I slowly walked over to him, cautious of my speed, so I didn’t bulldoze into him, and cautious of my mouth, testing out this ‘suck in your gut’ feeling. His eyes never left my neck as I laced our fingers together.
“Why did you apologize to me earlier?” I whispered.
He pulled his gaze from my neck and looked up at me, before staring guiltily at the ground. “I failed,” he whispered.
I dropped one of his hands and grabbed his chin, turning the stubbly skin towards me. “What do you mean, you failed?”
He glanced at my neck and sighed, returning his eyes to mine. “I swore I’d never let anything harm you, and…” He shrugged and glanced at my neck again. “I didn’t know who was watching me or why. He was so fast, always gone or fleeing before I could do anything about it, and other than a faint trace of his scent, I never really got a chance to…” He sighed, angry at himself. “I should have tried harder to figure out more. Maybe if I had tracked him, found out what he wanted with me, things would have turned out differently. I just never expected…” He stopped talking, his eyes glassing over. “When it mattered most, I couldn’t protect you. I failed.”
I sighed and leaned into him, as much as my belly would allow anyway. Still holding his face, I made him kiss me.”You can’t protect me from everything, baby,” I whispered between our lips. He let out a pained noise, but I pressed harder against him, to distract him. “No one’s perfect. I blame him, not you.”
I pulled away from his mouth and his sad, pale eyes washed over me. I ran a hand back through his hair and sighed at his remorse. “Please let this go, Teren. I don’t want you to feel guilty every time you look at me. I’m fine. We’re fine. Please?”
He bit his lip and I knew he was thinking that I may not be fine, but he wasn’t going to say it, anymore than I was. Finally he nodded and smiled, wrapping his arms around me and leaning down for another kiss. Loving that he was still here with me, I grinned into his lips and playfully pushed him backwards. Well, I meant to playfully push him, but what I’d forgotten was the fact that my body was slightly more enhanced now, and I ended up shoving him a good three feet away from me. He took a couple of balancing steps and then cocked his head at me, looking surprised and intrigued over my strength.
“Sorry,” I muttered, embarrassed.
He grinned and held out his hands for me. “Don’t be…it’s just who you are now.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to be careful with me.” He laughed a little after he said that, amused by the idea.
I walked into his hands, amused at him. He helped me change into pajamas, his hands lingering in places that really had nothing to do with changing my clothes, and then slid me under the covers. My arms slung around his neck and I pulled him as he leaned over me, trying to get him under the covers with me. He went at first, his knee coming up to the sheets as he angled over my belly, our kiss heated now. His hand not supporting his weight, slid down my back, cupping my thigh as he pulled my hips towards his, to connect our more…sensitive areas. Just as I was shifting my body into a better position, and about to groan in anticipation, I heard Halina’s voice.
“Teren, we found something that may be referencing a place in California. You should come down and take a look at it…if you’re finished tucking Emma in for the night, of course.”
He paused in kissing me and looked over my face and then down at the floor. In a tone I wouldn’t have heard before, he told her, “I’ll be right there.” He looked back at me and I frowned.
He looked sheepish for a minute, realizing that I’d heard him say that; he was used to being able to speak to them without me knowing. “I really should go see what she found. It could be relevant.” He gave me an apologetic smile, his eyes sweeping down my body before returning to mine.
“Fine,” I muttered. My head knew that what he was doing was actually very important, but my hormonally-surging body, struggled to remember that. He leaned in to kiss me a final time and my body struggled even more.
Not playing fair at all, I grabbed his jeans and used my new strength to pull his hips down to me, to finish the connection he’d started. His body pressed against mine, my strength taking him by surprise again. I let out a husky groan as his very ready body, instinctively rocked against mine. He tilted his head to the side and bit his lip as he did it again. As he couldn’t lay on top of me, not with my stomach barrier, he was partially sitting up on his knees. I wrapped my legs around him, tilting my hips up, giving him an even better angle. He closed his eyes, his breath faster as his hand not holding him up, trailed down my body, concentrating on my baby-enhanced chest.
Halina’s voice, again, ruined our moment. “Not to interrupt the love fest, but you already knocked her up, you can stop trying. We do have work to do.”
“Mother, they missed each other. Give them two minutes.”
Teren’s eyes snapped open at Imogen’s words. He twisted his lips in displeasure, but didn’t say anything. I bit my lip to not laugh at the “two minute” comment. Not exactly the most flattering thing for a guy to hear, especially from his grandmother. He glanced down at my face and frowned deeper, shaking his head. That was too much and I started laughing, near uncontrollably.
He sat back on his heels, his arms across his chest as he shook his head at me. “You’re just as bad as they are,” he muttered, offended.
Twisting around my belly, I sat up and slipped my arms around him. “Oh, I know you have more stamina than that.” I laughed again and heard Halina laughing with me while Imogen started repeating apologies, just then realizing that she’d offended him.
He ran a hand down his face, shaking his head. He peeked at me through his fingers. “I hope we find a solution to your problem soon.” He removed his hand and leaned over me as I lay back on the bed again. A devilish smile lit his face and I bit my lip. “I need a more private place to be alone with you.”
My hands went to his chest and then snaked up to his cheeks and up to his hair while he smiled seductively at me. “Yes, yes you do.” We kissed softly and then he sighed and pulled away.
“I really should go.” I nodded and he pulled back to tuck me into the bed, placing a pillow under my stomach as I shifted to my side. He sat on the edge of the bed, running a hand down my hair. “I love you. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
I nodded and kissed him when he leaned down to me. He shut the light off as he left the room and I closed my eyes, determined to wait up for him. But exhaustion took me first, and I was fast asleep before he ever made it back to the room.
And I was pretty sure I slept soundlessly. I did not snore. Smartass.
Chapter 15
Reconnecting
The rest of that week started the beginning of a new routine for us. Teren would leave me after dinner to do research with the family. Usually one or two of them would stay upstairs and occupy me, while the rest scoured over the books. I helped on occasion, but Teren liked me to stay away from it. He told me it was horrid stuff, and I shouldn’t have to deal with it in my condition, like somehow I’d stress myself to death if I poured over the journals with him. I told him not to be ridiculous, and he told me he could concentrate better if he wasn’t worrying about how I was handling the horrors. I sighed and left him to it.
He was right anyway; I never found anything but multiple atrocities in the writings. And I hated reading about any crime he’d committed against the mixed children…and there were a lot of them. He’d used them as guinea pigs for the “drug” that he’d used to force Teren’s conversion. He was curious to see on how young of a child it would work. He’d practiced on a lot of children. He may have been vague with names and places, but he was quite descriptive on all the horrendous details. Just reading about it had made me throw up.
Teren would take a short break when I got tired, to lie me down in bed and try and reassure me that, while they still hadn’t found anything specific enough yet, he was sure they were on the path to something. Then he’d disappear back downst
airs, burning the midnight oil with Halina. He either slipped back into bed when I was unconscious or stayed up all night, but in the early morning he’d always kiss me goodbye before heading off to the city for his job, where he most likely whipped out his articles lightening fast and spent the rest of his time surfing online for leads.
I’d get up and trail Alanna, offering to help at every possible opportunity only to have her calmly tell me that she had everything under control and I should just rest or call my family.
I usually ended up doing that. I missed my family. Even though they weren’t that far away, and even though if I were home I wouldn’t see them anymore than I did now, there was just something about being forced apart from them that was lonely. But I wasn’t apart from them for very long.
My sister came by the day after I’d initially called her, blowing off school and spending the afternoon with me. She teared up when she saw my scar and laughed when my fangs distended without my permission, mid sentence. Once I told her that I had to concentrate on keeping them up twenty-four seven, she spent the next several hours helping me hone my fang-hiding ability. By the time she left for the evening, I’d managed to keep them hidden away for most of the day.
That turned out to be helpful, since my mom came out the next night. While I loved seeing the plump, happy woman, having her there was stressful. For one, I had to wear a brace around my neck. A whiplash strain was a convenient way to hide my healing neck wound, but exceedingly annoying. But not as annoying as never getting out of bed and my mom took bed rest very seriously. If I hadn’t protested vehemently, she would have made me use a bed pan.
But even with those annoyances, it was the fear that made her visit stressful. The fear that I’d slip up – that I’d move too fast, or my fangs would pop out, or I’d answer a question that Alanna asked me, forgetting my mom couldn’t hear her through the walls. By the time my mom left for the night, I was exhausted, and hoped she stayed away for a few days. I hated thinking that.
Hot Ben ended up coming out nearly every night, which surprised the hell out of me. I sort of figured he was done with the whole lot of us, but after a couple of days sequestering himself with Tracey, he started showing up late in the evening, usually around the time I was headed off to bed, and then headed down with the others to pour over notes and journals.
I couldn’t have been more shocked by his turn around. Not too long ago, he would have had a mini coronary over the very idea of going down into Halina’s rooms, deep under the earth. From what I could hear before I zonked out, Halina seemed to have shifted into a level of respect for him, and stopped the seductive, terrifying banter that she used to use on him. The conversations that flowed around that room were all business.
And all about me. How to save me. How to save the children. And how to find more mixed like them, in the hopes that someone would have an answer.
When the following week plotted out in much the same way, I began to think I might never see my husband again. I know he was trying to save me, but in the process, he was seeing less and less of me. Especially when he started getting home later and later, sometimes not making it back until the time I was ready for bed. He’d always call or text me, telling me specifically where he was, since our bond only gave me the general idea of his location, and that he was checking into a lead from the journals.
They’d been able to pinpoint a few places in the State that were cryptically referenced in them. Nearly two weeks after the attack had Teren calling me from work, letting me know that the right questions, payouts, and from what I’d heard, some of Halina’s unique mind control talents, had finally successfully led them to a group of vampires, albeit pureblood vampires, just outside of Santa Rosa. He called around lunch, to let me know that he was checking it out after work, once the sun went down.
“Teren, no, don’t go walking into a strange vampire’s home alone. Be smart about this, please?”
I scratched my healed, but still itchy neck as he laughed in a way that was supposed to relax me. My sharper hearing heard the lie behind it though; he was nervous, even if he’d never admit it. “I’ll be fine, Emma. It’s no different than going to a human’s house. They won’t harm me without cause, and I don’t plan to give them one. I just need to know what they know, about vampires like me.”
I sighed and sat down on our bed, cradling the phone to my ear and wishing it were him. “Please? Come home first, make love to me, and then go with Halina.” I was hoping the sex part might persuade him. I’d been having lonely nights for awhile now.
And he did pause as that sunk in. “It will be quicker if I just go after work. Besides, I’m not going alone.”
I rubbed a hand over my expanding belly, feeling a twin wrestling for space with the other. “Huh?” I could hear Alanna and Imogen talking in Imogen’s room, and Halina was sleeping out the remnants of the sun downstairs. I didn’t know who he was talking about.
“Ben is coming with me.” I unintentionally laughed at that, part out of nerves, part disbelief. Hot Ben was his backup…seriously? I swear I could hear Teren frown into the phone. “Why is that funny? Between the two of us, he’s the one that has actually staked a vamp before.”
I sighed. Because, confident or not now, all I picture when I think of Hot Ben is the guy who begged me to not let Teren eat him. “He’s human, Teren. You’re walking in there with a meal? You know how that jerk-off reacted to Ben and me. He didn’t see people, he saw a buffet.”
He sighed too. “One bad seed doesn’t make them all bad. Look, I’ve met vampires before. On rare occasions, when some have been out traveling or hunting, they’ve come across our scent and have come out to the ranch to say hello. They are not all like him. He was…off.” I wanted to protest, but honestly, the only vampires I knew were Adams vampires. He took my silence as acceptance. “We’ll be fine. I’ll see you before bed.”
“Fine, you better,” I muttered sullenly.
He laughed and I closed my eyes, memorizing the sound, sensing his location, so incredibly far from me that it felt like the other side of the Country. Tears started slipping down my cheeks and I sniffled, just once. “Hey, Emma, don’t cry. I’m doing this for you. I love you.”
“I know. I just miss my husband.” I let myself sniffle again, since he’d already heard it.
He paused and I heard him rustling around. I pictured him running a hand through his hair, torn. “I tell you what, when I get home, we’ll go upstairs and I’ll stay with you. I’ll give you me, for as long as you want. I’ll be your husband, over and over again.”
Desire shot right through me at hearing his words. Our “reunions” when he got home, had continued to be heated ones, but he always pulled himself away from me. Always let duty clear his mind and calm his body. I wanted, just once, to let that crazy passion just run away with us. “No stopping?” I asked slowly.
He laughed, a smile creeping into his voice. “Definitely, no stopping.”
I smiled that he had understood my vague question. I wanted to feel that intensity. My body was already burning with the need for it, but first, he’d be doing something possibly really dangerous. “Be careful, be safe. Come home to me.”
“I will. I love you.”
I repeated his sentiment and then we hung up. I sighed and sank down to my bed, wishing he was home and not miles away from me, about to get even further. After a couple long sighs, Alanna asked if I was alright. I told her I was, not having to elaborate on my mood since she’d heard that entire conversation. I wasn’t as embarrassed about that as I would have been, probably because I could hear everything too, and in this house, someone was always having an intimate conversation or moment. After awhile, you just sort of got used to it.
Later in the day I smelled the enticing aroma of fresh blood from a recent kill. It compelled me to walk downstairs to the kitchen, where the scent in the house was the strongest. Alanna smiled and gave me a swift hug as she cleaned herself up. She and Jack had been outside, making a new
batch of fresh steaks. Blooding the cow was Alanna’s favorite part, for obvious reasons, and she was freezing containers of it for her family. By the number of freezer tight boxes, it had been a big cow.
I momentarily felt bad that I used up so much of their blood, especially since I could eat regular food too, but Alanna brushed off my concerns, telling me that she and the girls ate less and less every year. Halina could even go a few days without even noticing it. She said they’d met older vamps who could go weeks. Teren could only go a few hours before he needed a quick fix.
I sat and talked with her about some of the vampires that had visited the ranch, wanting to hear about the non-evil kind, so I would stop picturing bad things happening to Teren. She sat a small glass of plasma in front of me, and told me a story about a very nice female couple that had stopped by a few years ago. She laughingly told me that they’d been quite taken with Teren, when he’d come up to visit over the weekend while they were there. She started to explain how one of them had tried to bite him and my eyebrows shot up my forehead. I was concerned over that, but seeing my face, she quickly shook her head and said, “Oh, no she wasn’t attacking him, she was…” She stopped talking and bit her lip, maybe realizing that perhaps Teren’s wife wouldn’t want to hear about this.
Conversion Book Two: Bloodlines Page 33