I poked my head into the parlor. “I’ve told her a hundred times that whatever she finds, she can have or toss out.”
He shrugged. “I’ll go get it.”
While Rand went to get whatever it was, I returned to the kitchen and cleaned up a mess I’d made earlier during a botched attempt at making scones. I heard the front door open and shut, and then Rand’s steps in the foyer.
“Elizabeth.”
A man’s voice seemed to come from right behind me. It vibrated with fury. I swore I felt big male hands creep around my neck.
Startled, I whirled around, my hand pressed against my chest. My palm flattened over the spot where my heart no longer beat.
Nobody was there.
The kitchen was small. I’d kept it simple during the renovation, thinking it pointless for me to even have one. The cabinets were whitewashed, the countertops and walls a cheery yellow, and the floor, like the rest of the house, was polished oak. About the only place for someone to hide was the pantry. I opened the door but saw only the fully stocked shelves and, in the back, cleaning equipment neatly aligned on wall hooks.
Unnerved, I returned to the stove and opened the cabinet that held my tea stashes. I pulled down a tin and pried its lid off, and looked down into the dark loose leaves. They smelled strong and fragrant, like good tea should.
“Elizabeth.” The voice was stronger now. Insistent. I had excellent hearing, thanks to my vampire ears, but this wasn’t someone speaking from a distance. The man calling my name did not like me. I had the uneasy feeling he wanted to hurt me. Foreboding sat in my belly as solid and heavy as an iron weight.
Pain throbbed around my neck.
“Hey, you need help?”
I yelped, dropping the tin. It bounced and rolled, its contents spilling onto the floor.
“Shit,” said Rand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He crossed to the mess and picked up the container. “I don’t think there’s much left.”
“I have another one.” I hesitated. “Did you hear anyone just now?”
He frowned. “Who?” He glanced around the kitchen the same way I had. “You think someone’s in the house?”
I shook my head, feeling foolish. “Never mind. I’m being silly.”
“You’re a lot of things, Lizzie, but silly isn’t one of ’em.” He grimaced. “I mean, you know, that you’re mature.” He slapped a hand against his forehead. “I’m not saying you’re not fun, just that you’re serious.”
His face went red. I swallowed my laugh and reached for the second tin of Earl Grey so he wouldn’t see my amused expression.
“Maybe you should stop complimenting me,” I offered, “and go get the broom.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’ll clean up the mess. No prob.”
“Where’s the all-important thing?” I asked.
“I left it inside the hall tree.”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“So you’d have a surprise to open.”
I stared at him, but he shrugged and grinned. Then he went to the pantry, grabbed the broom, and busied himself with cleaning up.
Later, we settled at the table with our tea and conversation. However, I didn’t want to torment Rand for too long. He’d come to my home for a singular purpose.
“Here.” I slid the velvet box across the table and Rand accepted it.
His face had a look of wonder, and if I wasn’t mistaken, an edge of panic. I suppressed my smile as he flipped open the box. His mouth fell open and his eyes went wide.
It was gratifying to see his reaction to my work.
He plucked the ring from its silk confines and studied it. “I knew you did great work, Lizzie. But . . . wow. This is art.”
“Thank you,” I said modestly.
Rand had procured silver and gold for me, and a small rare dragonfire gem—deep purple in color, passionate in promise. Two dragons, one silver, one gold, stretched in a circle from joined tails to snouts pressing against the oval stone.
Rand was in love with MaryBeth Beauchamp, a vampire who’d been Turned at the tender age of eighteen. I suppose she would be twenty-three now, if vampires counted years. (Thank goodness they didn’t!) She was a nice girl, and the official full-time nanny for Queen Patricia’s triplets.
Queen Patricia, whom most of us knew as Patsy Donovan, had once been the town’s only beautician. Then Gabriel Marchand arrived with his band of outcasts and revealed a prophecy: Patsy would become queen of the vampires, effectively ending the reign of the Council of Ancients. And if that bombshell weren’t enough, she would also be given rule of the lycanthropes.
Patsy was no longer undead. I had never quite comprehended the process that had given her life. Magic—and there was a lot of magic in Broken Heart—was the only explanation. Not only did she wield seven of the eight powers of the Ancients, she had become like Gabriel: loup de sang. They were blood-drinking lycans—a true combination of vampire and werewolf. Most vampires could not shape-shift. Most because previous attempts at Taint cures had given a very few vampires the ability to take wolf forms.
Broken Heart was a very interesting place to live.
I sipped my tea and watched Rand study the ring. He was smiling—and looking a little less green around the gills. I wondered if he might be imagining MaryBeth’s reaction. Would she scream? Shout yes and throw her arms around his neck? Kiss him senseless? I had to admit that my inner romantic loved the potential scenarios.
When Rand approached me about making an engagement ring for MaryBeth, I asked him about his concept of forever. He was human, after all. Then he explained that as a handler of dragons, he fell within their protection—and one gift given was immortality. He said he’d probably stop aging completely around thirty human years, which was the same for dragon shifters.
So, he and MaryBeth would truly have forever. Or at least a century. Oh, that’s not cynicism. Vampires didn’t have one-night stands—because sex equaled an instant hundred-year commitment to our bedmates. Needless to say, most of us were very careful. In my case, I avoided dating, though I sometimes yearned for the emotional and physical intimacy of a relationship.
Ah, well. Love was for the young, and all that.
“Well?” I prodded.
“It’s perfect,” Rand said. He dragged his gaze from the ring to me, and grinned. “Now, all she has to do is say yes.”
“How could she not, darling?” I looked into my teacup and squinted at the leaves clinging to the ceramic. I knew nothing about reading tea leaves, but Rand didn’t really need me to. “I predict you will both have a long and happy life together.”
He reached across the table and took my hand. “What about you, Lizzie?”
“I will also have a long and happy life,” I said, looking away from his sincere gaze. The shadow of his concern for my own love life fluttered in my stomach. I had it good. I didn’t need a relationship to feel complete. Of course, this was not a concept Rand would understand. I squeezed his hand and let go. “When will you propose?”
“I gotta make sure everything’s just right.” He closed the lid to the velvet box. “Thanks again.”
I stood on the porch steps and waved good-bye. Rand drove a white Ford truck, a rather mundane vehicle for a man with such a wild nature. Soon, he would give MaryBeth the ring, and his love. I hoped she returned the favor. It was a difficult thing to do, to entrust one’s heart to someone else.
Or so I suspected.
I had never really been in love.
I married Henry Bretton when I was twenty-two, in the fall after I graduated from the University of Tulsa. Not for love, though I certainly enjoyed his company and found him an amiable companion. No, I married the man my parents picked for me because I understood the limitations of my own life, and certainly the figurative dangling scissors they held over the line to my trust fund.
In my late twenties, I discussed with my husband the possibility of having children. I wanted a baby, maybe even tw
o, or three. Unfortunately, our attempts ended when I found out endometriosis had made me infertile.
We’d been discussing the possibilities of adoption when Henry felt compelled to confess that he already had a daughter.
The month before Henry married me, he had a one-night sexual romp with a Las Vegas showgirl named Trinie. Nine months and one DNA test later he was the reluctant father of a baby girl. His solution to this problem was to throw money: at Trinie, at the baby girl she named Venice, at those willing to cover up such a delicate situation.
I was aware my husband enjoyed extramarital activities, but he’d always been discreet. It was a terrible blow to learn he had a child, one he’d kept hidden not only from me but the world.
After that, Henry and I never again discussed adoption. We kept separate bedrooms, and though he continued having affairs, I never took a lover. I kept busy with planning parties, chairing committees, heading charities, and mixing martinis. According to my mother, a dry martini and a good cry could fix damn near anything.
This was probably the point at which a discerning woman would’ve filed for divorce and perhaps searched for a more suitable mate, if not a more suitable life. However, I was comfortable in my role as Mrs. Bretton, and, for the most part, I enjoyed my life. If the kind of love found between the pages of my beloved romance novels was not mine to be had, then I accepted it.
I was the one who insisted Henry publicly claim his daughter.
It’s understandable that Venice grew up with a skewed sense of self-esteem and a damaged moral compass. She was embarrassed to have a showgirl mother, and desperate for the attention of the wealthy father who’d emotionally abandoned her.
The drama started in her early teens. Kicked out of boarding schools. Arrested for underage drinking. Photographed with a lifted skirt—and no panties.
Henry was mortified by his daughter’s behavior. He shipped Trinie and Venice off to Europe. Anytime Venice ended up in the tabloids, he’d pack them off to another country.
When Venice was seventeen, her mother died in a car accident in France. Henry had no choice but to bring the girl into our home.
Venice never realized she didn’t have to compete with me for her father’s affection. I wanted so much to be a good stepmother. But every time I reached out to her, she ignored me, or worse, she viciously rejected any show of kindness.
Venice became the fashionable club girl. Famous only for being famous. With her father’s money, she started a perfume line and then a clothing line. She acted in a few bit parts of low-grade horror movies. Then Henry financed her return to France, and she left without so much as a good-bye.
Not long after my forty-third birthday, Henry died of heart failure.
I found myself facing the prospect of creating a life all my own—without parental expectations to accede or husbandly indiscretions to ignore.
I left New York after the funeral. I dropped every obligation, abandoned every project. I spent the next couple of months at my parents’ home, completely out of sorts. Mother plied me with martinis, and Father, with portfolio advice. My parents loved me, but they weren’t emotional people—so their suggestions were meant to fix me, not comfort me.
I think it was a relief for all of us when they took an anniversary trip to Europe.
Then the family lawyers called to tell us about a generous offer for the old Silverstone estate in Broken Heart, and the plans to inventory the home. I took on this project myself. It was busywork, but I didn’t care. I needed to do something productive.
The mansion and its once-luxurious gardens had been abandoned for nearly five decades, ever since my great-uncle Josiah Silverstone, my grandfather’s brother, left Oklahoma for the Alaskan wilds.
My grandfather and his brother apparently had a falling out, but I had never been curious enough about the family drama to ask questions. I knew only that my grandfather came to Tulsa, married, built his own home, and raised his family within it.
I recall meeting Uncle Josiah once. When I was eight years old, I accompanied my grandparents on an Alaskan cruise, and we met my great-uncle for lunch in Juneau. He struck me as a very lonely man but, at the same time, was prickly and unkind. I didn’t much like him, which was another reason I didn’t pay attention to his life, or his death.
While Uncle Josiah lived, no one paid much attention to his estate moldering in Broken Heart. It didn’t seem to bother my grandfather that his childhood home might be going to rot and ruin, so no one else had cause to worry about it, either.
When my great-uncle died, I remember how my grandfather grumbled about his brother’s unusual will. Of course, I was still young and didn’t understand much about probates or trusts. Uncle Josiah left the care of his estate to the family lawyers, and in his will stated that no one of Silverstone descent be allowed to live in or own the home.
Of course, these were the details I learned as an adult, and as I became familiar with the house and all its inherent problems. After a discussion with my father, we decided to take the offer by the mysterious Consortium, a powerful corporate think tank, but before they garnered full ownership, we—and by we, my father meant me—would inventory the place for whatever family treasures might be left.
The Consortium turned out to play an even bigger role in my life than simply buying the Silverstone house and lands.
I had never been told why Uncle Josiah abandoned the manse, or why he insisted no one occupy it. I was just grateful for a project—and I was nothing if not a woman who could organize.
On my first evening in town, Lorcan found me outside Broken Heart’s one and only motel (now demolished). I’d been trying to coax a can of Sprite from the uncooperative soda machine. What can I say? All the modern technology in the world—and still no machines that dispensed chilled vodka and green olives.
Ah, but I was talking about Lorcan. Violent and insensible from the Taint, he threw me against the wall, tore open my neck, and sucked every drop of blood from me.
It was not a pleasant way to die.
I woke up undead—courtesy of the Consortium, which turned out to be an organization created by vampires who wanted to better the world. The idea was that, eventually, the Consortium would reach out to the human world so that, one day, parakind and mankind could live together—as they once had centuries ago. In the meanwhile, the Consortium’s technological and medical breakthroughs were filtered to the humans via a complex network of businesses. Most humans employed by Consortium-owned companies would be shocked to know their bosses were vampires, werewolves, and fairies.
Not only had the Consortium purchased the mansion; they’d also been secretly buying up homes and businesses in town. Part of their motivation had been to create a parakind community, but magic and prophecy had brought them to Broken Heart. Odd, isn’t it, how a small town in Oklahoma became so important to creatures most humans believe are mythological? In any case, the Consortium ousted most of the human residents, and did indeed create a haven for paranormal beings. However, it didn’t seem we were any closer to bridging the gap between humans and ourselves.
For a while, my friend Jessica and her husband, Patrick, as well as their children, lived there. Eventually, they moved back to Jessica’s old house on Sanderson Street. Now the mansion is occupied by Patsy, Gabriel, and their darling four-year-old triplets.
After I was Turned, I could hardly return to Tulsa or even to New York. Aside from the Consortium’s encouragements for new vampires to stay within its protection, I found myself rather intrigued by the idea of being part of this new community. My parents were surprised when I told them I wanted to stay in Broken Heart, but they didn’t question my choice. They certainly don’t know that I’m a vampire. My parents travel a lot, and even when they’re in town, they have many societal obligations. When I do manage a visit, I do so at night, and only for a little while.
I renovated the lovely old Victorian to suit me, and settled down into the life of a well-to-do bloodsucker.
I very much wanted to be a mother, and I will always regret never knowing the experience, the joys or the sorrows. I had hoped to have a little piece of it with Venice. No matter how small the slice of motherhood she might’ve allowed me, I would’ve been so much the happier for it.
Alas, motherhood had never really been an option for me.
I was not holding out for romantic love, either, and certainly not the giddy, passionate, moon-eyed kind that seemed to afflict so many of Broken Heart’s residents.
What was that saying? Oh, yes. We were the sum total of our experiences. Sometimes, I felt more subtracted from than added to.
Thunder boomed.
Startled, I looked up into the cloud-swirled sky. It was nearing mid-September, and still warm by Oklahoma standards. The suddenness of the storm didn’t concern me. The attitude of Oklahoma weather could be summed up thusly: I’ll do whatever I damn well like. Come to think of it, that was also the attitude of the state’s residents. Especially the ones in Broken Heart.
I shook off my pensive mood. Sunrise was in less than two hours. Like everything about my unlife, I embrace the sudden sleep that affects all vampires. I usually prepare for bed earlier than necessary, and read until I pass out.
My guilty pleasures are romance novels. Though I don’t even dream of finding that kind of love in my own life, I very much enjoy reading about it. Happily-ever-after gives me a thrill of satisfaction. I enjoy every novel, and, when finished with one, I’m eager for the next.
The rain began in earnest, and, suddenly chilled, I went inside.
I paused by the hall tree. Thinking about Rand’s silliness, hiding whatever object Patsy had discovered, I tugged up the seat.
Foreboding shot through me like a poisoned arrow. I knelt down and picked up the silver box. Uneasiness quelled my admiration of its simplistic beauty. As strange as it sounds, I felt like I was touching something evil. Something wrong.
I removed the lid.
Empty.
It was only a small square, maybe a couple inches around. Its dark blue silk lining pegged it as a jewelry container. I imagined it had once held a ring.
Cross Your Heart Page 2
