Blessed Curse

by Sandra R Neeley

  “She’s just a child!” Marceline shouted.

  “A child? Truly? I see a fully grown woman. One who should have known better than to wander around after dark in parks. One never knows what manner of criminal may accost them. Lucky for her, it was me,” Alastair said sarcastically. He looked down on the whimpering, writhing female he’d kept beside him for the last nine months. His disdain and utter disgust were apparent to any who were brave enough to look at his face. “She chose me to mate, you know. Despite her weakness, I took pity and gave her a moment of happiness,” he announced.

  “You did this! She didn’t go willingly, I know you forced her!” Marceline accused.

  “Mois?” he asked dramatically, the fingers of his right hand pressed against the velvet jacket adorning his thin, sunken chest. “But I’ve done nothing wrong. I suppose I could have chosen another. You know, one whose grandmother wasn’t such a negative influence on our blossoming relationship. But then, where would be the fun in that?” Alastair asked. “Besides, she is such a weak, shivering little thing, I couldn’t bear to leave her out in the world alone. But I’m done now, the rest is up to you. So, there you go,” he said, fluttering his hands toward Adrienne.

  “There was no relationship!” Marceline shouted.

  Alastair lost all sense of jest, his face became cold and hard. The alabaster white of his skin, marble-like in its appearance, shining eerily in the rain, showed not a wrinkle as he glared at Marceline. His hatred and resentment of the most powerful witch in the United States, the Granddame of the LaCelle Coven of New Orleans, clear for all to see. To those who were brave enough to look at him, anyway.

  “Of course there was, and there will be ever after,” he said with a sinister smirk. “She carries my child. I kept her long enough to be sure there was nothing you could do to change the outcome. She will birth the pitiful whelp, and you will raise it, ever aware that you can’t kill it. It’s part of the granddaughter you loved so well, and protected so poorly. Each and every time you look on the child, you’ll see me. You will have a part of me with you, carrying your name for eternity. Perhaps there is even enough of me in the little bastard that it will be your downfall.”

  Adrienne screamed and grasped her stomach, her fingernails digging into the skin there hard enough to draw blood. “All is well, you are home. I will take care of everything,” Marceline cooed while waving several of her coven-sisters toward her. They hesitated, eying Alastair as they clearly wanted to help, but were afraid of exposure to him.

  “Yes, Grandmama, do take care of everything now. I am on to my next adventure. This one has lost its taste of… yumminess,” he said, licking his lips and tapping his chin with a ghostly white, sharp nailed finger as he searched for just the right word.

  Several females, all members of the coven, had finally come to Marceline’s aid. Together they managed to get Adrienne up and moving toward the house. Every single one of them saw her turn her head as it bobbed weakly on her neck and search him out with her eyes. Was she glad for a reprieve from him, or was she already mourning his loss? No one knew, but not one of them felt safe as they assisted the woman who used to be a friend and coven-sister into the home they all shared.

  Adrienne turned her eyes on each of them, looking for her grandmother, and each pulled away as her glowing red eyes focused on them, leaving her weight solely on Marceline.

  “She is vampire!” one whispered, a horrified look in her eyes.

  “He’s kept her all this time, impregnated her! How could she be anything but?” one of the younger coven-sisters said.

  “Do not speak of her as though she isn’t here!” Marceline ordered. “She is our Adrienne. And she is home now. We will solve this.”

  As they crossed the threshold into the old, grand mansion that was once a church, Alastair cleared his throat to gain their attention.

  Marceline stopped, glanced over her shoulder and saw the master vampire, the antithesis of her life, glaring at her as he levitated just inches above the ground, his arms crossed over his chest, his thin, elegant eyebrows raised as he regarded her.

  “I’ve banished you. You cannot enter here! I’ve added my own protections to the hallowed ground beneath your feet. Begone!” she screamed, her voice quaking, her very nature shaken from the condition her granddaughter had been returned in.

  Alastair looked down at the ground inches below his feet. “I am not entering. And I am not standing on your ground, oh great Marceline. I am hovering. Should I explain the difference to you?”

  “What do you want from us? Just go!” she shrieked, realizing Alastair had grown much stronger than she’d ever anticipated over the decades.

  “What I wanted I lost any need for many years ago. Perhaps you should have helped me when you had the chance,” he said, a cruel lilt to his voice. “Enjoy my poor, little mate,” he said, raising an eyebrow before adding, “I did.” As they all watched, he faded away while the thunder rattled the windows and the lightning flashed around him.

  Adrienne whimpered as she watched Alastair fade away. The conflict of pain from separating from her bonded mate, as well as the relief of separating from her tormentor, were warring inside her. She despised him. She feared him. Yet she was pulled toward him. She needed him.

  She screamed suddenly, as her baby moved further into position, readying itself to be born. She slammed her hand to the bottom of her stomach to support its weight.

  “You will be fine, my darling. You will see, trust Grandmama,” Marceline promised as she and her strongest ally, her most powerful coven-sister, Pauline, each slipped a hand behind Adrienne’s waist and hurried her toward the third floor of the mansion and her own room.

  ~~~

  Alastair entered the dark, dank, musty basement he’d used as a home base for the last nine months. It was actually a large storage room, long ago forgotten beneath the condemned remains of a once majestic mansion sitting in the famed Garden District of New Orleans. In it he’d assembled a cluttered mismatch of old furniture and furnishings. The only window in the large room, tiny and painted black, gave no indication of anything or anyone living inside. He perched on the edge of the bed and looked down at the stained, mussed bedsheets before he allowed his body to fall back onto them. He huffed out a low pitched growl as he clenched and unclenched his fists, and curled his toes in his boots. He’d forced himself to endure the pain brought on by Marceline’s magics. He wanted her to believe he was more powerful than he really was. He tried to relax and turned his face to the side, placing his hands palm down on either side of his body on the bed.

  His nostrils flared as he inhaled. The bedsheets still smelled of his Mouse. And didn’t that just anger him more than the stinging and buzzing of his body. He rose to his feet in a flurry of activity, snatching the sheets from the stained mattress and shredding them to pieces before screaming his frustration into the now empty space. He didn’t want to think of the little female he’d called Mouse. She wasn’t actually his mate. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to be especially cruel to her, treating her like a caged animal rather than a treasured mate, just to ensure that he didn’t grow attached to the wretched creature.

  How one could hold the possibility of so much power, and shy away from even wielding more than a little bit of it, he’d never understand. She was weak, and weakness was something he could never abide. He lifted his hand and rubbed at his heart, then his temples. Still, she’d managed to worm her way into his psyche. The prickling at the edges of his brain, and the burning at the center of his long cold heart were enough to let him know that he’d begun to get attached to her. The problem with that was if mated vampires were separated for any longer than a few days, they would begin to lose whatever grip they held on their sanity. Once bound, they needed each other to maintain their place in the world.

  “I am not bound to that sniveling, weak female!” he snarled. Alastair dropped to his knees in the middle of the clutter that had become his home. “I am not,” he declared fie
rcely. But he knew the truth — he was bound to her. He lifted his lip in disgust until another thought occurred to him. Alastair smiled. “I shall hunt. I shall feed. I shall find another, and I shall forget her and all her weaknesses. I shall prevail.” Alastair rose to his feet and stalked out of the dirty, dingy basement.

  Once outside, he lifted his head into the air, the winds and rain still pelting him from the hurricane that just wouldn’t leave this city. He didn’t look back at the place he’d sheltered in for the last nine months, he didn’t acknowledge the stinging pain still coursing through his body from refusing to back down from Marceline’s magic, and he refused to think of the weak, worthless female he’d called Mouse — she was a means to an end, nothing more. He was now focused on the hunt. The taste of new blood already a desperately needed thing in his psyche. He imagined a place far away from here, a place that was warm and balmy, and then, he was away, soon to be there as he moved through the air as easily as though he was no more than air himself. There was no trace of him left behind, nothing to indicate he’d ever been there, other than a shredded sheet lying in tatters on the floor of the cluttered basement.

  Chapter 2

  A scream ripped through the predawn hours as the coven in attendance awaited the impending birth. Some of the sisters assisted Marceline, as she did everything in her power to save her beloved granddaughter from the curse that had been rained down upon her.

  Adrienne had always been a quiet child, an unassuming child, who preferred to commune with the animals, the ill, and those who could not do for themselves, rather than embrace the magics racing through her veins. She’d always shied away from tapping into the magics, that had she cared to open herself to them, would have made her one of the strongest in the LaCelle line. She preferred instead to live a life of what some would call service. After years of prodding, and encouraging, Marceline had given up and allowed Adrienne’s sweet spirit to wander free, helping others as her nature pulled her to do. Adrienne never used her magic for anything more than an extra boost of healing energy, or to speak to the wild creatures she encountered. Yet, here she was, fighting for her survival, lying in a bed struggling to give birth to a babe, the nature of whom no one could venture a guess.

  The babe’s father was the most virulent of the cursed. He was the most violent, the most merciless, the most feared. He’d resented Marceline for almost 70 years, and his vengeance had finally taken hold. He’d inflicted his hatred on the kindest among them. He’d targeted Adrienne.

  Another scream and desperate panting filled the subdued silence of the ornate mansion on St. Charles Avenue. The women gathered outside the bedroom door, holding hands and closing their eyes as they lifted their faces to heaven, calling on healing energies, hoping the peace they called for would surround Adrienne and calm her during her labor.

  Marceline grasped Adrienne’s hand, calling her name forcefully. “Adrienne! Adrienne!! Look at me!”

  Adrienne, drenched in sweat, her body writhing in pain, struggling to take every breath she was able to feebly gasp, slowly turned her head toward Marceline. Her eyes glowed red, the small tips of fangs pressed into her lips where she’d bitten down so hard, tiny twin trails of blood spilled over her bottom lip and ran down her chin.

  Marceline reached out with her other hand, smoothing away the dampened hair still sticking to Adrienne’s forehead. “Focus, my darling. Focus. This morning your child will be born. He will be born to love. We will raise him in love. No matter how he presents, he will always adore his mother. You have given him life. He will know you. He will love you. Breathe deep, try to relax and let nature take its course. You are not alone.”

  Adrienne seemed to comprehend the words Marceline spoke to her. She took a deep, but shaky breath. Then her eyes moved to wander over the windows in the room, the dawn just beginning to break, a faint hint of deep pink and purple hues outlining the never-ending, relentless rain clouds. “Alastair,” she whispered.

  “No! There will be no demon welcomed among us. He will not return. He will not meet your babe. He will not poison what is left of your life.”

  A tiny hunger, a need Adrienne couldn’t quite put a name to, began to gnaw at her soul. As the rain thankfully began to slack, a lighter hue of deep pink could be seen on the far horizon mixed between the swirling, circling bands of storm clouds. A sliver of fear at the lightening skies tingled in the back of her mind. But it was nothing compared to the growing hunger deep within, and the knowledge that without Alastair, her mate — her nightmare, she would have to feed herself or die.

  A sudden bunching of all her muscles clamped down, stealing her breath, stealing her heartbeat. She squeezed her grandmama’s hand to the point of stopping circulation. The pressure was immeasurable. The pain surely a foretelling of death following on its heels, and all the while Marceline screamed at her to push. “Push, Adrienne! Push harder!”

  Adrienne pushed, trying to expel the pain right out of her body. Finally with a tearing of flesh and final scream of resignation on the air, the babe was brought into the world without a sound of her own. Her eyes wide, her lips pressed tightly together as she looked around the room and at all the women who took her one after the other and looked down into her tiny, heart-shaped face. Each whispered a few words of protection over her before handing her to the next coven-sister, until finally she was handed to Marceline.

  Marceline looked down into the infant’s face. Relief showed on her own face as she took a deep breath, swaddling the infant in a soft, warm blanket. She offered the child to Adrienne, who looked at the baby girl, then turned her head away disinterestedly.

  “Her eyes are blue, Adrienne. She is not like him,” Marceline said softly, trying to hand the baby to its mother.

  Adrienne continued to stare out of the window, looking away from the baby she’d just given life to. Praying for the dawn to come take her away.

  Marceline brought the child closer to her chest and followed Adrienne’s line of sight. The dawn would be here soon. “Marguerite, be sure that the windows are completely covered. Not a sliver of sunlight can enter this room.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand,” Marguerite answered, leaving the room to get the things she needed to block out the windows and prevent the sun from possibly burning Adrienne, or worse.

  Marceline looked down on the baby once more. She softly brushed her forefinger against the newborn’s cheek. “What shall we call you, little one?” Marceline asked, looking down at the baby that looked back at her, so extremely alert, but had yet to utter a cry. She was too alert, too quiet to be completely human, yet, there was a familiarity about her. She was very much like Adrienne’s mother, Marceline’s daughter, Callista, who’d been lost many years before.

  Callista too had come into the world wide-eyed and solemn.

  “Adrienne, what shall we call your daughter?” Marceline asked.

  Adrienne didn’t answer. She was still staring out of the window, praying for the sun to take her before Marguerite even made it back with whatever she planned to blacken the window with.

  Marceline walked around her bed to stand directly in her view, turning the baby so that Adrienne would have to see her.

  For a moment Adrienne’s eyes fell on the tiny, helpless, beautiful child staring back at her. The tiny hunger inside her gnawed at her gut again, and she closed her eyes just as a single blood red tear fell from her lashes and ran down her face. What remained of her heart shattered in her chest, and she turned away from the child as she shook her head. She could not be trusted with her own daughter. The evil inside her whispered she’d be an easy target to satisfy the hunger clawing at her insides. She knew her grandmother would care for the child, just as she knew if the child was left with her, she’d drain her of all the blood in her tiny, brand-new body.

  Marceline brought the baby into her chest once more, cradling the tiny girl and patting her back as she snuggled into her. “It’s alright, Adrienne. Sometimes these things take time. Rest, my darling.
You will feel more like yourself after you’ve rested and had some time to make sense of things.”

  Marceline walked back around to the opposite side of the bed to make room for Marguerite and the other sisters she’d enlisted to help her blacken the windows. She took a seat at Adrienne’s bedside as she watched the girls working. She looked down at Adrienne again and saw that she’d turned over, to face away from them and toward the window. “Do not forget, Adrienne, blessings are born even out of tragedy and suffering. We may not always know the whys of it, but after the darkest days the sun will shine again.”

  The baby, now lying across Marceline’s lap, cooed at just that time, and wrapped her tiny fingers around Marceline’s thumb. “Do you like that, little one?” Marceline asked, looking down at the child. “I know!” Marceline said excitedly. “We shall name you Solange. It is the name of a martyred saint, and means solemn, dignified. And some say it means ‘angel of the sun’. You are already strong, not even a whimper as you entered the world. And you shall certainly be our little angel of the sun. Welcome, Solange,” Marceline said softly.

  Facing the window, purposely keeping her eyes away from her daughter, Adrienne sent up a little prayer to mother earth, to all the gods and goddesses she’d ever heard of and learned about, to the nymphs in the forests and any other who may hear it, to protect her daughter, her little angel of the sun, because she knew without a doubt that she was not long for this world. She couldn’t be. She was the greatest threat her little Solange had at this point in time, and she couldn’t have anything happen to the innocent little child who didn’t ask for any of this.