or…or did you ask for this?”
Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed me by the elbow and started dragging me toward the exit as she mumbled rapidly. “I knew I should have put a stop to you working here the moment I found out you were hired by one of them. I am very disappointed in you, Skye Everleigh. How could you let these disgusting-”
“Mom, please-”
“-foul creatures corrupt you!”
Archer stepped in front of her, blocking her way, and held his hands out in front of him to stop her. “Dr. Morrison, I assure you that-”
“Get out of my way! I’m-”
“Mama, my arm. You’re hurting m-”
“-taking my daughter and you are never to see her again!”
“Grace, if you will please let us explain-”
“Do not SPEAK TO ME! How dare you-”
“Mama, please-”
“-speak to me after what you’ve done?! You have-”
“Your daughter was unfortunately-”
“-single handedly RUINED HER LIFE! You’ve turned her into-.”
“Mom stop-”
“-caught up in a situation and we tried our best-”
“-a blood sucking MONSTER! You killed my sweet, innocent-”
“-to save her using the only option available to us. You have to understand-”
“Let go of me-”
“-little girl! I am going to make you pay for this, Archer Rhys. I don’t-”
“-it was either turn her or allow her to become something much worse. We-”
“-know how yet, but I swear to you that you will pay-”
“-had no choice, Grace. We did our best to-”
“Mom, stop,” I tried again, but it was no use; she and Archer were locked in a verbal battle of wills and no one was paying me any mind. My elbow ached from the surprisingly strong grip my mother had on it and I increasingly needed her to let me go. My temper was starting to get the better of me the longer the vocal match went on.
My mother was yelling about how Archer had ripped my innocence away and Archer had his arms crossed defensively over his chest, having given up on trying to be nice to her and instead telling her he had done her a favor by keeping me alive. Things were rapidly getting out of hand and no one would listen to me. Finally, I had had enough of being manhandled by my mom and listening to their ridiculous back and forth barbs. My temper snapped and I proceeded to lose it.
“Goddammit, Mother!” I yelled as my eyes flickered pitch black in anger. I roughly jerked my arm out of her grasp and forced myself between her and Archer. “I said stop! I am NOT a child anymore and you can’t just waltz in here and treat me like one. I am a grown ass woman and what I chose to do with MY life is MY choice.”
Her face registered shock at my words, but I couldn’t stop. There were things about our relationship that had been bothering me for a long time and once the verbal floodgates opened, there was no stopping it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mother with my entire being, but she was utterly overbearing sometimes.
“Your “sweet, innocent Skye”, as you so frequently like to put it, stopped being so sweet and innocent the second she gave up her V card at fifteen to Schyler Smith in the back of his ’69 Oldsmobile Hurst! Oh, don’t look so shocked, Mother. Open your eyes. I am ME, dammit! I swear and drink and have sex, sometimes with more than one person in a week, if the mood so strikes me. I like metal music, whips and chains, and handcuffs. I love tattoos and piercings and bad boys and most recently, I LOVE VAMPIRES! I am sick and fucking tired of hiding who I am from you. I was always scared that you’d be disappointed in me and God knows, nothing on this planet is worse than Dr. Grace Evelyn Morrison when she’s disappointed in someone. I am tired of trying to live up to your perfect idea of the person you think I should be.
“Jesus, Mother. Take a good look around you and take a good look at me. This is who I am! This is who I’ve always been. Now, I didn’t choose to be a vampire, but it was either this or the final death. Archer saved me from somet
hing really horrible and you should be here kissing his fine ass for saving your only child instead of standing here YELLING AT IT!”
I took a much needed deep breath as my body continued to shake with anger. I had never spoken to my mother like that in my life, and felt somewhat bad for my choice of delivery, but it sure felt good to get those bottled up feelings off my chest after all these years.
My mother looked completely stunned for a moment, but then snapped her bottom jaw shut and put her hands on her narrow hips. “I can’t believe this shit! You turned out just like your father!”
Chapter Three
“What did you say?” I whispered in pure shock. The room had gone eerily quiet in the wake of her admission.
“I didn’t leave my career in Boston and move you halfway across the country just so you could grow up and turn into the exact thing I was protecting you from! I sacrificed EVERYTHING for you, Skye. And you repay me like this?” she yelled, flinging her arm in Archer’s direction. “With one of THEM?! You truly are your father’s daughter!”
“What are you saying?” I breathed as I grabbed her arm in desperation. My mother never, ever spoke of my father. The only time she did was when I was younger and it was only to tell me that I didn’t have one. “Are you trying to tell me my father was a vampire?”
“That’s impossible,” Archer whispered and I looked back at him questioningly. “Vampires cannot procreate.”
“They can if they turn after conception,” my mother huffed, drawing my attention back to her. Our eyes met and I saw that under her anger, there was intense sadness.
I let go of her arm and put some space between us as I tried to come to terms with what I just heard.
“Everyone out,” Archer said quietly and I watched as Lochlan, Quinn, Aziza, Nola, Thorin, Hagan and Hunter immediately began to walk across the main floor and disappeared down the hall toward the stockrooms, giving us the privacy we needed to have this conversation.
“Would you like a drink, Grace?” Archer questioned kindly as he walked to the bar.
She sighed dejectedly and ran her fingers through her honey wheat hair. “Bourbon, neat, and bring the bottle, vampire.”
I watched her turn and take a seat in one of the nearby booths. I followed on slow feet, still in shock from her admission.
“Mama-” I tried when I sat down but she immediately cut me off.
“What the hell are you?” she asked sharply, her eyes boring into my black ones. I pretended not to see the disgust on her face.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I whispered, looking down at the table and my folded hands.
“Try,” she commanded. “I can tell by the black in your eyes that you are not like Archer Rhys and his other children; you carry some Dark in you…but you are like no Dark One I’ve ever seen.”
I absentmindedly touched the corner of my eye and looked up at her. I hadn’t realized that they were still black until she pointed it out. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, calming myself. I felt them flicker back and opened my colorless eyes again, meeting hers.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered to herself, intense confusion marring her beautiful, familiar face.
“I’ll tell you what happened, but I need you to promise that you won’t interrupt me,” I said timidly. “I only have the nerve to tell you this once. And when I’m done, it’s your turn. You will tell me everything you know about my father and you won’t omit a thing. I have the right to know, especially now that I know he is a vampire.”
Archer arrived then and set the bottle of Maker’s Mark and three glasses on the table. Mama poured hers with shaky hands and immediately downed a generous shot. I stared at her, concerned. My mother wasn’t much of a drinker but she seemed to have no problem with the bite and burn that followed her shot.
“You have my word,” my mother sighed, resigned.
I told her everything that I had been through since the day I met Archer at Afterburners and finished with my planned trip to Boston the next day for my Sacred Vow Ceremony. She was silent for a long time as she stared at me, apparently deep in thought.
“Why didn’t you tell me Jesse was stalking you?” she asked then shook her head, her eyes slowly finding Archer’s. “Never mind that. Is my daughter truly safe now, Mr. Rhys? Can this creature escape and find her again?”
“Extreme measures are in place and Amun is secure,” he explained. “There is no way he can ever escape again. Your daughter is my very breath, Grace, and I will protect her as such. You have my word.”
“The word of a vampire…” she scoffed looking down at her hands as they tightly grasped her glass.
“I don’t know what kind of vampires you’ve met in the past, but Archer is a man of his word, mama. He’s protected me, taken care of me, and given me a second chance at a decent life. You don’t have to like him, or even respect him, but you will be polite to him while in my presence,” I said stiffly. It was one thing to be rude to me; it was another thing entirely to be rude to the love of my immortal life. I could only put up with so much.
She appraised me with cautious eyes and sighed. “You’ve changed.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged my shoulders. “Or maybe this is just the person you’ve refused for so long to acknowledge.”
We were silent for a long time, each sipping our drinks, deep in thought. Finally, Archer broke the silence.
“Would you care to enlighten us about Skye’s father?”
My mother looked up from her glass and narrowed her eyes at Archer. “I don’t like you, Mr. Rhys,” she said lowly, venomously.
“I am well aware of your feelings toward me, Dr. Morrison,” he sighed and put his arm around me possessively, pulling me tighter to his side. I suppose he was done playing nice because he fixed her with a venomous gaze of his own. “And I assure you the feeling is mutual-”
“Enough,” I whispered tiredly as I put my hand on his thigh under the table and gave it a light, pleading squeeze. “The same thing goes for you, too. You will be polite to my mother while in my presence. You don’t have to like each other, but you will not speak to one another that way around me. I won’t stand for rudeness. Please.”
Archer growled lowly, obviously unhappy, but nodded his head in acceptance before my mother begrudgingly did the same.
She took a deep breath and began her story.
“Your father and I met our senior year at MIT; he was my lab partner. We quickly began a sexual relationship and you were conceived during our second year in post-graduate school.” She took a deep breath and started fumbling with her hands. “Your father and I were assigned to a top secret project for the C.I.A. We were tasked with mapping and studying the brain and central nervous system of a vampire…a Dark One, as Archer’s race refers to them. Your father worked hands on with the subject the most and eventually developed a kind of friendship with him. When I told your father I was pregnant with you, he informed me of his decision to become one of the undead. I begged him to change his mind but he said the decision had been made and that he was turning in two days’ time. He said he wanted immortality, to live forever, and that he had no intentions of being a father to you or anyone else. He threw a check at me and told me to get an abortion if I didn’t want to raise you by myself.”
“That selfish bastard,” I growled.
My mother’s eyes briefly teared up before she shook her head and regained control of her emotions again. “The next day, your father didn’t show up to the lab and neither did the vampire we were working with. I went to his apartment and discovered that he had left during the night. Everything was gone except the few items I had kept over there.
“I gave birth to you, finished my doctorate, bought a house, and had started working with a local company in Boston developing a new Alzheimer drug. Life was hard, but we made it work. One Saturday evening, just after nightfall, there was a knock at our door. I thought it was our neighbor Susan. You were almost four and loved to greet our guests,
so I let you while I finished setting the dinner table. I heard you talking to someone and when I saw who it was, I panicked. You were standing outside on the porch with your father and he had a lock of your long, red hair in his hand, studying it; you both had the same hair color as children. I ran to the door and quickly pulled you inside. I asked your father why he was there and he said he just wanted to see if you looked like him. The way he was staring at you, studying you, sent a cold chill down my spine. It was intense, calculating, and I was afraid he was there to eat you or take you away from me, I didn’t know which. He asked me your name and I told him that he would never know, that we wanted nothing to do with him, and told him to leave. He said he would find out your name eventually but not to worry because he had gotten what he came for.”
I sat riveted as I listened to her story. My father sounded like a real bastard and I immediately felt sorry for my mother and all that she had to endure as a single parent. I reached out across the table with my hand and waited for her to take it. She gazed at it for a few silent moments before her hand timidly closed around mine.
“I never understood why he decided to visit us that night, but I wasn’t taking any chances with your safety. You were never going to see him again and I took extreme measures to make that possible. I packed us a few suit cases, threw them into the car, and we left for Houston that night.”
A memory flashed through my mind and I deliberated for a moment before telling her what I saw. “I remember. You were crying and telling me to help you pack my little red suit case. I remember the way you held me as we waited for our plane. It was so tight and I was afraid because I had never seen you cry before.”
My mother sighed and patted my hand before letting it go to pour up another shot. “Your father scared the hell out of me. The man that came to my door looked like your father, but the person I once fell in love with was gone. I was devastated all over again and terrified of his interest in you. We fled so that he would never get his hands on my precious little girl.”