by Sotia Lazu
“Not too slowly, I hope. You’re not getting any younger.”
“Alex!” Sylvia and I said in one voice.
“What? No brothers or sisters, before I’m too old to help raise them?”
Sylvia threw her hands up. “You’re incorrigible. Eat while it’s still warm, and I’ll try to keep the discussion to harmless subjects. Like the weather. How do you like the weather, Cherry?”
“It’s lovely,” I said, “and so is the food.”
Once we were done with the main course, Sylvia brought out a platter of pineapple upside-down cake, which Alex and I gleefully obliterated. By the time she walked us to the door, Alex carried a tinfoil packet with leftovers for the next day, and I was utterly taken with her.
She was so much like my mom, I couldn’t help but give her a hug on my way out, careful not to put any strength to it. “Thank you so much, Sylvia. It was a pleasure meeting you.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex sigh in relief.
“The pleasure was all mine, hon. Now try to keep him good, you hear? And if he gives you any trouble, call me.”
I gave her another gentle squeeze, and then stepped back while she and Alex said goodnight.
“That wasn’t all bad, was it?” Alex asked, as he backed the car out of his mom’s driveway.
“Nope. Your mom kicks ass. I’m glad you insisted we come see her.” Also, it was fun having some time away from the mansion and its drama.
“Told you she’d love you. And I’m sure your folks and I are going to hit it off.”
Why did he have to go and remind me of that? Trepidation trailed cold fingers up my back. “You sure I can’t change your mind about that trip?”
“Positive.”
“I think I may try anyway.”
The look he gave me was nowhere near playful. “Knock yourself out. I doubt it’ll make a difference. We’re off, as soon as Constantine says we can go.”
“We’ll see.” I opened the window a bit and gulped down an unnecessary breath of fresh air, steeling myself for what I wanted to ask him. “Alex, is there anything you want to—you know, talk about?”
“Like what?”
“Like, about how you’ll never be able to give your mom the grandchildren she wants?”
“Can’t say I ever gave that a thought before, either.”
“Yes, but then you could, if you wanted to. Now you’re a vampire. A freak of nature. No beach outings for you. No tanning. No Sunday afternoon barbeques. And no babies in your future. You’re not gonna get to be a daddy.” I was sad to ruin the lovely evening we had, but I needed to hear he was okay with the decision I’d made for him.
“Cherry, let it go. Sun exposure is bad for humans too. And I don’t know if I wanted to be a father anyway.”
“But I took the choice away from y—”
He hit the steering wheel with both fists, hard enough to make one side of it bend visibly. “Will you stop saying that? I had no choice. I was dying. Dead. Now I’m here, because you saved me. I won’t get into this with you again, so get over it. I’m fine!”
I sat back and closed my eyes. If he was so fine, then what was with the outbursts? And why was he still refusing to drink human blood or have a serious discussion about permanently leaving the force? He wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot. What I hated most was that I couldn’t help him until he decided to open up. I could just be there for him and love him.
And introduce him to my parents.
Who’d spent the past six years thinking I was dead.
Fuck.
I tried to keep the thought at bay, but it still killed my good mood. When Alex asked if I felt like going for a drink, I told him I’d had an emotional day, and would rather go straight home.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked when we reached the mansion. He stopped right outside the entrance, and tapped in the key code. The heavy steel gate slid open with a surprisingly faint sound, and we drove in.
“Yeah. I just feel like spending the night in bed. Maybe I’ll catch up on my reading.”
Alex snorted.
“Hey! I do so read.”
“Sure you do. So you won’t mind if I leave you alone? I owe Constantine a rematch.”
“You never told me why things were so tense last night,” I said casually.
“I’m a sore loser. You know that.” His chuckle sounded forced.
“I know. I just don’t want there to be any bad blood between you and him.”
“We’re fine.”
That was obviously all I’d get out of him on the subject. Maybe Alex wasn’t the one to ask what had transpired. Good thing he wasn’t the only one who knew the truth.
We walked to our room holding hands. It felt nice. I watched him put on his sweats, and kissed him for good luck before he left to find Constantine.
Then I kicked off my high-heeled booties, and flopped on the bed. I switched on the forty-two inch TV that hung on the wall across from me, and let my mind be lulled by what passes for entertainment these days.
Chapter Five
Vampire hearing is about a hundred times more acute than human is. As with our sight, we’re lucky we can regulate it, or we’d run the risk of bleeding eardrums.
Like, for instance, when a piercing screech and the banging of a door reverberated through the entire floor.
I jumped up and rushed out of the room, letting the ongoing cries lead me. Was it Sheena? Had something happened to her?
Had one of the vampettes snapped and attacked her for blood? Constantine was supposed to keep them in check. I rounded the corner to his room, and saw Liza banging on the closed door.
“Sally, come out, and we’ll talk about it,” she said.
Nothing but wailing from the other side.
“What happened?” I asked.
Liza slammed her open palm on the door. “Sally! Don’t make me break down the door. I doubt Constantine will appreciate the mess.”
I wasn’t surprised when she ignored me. Before we saved the girls from Willoughby and his cohorts, he’d convinced them I wanted to destroy them. Though they’d come to realize he was a creepy liar and a killer, and they no longer screeched in fear every time they saw me, they still didn’t hold me in the highest regard.
Carrie leaned against the wall behind Liza, shaking her head. Her dark chocolate brown hair was swept into a loose bun. I much preferred this hairdo to the Ádísa-inspired braid she used to sport. Carrie might still be a little wary of me, but at least she no longer idolized the woman responsible for her and her friends’ deaths.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Sally is being a brat.” She rolled her eyes, but her full mouth was drawn in a thin line. She was worried. She and Liza were always protective of Sally, who was the most innocent and doe eyed of the three.
Liza turned to me now. “We were watching one of those makeover shows, and she suddenly flipped out. She doesn’t want to be a vampire any longer.”
“I don’t,” came Sally’s voice from the other side of the door. “I’d rather die!”
“Well, you can’t do that in there, honey. There’s no way to.”
“I’ll starve myself,” Sally yelled.
“Get Constantine,” I mouthed to Carrie, who nodded and took off toward the gym. To Sally, I said, “That will take a long time, and you know we’ll get you out before then.”
Liza glared. “Are you telling her to find a faster way to off herself?”
Was that what I’d done? I don’t always do well under pressure. “Okay, don’t open the door,” I said to Sally. “Just listen to me for a few, yes? None of us wanted this. I don’t know about Constantine, but nobody asked me if I wanted to die and become an undead chick, who can never drop a pound. Alex was brutally attacked, and left for dead in his parents’ house. I loved him too much to let him go, but I’m still not sure I did well to force this existence on him.”
My voice broke, but I went on. “What happened to you was wrong and unfai
r, and I swear Willoughby will pay for it. He’ll pay for what he did to all of us. But there are perks too. You just need to focus on them. Can you do that? Sally?” I listened, but only muffled sobs reached my ears. “Maybe we should break the door,” I said, and rattled the knob.
“Maybe you shouldn’t.” Constantine’s voice came from right behind me. I turned and bumped into his very naked chest. Why did he and Alex have to spar topless?
Great, and now I had mental images of the two of them wrestling, glistening torsos rubbing together.
Of course, there was no sweat trickling down Constantine’s pale abs. Vampires don’t perspire. We drool, though, and I had to check myself, to make sure I wasn’t doing just that. “Where is Alex?” My voice was cool. As cool as his skin, that I was still touching.
I looked up, and met his gaze. His expression was flat, but there was a twinkle of mirth in his eyes. “He’s doing his stretches, hoping he’ll fall to the floor more elegantly next time I throw him across the room,” he said.
My thoughts shifted to the way more appropriate image of Alex stretching, muscles rippling along the tan skin of his chest and back. Yum! Constantine and his state of undress no longer frazzled me. I’d just been caught off guard.
“Can you talk her out of there?” I pointed at the door.
Constantine nodded. “Sally? Can you please come out? I want to help you, but I can’t, unless you let me know what’s wrong.” His voice was honey sweet and thick and intimate.
He spoke to me in that lover’s voice a long time ago, but I never before heard him use it on any of the girls. I didn’t know what happened between them behind the closed doors of his bedroom, but in my presence, he treated them more like beloved nieces. Though there was no mistaking the lusty looks the three gave him, all he seemed genuinely interested in was their well being.
Hearing him urge to Sally to talk to him, I realized he enjoyed more than their company. Did they all share his bed at the same time, or did they take turns?
So not something I wanted to dwell on.
“Sally, please open the door. You know I only want what’s best for you, baby,” Constantine said.
It felt weird hearing him call someone else baby, but there was no stab of jealousy. Good. My subconscious was catching up to reality.
Sally threw open the door, and literally flew into his waiting arms. “We’ll fix everything,” he whispered into her hair.
We all heard.
“Maybe the rest of you ladies should give us some privacy?” Constantine said.
I reluctantly followed Carrie and Liza down the corridor.
“You coming upstairs?” Liza asked. “We got Wesley to order us chicken nuggets. You don’t wanna miss his face when we dig in. The man prefers watching us drink blood than eat junk food.”
Ruffling Wesley’s feathers was always fun. The old human was always the epitome of decorum, though he had his naughty side. More than I liked the idea of witnessing his horror at our culinary faux pas, I was happy Liza wanted to include me. Maybe I was slowly becoming part of their group. It’d be good not to have to deal with their resentment while we shared a roof, and to be honest, I kind of liked them.
I smiled. “Sounds good, but maybe later. We just got back from a kickass meatloaf dinner.”
She nodded. “Later.”
Carrie threw me a finger wave over her shoulder, and they took the stairs up, while I headed for my room.
* * * *
I’d just changed into shorts and a T-shirt, when there was a knock on the door.
“It’s open,” I said, wondering why Alex would bother knocking.
Constantine poked his head in. “May I come in?”
“Sure.” I had on more than I usually wore to bed, but I hadn’t wanted Alex to find me naked when he turned in for the day. Sally had seemed perfectly all right until her breakdown, and wondering if Alex was going down the same path had put me off the mood for sexy times.
“Damn. You’re dressed.” Constantine pushed the door open all the way and sauntered inside, stopping by the foot of the bed. Lean and wiry, graceful and light-footed, he reminded me of a jungle cat zeroing in on its prey.
He still only had his sweatpants on, and the way they hung low on his hips revealed there was nothing underneath but smooth, pale skin.
It was annoying how good he looked. I mean, I shared a bed with a gorgeous, chiseled man, who usually didn’t bother with clothes around me, yet Constantine’s body was nothing short of a work of art. Each curve, each angle, each line seemed perfectly thought of in advance, as though by a sculptor set out to carve the flawless male specimen.
And his every step showed he knew that.
Eh, at least he no longer frazzled me.
“How’s Sally?” I asked.
“Better. I reminded her of some of the pros of being a vampire.”
“Like stamina in bed?” My grin was genuine.
“No, you wicked creature. Like how she will never have to worry about wrinkles.” He scratched his chest in a manner that was too sexy not to have been rehearsed. “This isn’t why I called on you, though. I wanted to let you know we’re leaving as soon as you’re packed tomorrow evening. Alex is driving us, and I’ve arranged for supplies. Pack light, will you?”
I nodded. “Is this really a smart idea?”
“Packing light?”
“Stop acting obtuse—we both know you’re not. If I do need to spell it out for you, though, do you believe visiting my parents is the right thing to do?”
He stepped closer and sat on the edge of the mattress, by my side. “I know this must be scary for you, but it’s clearly important to Alex. If you don’t think you can handle it, you only have to say the word. I’ll tell him I changed my mind and won’t allow it. But if you want to see your family again, and all that’s holding you back is fear, I have your back.”
“I know.” A tightness grew in my chest, where my heart no longer beat.
“Perchance ‘thank you’ would be a more appropriate response? ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you’ might also work.”
“Yeah, yeah, you rock.” I tugged at the end of his ponytail, the tightness giving way only slightly.
Constantine was the only vampire I knew whose irises changed color according to his mood. When they were the dark blue of the winter sea, I felt like he could see right through me. Now he narrowed his eyes and gave me that look from which I knew I couldn’t hide. “We’re going, then?”
“We’re going.”
“And you’re happy with Alex?”
The question startled me. “Well, that was out of left field. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Just checking.”
“Has he said anything to you? Is that what the thing last night was about? Sheena said the two of you were ready to go for each other’s throat.”
“That was nothing. Just boys being boys.”
“When the boys have the strength of bulldozers, it’s not exactly nothing.”
“He was just setting his boundaries. It’s inevitable in situations where two dominant males share the same space.”
“So you don’t think he’s unhappy and lashing out?”
“He’s not the one I care about.” His irises swam with different shades of blue. I’d never seen them do that before.
“Constantine, don’t…” What? Don’t care about me? I’d already asked him not to, especially after the way things ended between us. It didn’t seem to work.
He shook his head. “It’s not something he said. He just seems on edge. Constantly alert—ready for war, even.”
“It’s the cop in him.”
“No, it’s more than that. It’s as if he knows something’s coming, but doesn’t know when to expect it.”
“What’s coming? What do you mean?”
He sighed. “I make no sense, even to myself. Ignore me.”
Yeah, that would be easy. “I can’t keep on ignoring things, Constantine. I’ve tried to wait out Al
ex’s issues, because his world just turned upside down, but you don’t have that excuse. Tell me what’s coming.”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the swirl of emotion was gone. “I don’t know. I swear. Alex seems to, however, and he’s preparing for it.”
There was the frozen fist clenching around my heart again. “I don’t know what to do, how to help him. He says he’s fine, everything is fucking fine, but I can see that’s a lie. He won’t feed except from me; he won’t officially leave the force. It’s as if he’s trying to convince himself nothing’s changed. Like he believes being a vampire is a phase, and he’ll eventually outgrow it. I can’t explain it any better.”
“It must be his defense mechanism—how he’s dealing with this transition. You know it’s too big a change for someone to accept all once.” His voice was soft, and I wished I could tell him how much his reassurances meant to me without leading him on.
“You’re probably right.”
“As is usually the case.”
I smiled. “Wisdom comes with great age, after all.”
“Yes, yes, I’m ancient. Ha-ha.” He sobered. “Will you be all right?”
“Yup.”
“And lightly packed by dusk tomorrow?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good.” He kissed me on the forehead, and stood. “Alex will be here as soon as he’s done licking his wounds. I’m ashamed to say I wiped the floor with him.”
“You’re so not ashamed to say so.”
“You’re absolutely right.” He gave me that bone-jellifying smirk of his, but something was lacking. Despite his smart-mouthed responses, his whole demeanor seemed more subdued than usual.
He was at the door, when I asked, “What are you keeping from me?”
“Nothing to do with Alex, I assure you.”
Chapter Six
Alex was all smiles when he came back. Given Constantine had kicked his ass, his cheerfulness was surprising, until I realized Alex had to already know we were leaving in less than twenty-four hours. Part of me begrudged him for insisting on meeting my parents after I’d told him how awkward it would be for me. Another part was grateful I’d get to at least give them some closure. Those two parts fighting brought me as close to a migraine, as vampiricaly possible.
