by L. M. Pruitt
“Should I apologize for eavesdropping, even though I really wouldn’t mean it?”
Chapter Fifteen
“Apologizing when you don’t mean it is kind of like lying.”
I felt Theo lift his head from the bed and sit up straight, my lips twitching at his muffled groan and curse. “In that case, I won’t apologize. I’m trying to stay away from lying for the sake of lying. Keep some part of my life simple.” He lifted my hand and brushed my knuckles over his rough cheek. “I like simple, all things considered.”
“This thing we have, it’s simple?” I opened my eyes, alarmed when I found myself staring straight into Theo’s. The pillow-top mattress and his chair gave us one of those little moments when you were able to look eye to eye with a person without it being uncomfortable.
“It could be. It should be.”
“I’ve never heard someone say something should be simple,” I replied.
“You just haven’t been in the South long enough, sugar. Give it time, and you’ll understand that simple is pretty much the way we like things down here.”
“I’ve been in New Orleans so long, I’m practically a native.”
“Well, then you’re just out of practice.” His full blown smile did wonders for his face, changed handsome into something extraordinary. It made him glow, from the sheer joy of the moment.
What would it be like to spend a lifetime with someone who glowed just from teasing?
I scratched the thought. There would be no talk of spending lifetimes with people, at least not until we took care of the whole ‘a group of vampires wants you dead’ thing. That’s how my agenda was going to work.
Theo seemed to have a different plan. He held tight to my hand and where something like that would have freaked me out before, now it comforted me to know someone would be there when I woke up. The smile toned down slightly, but the glow held. “I was thinking about kissing you just now.”
“Generally speaking, you don’t announce such things. You just, you know, do them.”
“Well, like I said, I was thinking about it. Then I had the other thought that since you are still, technically, on your death bed – although there’s no way you’re dying at the moment – it would be a little morbid and easy.” The smile grew again, just a hair below the full sunshine of before. “And when I kiss you, I’m kind of hoping you’ll be an active participant.”
“How egalitarian of you.”
“Well, I try.” Theo stood, dropping my hand back to the sheet. I was disappointed, and more than a little shocked that I was. A good near death experience and unspoken proclamations of intentions made me as emotionally gooey as the next girl.
“Gillian’s been waiting rather impatiently for you to wake up. If she isn’t on her way now, she will be shortly and if she finds me still here….” He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it further in the process. “Well, she may tell my Great-grandmother, and I’ll be in quite a bit of trouble. So I’ll make my exit, and leave you to Gillian’s tender care.”
“Gillian? Tender care? I thought you gave up lying.” My voice rose as he drew closer to the door, but he turned to flash one more smile, and I warmth pulse through me.
“I said I was trying. Didn’t say how well it was going.”
I laughed until Gillian opened the door two minutes later. Her scowl took the smile right off my face.
Thirty minutes later, I had yet to get a word in. It looked like it was going to take me at least another thirty, if I didn’t fall asleep first. I wouldn’t really be asleep, but it would handily end the tirade.
“Don’t even think about trying to fall asleep, Jude Magdalyn. There’s no way you could possibly be tired, seeing as how you’ve been asleep for the better part of four days.”
“Would you let me say something, anything? You’ve been ranting the entire time, without once allowing me to explain.” I kicked the covers off before checking to make sure I was clothed. Whoever dressed me had chosen the rattiest pajamas I owned to do the job. They were going to get a severe dressing down when I found them out.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, toes curling up when they met the cold wood. Pressing them down, I pushed to a standing position, for a moment. Then the muscles in my legs screamed in protest at their sudden usage and I sat back down on the bed.
“If nothing else, you’re still as stubborn as you were before your swim in the river.” Gillian, suddenly beside me, made me wonder how long the moment had actually been. “Part of the healing process involves getting your muscles to work again. As I’ve said numerous times, you’ve been asleep for nearly four days, meaning your muscles aren’t working as well as they normally would.”
“I would have figured that out.” Eventually. “I’m not a complete idiot, Gillian. Only a partial one.”
“I needed no confirmation on that, Jude. Your little stroll through the Quarter proved it beyond any shadow of a doubt.” The hand soothing me a moment before now pressed almost painfully on my shoulder. “What on earth could you have been thinking, wandering around the streets alone?”
“I thought we already established that I wasn’t thinking.” I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Actually, I didn’t want to ever have it.
“Why weren’t you thinking? There are hundreds of people relying on you now, not just within the Covenant, but amongst Williams and his followers.” Her painful grip on my chin dragged my face around until we were almost nose to nose. “You must think of all the others before you make any decision, any decision at all.”
“Maybe sometimes it gets to be too much, Gillian. It’s not like this is something I’ve known about all my life and I’ve just been ignoring. This is so beyond new as to have a completely different meaning.” Wrenching my chin away, I made another attempt to stand, pushing Gillian’s hands away when they would have pulled me back to the bed. The muscle spasms were down to twitches and if I concentrated, I could manage to semi-pace around the edges of the bed.
“I’m doing everything you ask me to do, all of you. Doing more, just because it’s the right thing to do. Could you try for a little understanding? A little, I don’t know, sympathy, or something?”
“If you want sympathy, it’s in the dictionary under the letter S.” A hint of amusement colored her tone. “Jude, I’m not entirely unsympathetic, but if you’re having uncertainties, we need to address them sooner rather than later.”
I leaned against the window sill, looking down onto the street below. A faint glimmer of sunlight against the window panes across the way confirmed the early hour. Williams would no doubt be waiting impatiently for the sun to finish sinking below the horizon, eager to continue his quest to find Hart. Theo was somewhere in the house, no doubt showering off the feeling of four days of death watch, just waiting for my word to do whatever needed to be done.
Everyone was doing what they were supposed to, exactly as everything was supposed to be done. Everybody except for me.
“It’s like being hit by a freight train, Gillian. You don’t just get hit, you get dragged. And about the time you get used to the surface, some bump throws you off again. You… there’s just a point where you get tired of it all, but you don’t know what to do to stop it.”
“A poor analogy, but I think I understand what you’re driving at.” Gillian’s voice sounded like she sat in the same position I left her, perched on the edge of the bed. “You just needed some room to breathe.”
“Yes, exactly. And I went to see Suzanne.”
“Ahh. Perhaps that had something to do with your absent-mindedness.” I turned around, careful to stay braced against the window sill. Being stubborn didn’t mean being stupid and I knew if I tried to stand on my own for too long I’d hit the floor. Gillian turned on the bed until she could face me, and we stared at each other across the span of half of the room.
“What did Suzanne have to say?”
“Oh, you know the usual. I’ll be loved, but I’ll also have my h
eart and soul smashed to smithereens.” Another thought, completely un-man related popped into my head. “And that the Covenant only takes members based on bloodlines, or ancestry, or something.”
“Since you’re obviously not ready or willing to talk about her main message, we’ll focus on the second, shall we?” Just like that, we neatly skirted conversation I’d been trying to avoid. Maybe Gillian was as skittish about discussing my love life as me.
“Your Suzanne is correct. During the whole of its existence the Covenant’s members have descended from the original twelve founding families.”
I waited, but the one sentence seemed to be all I’d get without any pushing. “What, you guys aren’t scared of inbreeding, producing children who breathe fire or something?”
“Don’t be silly, Jude.”
“I’m serious. Why would you want to limit yourselves, your, what do you call it, skill set, or whatever, by not letting outsiders in?” Even leaning against the window taxed my little bit of strength and I walked slowly back to the bed. Gillian watched as I eased myself down and I made a conscious effort to not let any of the pain show on my face.
“It’s not a matter of limiting ourselves so much as protecting ourselves.” Gillian rose to pace in front of me, she kept it slow enough that watching her didn’t make my brain hurt. “Secrecy is paramount to the survival of our kind, even in such enlightened times as we live in now.”
“So all the members of the Covenant are the descendants of twelve families who just all happened to get together a hundred years or so ago and make up their own religion?” I stared. “Seriously, Gillian? What, the kids were forbidden to look outside the ranks for love? If that’s true, what about my parents, how’d that happen?”
“There are times, Jude when I could cheerfully smack you upside the head.” Gillian stopped in her pacing to scowl at me. “For quite a while, close to one hundred fifty years, it was highly discouraged to seek a mate outside the membership of the Covenant. The last half century saw a loosening of those restrictions, although more than a few still chose to marry magic to magic.”
In story-telling mode, I let Gillian talk. Better her talking than yelling at me. I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility of a tirade later though. “Some, not wanting to live like their parents and their parents before them married non-magic, and how I hate that word, hoping their gifts would simply pass their own children by. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it came back in a stronger form, much to the chagrin of those former Covenant members.”
“So how did my family line end up being the leaders of the Covenant? I mean, no one even really questioned that I was the leader, despite the fact I clearly don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Your many-great grandmother came to the group unmarried and pregnant. No one ever knew the father of her daughter, he was never mentioned and she wasn’t the type of woman to encourage such questions.” Gillian paused, some memory making her chuckle. “She foretold that many, many years in the future, a daughter of her line would bind the group together for all time, making them more powerful than any could imagine. The first mention of the Prophecy.”
“And people just believed her?”
“Sometimes, Jude, all you can do is believe.”
I laughed, the bitter sound echoing. “I don’t know what to believe in anymore.”
Her left hand cupped my cheek, and I realized then the tears I’d thought kept at bay were sliding down my face. “You will, Jude Magdalyn. My promise to you.”
A brief pat of her hand and then she stood, gliding in the direction of the door. I stared out the window, night pressing against the glass.
“You’ll need to change quickly, Jude. The Covenant, what remains of it, will be here shortly.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I can’t go in there. Tell them all that I’m still sleeping, or recovering, or whatever.”
“Jude. You have to do this at some point. Best to do it while you look a little shaky.” Gillian smoothed some little bit of hair down, her hands busy around my face. “One, it will keep the meeting short, and two, it will keep some of your powers in reserve for later.”
“Like the secret ingredient in dessert?”
“I’ll buy you the biggest chocolate bar I can find once this is over.” Theo’s hand burned on low at the small of my back, and helped to suppress the shakes. I held tight to his right arm like a life preserver, partly because my legs were wobbly from being on my deathbed, but mostly due to my unwillingness to move forward.
I’d assumed when Gillian told me the remainder of the Covenant was downstairs, she meant in the kitchen or dining room. Nope. She meant everyone and they were all in the R.R.
Woo-hoo.
“So this is like a mixer, right? A meet and greet, hey, how you doing, kind of deal?” I babbled, but since it kept my mind from actually dealing with the upcoming event, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Besides, even if I’d wanted to, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stop.
“The sooner you enter the room, the sooner it will all be over.” Gillian finished smoothing my hair to her satisfaction, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “And the sooner Theo will buy you your chocolate.”
“Great. Great. So, we’re going in.” After a moment, I flexed my fingers on Theo’s arm. “You guys are going to make me walk in, not just sort of lead me in, aren’t you?”
“You are the Prophecy, Jude. Some show of strength is necessary.” The smile broke fully over Gillian’s face. “I have every confidence, however, that if you feel even the slightest bit weak, Theo will prevent you from falling.”
“I never pass up the chance to fondle a pretty girl,” Theo joked. His hand nudged me forward, and I heaved a sigh, I wasn’t getting out of this.
“You’d better get me the most amazing chocolate bar the world has ever seen.” Squaring my shoulders, I moved forward, my fingertips barely brushing the door before it swung open on its hinges. Gillian shook her head while Theo chuckled and I took my first step into the room.
My initial thought was my brain was still putting itself back together and I was seeing double or triple. The low murmuring I’d heard upon entering dropped off instantly and left my ragged breathing the only sound in the massive room.
White, black, mulatto, Asian, Hispanic. Men, women, children. Old, young, middle-aged. The only visible thing they had in common were their bowed heads.
The crowd parted seamlessly as I walked slowly into the room, the men bowing and the women dropping into a slight curtsy. The quiet held, my bare feet making no noise on the stone floor. I’d crossed a quarter of the room before anything happened.
One second I stood in the Ritual Room, the next I was walking down the center aisle of St. Louis Cathedral. I was in the moment long enough to know I wore a wedding dress and carried flowers before being catapulted back to the present.
When I returned to the present I realized I’d acquired extra weight on my right leg. Looking down, I blinked at possibly the most adorable looking little girl ever. She had the Shirley Temple thing going on, right down to the dimples. Normally, perfect people annoy me, but something about her made someone even as jaded as me soften. I bet she got everything she wanted simply by flashing her adorable dimples.
“Celia!” The little girl and I turned our heads in the direction of the frantic voice. A female roughly the same age as the Ice T’s, but a lot more human, tried her best to push her way through the crowd. With the room packed almost to the gills, her efforts met with failure. She looked enough like the child attached to my leg I knew them as relatives of some sort.
The young woman managed to push through the last line of people between her and my little entourage. Dropping to one knee, she grabbed the child’s hand and tugging on it, she whispered, “Celia, you can’t go around grabbing people. We’ve talked about this. And you really, really cannot grab her.”
“But why?”
“Because she’s the new leader of the Covenant, Celia. Come h
ere.” Celia didn’t move an inch.
“But why?”
I could tell the older girl was used to getting asked “why” for everything. “Because you’re holding up the gathering, Celia, which is very, very rude.”
“But why?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing and decided if I didn’t do something we’d be playing Twenty Questions all night. I knelt, forcing Celia to let go of my leg, and marveling at the dimple, put my face close to hers. “Because, Celia, I was hurt a little bit ago by a bad man, and even though I’m mostly better, I still get tired and have to take naps.”
Her pouting face, complete with lower lip stuck out, made me wish for a camera. “I don’t like naps. Elizabeth makes me take them anyway.”
“You missed yours today, it is past your bedtime, and those are the only reasons I’m not absolutely furious at you, Celia.” Elizabeth lifted her head to scowl at Celia. “Seriously, Celia, you know how to act in public. I left you with Rian, so I really want to know how you managed to get through all these people, without touching any of them, to get all the way over here and launch yourself at the most important person in the room.”
“Is it such a big deal that she didn’t touch anybody?” I looked around, shaking my head. “Aside from the fact there’s no room in here?”
“Celia’s physically blind. When she touches someone, they frequently get shifted to the future for a moment.” Elizabeth bit her lip. “People tend to get upset. Celia thinks it’s fun.”
“It is fun, Elizabeth. I get to be in the wedding and my dress is really, really pretty.” Celia patted my cheek with her hand, drawing my attention back to her. I realized then how her eyes, the same hazel-blue as Elizabeth’s, were clouded and filmed over.
“I like pink better, though. Can my dress be pink instead?”
Tongue in cheek, I replied, “We’ll have to see. Maybe they won’t have any pink ones whenever it’s time to get the dress.” It didn’t surprise me when I stood and Celia lifted her arms and stomped her foot lightly.
