by Felicia Fox
“Sorry for your loss, Baby.” She acknowledges what I say with a tilt of her head. “I lost my parents five minutes apart from each other, and I was an hour too late in saying goodbye, but at least I got to have them.”
She nods her head and her hair shifts forward to obscure part of her face.
“Do you ever go to her grave?”
“I used to go often when I first learned to flash. I would sit there asking her questions and telling her about what life was like for me. Sometimes, if I was angry, I would ask her why she even bothered or what the fuck was she thinking to say yes to Caius.” Alex smiles ruefully.
“He would have been in more trouble had he not been an Ancient. Mixed mating is not accepted in our culture. To feed, yes, but happily ever after is a big no.”
“I guess that means I’ll never be truly accepted. The only one among them who would have cared for us is now dead.” God, Gideon, if it stings me this badly, I couldn’t imagine Alex’s grief.
“Caius received so much shit for being with my mother, but he loved her. I, for the longest time, didn’t get it, but I do now.” She looks at me with love shining out of her now sapphire eyes, and my heart speeds up. “When was the last time you visited your parents’ graves?”
“It’s been about a year now. I always feared the day I’d forget their birthdays or special holidays. I always go and light a candle so they know their tiny flame still thought of them, and when I forgot my father’s birthday last year it hurt so bad. I felt so guilty to be wrapped up in my world that I forgot how important they were in mine. I guess that was the beginning of my visiting coming to a halt, guilt.”
“Would you like to go now?” she asks, I think to hold off going back to the compound and all the crap waiting for us.
“Yeah, I think I would but with everything going on, do you think that’s wise? Oh, and why couldn’t we flash from the house?” Curiosity is thy middle name.
“We ward our places for both our single entry and whoever we bring with us, or we surround the property as far out as we can with a flash boundary. It’s a very intricate process. As long as there is no incubus or succubus dwelling within the area, we can come and go from any point. As you already know, we flash to a person we have had sex with directly and since we take in their essence we can follow them. This was how we used to track the humans we impregnated.”
“Well, are we out of distance yet?” I think we walked further then we did to get there originally.
She smiles “Yes, we are clear of the ward. I was caught up in your history lesson and us getting to know each other’s past. I enjoy this Felicity, you intrigue me, everything about you does. The reasons for your actions, how words pop out from between those lovely lips unfiltered, and then you put your hand to your mouth, shocked that you even said it. It just does it for me.”
“Well, damn Alex.” Even I know that came out of my mouth kind of whiney. “Make me sound like spaz, why don’t you.”
“Ah, but you are my spaz, my sweet, sexy spaz.” She kisses me nice and slow, making me forget where we are. Unfortunately, the spell is broken by some random person practically hissing at us, ruining the moment for Alex and I.
“Well, it looks like more than your people don’t agree with us being together.” How sad people judge me by who I love. Why they think it even affects them, I have no idea.
“Would you like to know what I have to say about them? About all of them?” She’s being so playful, and it’s proving to be the best distraction from reality. What the hell would I do without her? I never want to find out.
“What do you have to say?” This feels good, normal almost.
“Fuck them!” Alex laughs while pulling me into an alley. “Close your eyes, Fe.”
Sarcastically I reply, “Yes, Ma’am.” with a little hand salute.
She comes in close to my ear and breaths her warm words against me. “And don’t you ever forget that.” A nip of her teeth punctuates the end of her sentence and we flash out, thankfully, because I have no witty retort for that one.
****
We flash into the cemetery under a huge white oak tree that is prevalent to this area in Benton, Illinois. The cemetery is lush and green, grave markers the only blemish amongst the beautiful landscape here in the older section. We stand in front of an average looking grave stone, worn from weather and time. It was a family plot surrounded by a low, wrought iron fence. The name and year faded on the concrete stone read, “Lavinia Poole” 1802-1822. Damn! She was a baby. I guess back then she wasn’t, but really comparing her age to Caius’s, its cradle robbery. Makes the difference between Alex and I so much easier to swallow, even though she is in her hundreds and I am still a sprightly twenty-eight years old.
I watch Alex’s hand lovingly stroke the dirt, leaves, and acorns away from the stone, tracing her finger along the script. My heart aches for her loss. She was denied her mother’s influence and love because she was only a human trying to make it with the big bad. Alex missed out on what I was so fortunate to have with both my parents’, irrevocable love. Love so strong they built me up and made me a better person, all while being there to help catch me should I fall.
Alex whispers softly to the headstone, “I understand why you gave yourself to him and why he did the same in return. Love is a heady thing and one not easily let go of.” She turns and smiles sadly at me and I grip her hand. We turn, exiting the surrounding fence and walking towards my parents’ head stones.
Since they were buried side by side, I had a single grave marker made for them in marble, stating their names Jenna and Ryan Turner, and the dates of birth and death. Filigree surrounds the engravings on the tombstone, making it a little whimsical, like them. I smile seeing that the stone has been taken care of in my absence. It must have been my aunt.
I look up as I feel Alex stiffen, the grip she has on my hand tightens. I am about to ask what was wrong when I spot my aunt walking our way. I smile at her and wave when she happens upon us. The most unusual reaction I could have ever expected came barreling out of her.
She lunges at Alex, slapping at her, kitten pink nails trying to claw at Alex’s face. My poor Alex working to subdue the wild cat my aunt has turned into, without harming the older woman is almost comical. What the fuck just happened? Alex has her corralled good and firm, so my aunt decides to spit in her face. Oh my God! My aunt went looney, like needs to be put in the nut house.
“You demon spawn! I know your fucking kind. Did you already enthrall her? Did you? My little Felicity… I knew they would find you. I told your mother repeatedly to hide you, so here we live in this little town and the first time you head out to the fucking city you are already claimed.”
Holy shit! How does she know about any of this crap going on?
“Go jump off a cliff, you demon whore and leave Felicity alone! She belongs in the light, not in some seedy dungeon giving you more little spawns.” She renews her vigorous battle to free herself of Alex’s iron hold, but she’s going nowhere. She begins kicking Alex in the shin with her heels. Alex was done with her special brand of crazy and did a total movie move where she pinches some kind of nerve around my aunt’s neck and shoulder, and my aunt went nighty night.
“It’s looking to get dark here in about an hour, so we better move her,” Alex says with that unreadable stillness that irks the hell out of me. It means she’s holding in what she really wants to say. I swear, if she clams up on me now, I’m going to need to be put in the looney bin too. They can put me in the cell right next to my aunt.
“Jesus Christ Alex, do you have a clue what the fuck just happened?” I mumble out as we head towards the parking lot.
“Not a one, but I am sure she will enlighten us when she awakens. Does she live alone or does she have some family? I don’t think you will want to drop her off in this condition to them.”
“No, she lives alone. Aunt Gertrude is the only family I have left.”
“Well then, let’s get her home and fi
nd out how she knows about me, and what she knows about you.” Alex speaks softly.
This will definitely make for some interesting conversation. “She would have driven here. Let me check her pockets for keys.” I slip my hand in and fish out her keys, pulling out some tissue in the process. Making our way through the cemetery was no big feat, but I was so paranoid that someone would see and report us, I was sweating over it. Hitting the key fob to unlock the doors on her SUV, I open the back passenger door and Alex slides her in. I’m shaking so bad by the time we close the door that I look to Alex and say, “Would you mind driving? I can’t seem to stop shaking?”
Biting her bottom lip and moving from foot to foot, she looks over my shoulder. “I can’t drive. I don’t… know how…” My shaking subsides as I try not to laugh at the absurdity of this woman with more years of experience than me not being able to drive. I bite my lip as I began to lose the battle to not laugh out loud.
“Go ahead and laugh. I can see you want to.”
“No, it’s just shocking, that’s all.” I try to be soothing, but it’s so hard.
“Well… vehicles make me nervous.” She becomes utterly adorable in her indignation. “Do you know how many human fatalities there are every year because of these things? You being mostly human, you could be one of those statistics.”
I smile at her, now calm enough to drive. I walk to her door and open it for her, lean in and give her a peck on the cheek after she pops up into the seat.
“Brat,” she hisses.
I stifle my smile and round the SUV to slide on up into it. Heading out toward my aunts isn’t a long trip, but the quiet in the vehicle is stifling as I mull over what my aunt said. Apparently she knows what Alex is, and like I said before, I guess I am psycho candy. I look over briefly at Alex and watch as she holds onto her seat with both hands, a little wide eyed. This is something I am going to laugh so hard about later. Hopefully we have a later.
Pulling into my aunt’s garage, Alex jumps out so fast it startles me. She moves towards the back to grab my aunt and carry her into the house. We walk through the kitchen and into the living room. Nothing has changed since I last visited, every knick-knack and picture in its place. The sofa worn from time and boring beige walls make up this space. Against one of the walls sits a fireplace that I’m pretty sure has never been lit. Sitting on its mantle is our family photo. It’s the last Thanksgiving we shared, only two months before my parents passed on. My heart stutters and my eyes water as I look longingly at what I used to have.
Alex lays Aunt Gertie on the sofa, and the way she faces away from me obscures my line of sight on the two of them. When my aunt yawns and stretches, looking up into Alex’s face, she screams. I come rushing to her side. “What in the world is going on? Aunt Gertie, calm down.” She thrashes and kicks. Damn it! “Come on Aunt Gertrude, Pay attention.” Her gaze finds me and she rises to inspect me.
She throws her arms around me. “Oh Felicity, we failed you and I am so sorry.”
“How in the world did you fail me and why are you assaulting and insulting my mate, Alex. What is going on with you?” Moving me further away from Alex she looks at me with such earnest.
“Have you already succumbed to that demon, my girl?”
I flush at her comment and hear Alex snort, which makes my eye go twitchy.
“Aunt Gertie, if you are asking if I have sexual relations with her, then the answer is yes. Now what the heck does that have to do with anything?” My irritation is beginning to mount.
“Don’t you dare think you can take that tone with me, young lady.”
Great, all I need is for her to be pissy at me too. “I’m sorry Aunt Gertie, but you aren’t being very forthcoming, and I’m really tired of everyone being so cryptic with me or expecting me to know things I have no clue about.” I take a deep breath, trying to reign in my anger.
Gratingly she responds, “And that demon I assume is keeping you in the dark as well? That is not surprising, probably afraid you would run at the first sign of the truth.”
“She’s not a demon, she is my mate, Alexandria. Please have some respect for her.” I look over and see Alex’s face has taken on a thoughtful expression. I would give anything to know what she’s thinking.
“ Felicity, no, you need to kill her now.” She’s practically pleading with me, and I have no idea how to handle this.
“What? Whoa.” I chance another glance at Alex, and her face is cold, her body tight, giving nothing away. “Please, Aunt Gertie, calm down and just tell me what you know.”
She sits back down on the sofa with a huff and begins, “Our people come from a rural area of Europe.” I cut her off a little impatiently and her face tightens with annoyance.
“Yes, yes, I know this. We crossed the big blue to start lives here in the states.” She looks at me sadly, and it angers me so much that my hands clench at my sides. Why can’t people just talk to me and stop giving me pitying looks? Just tell me what I need to know.
“What you don’t know is that our family was once slaves to these demons. Our bodies shackled to their beds. I have no clue if there are many of us left. We were already rare amongst the human population of the time. They wanted us for our light, because we could satiate a full blood’s need to feed. The difference between a Cambion feed and a full blood is that very last pull that takes a part of the soul. When the souls not complete, the mind can’t survive. It begins to believe you’re dead and does just that, it dies. Our people have enough light for them to pull on that they don’t take our soul. Damn soul and seed suckers.” Her eyes are staring daggers in Alex’s direction.
“Ah… look,” her voice is condescending, and I want to childishly stomp my feet and argue how wrong she is about Alex. “Your demon knows what I speak of. Did she tell you about the dens where they use us light bearers as receptacles while they enjoy their Demon flower?”
Alex pipes in on that. “What you speak of was an antiquated past time. It is one in which we no longer partake of, at least for as long as I have lived, and that has been for the last hundred years.” Her voice is calm, the same one she used earlier while giving me my history lesson. She’s being respectful, and I’m grateful for it. I don’t think I could handle double the crazy up in here.
“Here in the United States, maybe, but flash that pretty arse back on over to the European Dens, and then tell me it is no longer the case. Our ancestor barely got out, but we were taught well the dangers of your kind. Finally, for the first generation, we thought Felicity would be free of you. Thought her blood was diluted enough.”
I am stunned. The realization that I can bring children into the world to be victims hit me slowly, but when it settled, I was pissed. “You mean to tell me all this time you were telling me to settle down and find a man, I could have had children who were hunted down for their ability to take a fucking? And you weren’t going to tell me? What the Fuck?!”
“Don’t speak to me like that! I will not tell you again, Felicity. Like I said, our goal when coming here was to get away, so we needed to dim our light. We mixed and mixed, and through the generations we were able to finally go to big cities. starting with your mother and I. I told your mother not to let you be free. I begged her to encourage you to settle down with some man here. She didn’t trust our history, thought it was a way for the domineering males of our family to keep the woman folk home. She should have believed, now you are in their snare. I swear on your greatest gran, Evangeline, you must escape your demon.”
“What did you say?” My voice came out all breathy, hearing that name slip from my aunt’s mouth.
“Escape your demon.” She speaks hopefully, like that was what I was asking.
I roll my eyes at her. “No, no, no before that, Evangeline?”
“Your Great Gran Evangeline?”
You have got to be kidding me, screams out in my own head. This is all too cheesy to be true. What are the chances that we’re all tied together? The world has to be bigger
than this, it just can’t be fate that all this fucked-up-ness would circle back around. “How was she able to escape, Aunty?”
“Give me a moment.” She backs out of the room, and I hear her open the door under the stairs that lead up to the second floor bedrooms.
My ass flops down onto the sofa. “Alex, I ask you once again, are you sure you don’t want to just ditch me cause right now? I’m going into “poor me” mode and that shit isn’t pretty.”
She comes to kneel before me, taking my hand, her grip warm, firm and reassuring. I look into her golden eyes. “I am not one to tuck tail and run. Gideon taught me to be stronger than that. Fe, I love you and trust me, my baggage stacks higher than yours does.” The reminder of Gideon has me reaching out to run the backs of my fingers down her face, a small show of sympathy for her loss.
“I probably don’t even have a job to go back to now. That ass I work for I’m sure has already called a temp agency and is currently sexually harassing the new girl. I hope charges are filed against him as we speak. I so won’t miss his leering.”
“You really don’t have to work if you don’t want to.” I give her the look the comment deserved, a withering glare that would have sent a lesser person scurrying. She just smirks at me. Damn sexy, infuriating smirk.
“Well, I’m not going to sit around all day sipping tea and gossiping. I need to do something. Of course I need to survive this first. There is still an accomplice out there somewhere.” Alex is getting upset with my defeatist attitude, and quite frankly I’m annoying myself with it as well. I close my eyes and try to center myself. Too much has happened in the span of a few days. These new revelations about my family’s history dug the rabbit hole a little farther into ‘Holy Shit Land’.
“Your aunt is coming back and I can hear her rummaging around in the kitchen, I assume for a knife.” Alex rolls her eyes and I’m stumped by this. I just can’t fathom my aunt being able to do such a thing. I shake my head at her, and with a gleam in her eye she makes me an offer that not only perks my interest but pulls me out of my funk the tiniest bit. “If she makes an attempt on my life you will let me shackle you again.”
