“Let her be, Loti.”
Loti chased after Rachel into the foyer. Rachel was halfway up the stairs.
“Rachel!”
The murmuring in the living room stopped, and so did Rachel. She turned around with one hand on the banister.
“I’m not turning it into a hurt contest; you are. What I’m trying to tell you but totally screwed up, I know, is that I know what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to feel alone and abandoned and scared and helpless. I know. I know you need time and I know you need your friends.”
Her voice grew thick with unshed tears. “I’m your friend. Your best friend. And I will always be your friend, no matter how hard you push me away or how you lash out at me.”
She was full-blown crying now. “So I’ll wait for you to forgive me. I’ll wait for you.” And she turned to run, slamming into Sarah, who hugged her close.
“Give her some time, Loti,” she whispered in her ear, and then patted her arms before going after her daughter.
Wolf caught Loti in his arms as she burst through the front door. She let him kiss her tears away as Heather ran a hand down Loti’s back. Loti pulled her into their embrace and it was the most wonderful feeling. Heather smelled as if her skin were imbued with the delicate scent of comfort….and love/ Suddenly unsure and ill-at-ease, Loti pulled away with a jolt. Wiping at her eyes, she sniffed, then shook herself.
“I’m an idiot. Here Rachel is hurting and I’m…well, whatever I’m doing.”
“You’re hurting, too. We all are.” Heather stroked Loti’s hair. Her pale blue eyes held a gentle light and Loti turned her cheek into her hand. She pressed her hand over Heather’s and then surprised herself by kissing Heather’s palm. It was so much easier when she surrendered to it. Heather’s eyebrows lifted and she smiled.
“Let’s go home.” Wolf put an arm around Loti and took Heather’s hand, flying up into the night sky.
* * *
A soft moan escaped Loti’s lips as she pulled Heather tighter against her in their sleep. She turned in slow circles inside one of the pearlescent nadis, calling out for Wolf. They had gotten separated somehow, but she wasn’t frightened, just concerned. She knew she lost time in the nadis without him and he must be worried sick.
“Wolf.” When she tried to call out his name, her voice was a whisper. It was frustrating. She closed her eyes and tried to catch the outside world. Where was she? How far had she gone?
“Loti.”
Her eyes snapped open. That wasn’t Wolf. That was—
“David.”
Her deceased husband stood in front of her, naked. She smiled. Dreams like this were a gift, she knew, and she didn’t hesitate. She ran to him, and he caught her in his arms. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and he caressed her back. She didn’t know how long they embraced, only that it felt like no time at all and all the time in the world.
It was one of those rib-popping hugs that went on and on, the kind the tribe at the ashram liked to give. David pulled back slightly, but didn’t let go. He gazed down at her, his eyes exhaling love. She ran a finger over his bottom lip and he kissed the tip of it.
“You have such an amazing journey ahead of you.”
Loti smiled. “What kind of journey?”
“There is so much for you to learn and you are just beginning to live your life the way it was meant to be.”
He stepped back and his arms slid away. Loti frowned and stepped towards him, but he stepped back. She cocked her head to one side.
“What is it, David?” A bit of worry pinched her gut. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, no. Not at all. Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be.” He backed away further and Loti tried to follow him.
“No. Stay still. I want to take you in. I want to remember you just like this.” His eyes glowed with love and she halted.
“Like what?” She looked down and her hands jerked automatically to cover her nakedness, but she dropped them. That was pure silliness; her David knew every curve of her body. Looking back up, he was now a ways off, maybe half a football field.
“David?” She shielded her eyes from an increasingly bright light. “David?”
He ran towards her, picking up his pace until he was running full-tilt. Loti took a step back. What was he doing? Then he leapt at her head first with arms stretched out as if he were diving into a pool. Loti screamed, throwing her arms up as his body crackled with crisscrossing blue lightening.
Morphing from a man into a man-shaped piece of light, he plowed into her. She stumbled back as he plunged inside her belly, leaving behind a glow where he disappeared. She wrapped her arms around herself as she screamed.
Wolf and Heather bolted up beside her in bed.
“What is it, baby? What’s wrong?” Wolf brushed the sweaty hair out of her face.
Disoriented, Loti thought she was still in the dream. Heather and Wolf’s auras pulsed around them and she shook her head to dispel the confusion. It was all jumbled up and she couldn’t tell her own energy from theirs. She felt as if there were too many people in the bed. Their emotions assaulted her, while their thoughts gyrating in muffled snippets.
Untangling herself from the covers, she fought their reassuring touches to get away and think clearly. She slammed down a shield and realized something wasn’t right with their energy, or maybe it was hers. She couldn’t make sense of it. Wiping sweat from the back of her neck, she wobbled around in a circle.
“Loti?” Wolf eased out of bed, approaching her like he didn’t want to scare her off. Her thoughts were frantic and fragmented as Heather sat up and crawled to the bottom of the king-sized bed.
“What is it, Loti?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. I had a strange dream.” She looked up at Wolf who stood next to her now stroking her arm. His touch immediate calmed her this time. “About David. He said…” she felt like she didn’t know where she was. “I can’t remember.” She closed her eyes and her aura pulsed oddly. It was bigger. No, that wasn’t it. It was different. She opened her eyes and studied the swirling confusion.
“What is wrong with me?” She pressed her hands to her lower abdomen, where her root chakra should have spun. It was there, but it was filled with another light.
“What are you seeing?” Wolf closed his eyes so he could see through hers.
He lowered himself to his knees in front of her, pressing both hands to her stomach. “Here?”
“Yes.” Then the image snapped into place, all of the sudden making sense: the energy swirled in familiar stacked vortices inside her.
Wolf’s eyes snapped open and gazed up at Loti in utter amazement. “It can’t be.”
“When was the last time?” Loti asked.
“At the fae colony. Three days ago?” Wolf’s forehead wrinkled.
“Would you please tell me what’s going on.” Heather hopped off the bed. “I can’t read your thoughts, yet. What’s going on?” She bit her lip.
Loti giggled nervously. “It can’t be. There’s no way.” Wolf stood in that smooth, unearthly way and shook his head. “Well, timing-wise it’s right, but a vampire can’t—”
“It can’t be,” Wolf stammered.
“What?” Heather shouted, throwing her hands up. “What? Tell me already!”
They snapped their gaze to her.
“Loti’s pregnant.”
Epilogue
“No no no no, please no,” Christian begged as Modore slammed the coffin lid closed on him.
He’d known this kind of terror when Modore first turned him—the kind that would eventually take over his mind and tear it apart. He could not go there again. He had endured his limit, knew the horrific, endless path like an old nightmare he couldn’t shake. Chain links clinked around him and he shuddered with hopeless dread, because he knew they were silver.
“It seems that you need to learn your lessons all over again, boy. You need to figure out what you did wrong.”
&n
bsp; Christian pounded on the lid with all his vampire strength, but it didn’t budge. “Modore, please!” He groveled unabashed. There was no thought of pride or heart, only self-preservation as he screeched, “I know what I did wrong.”
He threw his body against the lid over and over until his ribs cracked. He panted through the pain and then pounded his head as hard as he could until his nose broke, the blood draining down his throat.
“I chose a whore over my maker and I am so sorry and will spend forever making it up to you.” He blubbered the words in desperate anguish as the coffin vibrated with the scrape of sliding across concrete.
“You will have plenty of time to reflect, my dear boy. Rest yourself and save your energy.”
Christian screamed as the coffin fell the ten feet into the vault, his head crashing first and then his feet.
“Try to get some rest.”
The vault slab groaned into place, the noise sending Christian into a spastic frenzy of kicking and pounding. When his fingers were all broken and the bones in his feet shattered, he moaned, fading in and out of consciousness. His fragmented dreams and visions were of Heather: the smooth skin of her stomach, her soft smile and hazy eyes in the afterglow of their love making, and her vibrant red hair draped over his pillow.
He woke to the agony of injuries half-healed and a maddening need for blood. It would only get worse over the days to come, although he would lose all sense of time. It would get so bad, he would bite his own wrists and drink his own blood in a futile effort to slake the gnawing thirst. The scent of jasmine and vanilla drifted through the blackness and he shivered, wondering at the power of his own imagination.
“Heather.” He whispered her name like a prayer, letting the memory of their last love making take him over so completely he could feel her skin under his hands and taste her blood.
“Heather!” He cried her name into the nothingness.
Heather sat up in bed next to Loti, pressing her hands to her temples as Christian’s cry reverberated in her head.
“Christian?”
To be continued…
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Acknowledgments
As usual, there are too many people to thank for helping me make this book something worth reading. I need to say thank you to my husband and family for putting up with my disappearance acts as I write and edit and ponder it all. Thank you, C. G. Powell, for all the writing sessions and endless plot detangling. Thank you Olivia Hardin, Liz Schulte, Mandie Stevens, Amanda Long, Tawdra Kandle, Lola James and Stephanie Nelson for all your advice, words of encouragement and for just letting me whine on your shoulders. You are amazing women and I am beyond blessed to count you as my friends and writing support group. Thank you, thank you to my editor, Kristin Beaird for your eagle eyes and guidance. There was much grinding and polishing to be done on this one and it wouldn’t be what it is without you. And thank you to all my friends and supporters. There are too many to name. I am humbled by your constant presence and encouragement. I am grateful for your unconditional love.
About the Author
Paranormal and Urban Fantasy author Melissa Lummis lives in the mountains of Virginia with her husband and two kids, who are her support system and constant inspiration.
When she’s not manifesting with the moon or mixing up elixirs, you’ll find her cloistered in the Yurt diving into her fantasy world to craft heart-stopping and heart-warming adventures for her characters.
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