By the time Coralie finally pulled herself together Lando had joined his father and the little boy watched her with concerned eyes. Ion had a firm grip on his son's shoulder and still looked wary. Coralie shot a tremulous smile toward Lando and he beamed back at her.
"Feeling a bit better now? A good cry always helps me, something these males will never understand." Marnie grinned at Coralie and some of her despair lifted. Marnie and Lando at least were on her side, it seemed.
"That's as may be," Ion said, irritation edged in his features. "Answer the question, Coralie. How do you feel? Any aches in your jaw, a sudden urge to feed? Heightened senses, awareness, tell me. I need some more reassurance than simple tears here."
"Oh for pity's sake, Ion, do I look as though I'm sprouting fangs?" She shut her eyes for a second and focused. Goodness, she could tell exactly how many hearts were beating in the building. "As for senses, if you mean can I tell who is where in this building, then yes, I can pinpoint them exactly. And really," she rolled her eyes, "it's broad daylight––do you wolves never do anything else but have sex?"
Ion raised his eyebrow and Marnie giggled again, whilst Lando just looked confused. "Well, we do have a number of newlyweds. It's only to be expected…and it's the full moon soon."
"Naturally, and you wonder about me. At least I'm not ruled by the phases of the moon, like you lot."
"Just by the need for blood." Ion glared at her and Coralie stared him down.
"I'm not ruled by blood. I can't stand the stuff. Are you sure he's turned me? Shouldn't I be, I don't know, thirsty?"
"Aren't you?" Marnie asked.
"Well, I could murder a bacon sandwich and a decent cup of coffee right now, but I don't think that's what you mean, do you?"
"Coffee?"
"A sandwich?"
Ion and Marnie asked in unison and Lando giggled.
"Yes, I'm starving." Coralie's stomach rumbled right on cue and she noticed as some of the tension left Ion's body. Lando wasted no time wriggling out of his father's grasp and bounded up to the window.
"I know what you need. Mummy always says I need fresh air." And before any of the grown-ups could stop him, he flung the curtains wide open. Sunlight blinded Coralie and she screamed.
Chapter Twenty
"Ouch!"
Coralie knew what a pincushion must feel like. She glared at the troll doctor brought in by Carmen to establish what or who exactly Coralie was. She wasn't given to bouts of violence, but if the old crone didn't stop poking her with things soon, Coralie thought she might just shove those needles where the sun doesn't shine. Another vicious poke followed, and Coralie growled at the miniature doctor, who just raised her eyebrows, tutted and carried on.
"Did that hurt?"
"Of course it blinking hurt. How many times do you have to stab me to establish that I heal? Wooo, I get it, it's a great trick. But it's not gonna change, so bugger off already, unless you can actually tell me something I don't know."
Her little outburst earned her another raised eyebrow and a quizzical look over the doctor's glasses.
"There is no need to get into a snit. I'm merely following Carmen's orders, and ultimately this is for your protection as much as anyone else's, young lady. We don't want another sun incident now, do we?"
The supernatural doc stared at Coralie, and she had to resist the childish urge to stick her tongue out at the troll. If only Lucas were here to answer some of the endless questions she had. Ion did his best, pooling the acquired knowledge of the council, but he wasn't Lucas. And there was no way she was taking Carmen up on her offer to 'teach' her. As it was, Ion had to invoke all of his power at the council to stop Carmen from carting Coralie away. Coralie shivered remembering that particular conversation.
"Lucas left her under my protection, Carmen. She is staying here. If you need to run tests to establish who or what exactly Coral is, you can have them done on my land."
Carmen had drawn herself up to her full height, her voice cold as ice.
"I am Lucas's Sire. In his absence, it falls to me to protect his siree. Do not preach vampire laws to me, shifter."
Ion's smile hadn't quite reached his eyes and Carmen had shifted restlessly when his pack surrounded them. The tension in the air had escalated whilst Ion just stared unblinkingly at Carmen, who only shrugged her shoulders.
"Whilst we're quoting ancient laws, Carmen, you should know that a Sire's request to have his siree protected by someone else in their absence is absolute. Lucas has made that request to me, and in essence, to my pack. Coralie is one of us, until Lucas decrees otherwise."
Carmen had removed an imaginary speck of dust off her clingy dress and fixed her attention on Coralie. Those cold eyes of hers ran slowly over Coralie's body, until she had to fight the urge to hide behind one of the massive shifters standing like a wall of protection around her. Instead she had locked her spine and given the same kind of assessment back to Carmen. The ice queen had softened slightly, only to draw her brows together in a frown when Coralie said, "Not in a million years. I don't fancy frostbite."
Ion's amused chuckle had broken some of the tension in the air, and Carmen had left. Since then a small army of 'experts' had descended upon the pack house, the troll being the latest one and supposedly the best of the best.
However, even she was drawing a blank. No one could explain why Coralie had no fangs, no desire to feed or even drink blood, even though her body needed it. If she went too long without forcing some donated blood down her, she started to feel ill, so Coralie managed a small glass every other day. She had to hold her nose to do it, and ate chocolate to chase the taste away. Somehow Lucas's blood had never seemed that revolting. But as he was still missing in action, she had little choice but to take the stuff on offer.
But what stumped the supernatural community the most was Coralie's ability to walk in the sun. It stung like crazy, but she didn't burn, burst into flames, or deplete her energy levels. In fact, as long as she wore sunblock, she wasn't affected at all. Ion had pored over the ancient ledgers and done his best to contact Lucas. Ancient vampirology was apparently Lucas's thing. But the blasted man had dropped off the face of the planet, or so it seemed. Coralie vacillated between missing him and being ready to stake the bastard the minute he showed up.
Marnie had done her best to reassure her, but Coralie wasn't stupid. He'd saved her ass, but that's as far it went. With the demon gone there was no reason for him to stick around, and he clearly didn't want to be tied to a now-immortal Coralie. If she really concentrated hard she could sense him. His surprised reaction had lasted one nanosecond before he'd slammed his mental shutters down, cutting Coralie off. It had been the equivalent of a slap in the face and Coralie had more self-respect than to try again. She'd done just fine without a man in her life. She would do so again, and no one need know that she cried silent tears every night.
At least she had never told him how she felt. So much for all that ‘Believe what's in your heart, he will come’ crap. She had an argument with the voices in her head every night, when she did finally manage to stay asleep. Lucas and she were hardly love's young dream and as for that destiny they kept going on about—she'd done her bit and she didn't want any part in anything else. There would be no embracing her heritage, whatever that meant. She had delved further once and scared herself witless with the power surge that followed. It had all been very well to call on that power to get rid of Jacomo, but no way did she want to feel like that every day of the week. It was bad enough having supersensitive hearing. Hearing all those horny wolves, at it all the time, did little to calm her raging libido.
"There, that's me done." The troll's shrill voice shook Coralie out of her introspective thoughts. She blinked twice to focus on the doctor.
"Welcome back, you zoned out on me there. I've seen you do that a lot. Care to share where you go?"
"No, I don't. I don't go anywhere. I'm right here."
"Hmm, if you say so, but if my hunch is correct
that would explain a few things. I would need to get clarification from your maker, but yes, interesting to say the least."
Coralie dug her fingernails into her palm to stop the rising tears. Damn it, the mere mention of the man always turned her into a watering pot.
"He will come back, you know. He won't be able to help himself. So whatever went wrong between you two, you'll sort it."
Coralie looked up in surprise at the kind tone of voice, in time to see the old troll nod and smile.
"I have known Lucas for several hundred years. He has never turned a human before, no matter what the circumstances. He must care deeply to have turned you. If he didn't he would have simply let Carmen turn you. Think on that, young vamp, and don't be too hard on him when he does return."
Before Coralie could say anything, the doc left with a reassuring pat on her arm.
****
A week later, Coralie was so engrossed in her painting she missed Marnie's quiet approach. She jumped. The result was a big splash of paint right in the middle of her scene. It now looked as though the wolf pups were playing around a rainbow.
Damn it. Ah well, I may be able to rescue this.
Coralie forced a smile on her face and turned around.
"Sorry, Coral, but there is someone here to see you.” She gestured toward the picture. “This is lovely, you know, you really should think about exhibiting."
Marnie smiled at her and Coralie pulled a face. Lucas had always said she should. Damn it, don't think about him. Isn't this supposed to get easier?
"A visitor? Who would visit me?"
Marnie's face grew pensive and Coralie's heart gave a little lurch.
"It's Jerry."
"Jerry? She's come here? Really? But that's wonderful. I knew she'd come around, once she'd recovered enough." Coralie would have dashed off but something in Marnie's expression stopped Coralie cold.
"What is it? What are you not telling me?"
"She's not the Jerry you remember, Coral. She recovered almost the minute you killed Jacomo." Marnie dropped her gaze and Coralie suddenly felt cold.
"But, then…I don't understand. Why has she not been around to see me?"
"I think you need to hear that from her. She's leaving. Jenkins tried to convince her to stay, but she didn't take very well to his, well us, the whole supernatural thing."
"I see." Coralie saw only too well, but until she'd heard it from Jerry her stubborn heart would never believe it. At least that explained why Jenkins had avoided her and looked as though he'd had his heart torn out. Coralie knew what that felt like. Marnie gave her a hug.
"She's in the dining room, Coral."
****
Coralie's words of welcome died on her tongue when she saw her old friend. Jerry seemed a shadow of her exuberant self. She'd lost weight and there were dark circles under her eyes, their once-brilliant green dimmed to a dull grey. She swung around when she heard Coralie approach and took several steps back when Coralie would have embraced her.
"Don't touch me!"
Coralie's heart squeezed painfully, hearing the venom behind those words. She put her hands up in a gesture of surrender and took several steps back––anything to erase that look of sheer terror out of Jerry's eyes. Her friend wrung her hands nervously, her eyes darting around the room, as though she expected hell’s demons to descend upon her. When she finally made eye contact, Coralie saw the sheen of unshed tears in Jerry's eyes. Every line of her body screamed of her desperation and Coralie ached to take that look away from her. Maybe, if she got close enough she could make her forget? Like she'd seen Lucas do?
But, even as she thought it, she instantly dismissed the idea. She could never do that to her friend, or anyone else for that matter. Instead she pitched her voice very low and spoke carefully, so as not to spook Jerry further.
"I was worried about you, Jerry. How have you been?"
"How do you think I've been? I was almost killed by my daughter's father, who turns out to be a demon, my boyfriend turns into a wolf and my best friend is a vampire. I feel top of the fucking world, in fact." Jerry stuffed her fist in her mouth, cutting off a hysterical bubble of laughter. "I want nothing to do with any of this shit. I'm taking Suz away from all you monsters. How could you, Coral? How could you let him anywhere near you, once you found out? For fuck’s sake, you brought him to my house. And you knew, all that time you knew that Jenkins was a goddamn werewolf. "
"Shifter actually, Jerry. He's—"
"Spare me. Whatever these things call themselves, they're still not human. And neither are you. You're all bloody freaks and now they're starting on Suz. Well, they'll have to go through me first. You can tell your witch friends to fuck off and leave my little girl alone."
"What witch friends? You're not making any sense, Jerry. And not to put too fine a point on it, you were the one who brought this on by attending those gatherings. You were the one who got herself impregnated by a fucking demon, necessitating us freaks to get involved to protect you."
Coralie's voice rose in her anger and power surged through her. Her fingertips tingled and damn it if she couldn't see sparks shooting from the tips of her fingers.
Lucas's presence flooded her mind, willing her to calm down and her body responded instantly. She tried to shake off Ion's hand on her shoulder, but he had her in an iron grip, all his attention focused on her. More of her anger dissolved and she slowly became aware that the room had filled with people. Jenkins stood between Coralie and a trembling, wide-eyed Jerry. Marnie was behind Ion, held back by several wolves.
Jesus, what am I doing?
She hugged her arms around herself.
"You okay now?" Ion's bruising grip lessened at her nod.
"I guess I shouldn't get angry." Coralie tried to smile and failed miserably. God, what sort of weird mutation was she? Ion regarded her steadily and after a long searching look at her face, he released her. "Jenkins, I think you should escort our visitor off pack land."
"Boss, she didn't mean to—"
"Now, Jenkins." Ion's voice brooked no argument. "Coralie is a member of this pack. I will not have her, or any of us for that matter, insulted by a human. Regardless of the circumstances or how much that human may mean to you."
Jerry's eyes widened at that quietly delivered statement and Jenkins’s grim nod. He turned and grasped Jerry's arm. Jerry winced and tried to pull away, but Jenkins stood firm, even when Jerry screeched.
"You can't do this. She needs to call them off. Coral, please, she's all I have. You've got to, for Suz."
Coralie was in front of Jenkins in the blink of an eye and his wolf growled in surprise. Jerry just turned paler at that demonstration of vampire speed and Ion smiled grimly.
"What exactly do you expect me to do, Jerry?" Coralie searched her friend’s face for an answer.
"Whatever you witches do. How the fuck should I know? But there is no bloody way you're turning Suzanne into one of you freaks."
"Jerry, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not a witch."
"Pull the other one, Coral, and stop being delusional. You come from a long line of witches. Trust me, I would rather I didn't know. Suz has been talking to someone called Melisande and your bloody mother appeared in my bedroom last night. Some crap about Suz being destined for great things."
"Mummy did what?" Coralie swayed slightly at that announcement. Her mother could appear to people? Why the hell had Mummy not appeared to her? And what did that make her mother? The kind and wise lady she remembered didn't chant and cast spells. Never, ever, had she given her the slightest indication she was a witch.
Jerry ignored her question and Lucas's hold on Coralie's mind increased. She welcomed his presence after all this time, needing the reassurance from the man she loved, his silent awe at Jerry's revelations a soothing balm in the face of her friend's sneering tones.
"So you undo it. Suz is not getting involved in any of this. If your mother renounced this thing, then you can take this off my
daughter. She is going to be normal, not a goddamn freak."
Chapter Twenty-One
"So, it's true then. She can walk in the sun?" Lucas tore his eyes away from the sight of Coralie playing with the wolf cubs, his heart constricting at the waves of sadness he sensed from her. Even with his own shields firmly in place, so she wouldn't know he was here, her grief tore at his soul. It took every ounce of his self-control to not call her to him. Though, now knowing her heritage, he doubted he had that control over her anyway. He smiled grimly. He should have stayed. He'd let her down again, when she needed him most. Fury boiled in his gut at the way her so-called friend had reacted. He’d woken up in a sweat, Coralie's hurt and confusion swamping him, as though he were in the room with her. The way humans reacted to the supernatural community was a hard lesson to learn. He should have been there to make it easier for her.
"Yes, it seems she can. We found out by accident. Lando pulled the curtains on her. I tell you Lucas, my heart damn well nearly stopped when she screamed. Though that's all she did, thankfully. Then, the shit really hit the fan. Carmen is foaming at the mouth. It's about time you showed up. I worked hard to keep the peace, but I'm not prepared to risk the pack in a war with you goddamn bloodsuckers."
Ion's voice held an edge of steel and Lucas nodded at his friend.
"I wouldn't expect that of you and it won't come to that. I'm here to take Coralie away. And I want her as far away from Carmen as possible. No fucking way is she going to get her claws into Coralie. She has a decision to make, and Coralie can't do that here. It would be too dangerous for all concerned."
"Dangerous as she might hurt someone by accident? ‘Cause I have to tell you, she makes me nervous. I wouldn't piss her off if I was you, Lucas. Ever since that incident with Jerry, she keeps a tight leash on her emotions, but when she doesn't, she kind of glows. We've learnt to scarper when she does that. Louisa has had her hands full repairing the damage to the foliage as it is. Coral has burnt a few bushes recently. Better than people, I grant you—"
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