by Lynsay Sands
“Why not? You have five years to make up for.”
“Victor’s right, and we will help you eat them,” Harper announced. Stepping forward, he picked up the cheesecake and handed it to Alessandro, then picked up the Chocolate Bomb and Black Forest cake. Victor then picked up the Fudge Surprise and Caramel Crunch.
Elvi surveyed the cakes that were left, then bit her lip and quickly picked up the Cherry Supreme too.
“I like cherries,” she said apologetically.
“Ice cream?” Victor asked.
“Oh, yes.” Turning, she carefully set her cakes in the cart, and then led the way to the frozen section, pausing abruptly as she passed an end aisle of Mexican food; tacos, seasoning and so on. Elvi absolutely loved Mexican food. She had been cooking it and around it for five years without being able to take even a lick. She stared at the end aisle, her mind in a veritable swoon. She could make tacos, or chimichangas, or, ohhhhhh, fajitas. She’d need steak…or maybe chicken. And tomatoes and onions and cheese and—
“I believe we’ll be needing another cart,” Edward murmured and turned away to go find one. Elvi hardly noticed his leaving, she was adjusting the grocery list in her head.
“I don’t think there is enough room for everything,” Alessandro announced with a frown as Edward opened the trunk of the BMW.
“We can put some in the backseat with us, and maybe the front seat too,” Elvi suggested, lifting bags out of the first of their three carts. She knew she’d gone a little overboard with the groceries, but really the men hadn’t been any help at all, encouraging her as if they were on the Devil’s payroll, sent to tempt her into committing the third of the seven deadly sins: gluttony.
Anytime Elvi had debated over two items, they’d simply taken both from her and put them in the cart. And then they’d picked up an item or two themselves, things that caught their eye or interest. Dawn had rung them through her till, her eyes wide the whole time, and Elvi knew this story would be broadcast all over town by breakfast.
As would the fact that when the total had come up, Elvi had reached for her purse only to find that she’d rushed out of the house so quickly, she hadn’t brought it with her. Guessing at the problem from her dismayed grasping at the thin air where her purse should have been, four men’s hands had suddenly appeared before her, each holding a credit card.
Victor had ended up doing the honors, glaring at the others until they put away their own cards and wallets.
“It’s bigger than it looks,” Harper said as they fit the last bag into the trunk. “Perhaps I should look into getting one of these.”
Elvi didn’t comment, but did wonder what these men did. Two owned cars that probably cost more than her house and another was casually considering getting one. Come to think of it, the roadster Alessandro had stepped out of hadn’t been cheap either. It seemed Mabel had only picked the wealthier vampires for her.
Elvi’s glance caught on a car pulling into the parking lot, and stared, sure she recognized it as it parked under the lights. When the driver opened the door and got out, she caught her breath, and hissed, “Duck!”
Much to her relief, the men paid heed and ducked next to her behind Edward’s BMW. All but Victor, Elvi realized when she glanced to her side.
Looking down at where they crouched on the ground, Victor asked, “Is there a problem?”
“No.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him down with them. “Just someone I’d rather avoid.”
“That wouldn’t be Father O’Flaherty, would it?” Victor asked dryly.
Elvi was surprised that he knew who the man was, but said, “He’s really a dear old thing, but he hasn’t taken my turning as well as the others. It’s understandable, I guess.”
“Is it?” Victor asked grimly.
“Well, he’s a minister and I’m a vampire,” she said simply.
Victor muttered something under his breath and straightened.
“Hey,” Elvi hissed and stood upright to catch at his arm, then paused when she saw that Father O’Flaherty was entering the grocery store. “Oh…I guess we can go.”
Elvi spent the ride home trying to figure out what she would eat first. It was a difficult decision, but didn’t feel as urgent as her need to get to the grocery store had been. She and the men had eaten six boxes of the cookies as they’d gone through the grocery store. Now Elvi was feeling almost uncomfortably full, both her head and stomach aching. It was just her brain that still wanted more.
“Dear God! What did you do? Buy out the grocery store?” Mabel exclaimed, entering the kitchen from the deck with DJ on her heels as Elvi entered from the garage with the men in tow. All of them were loaded down with grocery bags.
“I couldn’t make up my mind,” Elvi said with embarrassment as the men began to set down their burdens.
“We’ll get the rest,” Victor announced and led the men back out through the garage.
“There’s more?” Mabel asked with dismay. “Elvi, where are we going to put all this? We only have two refrigerators.”
“It’s not all perishable,” Elvi assured her, grabbing up a bag with ice cream and moving to the freezer. “The rest is mostly boxes and cans. We just brought the cold stuff in first so it wouldn’t go bad.”
Mabel was shaking her head, but bent to pick up a bag and help.
“I hope you don’t intend to eat all of this at once,” she said with concern as she began to empty the bag she’d picked up. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
“No, of course not,” Elvi assured her, and was pretty sure it was true. She wanted to eat something, but she really was quite full. She supposed after five years with nothing in it, her stomach had shrunk to the size of a pea and she’d stretched it out with the cookies. Did she really want to stretch it further?
Yes, came the resounding answer in her head. Just a little further. Something small. But what? she wondered as the men returned with the rest of the groceries.
Elvi tried not to feel guilty at the excess of food as they continued unpacking. Instead she concentrated on what she should eat. Where should she start? Cheesecake? Chocolate? Ice cream? Soft tacos? Spaghetti? Steak? Pepperoni? Knockwurst? Everything was sounding good to her.
“Perhaps a selection of the cheese and crackers,” Alessandro murmured, his expression sympathetic as he watched her peer at the groceries with confusion. “That and the nice glass of wine by the fire.”
“Cheese,” Elvi murmured with relief. That was close to cheesecake, but better for her, wasn’t it? But not too healthy…And crackers were supposed to be good for settling the stomach.
“Good idea, Alessandro,” she said with a smile.
With Mabel and the men helping, it was no time before the bags were empty and the cupboards and refrigerators bursting with food.
“Elvi, you and the men pour yourselves some wine and take it out to sit by the fire,” Mabel suggested once they were done. “I’ll fix up some cheese and crackers and bring them out.”
“I can help,” Elvi protested.
“You can help most by going out and sitting with the men and leaving me some room to work,” Mabel said firmly, her expression pointed. It was only then that Elvi recalled that she was supposed to be getting to know these men and possibly picking a mate. She’d been so wrapped up in food for the last little bit, she’d quite forgotten that embarrassing little tidbit.
“Here.” DJ moved to the wine rack, selected three bottles, and handed them to the men, then fetched wineglasses and a corkscrew as if he’d lived in the house for a week already. Passing out the various items, he waved them to the door. “Go sit by the fire and get acquainted. I’ll help Mabel with the tray.”
“I don’t need any help,” Mabel growled.
Ignoring her, DJ began to herd them toward the door. “Go on.”
An odd smile tugging at his lips, Victor took Elvi’s arm and steered her to the door. “Shout if you need help.”
DJ just grinned as he watched them leave.
> “This is nice,” Harper commented moments later as they were finally settled around the metal fire pit in the backyard. The fire had been dying out by the time they’d collected chairs from the garage and set them up around the fire. Harper and Alessandro had brought it back to flaming life while Edward, Elvi, and Victor had tended to opening the wine and pouring the glasses.
“Yes,” Elvi murmured, staring at the fire through the red wine in her glass.
Mabel and DJ came out moments later with a tray piled with every one of the six cheeses Elvi and the men had picked at the grocery store and at least as many types of crackers piled on a tray. There were also small paper plates for each of them. The group tried the various offerings, commenting on what was good and what was not and various other things.
When the tray was empty, Mabel picked it up and stood.
“I’ll get that, Mabel. Sit down,” Elvi said as she turned away.
“That’s okay. I’m heading off to bed anyway,” Mabel said. “You should probably too, soon.”
Elvi frowned and glanced at her watch. It was after five A.M. The sun would soon be up, she realized with some surprise, and then acknowledged that she shouldn’t be. The restaurant didn’t close until two A.M. because of the bar, and then there’d been the house tour, the collecting of cars, and the hour at the grocery store before they’d settled around the fire. The time had seemed to fly by.
Sighing with regret that the first interesting night she’d had in a long time was coming to a close, Elvi collected her wineglass and moved to the fire to dampen it down.
“I’ll get that,” DJ offered, urging her out of the way.
“Thank you,” Elvi murmured, then glanced at the other men to offer a goodnight before slipping away to follow Mabel.
“Well?” the other woman asked as she entered the kitchen.
“They seem nice,” she admitted wryly, then laughed and said, “but what did you do, pick the wealthiest and best-looking only?”
“Only the best for my Elvi,” Mabel proclaimed.
“What would I do without you?” Elvi asked with a laugh and gave her a hug. “Now, go to bed. It’s well past your bedtime.”
Nodding, Mabel started out of the room, then paused suddenly and turned back. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you…”
“What?” Elvi prompted as she opened the dishwasher and bent to place her wineglass inside.
“When we were at the restaurant, that Argeneau fellow touched my cross,” Mabel said quietly. “And nothing happened.”
“He did?” she asked with amazement. She hadn’t dared enter a church or touch anything religious since her turning for fear of bursting into flames or some such thing like in the movies.
Mabel nodded. “You might want to ask him about that tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Elvi murmured as Mabel continued out of the room.
Closing the dishwasher door, she made her way upstairs. It was late, or early as the case may be, and she knew she should go to bed, but instead found herself wandering through her room to the attached sunroom. Leaving the lights out, she moved to the window and peered down at the half-circle of men around the dying flames. Their voices drifted up to her through the night as Elvi stood watching them. One of them might be a mate for her, she thought with disbelief, and still wasn’t sure she was ready for another relationship. It had hurt so much to lose her husband and daughter….
On the bright side, she supposed she wouldn’t have to worry about being widowed again with any of these men. They, like her, were already dead.
Grimacing, Elvi moved to sit on the wicker couch. Drawing her feet up under her, she closed her eyes and savored the best day she’d had in five years.
She could eat.
She would no longer feel like an outsider at social functions. If nothing else happened this week, Elvi would be grateful for that.
A tap at the sunroom door made her start and Elvi glanced over sharply to see Victor standing outside the glass door. Her heart immediately started hammering in her chest and she could actually feel her hands growing sweaty. Squeezing those hands closed, she forced herself to take a deep breath. This reaction to the man was beyond disturbing. She’d like to blame it on some chemical reaction to special pheromones put out by a male vampire, but she didn’t seem to have this reaction to the other male vampires now in her home. Elvi almost wished she did. She was too damned old to be acting like a love-struck teenager. Unfortunately, while she was sixty-two years old, she looked twenty-five and he made her feel about sixteen.
Shaking her head at herself, Elvi stood and moved to open the door. She managed what she hoped was a politely inquiring expression and waited for him to speak, afraid that if she opened her mouth it would just be to blurt out something stupid.
“You forgot your ankle bracelet.” He held out one hand, opening it to reveal the belled anklet cradled in his fingers. Elvi had taken it off by the fire when the constant jangle had finally got to her. She’d set it on the ground beside her chair and apparently left it there.
“Thank you,” she murmured, blushing when she saw the way her fingers were trembling as she took it from him.
As she slid the anklet into her pocket, Victor raised his other hand, revealing two wineglasses and a half-bottle of wine. He had the bottle by the neck and the two delicate goblets by the stems, all caught in the fingers of one hand. “This is all that’s left. It seems a shame to waste it. It should be just enough for two glasses, I think.”
Elvi almost said no and closed the door to avoid the discomfort she felt in his presence, but there were so many questions she wanted to ask…besides, as uncomfortable as she was with her attraction to him, it also made her want to be near him. Relieving him of the two goblets, she moved aside for him to enter.
“This is nice,” he murmured, peering around the sunroom.
Elvi followed his gaze over the wicker furniture in the dark. The only light came from the open door to her room, but she expected his eyesight was as sharp as her own. This soft glow was more than enough to see by. She supposed it was how he’d known she was up here.
“How are you feeling?” Victor asked, settling on the couch and holding out a hand for the glasses.
“A little woozy,” Elvi admitted quietly as she handed them over. “I haven’t had a drop to drink in five years, and it went straight to my head. In fact, I suppose I really shouldn’t have any more.”
“One more should be all right,” he said quietly, pouring the wine. He handed her a glass, picked up the other, and sat back to peer at her.
The silence that filled the room as they sipped their wine seemed to dance along Elvi’s nerves. She was terribly aware of his nearness and the delicious male scent of him. She didn’t know what aftershave he wore, but she’d like to buy some and sprinkle it in her coffin so she could bury her face in the satin pillow and breathe it in all night long while she slept.
“It seems obvious that you haven’t been trained properly in what you can and can’t do. Why is that?”
Victor’s sudden question sent Elvi’s ponderings of his aftershave flying and she stiffened as she took in his words. It was obvious she hadn’t been trained? There was training for vampires? Like a vampire boot camp or something?
“What do you mean?” she asked finally, and then sat up a little straighter as she realized he was saying she appeared as ignorant as she felt. “What gave me away?”
Victor arched an eyebrow. “For one, you thought you couldn’t eat food.”
“Oh, yes.” Elvi flushed. She supposed that was an obvious giveaway, but really, how was she supposed to know what she could and couldn’t do? None of the vampires ever ate or drank anything but blood in the movies and television shows. At least not the ones she and Mabel had seen when Elvi had first turned and they’d done all their research.
“And,” Victor added solemnly, drawing her attention back to him, “you obviously don’t realize it is against our laws to bite mortals.”
; Elvi stiffened with alarm. “What? We have laws?”
Victor nodded solemnly.
Elvi sat still, her mind whirling. Laws suggested some form of organization. It also seemed to suggest there were more of their kind than she’d thought. Questions began to whirl through her mind, but were pushed aside in favor of this business of breaking a vampire law. Elvi hadn’t ever in her life broken a law. She’d never even so much as jaywalked. It didn’t sit well that she’d unknowingly broken one.
“I didn’t realize it was against our laws,” she said quickly. “In fact, I didn’t know there were laws. I wasn’t even sure there were others like me.”
“I was afraid of that,” Victor said, then cursed under his breath.
“You said ‘laws.’ Plural,” she murmured. “What other laws are there?”
Victor opened his mouth, and then shook his head. “There’s no sense telling you now. You’ve been drinking for the first time in years and I’d probably just have to repeat them in the evening when you wake up.”
Elvi opened her mouth to protest, but he assured her, “I’ll tell you all about them after you’ve slept.”
When she settled back in her seat with resignation, he smiled faintly and added, “Speaking of which, I should probably let you get to bed.”
Victor stood and moved to the door. Elvi followed, her gaze dropping of its own accord to his behind. She managed to force it back up as he stepped through the door onto the top step and turned back to say, “Before I go, though, I do need the answer to one question.”
“Yes?” she asked curiously.
“Who was your sire?”
Elvi frowned. “What exactly is a sire?” she asked with bewilderment. “Both you and Alessandro have mentioned that word and I haven’t a clue what it means.”
“It means the one who made you,” he explained. “The one who turned you into an immortal.”
“Oh,” Elvi smiled faintly. She had a feeling she’d heard the phrase before this, probably when she and Mabel had been researching vampires right after their return from Mexico, but as it didn’t apply to her, she’d let it slip her mind.