by C. L. Quinn
The spiritual journey had shown one thing very clearly. She was born a loving woman who had never been loved. It was what she had sought all those centuries, and found in an unborn child here in France. The pain of those years was fading now and she knew, she had a beautiful life ahead of her.
“Lovely night,” Eillia said as she came near, her hand automatically slipping to her side to brush against the soft head of one of the dogs.
“It is. I’m happy to be home.”
“Tamesine, my darling, I’m glad you’re home. You belong here.”
Nodding, Tamesine acknowledged Eillia’s statement.
“It means the world to me that you feel that way.”
“We all do. So, how are you doing?”
Tamesine dropped onto the wet sand and pulled her knees close to her chin. “Great. Really. I’m where I should be now.”
“Are you?”
Eillia dropped beside of Tamesine. “Are you really all right? Are you really, really happy?”
Lifting her eyes to Eillia’s, Tamesine hesitated before she spoke carefully. “You know that I am with child.”
Eillia nodded. “Yep. I watched you struggle with dinner tonight. It gets better.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Daniel, but only because I just told him. Tamesine, are you going to let Marc know?”
Tamesine shifted her eyes to the sea. One of the dogs pushed its head up under her hand and she pulled it close.
“No. I sent him home to have a good, normal life, and he’s going to have that. He’s been through so much.”
“You are in love with him, yeah?”
Once again, Tamesine hesitated. If she put it into words, out loud, it meant it was true. She hadn’t done that before.
“I am in love with him, yeah. But that doesn’t change the landscape. Marc is home. I don’t have the right to interrupt his life.”
“He is Shoazan. And he deserves to know that he has fathered a child of destiny that will one day protect this world. He is the father of a first blood. And that is sacred.”
“He is a normal human man who has just learned to be okay with his life. I can’t interfere.”
It took a moment to push off of the wet sand, but Eillia stood. “Destiny may have other plans.” She walked a few feet towards the house, paused, and looked back. “You know that when destiny speaks, you must attend. Goodnight, my dear girl.”
Tamesine sat quietly watching the waves undulate until the sun threatened to eat up the sky and she had to go in to her rooms.
After she showered, she rubbed the excess moisture off with a very plush, very large towel. After she was dry, she began to wrap the towel around her body, then held it away and turned sideways to look into her floor-length mirror.
Was she rounding already? It looked like it. But she was only about four weeks along, why was she already showing? She knew vampire pregnancies generally took only six months, but she thought she was big for just a month along. Tilting her head, she moved her hands across the little swell, and whispered, “You’re very loved, little baby.”
With no warning, a strong pain rolled through her abdomen, forcing her to lie down on the floor.
Was something going wrong? No, she would not fail this child. This one she would raise and love and teach. This child would never know pain or loneliness. Her thoughts went to the little girl out there somewhere in the world that she never got to know. Had she had a happy life? Was she still alive? Had she done right by her?
She sent a message to Caedmon hoping their connection was still strong enough. Send your mother, my little love. I need her.
Seconds later, Eillia burst into the bathroom.
“Tamesine! Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. I’m having pain in my lower abdomen. That isn’t normal, is it?”
Eillia shook her head. “Not normal, my dear. Um, let me get you to your bed.”
After she had Tamesine in her bed, Eillia picked up Tamesine’s cell phone lying on a bedside table.
“Park, please come. Tamesine is having trouble.”
She pitched the phone and sat beside Tamesine.
“Park is coming. She told me tonight that she also had already guessed. It will be okay.”
“I’ve lost Marc, I don’t want to lose our child. I failed the last one.”
“You gave her to someone to care for her when you could not do so. That is all you could have done. You were ill, sweetie.”
With her arms wrapped around her belly, as if that would protect the baby within, Tamesine looked into Eillia’s eyes.
“I want to find her. If she is still alive, I want to find my daughter.”
Eillia nodded. “We will. Sweetie, we will.”
Park arrived with a small black bag.
“Tam, I would like to examine you, okay?”
Tamesine rolled over, and let Park pull back the sheet.
“The pain is beginning to subside.”
“Good. Still, I would like to check your vitals.”
Although Park wasn’t a physician, her credentials in genetics made her their ersatz doctor whenever someone was injured or ill. She checked Tamesine’s blood pressure, her heart rate, and listened to her belly with a stethoscope. She wore her usual kind face as she checked Tamesine as thoroughly as she could with the few tools she had with her.
“What do you think?” Eillia suddenly said, impatient.
“Well.” Park sat back. “The heartbeats are healthy.”
No one spoke for long seconds until Tamesine lifted her head, eyes huge, and repeated one word.
“Heartbeats?”
Park nodded, a smile spreading. “Two. Strong. Yes, dear, twins.”
Tamesine dropped back onto her plush pillows. “Oh, hell. Two babies.”
“Your Marc has some mojo, Tam. I can’t say why you’ve had the pain, but I would like to do an ultrasound. When you feel up to it, we should go to my lab.”
“Now, please. The pain is nearly gone, but I’d like to make sure everything is okay.”
“All right. Do you need any help?”
Tamesine shook her head.
“No. I feel much better. But, Eillia, twins?”
“I’ve been around over a thousand years, I’ve never heard of anything like what is happening right now. I’ve never seen first blood children in the numbers we’re seeing. Cherise said it, already, in Africa, before Starla had Eras. She said that destiny has chosen this time in history to bring forth a new generation. Tamesine, you have always been the most powerful among us. It doesn’t surprise me that you are growing two of those precious new children. You are one of a set of twins.” She paused. “Tam, I believe that Marc needs to be present for these children. You owe it to yourself, these babies, and Marc, to make sure whether he is or isn’t a part of their destiny.”
“But I gave him freedom to live his life.”
“Why don’t we go and make certain that is where he wants to be?”
Tamesine looked down at her hands on the already blooming swell of her belly, now that she understood why she had grown so big so soon.
Choices guided lives. Had she made the right one? Was Marc meant to be here for this part of the journey? Was he meant to be father to these children?
Her heart raced and she could hardly breathe. Was he meant to be her mate?
She looked up when Eillia placed a hand over hers as they rested on her belly.
“Have faith in the universe. It brought you to us, it brought Marc to you, and it brought these children to all of us. Have faith that destiny has a plan. I truly believe it does. I will go with you.”
Tamesine nodded. “After we make sure the babies are okay, yes, I will go.”
She was going to see Marc again. Every part of her body went on alert. There was no way to deny it, she was desperate to see him again.
TWENTY-THREE
That damn exhaust system was fighting him tooth and fucking nail. He’d already smashed h
is thumb and crushed one of the pipes. He almost wanted to take a hammer to the son-of-a-bitching thing.
But it was going to be beautiful when it was done. Marc thought this bike might be the masterpiece of his new career. The sun gleamed off of the reflective chrome since he was working on it outside in the parking lot. He glanced up at the newly finished sign over the door of his small custom motorcycle shop.
Markz Ridz. Sharp graphics, shiny, he had popped for the highest quality because he remembered what his father used to tell him. “If you’re gonna do something, do it right.”
Ah hell, he was doing it right. The place had taken off, almost from the beginning. He’d opened the shop two weeks ago after hiring his oldest friend, Pete Peterson, to help him with the repairs, custom builds that would come, and most importantly, the business end of the business.
Marc and Pete had worked on bikes together from the time they were thirteen, and everyone had told them they had a natural gift for machines. As kids, they’d always said they wanted to make motorcycles someday.
And now they were. Marc loved working with Pete again, who had an easygoing nature that filled their workday with camaraderie and laughs. He knew it was a good partnership. It reminded him of some of the relationships he’d developed with his team when he was in the military. Although that had ended badly, he was the only one to return home, he would carry incredible memories of those men to his own grave someday in the future.
But not today. Today, he had to get that exhaust system to fit this challenging build.
“Hey, Marc!” Pete called from the office. “Did you say want me to pay the rent for the next three months?”
“Yeah. I figure we’ll make it at least that long, and I don’t want to let the money get absorbed somewhere else.”
“Just checking. Hey, Gina called earlier. She says she’s bringing us some lunch.”
“That’s my girl.”
As he picked up his socket wrench, he thought about how his life had taken this unexpected turn. Some of his memories were fuzzy, due to his injury in Afghanistan, but he knew he’d had some trouble adjusting after his medical discharge. Pete had filled him in on some of the murkier moments when he’d freaked out, and he’d taken off. The army psychiatrist he’d been seeing said he had a severe case of PTSD.
He didn’t remember much of what happened after he’d come home. But he remembered going to Los Angeles, and bartending in a club. There he’d met a guy named Joe, who was ex-military, too, that had helped him deal with the aftermath of his losses in the Middle East. It must have worked, because here he was, back home, starting a business, and actually feeling pretty good. Hopeful.
Then there was Gina. Sweet, beautiful, hot...the girl he’d left behind. He’d thought about her the entire time he’d been hunkered down in the 100 plus degree hell of the Afghan desert surrounded by a hundred guys doing the same thing about girls back home. He’d missed her so much, and after a few months, all he wanted to do was get back to her.
Nothing had worked out there, either. By the time he’d finished his tour, she’d gotten pregnant and married a high school football player Marc had hated. She’d sent him an email that simply said I’m sorry. So he’d re-enlisted, and stayed with his buddies. They were his family by then, anyway.
When they’d been killed, and he’d been seriously injured, he’d come home to recover. Pete told him that Gina had lost the baby, the guy she’d married was as big an ass as Marc had thought he was in school, and they were divorced. Gina managed the Happy Holidays Hotel just off of the interstate, and while Pete had urged him to go see her, at the time Marc hadn’t been in a place to offer anyone anything.
When he’d come back home a month ago, Gina had come to see him. Her smile hadn’t changed, she was still beautiful, and she made it clear she still wanted him. The mature Gina was even sexier than the innocent young girl Marc had made love to only once, her first time, before he’d left for basic training.
They’d been back together now for three weeks of which felt like he’d never left. They’d both changed, but their easy relationship hadn’t. The extra years had brought a calmness to Gina, and her figure had filled out, enough to give him plenty to hold on to when they made love again the second night after she’d come to see him. She was a nurturer, and she enjoyed taking care of him. That was okay with Marc, because he enjoyed taking care of her, too. She deserved it, she’d had a tough time as well.
This was it, the whole enchilada, life as it was meant to be. His mind and heart was at peace, he was doing work he loved, and had the girl of his dreams in his bed each night.
Only that wasn’t quite true. Being back with Gina was wonderful, he loved being with her. Everyone had always told them in high school they were meant to be together and he’d always believed it. But since he’d been home, he’d had the most erotic dreams of his life. And they weren’t about Gina.
The girl looked nothing like Gina. She was a knock-out, perfect, long blonde hair, long legs, breasts that, in the dreams, he spent long minutes holding, biting and licking. The sex was exhausting, incredible, beyond incredible. She rode him to orgasms in the dreams that shot him wide awake, sweating, with a painful hard-on, desperate, almost every morning since he’d returned.
A couple of times when Gina slept next to him, he felt awful, and got up, slid on some boxers, and wandered outside to the dark sky and stars to clear his head. He felt guilty, like somehow he betrayed Gina.
He really cared about Gina, but the dreams kept coming. And fuck, he had to admit, there was something about the dream-woman, something that felt so right, better than what he had with Gina. Long ago, Marc’s father had taught him practicality and prudence, though, and that made it easy to discern his allegiance. Gina was real, and the dream-lover was the perfect manifestation of a woman he could never have. She wasn’t real. No matter what his heart and cock told him when he woke in the morning with feelings of satisfaction and intense love, she wasn’t real.
Pete coughed, startling Marc from his mental siesta.
“You’ve been sitting there looking at that wrench like you wanted to screw it for ten minutes. You wanna share with the class?”
Marc pitched an empty cola can at Pete. “You’re just jealous because someone in this room is getting screwed tonight, and it isn’t you! You got that job done for the Cahills?”
“Nah. Needed to order a part, so I’ll finish it tomorrow when Piggy gets here. Hey, here comes your girl. I’m starving!”
Marc stood and wiped his hands with a rag as a light blue Taurus pulled up in front of the shop. A slim, pretty woman hopped out quickly, looked over the top of the car, and waved excitedly to the two men watching her. Long, straight, dark hair bounced from a ponytail as she bent over to pull a large white bag from the backseat.
“Lunch for the hardest working men I know,” she announced as she walked up to Marc, handed the bag to Pete, and wrapped her arms around Marc’s neck. She was tall, nearly as tall as he was, and their bodies fit together well.
“Hi, babe,” she said, and gave him a long kiss. It was clear he enjoyed it, up until Pete coughed.
“Jeez, get a room,” Pete sniped as he walked back into the shop with the white bag.
Marc smiled softly at the girl. “He’s jealous.”
Gina’s eyes sparkled. “He should be.”
“Yeah. So, what’s for lunch?”
He led her inside, his arm loose and casual around her waist.
Across the street from Markz Ridz, Tamesine and Eillia stood behind a sheer curtain with one edge pulled slightly back to provide a good view of the shop, and to keep out of the direct sunlight.
They had arrived just before daylight, taken this hotel room that had a window on the street side, but a bedroom that had no outside exposure at all. Eillia had done all of the footwork and they now knew where Marc lived and that he’d opened the shop. After sleeping for a few hours, they’d had room service deliver a huge breakfast and waited for Marc to s
how up for work.
For three hours, Tamesine had been watching him work.
Eillia, finishing up the remains of their breakfast, had been smiling the whole time when Tamesine would sigh, or lick her lips. She killed the last of the fried potatoes covered with sour crème and smiled. That woman had it bad for the father of her children.
Neither looked away when the blue car arrived and the tall, slender woman got out. She was wearing short denim shorts and a tight-fitting white tee shirt that left little to the imagination. Her breasts were small, but pert, and it was apparent she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“She’s very pretty,” Tamesine said, quietly.
“She is,” Eillia agreed without emphasis.
As Gina approached Marc, Tamesine held her breath, and when Gina grabbed him and kissed him thoroughly, she wasn’t sure if she would breathe again. Eillia, her eyes on Tamesine, slipped a hand around her forearm, her empathic ability well aware of how Tamesine was feeling.
“Breathe, sweetie,” she said.
Tamesine forced herself to relax and expel the trapped air. “He’s happy,” she finally said, as Marc and the woman disappeared inside of the building.
“He seems to be. But he doesn’t know about you. He doesn’t remember how you two are…together. And he certainly doesn’t know about the twins. You need to go through with your reveal. You know that, if it turns out he’s truly happy with this woman, that she’s the one he wants, you can fix it.”
“I know I’m much better than I’ve ever been. I feel stable and secure. For these children, I will be strong. I will be a good mother. But I still have moments when I’m not sure I’m completely okay. He’s trying to be, and I don’t want to wreck his life or take him away from somewhere that he really belongs.”
“You have moments when you’re not sure that you’re completely okay? Ah, well, they have a support group for that…it’s called everybody. It’s okay to be unsure, that’s human.” She paused and pulled Tamesine away from the window. “You’ve been there too long, you’re going to burn. Look, go see him tonight. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder what might have happened, and that’s a fate you don’t want when you’re immortal.”