Vampire Valentine

by Lynsay Sands

  She had entered the bathroom before acknowledging that that wasn't really true. She had the Argeneaus. Mirabeau had been seventeen when her family had been killed, and Lucian had taken her to stay with his sister-in-law, Marguerite, afterward. That fine lady had taken her under her wing. As if sensing that treating her like a daughter would be too painful and would simply remind her of what she'd lost, Marguerite had offered her a combination of love and friendship that an aunt might offer a niece. She had opened her home and made her welcome in her family, and Mirabeau had eventually come to be treated by the whole clan as a dear family friend and offered all the love and support she could wish...but lovely as that was, it could never replace the family she had lost and simply made Mirabeau uncomfortable. While she was always included in special celebrations like Christmas or weddings, those events always reminded Mirabeau of her own lack of family...and she supposed that was something Stephanie would have to go through as well.

  Sighing, she turned on the shower and quickly stripped off her ruined clothes to step under the hot spray. She turned under the showerhead, rinsing away the worst of the muck coating her, then grabbed the hotel soap, her mind on what she could possibly say to Stephanie to help her through this. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything anyone could really say to make it better for the girl. Even Mirabeau herself could only let her know she understood and perhaps take her under her wing as Marguerite Argeneau had done for her.

  The problem was, Mirabeau wasn't sure she was any good at that kind of thing. She hadn't had a lot of practice. Other than Eshe and the Argeneaus, she hadn't really opened herself up to anyone since the deaths of her family, and her opening up to the Argeneaus was wholly Marguerite's doing. The woman was like some irresistible force. If she decided you were family, you were family, and that was that. It was futile to resist. As for Eshe, it had taken a good couple of decades of working together for her to open up and allow herself to be true friends with her. Mirabeau just didn't like to care about people; it meant pain should you ever lose them.

  She stepped out from under the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, but then simply stood there frowning, both at her own thoughts and the fact that while she had soaped and scrubbed every inch of her skin, she still didn't feel clean. She also didn't know how she could possibly help Stephanie. The girl was angry and
resentful and hurting...much as Mirabeau had been after the loss of her family...and still probably was if she was honest with herself. She had never really healed from her loss but simply refused to acknowledge it. That being the case, she hadn't a clue how she was supposed to draw the girl out and help her.

  Tiny was giving her way too much credit in thinking she could, Mirabeau decided as she stared at the empty tub. She decided that perhaps a soak in a steaming hot bubble bath would make her feel clean. It might also relax her enough that she could come up with something to say that might help Stephanie.

  Glancing around, she spotted the small hotel-sized bubble bath on the counter and grabbed it up. Mirabeau dumped almost the entire contents of the small bottle into the tub and began to run a bath. She would soak and think.

  Chapter Six

  Tiny returned from his hunt for food with several bags in hand. One held sandwiches, chips, and various soft drinks, the others held loads of tourist wear. There were T-shirts, tank tops, joggers, and jackets all in various sizes and all saying I NEW YORK or something else about the city. It wasn't ideal, but he thought what he'd found was better than the clothes they were wearing and hoped the women would agree.

  In one of the clothing bags, there was also a selection of temporary tattoos. They were for Stephanie. As they'd walked through the sewers, the girl had been complaining about all the things she couldn't do now that she had been turned, and tattoos had been high on the list. It seemed she'd planned to get one as soon as she turned eighteen. Her parents had refused even to consider her getting one until then. He was hoping these would cheer her slightly.

  "Ooh, is that food I smell?"

  Tiny turned from closing the hotel-room door as Stephanie hurried to his side. Much to his surprise, she was wrapped in a hotel robe. Few hotels had robes in the rooms anymore.

  "I called down to the desk for the robe. Most hotels have them to purchase. They'll put it on the room bill," Stephanie explained absently as she began plucking at the bags he held. "What is this? You found clothes too?"

  "I found a twenty-four-hour market. It's amazing what they carry in those places," he murmured, as she urged him toward the table. The moment he set the bags on it, she started poking through the contents. While she'd at first been interested in the food, she now ignored that bag and began dumping out the contents of the others to sort through them.

  "Nice." She held up a black tank top with NYC on it across the breasts. Tiny had picked it up thinking of Mirabeau. It had seemed her style, and he hoped it was her size. He could actually imagine her in it. Apparently Stephanie read the thought in his mind and dropped it on the table. "It would look better on her anyway. I don't have the boobs for it."

  Tiny sighed to himself, thinking it might be nice to be an immortal if he could then guard his thoughts from others. It was bad enough having every adult immortal he encountered in his head, but even worse to have Stephanie in their sifting through his sometimes less than PG-13 thoughts. He would definitely need to start editing his own thinking around the girl.

  "Hey! What are these?"

  Tiny glanced to the girl to see that she'd found the tattoos. Clearing his throat, he said, "I thought you might have fun with them. I know they aren't the same as getting a real tattoo, but that just means you can change them as you like and won't be stuck with one you might get tired of."

  "That's true, I guess," she murmured, leafing through the sheets of tattoos. "How come they're all hearts and lovey-dovey stuff?"

  "It's Valentine's today, kiddo," he pointed out, then realized that wasn't true. While the wedding ceremony had taken place on Valentine's Day--an effort he suspected to be sure the men never forgot their anniversary--it was now past midnight and February fifteenth. Shrugging, he added, "That's all they had besides I NEW YORK tattoos, and I didn't think you'd be interested in them."

  "No," she agreed with a grimace, then brightened. "I'm going to show Mirabeau. Where is she?"

  "My bathroom," Tiny guessed, and when she quickly headed in that direction, warned, "She's probably in the tub."

  But he was too late. Like all immortals, the kid could move fast. By the time he even started the warning Stephanie had already passed through his room, and burst into the bathroom. He winced and moved into his bedroom as he heard Mirabeau squawk, curse, and ask something about the girl's having any boundaries.

  "Sorry." Stephanie's voice sounded deflated, and there was misery on her face as she turned toward the door, muttering, "I used to talk to my mom all the time while she was in the tub. I guess I wasn't thinking."

  He caught a glimpse of Mirabeau as Stephanie shifted to leave the room and saw that she was now biting her lip, regret on her face. He smiled to himself when she suddenly said, "So did I."

  He'd known she could handle the kid and wasn't at all surprised when Stephanie paused and turned back uncertainly to ask, "Really?"

  He saw Mirabeau nod solemnly and was just thinking it would be all right when Stephanie said, "They had baths in your day?"

  That had definitely been the wrong thing to say. The kid didn't seem to be able to say anything to Mirabeau that wasn't insulting, and he wasn't surprised to see Mirabeau's eyes narrow, though he was surprised that he was managing to keep his eyes on her face. Fortunately, only her head and upper shoulders were sticking out of the sea of foamy bubbles in his bathtub.

  "Can you say anything that isn't insulting?" Mirabeau asked grimly. "Did the turn somehow eradicate your manners? Or maybe your mother never taught you any."

  "She did too," Stephanie said at once, her voice high and harsh. "She was a good mom."

  "So what's your problem?" Mirabeau asked.

  "What's your problem?" Stephanie countered, and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Tiny stepped out of her way as she passed and watched her go with a sigh. His head came back around to the bathroom door, however, when he heard sloshing water in the bathroom. Mirabeau was getting out of the tub, he realized. Not wanting to get caught eyeing the door, he busied himself emptying his pockets in preparation for stripping to take his own bath. When he finished, he moved out
to retrieve the 3X T-shirt and joggers he'd bought for himself as well as the black tank top, a medium-sized T-shirt, and the medium-sized joggers he'd bought for Mirabeau.

  He was carrying them into the bedroom when the bathroom door opened and Mirabeau appeared, wrapped in a towel. The sight brought him to a dead halt. It wasn't that she wasn't covered at all the important points, but he couldn't help but be aware that she was completely naked beneath the towel.