So long? Lena’s heart thudded in her chest. Her eyes filled too, with tears for Uta and for Mirko, who could never be—
“Since he was born? Davo,” Andre roared. “Did you know it would happen? What the hell were you thinking?”
“I am not knowing,” she said. “My sire is telling me about this magic from time when vampires are living with Hunters. Only after Bel is born, am I remembering his stories—the godmother is always having mate. If I am having mate when Mila drank my blood, Bel is free.”
“Really?” Lena slipped out of Kos’s hold to lean closer to Uta.
Zoey halted her pacing. “So, if Lena drank my blood, the baby would not ever feel the way you and Bel feel right now.”
Uta nodded, blinking her pink-rimmed eyes.
“You would be insane to consider it.” Andre closed his mouth to begin his incessant grinding.
Kos spoke on a sigh. “Lena?”
She turned, and whatever he saw on her face made him close his mouth, cup her chin, and nod yes. She still had a million questions for Uta, for Bel, for Kos, but relief poured over her. She hadn’t lost Mirko after all.
Andre was not convinced, and his tone yanked her from Kos’s comforting gaze. “It is too risky. I wish you—” His thick black brows drew together. Something had caught his eye. He took hold of Bel’s hand, and pried his fingers open, holding up a narrow glass tube. “Bel, is this…?”
Bel nodded absently.
“The gold compound? Davo, son, I am so proud of you. A synthetic Blood Vine! Now the fire doesn’t matter.” He stood, holding the vial up to the light of the window.
Lena’s heart flew up into her throat. Could it really be? Could everything be okay?
“It is not working,” Uta said.
Bel leaned forward, fists clenching. “Why not?”
“Some things are mystery.” She shrugged.
Andre ignored her, addressing his question to his son. “Have you tested it?”
“Not yet, but the serum is chemically identical to what’s in Lucas’s blood.”
“You young ones are thinking you can know everything.” Uta huffed and crossed her arms.
“Lexi is making more as we speak. We’ll begin clinical trials right away.”
“Why you are bothering? I am telling you it not work.”
“Why are you talking like that? You sound like a mail order bride someone bought on the Internet.”
“Fuck you.”
He jumped to his feet. “Tell me why it won’t work!”
She spat back her response. “Mystery. Magic. I not know. But I am knowing it not work.”
His fingers twitched like he wanted to ring her neck, and Andre pushed him back into the chair.
“Calm down. Don’t listen to her. You are the scientist. I trust you.”
Bel’s head whipped to Andre, his eyes like saucers. His astonishment sent echoes through Lena, of yesterday’s surprising welcome from Andre. She went all mushy, eyes brimming with tears again.
Bel rasped out a “thank you,” and then he crossed his arms over his chest and put his big combat-booted feet all the way up on the table. It creaked and groaned like an old animal, tipping toward the crack down its center, and he scrambled to get his feet back on the floor.
“Well, great. Sounds like we’ve got that settled. This has been fun, Uta. Let’s do it again in another hundred and seventy years. And in the meantime, have a nice life.”
Uta clicked her tongue. “If I am helping it, we are not seeing each other ever again.”
The hair on Lena’s neck stood up at the same time Bel’s eyes flashed wide. Uta blurred to him in that freaky vampire way.
She whispered loud enough to hear. “Ten years since your Lexi is long time. For me, has been since you were born. It get worse now, Bel.”
She turned around, her smirk faltering with Bel behind her. “Andre, we speak later about Yousticia. I going home.”
Bel pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “You can’t leave. It’s the middle of the day.”
“I am having sun proof car and driver in work room.” And then she was gone.
Bel folded nearly in half, slumping in the chair.
Lena imagined which of her various kitchen tools was best suited to slicing air so thick with tension—maybe a serrated knife.
“Ten years?” Kos exploded in a fit of giggles.
Lena cringed at his callousness, but like magic the tension evaporated.
“Indeed, son, that is rather impressive. Even I never made it that long,” Andre said, obviously trying to keep a straight face. Friendly ribbing was the Maras way.
Zoey added, “No wonder you think not being able to masturbate is a fate worse than death.”
Kos snickered. Lena didn’t look at Bel. Best not to let her new brother-in-law see her laughing at his expense.
Ignoring them all, he went to the bar and poured a whole highball of bourbon. He emptied the glass in one swallow.
“I want you to use my blood,” Zoey said.
Bel set his glass down with a bang. “No way. Don’t make a baby like me. It’s not fair. And you can’t trust Uta. She could be wrong.”
Lena stared at the sagging table. “I trust her.”
“Bel,” Kos said, “I’m sorry to say it, but I do too. We’re going to try.”
Bel took his time pouring another glass, and then he squared his shoulders toward his father. “What about you, Andre?”
Andre’s face became an apology. “The truth is, I do not always like her, but I trust her unconditionally.”
That was all Lena needed to hear. She pushed her chair back and stood, crossing to Zoey. “Thank you. I would be honored to have you as the godmother to our son.”
Kos found Zoey and Andre in the kitchen, waiting for sunset so that they could walk through the ruined hillsides. They held hands, leaning their heads in close.
“May I join you, or are you going to the spring, like your first walk in the vineyards?”
“You’re welcome to come,” Zoey said, blushing at his mention of the time Kos and Bel had found the pair making out like teenagers.
Pedro and Lucas appeared in the kitchen door. “We’ll come too,” Pedro said, taking hold of Lucas’s hand.
Under the rising moon, a steady, cool wind blew, freshening the fuel-scented air with the sweet smell of grapes from neighboring vineyards. The pair moved quickly along the perimeter, Kos and Pedro following close behind. Under Kos’s feet, there were no clumps of dried sedge, no leaves blowing, no wildflowers or weeds sprouting on the side of the path—not any more. There was only a layer of ash over gravel and soil.
Andre held his spine straight—he’d put all his hope in Bel’s cure. It seemed that show of trust, and perhaps the airing of the great family secret, had done much to repair things between the father and son. Kos hoped it would last.
His father halted and turned his head slowly like a hawk, before darting between the bare trellises.
Kos and Zoey exchanged puzzled looks and then took off after him, while Pedro and Lucas fell in behind. Andre knelt before one gnarled stump, well preserved compared to the rest of the blackened skeletons. He wrapped his hands around it, brushing off the ash. Just one, or two, or three vines like this surviving, and they could rebuild, as they had when they left Šolta. Andre wiggled the stump, and it crumbled—nothing but charcoal.
Kos and Pedro joined the search. They examined every single intact stump. Not one plant remained alive.
“What about the roots?” Zoey asked.
Andre rubbed his hand over his forehead, smudging soot onto his olive skin. “The rootstock is Californian. We spliced the Soltan vines onto it.”
“Could we bring more from Croatia?”
“No, my vines were unique, and they were burned to the ground just like this.” Andre looked away, pressing his lips into a thin line.
Shoes crunched on gravel, and then Bel and Lena appeared on the crest of the hill. Kos’s angel raised her h
and, smiling sweetly. In his heart, hope stirred. “Maybe in the spring shoots of the Soltan vines will sprout from the trunks.”
Andre attempted a smile, but shook his head.
Bel and Lena reached them, and she tucked herself under Kos’s arm where she belonged. He breathed in the smell of her hair—his generic shampoo. She was his, and everything would be okay.
He walked with his family back to the house. Inside the shield, a band of green lawn remained lush. Trys would keep eating her ice cream and keeping them safe until they figured out what to do next.
With one arm around Lena’s waist, Kos followed Andre and Zoey, holding hands. Farther up the path, Lucas teased Pedro and Bel. Ancient memories, long locked in their blood, were breaking free, and they promised that everything would be okay.
Chapter 36
SLOWLY, BLOOD FILLED A CRYSTAL CORDIAL GLASS on the counter. According to Lena’s cycle, it was the last one of these little rituals with Zoey. The nightly routine always reminded Lena of the night they had become friends over brandy and grilled cheese sandwiches. The ruby blood looked so beautiful dripping into the glass from Zoey’s fingertip, pierced with a little metal shunt that kept her flesh from healing.
The first time Zoey bled for her, she’d said, “I remember when Andre turned Pedro, watching the droplets fall into his mouth. I was mesmerized by it. For the first time I saw that it was life, and not death.”
It became Lena’s prayer, every time she bottomed up the glass. I am drinking life. Zoey is sharing her life, so that a new life can grow inside me.
“Are you nervous?” Zoey spun on her stool to face Lena.
“A little. I know it can take months and months to get pregnant. This is just the first try.”
“You can have as much of my blood as it takes,” Zoey said, shaking the last drop into the glass and removing the shunt with a wince. Her fingertip healed instantly. Then Zoey reached across the counter top to pat Lena’s hand. “Really, as much as you need.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind, Zoey.” Everyone was a little on edge about the risk of an accidental bond like Uta and Bel’s.
Zoey waved her hand in Uta-esque dismissal, and Lena laughed.
Then she peered into the glass, half expecting her stomach to revolt. But the regimen of the vampire’s blood hadn’t bothered her much at all, it was pleasantly salty and metallic and very warm in her gullet. For some reason, when it hit her throat it was much warmer than Zoey’s body temperature—like the perfect cup of coffee. Lena swallowed down the blood and licked it off her lips.
Zoey grinned. “Tell me about your boy again, from the dream.”
“I’ve already told you everything—he’s got that white-blond hair only babies have. He has Kos’s eyes—blue and set a little wide. And his red lips.” Lena rounded the counter to rinse out the glass.
“Does he look like you?”
Looking up from the sink, she admitted, “He has my nose, and maybe my chin.”
“Adorable—you two will make beautiful babies.”
Lena set the delicate glass down carefully on the granite countertop. “Only one. Then I want to turn.”
Zoey’s smile told Lena she understood all the reasons for that decision.
“I’m not going to change my mind about being the godmother, Lena. I don’t know why I’m so certain, but it feels right.”
Lena stretched over the counter to take Zoey’s hand. “You do know how grateful we both are?”
“I do. Now, go get him.” Zoey offered a reassuring squeeze.
When Lena arrived in the room she shared with Kos, her turquoise flannel pajamas with unicorn print were folded neatly on the bed. “Really? That’s my baby making attire?”
“You wore those the first night you spent here with me. I remember you coming out of the bathroom, face scrubbed pink, looking so adorable.”
She giggled. “I told you my face was pink from your hot water because I didn’t want to admit I’d been drinking with Zoey—you were so worried I had a concussion.”
“Really? You little liar.” He swatted her butt, then whispered in her ear. “When I saw you that night, I wanted to lick you from head to toe.”
Between his words and the caress of his breath, her body flushed and her skin heated. “Now’s good.”
“I have something else first.” He took a box from a drawer in his dresser.
One of those small boxes. When he put the small velvet clamshell case in her palm, butterflies fluttered from her stomach to her heart. She snapped it open. The diamond was square cut and surrounded by tiny sapphires in a wide, gold band.
“Beautiful,” she rasped.
His eyes swirled gray. “I understand if you don’t want it. We can get you a new one.”
It was easy to guess at his worry. “Was it your mother’s?”
“Yes, but read the inscription.”
Inside, it said:
THIS TIME, FOREVER
“Kos, I love it. I love that it was hers, and that we get to make it true.”
“Really?” Blue eyes sparkled back at her, the sexiest lopsided dimples creased around his lush lips.
She nodded.
“Good. Now put on those pajamas.”
“Then will you lick me all over?”
“Patience, patience.”
She took off her jeans and sweatshirt while holding his gaze. There was nothing sexy about the way she undressed, but the air between them conducted electricity. She slipped into the comfy pajamas and climbed onto the bed, sitting in the middle, cross-legged.
“Close your eyes.”
What was he up to? She dropped her lids, and she was enveloped in darkness, her senses coming alive.
He began to read—a poem about a little boy who could sleep through the mightiest sounds, but who always woke up when his parents finished making love, his footsteps pattering on the floor until he slipped between them in the bed where he’d been made.
By the time he finished, tears streamed down her cheeks. “Kos, can we do it now?”
“So fast? What about the licking?”
“It feels right to do it now.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” He unbuttoned the pajamas she’d worn for all of three minutes. Distracted, his hands strayed to her breasts and she kept unbuttoning. She pulled her top off and her pants down in an instant.
He released her breasts to pull his T-shirt over his head and unfasten his jeans. There was nothing underneath but that magnificent, always-ready-for-her erection.
Gripping her shoulder, he pushed her back toward the bed. When she bumped it, he nudged her to sitting and dropped between her legs. “I know you’re in a hurry, baby, but we need to start with a little licking.”
“If you insist.” She opened her legs. He caressed every fold with his tongue, and then flicked her most sensitive spot until moisture ran from her core.
He mumbled into her thigh. “I don’t know if I like your honey or your blood better.”
She laughed. “No need to decide.”
He lifted her all the way onto the bed and lay alongside her, propped on his elbow.
“Want to know something else sneaky?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Our first day together, when you were giving me the anatomy lesson, I already knew about my g-spot. I just really liked the hands-on demonstration.”
He laughed from some place so deep in his gut that her heart nearly burst.
“I believe it’s time for the advanced tutorial then.” He slipped two of his fingers into her and found the exact place.
She groaned as he began to stroke her. “How will you…”
“I’ll take care of it. Just relax. I’ll know when.”
He kissed her then, as he built her tension with his fingers inside her and his thumb circling. Her orgasm approached quickly, sending pulses through her core. He withdrew and was back again before she had time to miss him filling her.
The thrust of his fingers w
as more awkward with the steel shunt in one. But it didn’t matter—she could feel his blood filling her, hotter even than when he ejaculated inside her. In spite of the uneven thrusts, the tingling blood brought her an orgasm so deep that she knew her womb would open wide to draw his blood inside. When she grew sensitive and wriggled away from him, he slipped his fingers back out of her and yanked out the shunt to stop his bleeding.
His hand was covered in his blood and her slick moisture.
Some new instinct caught hold of her. “I want to taste your blood.” She drew his hand to her mouth.
His blue eyes grew wide, and as she drew his fingers between her lips, he said, “Sweetheart, I need to be inside you, now.”
She opened her legs and angled her hips. He slid into her and began rocking them in a perfect beat. His fangs sunk into her neck. Sweet and salt and metal mixed in her mouth. With her eyes closed tightly, she imagined the day she would taste his blood and bond with him. The electric current between them would grow even stronger.
But first there would be Mirko, and now she had found her destiny, and there was love and pleasure beyond what she ever imagined.
Acknowledgments
Sometimes it worries me how utterly dependent I am on others to write a book, but then those others assure me it is supposed to be this way and I feel better. I honestly could not do this without my faithful beta reader Emily Mellott, who reads everything I write first just so I don’t make a fool of myself. Secondly, I am deeply grateful for the insights of my writing friends Celia Breslin and Jessica Russell, who always ask just the right questions or suggest just the right tweaks, precisely when I need them.
This book benefitted from the insights of the “Mud Puddle,” the online critique group of the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of Romance Writers of America. I’m so thankful for what I’ve learned in that group, and especially for the help of Zrinka Jelic, who helped me with Croatian in her native Dalmatian dialect (all mistakes made and liberties taken belong to me alone!) and Ed Hoornaert who kept me laughing as we traded chapters.
I also owe thanks to the Omnific team of editors, designers and publicists who help get this book into readers’ hands looking beautiful, and to my mom, who is the best amateur PR person an author could ask for.
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