by Niyah Moore
“Hello, Mother. It’s good to see you again,” Essence said in a sneering tone.
“I need to talk to you now, Rain!” Mother exclaimed, walking to the library.
I turned to Olivia. “I’ll be right back.”
She smiled at me. “Okay.”
Essence snapped her head from Olivia to me.
Olivia introduced herself to Essence. “Hello, I’m Olivia.”
Essence fluttered her eyelashes as if she were insulted. She pulled on my free arm roughly. “Don’t you walk away from me. I deserve an explanation.”
“I don’t owe you anything, Essence. You broke our bond and even then, I’ve been trying to make this work between us, but it’s not going to work.”
“You did this to me and now you expect me to go on with my life?”
“This was a decision you made.”
“Wrong! You made that decision for me.”
The angrier she got, the louder her voice became.
Olivia pulled my hand gently. “Rain, your mother is waiting to talk to you. I’ll come with you if you want me to.”
Essence threw her head back and laughed hysterically. “You’re such a puppet, Rain. You do everything your mommy tells you to do. I’m your wife and I say we’re leaving this party now.”
I turned around and glared at her. I was on the verge of putting her in her place until Olivia pulled my hand again.
“Come on, Rain. Walk away.”
“I’m talking to him!” Essence exploded so loudly that the whole floor shook.
Azura hissed, Legend balled up his fists, and Onyx stood to his feet. Essence’s lip curled into a devious smile. She looked as if she were ready to take us all on if she had to. I held up my hand to alert them to be still.
As I walked away toward the library, I said, “Essence, you can see yourself out.”
She jumped on my back, grabbing me tightly around my neck as she wrapped her legs around my waist. I tried to get her off, but her grip became too tight. She put up a good fight, but I was stronger. I struggled to pull her off. Her claw-like nails were digging into my neck as she ripped my shirt. I felt the burn as I pushed her as hard as I could, which caused her to fly back against the wall. The brick shattered.
She eased off the ground and laughed in a shrill manner. She snatched my father’s sword off the mantel and charged at me. Before I could get out of her way, she stabbed me with it. I doubled over as my blood gushed out of me. Onyx, Legend, and Azura took hold of her. When Essence realized they were too strong for her, she broke through the pristine glass window and disappeared.
I pulled the sword out and the wound started healing immediately. I made my way to the library quickly. Everyone followed behind me.
“Rain, are you all right?” Chantal asked, trying to see if I was still bleeding.
“I’m fine. It’s healing.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Olivia asked.
“Don’t worry about her.”
As soon as I entered into the library, I could see Mother’s and Father’s grim faces.
“Do you see what you’ve done,” Mother said. “That woman has crossed over, Rain. There’s no getting her back. Let her be. She is now the enemy.”
“Mother, let me handle this.”
“Be aware. The power that she has is one that we will all have to come together to destroy. You, alone, won’t be able to kill her,” she replied.
“I created her, so I will end this. No one is to lay a finger on her. Leave that up to me.”
They all paid very close attention to the tone of my voice. They had never heard this tone from me. It was the tone of their leader.
* * *
After the gathering, everyone went home. I wasn’t going to go home; the wild banshee was waiting for me to return. She could’ve easily made her way back to my parents’ house, but she wanted to catch me alone. I wasn’t going to let her have her way.
Olivia stayed with me in the living room by the grand fireplace.
“You should really come to New Orleans sometime to get away from this mess,” Olivia said, trying to lighten up my sullen mood.
“That would be nice.” I headed straight to the liquor cabinet, poured some rum and downed the drink. I needed it.
Olivia stared at me with those blue eyes penetrating mine. She positioned her body right up against me. “Rain, do you think about getting back together?”
“Olivia, what we shared was precious and we shared some of the best times of my life. I’ll always cherish those memories. I missed you and anything is possible in the future. It’s that right now, I need a little time to get myself together.”
“You’re in love with her.”
“Yes.”
“You always love too hard.”
“There’s no such thing. Well, at least, not in my book.”
“Are you afraid that she will try to hurt you?”
“I don’t fear her. Are you afraid that she’ll hurt me?”
She dropped her teary eyes from mine. “No, I just want to be with you.”
“Being with me is too complicated and I don’t want to break your heart. This may sound foolish, but until I resolve things with Essence, I can never give myself to you completely. Every time I start to fall for a woman, she breaks my spirit.”
She bit on her lower lip. “I will never break your spirit again.”
“Once is all it takes. It will be hard for you to undo what you’ve already done.”
“Will it?”
Her blue eyes had me staring too deeply. Suddenly, I grabbed the back of her head with two hands, pulled her to me, and kissed her passionately. When she expressed her love for me, I didn’t want to deny it. Felt too good to deny it. Was it too soon to let her back in?
Our tongues danced sweetly, melodically to our own rhythm. I’d forgiven her a long time ago for hurting me by leaving for so long.
“If you want me, Rain, take me. I want to be yours.”
I gave her neck a sensual nibble. In the heat of our passion, I wanted to make love to her for the rest of the night.
“The only way you can have me back is if you get rid of her.”
“What?” I asked, coming out of my lust-filled daze.
There was no need to discuss Essence. She should’ve been the last person on her mind. I should’ve been the only one on her mind. I was about to give her an experience only I could give.
“I love you so much, Rain. I don’t know what to do with myself. All I do is think of you, night after night, day after day. I really missed you.”
I pulled her body against mine roughly. After easing all her clothes off in a hurried fashion, we were making out as if it would be our last time feeling one another. Our breaths became one as I used just the tip of me to play with her slick opening.
“I’ve wanted to feel you for so long.”
Placing my finger over her lips to hush her, I smothered her lips with a deep kiss. In and out of her, I pumped thoroughly. Our rigid grinds took us away until the early hours of the wee morning.
CHAPTER 26
ONYX
Five months later…
Once Soleil was completely naked, she helped me get out of my clothes. She traced small circles along my chest hairs with the tips of her fingers as we lay in bed. I caressed her large tummy. I was so excited about the baby and he was going to be coming soon. She felt a sharp pain and she clutched her stomach.
“Looks like our miracle is coming, Onyx. My water just broke.”
* * *
Soleil wanted the birth of our child to be private, between the two of us, but that was close to impossible while giving birth in my family’s mansion. Twenty-two hours of labor and I felt as if I had just given birth myself. That’s how exhausted I was. As soon as our son was born, Mother and Father wanted him in their arms to hold. My premonition of a son had come true. I had been right. They were the proudest days of my life.
We named him Ulysses like the title of the novel
written by the Irish writer James Joyce. Ulysses was the hero in Homer’s poem “Odyssey.” He was also the Greek leader that came up with the plan to burn down Troy and save Helen during the Trojan War. I loved everything there was to know about Greek mythology and Soleil thought the name was perfect for him.
Everyone from our family was there to witness his birth and everyone was as happy as we were. There was no talk of the Préfet. They weren’t aware of what was going on. Our parents’ plan had worked better than we’d imagined.
The baby had his eyes opened for his grandparents. He sucked his fingers, wiggling into a cry.
“Uh-oh, Mommy,” Mother said. “Baby is hungry.”
He cried and Soleil became alert instantly as if her mother radar had kicked in already. She positioned herself wearily. I helped her by positioning a pillow underneath our son for her to breast-feed him.
“He’s so perfect,” Mother said with tears in her eyes.
“Yes, he sure is,” I stated proudly.
“This calls for a toast,” Azura said as she handed us glasses full of rose-colored champagne. “Rain, you should do the honors.”
Everyone lifted their glasses after Rain.
He said, “While thus we agree, our toast let it be. May our little one flourish happy, united, and free? Long may the son of Onyx and Soleil entwine the myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine! Ulysses.”
We all laughed at his humor of combining the old Greek drinking song into his toast as we drank in celebration of the birth of a vampire. Ulysses was pureblooded and it was no myth.
CHAPTER 27
LEGEND
By the time I made it home from the birth of Ulysses, Chantal wasn’t home. I called her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. I turned on the laptop while sitting on the couch to view my e-mails. A few bank statements alerted me that a few purchases went through that morning. Chantal knew how to spend a whole shitload of money. Even though I was smart enough to have daily cash withdrawal limits, Chantal swiped that card any- and everywhere she went. She shopped for the most expensive things she could find and it was becoming ridiculous.
What in hell did she want with Versace China?
There was a knock on the front door. I answered it to find a mortal in his early thirties.
“Is Chantal here?” he asked with a frown.
“You have the wrong address.”
“Chantal doesn’t live here?”
“She sure doesn’t.”
“Look, she’s been staying here. She gave me this address to come for her. I’m her husband and I’m here to take her home.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, that’s so.”
“All right, well, come in and have a seat. She should be here in a moment.”
I let him in and walked down the hallway. She had the nerve to tell him to come pick her up when I had specifically given her direct instructions. My thought was to take a huge bite out of him and drink every ounce of blood he had in his body, but then I stopped myself. If he was whom she wanted, then I was going to allow her to have her wish.
“Have a seat. Would you like a beverage of some sort?” I offered.
He stared at me oddly, guarded, and refused to sit on the couch. I knew then that he knew more than he should’ve. He was a brave soul to come to the door of a vampire’s home.
“No, I’m fine. Do you know when she’ll be here?”
“She didn’t tell me she was leaving.”
“Well, I’ll come back a little later on. She should be ready by the time I come back.”
“Ready for what?”
He swallowed hard as if a lump had formed in his throat. “She should be ready to leave with me.”
“Oh…okay…sure…”
He turned and walked out the door. I closed it behind him and went to stand on the balcony, in the dark and cold. I didn’t feel as if her husband was any type of dangerous threat. I didn’t know anything about him, but I could smell his fear. Fear was the most dangerous type of weapon. Fear would make a man kill even if he had never thought of killing before.
I heard her come in the door twenty minutes later. She was talking on the phone, laughing with shopping bags in each hand. Seemed like she was having a ball all on me, at my expense.
Chantal didn’t see me because I was sitting underneath the shadows outside on the balcony. Someone must’ve called her other line. She said, “Hold on a second… Hello... Hey, baby. What’s up?”
The sound of the excitement in her voice when she talked to him made my nose flare. She was glad he called. “What?” She gasped and then paused as if paralyzed. “You did? Um, I don’t know… Look, I’ll call you right back.” She wore a look of terror as her body stiffened.
She straightened up, placing the bags on the floor. “Legend! I’m home!” she yelled, walking briskly to the kitchen. Her heels clicked against the wood floors.
I entered silently and sat on the couch.
As soon as she reentered the living room, she saw me. “Hey… Legend.”
I clenched my teeth to stop myself from calling Chantal out of her name. “Your real husband came by looking for you.”
“I know.” Her brown eyes, the same eyes that looked at me with sincerity when she told me she loved me, were full of deceit, lies, and betrayal. “I can explain everything.” Tears fell from her eyes.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me. You are officially free to leave. Truth of the matter, you could’ve left a long time ago, but you chose this life and you chose to stay. Does he know that you’re no longer a human being?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “And he doesn’t care. He just wants me to come home.”
“How do the two of you plan on living that way?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that I miss him.” She was worried that it wasn’t going to work out with him, but she was willing to give it a shot.
“Why were you here in Paris pretending to be a single woman? Why did you come to the Red Light District?”
“We were having problems and I wanted to have a good time. I didn’t plan on any of this.”
“If you would’ve told me, I would’ve never sunk my fangs into you. Why’d you lie?”
“I don’t know…I was in vacation mode. I was playing this game to piss him off, at first. Look, Legend, I thank you for turning me into such a beautiful immortal, and I love staying this way, but I don’t want to stay with you.”
“Oh yeah? Well, here’s your wakeup call, sweetie. You’ll never be able to leave Pigalle Palace with that human being alive. Do you understand me?”
“Who’s going to kill me? You?”
I shook my head. “No. The Préfet take matters like these into their own hands. The moment you walk out that door with him, you’ll never make it to the airport. Trust me when I say that.”
Unfazed by what I was saying, she looked at her cell phone that buzzed. “He’s downstairs waiting for me. I guess this is goodbye.”
She quickly reached into her purse and returned my debit card along with the diamond ring. She turned and walked out the door.
CHAPTER 28
AZURA
I usually held private parties at either my house or upstairs of the club. I liked to invite what we called the VIP upstairs for some fun. I had never tried, or been particularly interested in, threesomes with only women. I usually preferred orgies with a few men and a few women, but it was one of those things I had to try to gain a new experience.
I always had an attraction to women, something I liked to hide from my family because they were too judgmental. Since my brothers were preoccupied with their own women issues, I decided to take full advantage of my alone time in the club without them.
The good thing that I enjoyed about threesomes was that there was double the pleasure. Sometimes, someone felt left out, but I always did my absolute best to keep everyone engaged. My encounter that night was one I would never forget.
She was tall, with blonde hair and cryst
al-blue eyes. She was very slender and she had a real sultry look; as if she were a dancer.
“Are you a stripper?” I asked when she paid at the door.
“I dance at a club around the corner,” she admitted.
Even after she walked away to party with friends, she had been staring me down all night, as if she wanted to have me all to herself. At first, I tried not to notice, but then it became hard for me not to observe.
She nearly intimidated me. She wasn’t the kind of woman that looked at me and then turned away. She stared me directly in my eye and winked. She had this look on her face like she wanted to rip all my clothes apart. That’s how intense she was.
There was another girl in the club, but she was there with a male. Maybe he was her friend; I wasn’t sure. I’d seen her around the club a few times, but never with the same group of people. She would always gaze at me whenever she came. At first, I thought that she was staring at Onyx, so I ignored her.
When I realized she was staring at me, I started looking at her, too. By that time, she was dancing all over her male friend with his hands climbing up her skirt. She was tall with red hair, dark eyes, and darker skin. She had a little body fat and it was exactly where she needed it. Her thickness was sexy to me. Her face was really pretty.
I was still collecting money at door, when I saw the redhead helping her friend sit on one of our lounge couches. He was wasted. We made eye contact for a while and she smiled at me. I returned it. I sat there while she walked over to me.
She said, “Bonjour, beautiful. I’m Eve. What’s your name?”
“My name is Azura.”
We shook hands and I could feel an electric spark between us. Her hand was so soft that I never wanted to let go. We held each other’s hand for a split-second longer than necessary, then I said, “I see you around here a lot. Are you enjoying yourself tonight?”
“My friends and I love this place.” She took notice of the blonde watching our interaction very carefully. “The blonde is sexy.”
She looked at me to see my reaction, and I replied, “Yeah, she is. Many guys fantasize about her...and some women, too. I mean, I would imagine so.”