by Lynsay Sands
Guilt immediately flashed across Liam’s face, followed by worry as he said, “Yes. I told them I wasn’t allowed to go outside. But they said it would be okay. It was safe here and you wouldn’t be upset. Are you upset?”
“No,” she assured him solemnly. “I’m glad you got a chance to have fun.”
“It was fun,” he said, his smile returning to full wattage. “We built a snowman, and made snow angels, and now we’re going to have hot chocolate . . . if that’s okay?” he added with concern, and then blurted, “Teddy says hot chocolate is the best. I can have some, can’t I?”
“Of course you can.” The words had barely left her lips before Liam was squirming out of her arms and dropping to the floor. Whirling away from her, he rushed back to his new friend, squealing an exuberant, “Yay! We can have hot chocolate.”
Allie smiled faintly, but guilt was niggling at her as she watched his excitement. Liam had never had hot chocolate. It was a luxury, and there wasn’t a lot of money for luxuries in the life they’d been forced to lead.
“Well,” Tricia said with amusement as she bent to pick up the hairspray can and set it on the counter next to them. “A mere kitchen can hardly compete with that kind of greeting. He loves you a great deal.”
“And I love him,” Allie said softly, looking him over one more time before turning her attention to the large white kitchen. And it was large. She would have guessed it was nearly thirty feet long with an island in the middle and cupboards running almost the entire length on both sides except for the last eight feet by her and Tricia. There, it had been left open for a large round table and eight chairs to be set up in front of windows looking out over the yard. There were also two doors where the cupboards ended; one was the doorway they were standing in. But across from it was a solid door that Allie guessed either led to a garage or a pantry or something.
“It’s pretty amazing,” she said finally, her attention returning to Liam and his new friend. Teddy Argeneau Brunswick Jr. was a handsome little guy, with dark hair like her son’s and a smile equally as charming, but while Liam had green eyes with a silver glow to them, Teddy’s were blue and silver. Both boys would grow up to be good-looking men, though, she decided.
“Liam mentioned that you two move a lot.”
Allie tore her gaze from the boys to see that Katricia, or Tricia as she’d said to call her, had moved to the stove to grab a teakettle off one of the burners. She watched her carry it to the sink and then moved to lean against the counter next to the stove as she admitted, “Yes. Unfortunately. But it’s been by necessity,” she added to ensure the woman didn’t think she was just bohemian in nature. “We usually end up moving every month or two.”
“Because of the rogues Magnus and Tybo found attacking you?” Tricia asked, keeping her voice low enough that the boys couldn’t hear. Teddy and Liam had climbed up onto the chairs at the table at the other end of the room and were now running mini racing cars over its surface and making vroom-vroom sounds as they did.
“Yes,” Allie said unhappily.
Tricia nodded and, apparently deciding the kettle now had enough water, turned off the tap and carried the kettle back to the stove. She set it down, turned a knob on the range until flames burst out of the burner, set them to high, and then turned to lean against the counter on the other side of the range top to watch the boys before she asked, “Who are they?”
“I’m not sure,” Allie said slowly, and frowned because that was true. She knew very little about the pack of vampires she’d spent the last four years running from. Just that they were other victims of the same vampire who had turned Stella and her husband, and that they would do whatever their “sire,” as Stella had called him, demanded. Stella had feared nothing more than that man getting his hands on her son. She’d been terrified he would turn Liam into a ravening, bloodsucking fiend like the people he’d turned, and she’d been determined to save her son from that. So much so that Stella had given her life to try to keep Liam safe.
Allie had done her best since then to uphold her promise and keep Liam safe as well. She’d given up her previous life, one that had been successful and stable and safe, for a life on the run. Although she doubted Stella had expected that. She’d probably thought that sacrificing her own life would convince her hunters that both she and Liam were dead, leaving Allie to raise him in relative peace and safety. It was what Allie had expected the night that Stella had died. But things hadn’t worked out that way.
“You really are safe here,” Katricia said suddenly, drawing Allie’s gaze. “Really. We would never harm you or Liam and want only to help.”
“Why?” The question was out before Allie had given it much thought, but it was the question that had been on her mind since she’d woken up here. Why were they here? Why had Tybo and Magnus helped them? What did they want from them? Allie hadn’t had a lot of help over the last four years. Any, really. She and Liam had been on their own.
Katricia was silent for a moment, considering her, and then she shrugged and said simply, “It’s what we do. We are responsible for keeping mortals safe from immortals and immortals safe from discovery.”
“So you saved us from those rogue immortals last night, and now . . .” Her mouth tightened and she got to her main worry. “That man said I was a bad mother. Will they try to take Liam from me?”
“He said what?” Katricia asked with shock.
“I said no such thing.”
Allie and Katricia both turned toward the door at those annoyed words. Lucian was leading the men into the room, a scowl on his face as he approached. “I said he is not your biological child and that you obviously have no idea how to raise him if you’ve been allowing him to feed off of you.”
“Oh, Uncle Lucian,” Katricia said with an exasperated sigh. “It is no wonder Allie pulled the hairspray on you. What were you thinking saying something like that?”
“The truth,” he growled, walking past them to open the fridge. “She needs to be educated in our people, our abilities, and our laws to be an effective mother to Liam or she could unintentionally raise him to be rogue. And no one wants that.”
Allie felt some of the fear unclench from around her heart at those words. He didn’t think Liam should be taken from her, but that she should learn more to raise him properly. She couldn’t disagree with that. There were books on raising mortal children, but nothing out there about special children like Liam. All she’d had to go on were movies and fictional books, none of which had said vampires could eat, and yet Liam ate food. She’d fed him a solid diet of blood as a baby, until the first time he’d grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes off her plate, stuffed it in his mouth, and made happy sounds as he ate it. She’d been terrified he’d just throw it back up, that his system wouldn’t take the food, but when he’d kept it down she’d started offering him baby food in the hopes that he’d need less blood if he ate. She’d also kept him out of the sun for fear he’d burst into flame. What else was she doing wrong?
Allie’s thoughts were replaced by shock when Lucian turned from the refrigerator with a bag of blood in hand that he abruptly swung up and slapped his own face with. At least, that’s what it looked like he was doing, self-flagellation with a blood bag. But he didn’t then lower it or slap himself again. Instead, the bag stayed at his mouth, covering part of his face . . . and then she realized it was starting to shrink like he’d attached it to a vacuum hose.
“He was slapping the bag to his fangs,” Katricia explained gently. “A quick popping motion works best to avoid tearing the bag and making a mess.”
“Oh,” Allie said weakly, and deduced that his fangs were now drawing the blood out of the bag, which was why it was shrinking. They certainly sucked it up quickly, she noted with a slight frown.
“This is how we feed now since the advent of blood banks,” Magnus said quietly, and Allie tore her eyes away from Lucian to find that the very big, very handsome man now stood beside her. He was close enough that their arm
s would brush if she shifted the smallest amount and the realization made her arm tingle slightly, as if in anticipation of the touch. That hadn’t happened before and they’d been closer than this. He’d actually carried her in his arms and she hadn’t reacted like this to him.
Allie blamed it on his scent. She couldn’t really sort out what it was except that there was a hint of citrus and something spicy to it. He smelled delicious and she was surprised she hadn’t noticed that earlier, but supposed she’d been too upset by the events taking place at the time to be aware of it.
“It is how Liam will feed from now on too,” Magnus added, distracting her from his scent.
Allie met his gaze, her eyes widening slightly as she did. Dear God, he had beautiful eyes. She had noticed that before, but it took her breath away anew as she peered into their pale blue depths. Except they weren’t just pale blue, she noted. There were sparks of silver in them, and they seemed to be growing in number, the silver filling his iris and blotting out the blue. She watched with fascination as it happened and then gave a start when the teakettle started to whistle next to them.
“Can you grab that?” Tricia asked as she moved away.
“Yes.” The word was a breathy sound. Embarrassed, Allie cleared her throat and added in a more composed voice, “Of course,” as she turned away from Magnus to stand in front of the stove. She turned off the flames and shifted the kettle to a cool burner.
“Here we are.” Tricia returned to her side with a tray holding four mugs and a can of powdered hot chocolate. She set down the tray, grabbed up the hot chocolate, began to scoop some into each of the four mugs she’d collected, and then glanced toward her uncle. “Grab the cream from the fridge for me, please, Uncle Lucian,” she requested, and then added, “And a mug if you want some too. There should be enough water for everyone.”
Much to Allie’s surprise, all the men moved to get cups and followed Lucian to the counter where Tricia was working. When the first four mugs of hot chocolate were ready, Allie carried them to the table and sat down at the table with the boys to get out of the way. She wasn’t surprised when the others joined her there moments later, each of them settling in one of the eight chairs surrounding the table as their own drinks were ready. She’d thought it was a huge table when she’d first seen it, but with the men crowded around it, it suddenly seemed much smaller, Allie thought, and then smiled at Tricia when the woman joined them with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a stack of napkins.
“Did Sam make those cookies?” Magnus asked, eyeing the plate suspiciously.
“Yeah, but she’s stopped making things with weird stuff,” Tybo assured him with amusement as he took several cookies. “They’re safe to eat. Good too.”
“Mortimer’s wife, Sam, was on a health food kick for a while,” Katricia explained to Allie with a grin.
Tybo snorted at the words. “You mean she was on a mission to torture us all. The woman was making wheat germ shakes and chocolate chip cookies with tahini and coconut sugar or some damned thing. Made us all wonder what Mortimer had done to piss her off.”
“Made me wonder too,” the man she assumed was Mortimer said glumly.
“The worst part was, while she was forcing that garbage on us, she was slipping out for burgers and shakes,” Tybo said with disgust, and when a surprised laugh slipped from Allie, he smiled slightly and said, “Sure, laugh at our pain.”
“Mom, can Liam and I take our cookies to the living room and watch cartoons?” Teddy piped up suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention.
“No. You will get crumbs everywhere,” Tricia said at once. “Eat your cookies first and then you can go watch cartoons.”
The boys looked at each other and then, as one, shoved their cookies in their mouths. They were large cookies and the boys’ cheeks were bulging when they finished.
“Liam,” Allie said in a reprimanding tone. “You’ll choke yourself on . . .”
Her words trailed away as the boy quickly chewed and swallowed the cookie, then grabbed his mug and downed the last of his hot chocolate even as Teddy did. Setting the mug down, he beamed at her as if he’d done something clever and announced, “All done.”
“Can we go watch cartoons now?” Teddy asked eagerly.
“If Liam’s mother says it is okay,” Tricia said solemnly.
Allie found herself the focus of two pairs of hopeful eyes and Liam said, “Please, Mom?”
Allie hesitated, part of her wanting to keep him close. She had spent every moment of every day with the boy since he’d been passed into her arms nearly four years ago. At least until she’d started the job at the blood bank. But she’d worked days while he’d slept, and while it had been night when she’d gone to rob the blood bank, she’d waited until Liam was down for his nap, fully expecting to be back before he woke. She hadn’t been surprised to return and find him awake and upset that she’d left him. He seemed eager to leave her now, though, to play with his friend and she felt a little wounded at the knowledge. But she knew it was healthy for him to make friends. It was also convenient, because she had some questions for Katricia and the others that she didn’t think Liam should hear, so Allie forced a smile and nodded. “Sure.”
“Thank you, Mom.” Liam beamed at her and slid off his seat to follow his new friend from the room.
“They will be fine,” Tricia assured her.
Allie nodded, sure that was true.
“Now that the boys are out of earshot,” Lucian said, drawing all eyes his way, including Allie’s, who grew wary when she noted his determined expression. Before she could worry too much, he ordered, “Explain things, Katricia. She seems to trust you.”
Tricia rolled her eyes, but then turned to her with a wry smile and explained, “As I mentioned earlier, we are Enforcers. The police for our people, basically. We hunt immortals who break our laws, such as the ones who attacked you and Liam.”
Allie nodded in understanding, but was mentally substituting “vampire” for “immortal.”
“One of the ways we do that is by listening in on the police scanner for reports of any crimes that might be immortal related,” she continued. “Last night, Mortimer heard that the blood bank had been broken into and the perpetrator taken to the hospital.”
“And assumed it was vampire related. Because who else would rob a blood bank, right?” Allie guessed, and didn’t miss the winces that went around the table at her use of the word vampire.
“Basically, yes,” Tricia said. “And because of that, Tybo and Magnus were sent to the hospital to investigate.”
Allie nodded, supposing her attempted theft was vampire, or immortal, related. She’d been stealing the blood to feed Liam, who was apparently an immortal, not a vampire. Actually, she preferred the word immortal. At least in regards to Liam . . . and Tricia and Teddy, and maybe even Tybo and Magnus, she decided. She wasn’t sure about Mortimer yet, but Lucian . . . Yeah, she’d call him a vampire with all his growling and glaring.
A snort of laughter from Tybo caught her attention and he bit his lip, and then cleared his throat and said solemnly, “You should have made the attempt much sooner. You were too weak for such an undertaking by the time you tried it.”
Allie could hardly argue with that. Fainting halfway through the job pretty much proved that she’d been too weak. Sighing, she explained, “I got the job there three months ago, intending to find a way to get blood for Liam. I came up with the plan pretty quickly and earned my boss’s trust enough to be given keys more than a month ago, but . . .” She grimaced and admitted, “It took a while to convince myself to actually do it.”
“That is understandable,” Magnus murmured, shifting in the seat he’d chosen next to her. “I’m sure fear would make most people hesitate to commit a felony.”
“It wasn’t fear that made me hesitate so long,” she assured him. “I mean, I was afraid, sure, but I was more afraid of dying if I didn’t find another source of blood for Liam.”
“Then why did
you wait so long to try to rob it?” Tricia asked with curiosity.
“Guilt,” she said bluntly. “I’d never thought much about blood banks before Liam came along, but working there I learned how desperate they are for blood. They’re constantly struggling to keep enough on hand to keep up with the hospitals’ needs and here I was planning to steal some.”
“To keep your son alive without killing yourself,” Tricia said firmly. “You should not feel guilty about what you tried to do.”
Allie glanced around the people at the table. She was kind of glad it had all happened because now she might be able to purchase blood from these people and not have to steal. “Where do you get your blood?”
“We have our own blood banks,” Tricia said reassuringly. “We pay donors for it just as the blood bank you worked for does.”
Allie nodded, but then frowned as she realized Tricia had used the past tense, as if she wouldn’t be working there anymore.
“I—” she began, but Lucian cut her off.
“Your life will be different now,” he said heavily. “Your old life is gone.”
Allie narrowed her eyes in irritation at his high-handed attitude, but then glanced to Magnus when he ran a finger lightly over the back of her hand where it rested on the table.
Having claimed her attention with the light touch, he explained gently, “We need to teach you the things you should know as Liam’s mother. Things like the fact that, with a little caution, he can go out in sunlight.”
Allie relaxed and nodded. “Yes,” she acknowledged solemnly. “And I will be happy to learn those things, but—”
“We also need to keep you safe from the rogues who attacked you,” he interrupted gently. “At least until they can be rounded up and are no longer a threat.”
Allie was just feeling relief at those words when Lucian announced, “To that end, you will be moved to Port Henry.”
Allie’s relief fled, replaced with irritation again. She had no idea where Port Henry was, but had never taken well to being ordered about.
