by C. L. Quinn
“Go, then, prepare for your trip. I will pack up your breakfast and you can enjoy it on the way.”
Again, Ahmose nodded, but when he rose, he dropped down beside Cherise on his knees. “I am grateful for what you have given back to me. I might never have known about my child or that Mal was still alive. I do not understand how she could be afraid of me, but I will bring her here where she will be loved and safe always.”
“It gives an empath the greatest joy to use her gifts to bring people together like this. I must thank you, my friend, as well. Now, go, get your girl.”
Ahmose bowed, and sped up the hill to pack a small bag. He wouldn’t need much. It seemed that everything he needed was waiting for him in the middle of the ocean.
Chapter 18
Another perfect day was winding down. Lately, Mal and Brigitte were living to Erin’s schedule. It seemed a time for family, and Erin was very much that, so they slept during the last part of each day, Mal didn’t want to give up her sunrises, and then rose at nightfall to enjoy Erin’s day with her.
Jack had shrugged when Mal changed their routine and matched it when Friday came until he had to work again on Mondays.
Their bonfire was almost out of control. A full moon lit up the sky, the deck surrounded by solar-powered Japanese lanterns is soft pinks and blues, all eclipsed by the too-high flames of the fire Jack had built in a fire-pit off of the deck.
Mal came out of the house, nuzzling her face into Brigitte’s as the baby reached for her mother. She was hungry again and Mal would feed her as soon as they got outside. Her head was drawn up suddenly by the brilliant orange and yellow flames.
“Jack, you’re going to burn down North Caicos! We’ll end up in the Appalachian mountains making corn liquor for a living!”
He grinned up at her and Brigitte while he continued his efforts to contain the fire.
“I’d go anywhere with you ladies,” he said, and threw a little more sand into the fire pit, but the fire was already calming down.
Mal slid into one of the loungers and held the baby close as she began to loosen the ties that held together the two sides of her lightweight dress. She let one side fall open and held the baby up to her nipple. Brigitte latched on right away, hungry from their recent rest.
Sighing in contentment, Mal laid her head back against the chair, her eyes on the perfect little face that she’d made.
Jack came up and sat on the bottom of the chair, his hand curled around the back of Brigitte’s head.
“There are my B girls,” he said, smiling as he leaned over to kiss the back of Brigitte’s soft head.
Erin was coming down the stairs with a tray filled with food, her eyes moving across the scene, her new family, the perfect tropical landscape, a bright moon, her contentment at an all-time high. She wanted to convert them, to keep them all in her life forever, but that issue was not for now. Someday, she would need to speak with Mal and see how she felt.
As she reached the bottom step, her head whipped to the right, to where a car travelled slowly up the path to her beach house. Something was different, she could sense it, and as soon as the car was near enough, she knew. Whoever was coming here was vampire. She hurried down the stairs, but was too late.
A huge vampire stood on the edge of the deck, still, watching Mal and Jack laughing together, Jack’s head bent close, Mal nursing the baby, their close relationship apparent. The intimacy apparent. Her eyes moved back to the big man’s face, beyond handsome, shadowed, emotional. She knew who he was.
Erin went over to him and he looked down at her.
“Ahmose, sir, it’s nice to see you again.”
He nodded. “Who might you be?”
“I might be the woman who has cared for this human and her first blood child from the beginning. I might be family to her. I might be the one in trouble, because I won’t let you take the baby from us.”
He looked up, startled. “Take her? I am not here to take a child from her mother.”
Erin paused, her eyes moving across this unexpected visitor.
“But she’s yours, too. And first bloods do not surrender their children.”
“No.” His eyes returned to Mal, who had a hand on Jack’s shoulder now. “She’s beautiful.”
“Your daughter? Yes, she is.”
He hadn’t meant the child, Erin realized the moment after she said it. She could see his jaw, set tight, as he watched another man with the woman that Erin now realized he had more than a passing relationship with.
“So what are your intentions here?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at Erin now. “I don’t have any intentions or plans. Just last night, I discovered that Mal was not dead, that she’d had my child. You can imagine how stunned I am.”
“I can. May I ask that you respect that this is my home, and that Mal and her baby are my adopted family? I know you are more powerful than I, but I ask out of respect for you.”
“I will not do anything to upset Mal, I promise. I just need to see her.”
“All right. Come with me.”
Mal looked up as Erin approached. Her greeting died on her lips as she saw who walked up behind her.
Damn. Her memory hadn’t done him justice at all. He looked good enough to eat, and suddenly, more than anything, she wanted to do just that.
But there was another issue here, and that issue was currently attached to her bare breast. It’s where Ahmose’s eyes went as soon as they left her face.
Jack stood, his eyes questioning Erin.
“Jack, will you come with me?” She asked, and put out a hand to him.
“Who is this?” he asked, his stance aggressive, aware that this man was a rival.
Erin stepped in front of Jack and took his hand. When he looked at her, she said gently, “Come with me now,” and Jack walked around Ahmose to follow her into the house.
Frozen by feelings so diverse, she couldn’t process even one of them, Mal pulled Brigitte away from her nipple and pulled the top of her dress over the exposed breast.
“You found us,” she finally said, as she stood and backed away several steps.
Ahmose came forward slowly. “I thought you were dead. I mourned you.”
Nodding, Mal kept her hands tight around the baby that she now held against her. “I was. That’s what I was told anyway, and the bullet holes in my body seemed to support it.” She tilted her head in thought. “Like yours. I hadn’t really connected that until now. Just like you, I was shot to death, and then seemed to be okay. Does that mean that I am a vampire now?”
Ahmose shook his head. “No. But you are Shoazan. It is something that we did not know until last year, but when a woman, human or vampire, carries a first blood child, then you’re, well, sort of indestructible.”
He stepped closer. “I didn’t know. That you were with child. Shoazan’s are extraordinarily rare, the odds that you were capable… Mal, it’s almost astronomical. Had I any idea, I would never have left you. Or her.”
“And now? Now that you know, what do you expect to do? Erin told me that a first blood would never let me keep my child.”
Ahmose released a deep sign on a long breath. At last he knew why she was afraid of him, why she’d hidden herself and the baby.
“Mal, I will never take your daughter from you. I promise this from my heart, to the depths of my soul, this child shall not be without her mother.
Tears began to form, then slip from Mal’s eyes. “Oh, God, Ahmose. You were my greatest fear in all of this. Erin has been a good friend to me, and I believed her when she told me that my daughter would be taken from me.”
“She was not misinformed. I believe she did have your best interests at heart. A first blood child is the most precious thing in the universe, and there are those who would have done exactly as she suggested. I am not that man.”
He stepped closer and saw the tears of relief staining Mal’s cheeks. “May I see her?”
Had he ever seen anything more b
eautiful than this woman he now realized he had an indefinable connection with, as she stood in front of him, her dress undone, her breasts almost completely displayed for his desperate eyes, holding his child in her arms?
Slowly, she walked to him, and turned the baby away from her body to show Ahmose his daughter.
When tears filled his eyes and he reached for the baby, Mal couldn’t believe the depth of joy she felt. This is what had been missing. She’d wanted her daughter to have a father, to know the incredible man who had created her, and that he was here, now, and not a threat…nothing in her life had ever felt more right.
As he lifted the baby up, the tiny girl suspended in his big hands, he searched her face, then pulled her close and kissed her gently on the forehead.
“What did you name her?”
“Brigitte, after my mother. She was the kindest, prettiest, sweetest, smartest woman I have ever known.”
“Then that is the perfect name for our child.” He looked down at the tiny rose-colored face in his arms, surrounded by dark hair, like his, lots of it, and blue eyes, like Mal’s. “She’s magnificent, of course, but she would be, with such a lovely mother.”
Mal flushed. She never flushed! This man knocked her off-balance, out of orbit, over the moon. Around him, she barely recognized herself from who she had been all of her life. She had forgotten how handsome he was, yes, but she’d also forgotten how charming he was, how amusing, how caring. If she’d trusted her instincts back then, she would probably have never heeded Erin’s advice to disappear.
Could there be anything more beautiful in her life than watching the father of her child kiss his daughter for the first time? Especially when she’d thought he could never even know she existed.
Swiping the moisture from her eyes and cheeks, Mal tried to look stern. “So how did you find us?”
“Magics. An empath felt this little girl reaching for me. So did I, but I didn’t know what it meant. The messages weren’t exactly words, you know. All I could determine was that something important was happening. Now, of course, I know it was this little lady.”
He lifted his eyes from his daughter and locked gazes with Mal.
Suddenly, Erin was beside him.
“You can visit with your daughter later. You two have unfinished business. Mal, take him down the beach so you two can have privacy.”
Erin disappeared with Brigitte, leaving Mal nervously plucking at the ties of her dress, until she realized that the neckline was still too low and pulled the ties together to cover herself.
“If you would like to follow me.”
She walked off of the deck and went left, slowly pushing through the generous sands, her toes wiggling into it as she walked along, because she liked the sensation and because she wasn’t sure what to expect from this big man who she really did not know that well.
They were beyond the view of the house, the next one still half a mile down the beach, so she stopped, Ahmose just steps behind her. The moon looked at the two figures so close and illuminated their features as they once again just watched each other.
Ahmose moved forward without warning, slowly, and picked Mal up in his arms. He held her close, buried his nose under her hair, his mouth against her neck, and just breathed her in. When he felt her arms go around him and then tighten, he burrowed deeper and held her closer yet.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
Mal could barely hear him, she held him so tight to her, wanted, more than anything right now, to stay there, his warmth, his scent, his shape beneath her hands, his breath on her neck. What had she expected? Not this, not his attraction to her as well. He missed her?
Abruptly, she pulled back, and although she wanted to bury herself against him again, she needed to ask.
“How did you know that I had died? No one knew that. After I died, and apparently came alive again, I left California immediately. How could you know that, Ahmose? Weren’t you back home in Africa by then anyway?”
Ahmose looked around, then carried her up from the sand to a bank of rocks. He sat down, leaning against them and pulled her to him, her back against his chest, his hands splayed below her breasts and on her belly.
“I was home. Even there, I could not get you off my mind, so I had already planned to come back to find you.”
Mal twisted in his arms, her eyes seeking his, now only a shiny glow from the moonlight.
“You were coming back for me? A one-night stand?”
“Mal, you were hardly that. I needed you the night we met, yes, for the blood, but our connection was real, was special. Did you not feel that?”
“I think so, yeah. But it was still a one-night stand. We still had no expectation that we would ever see each other again.”
“And yet I could not forget you. Not even once I thought that you were dead. The fact that you carried my child, the fact that we’re here again, at this moment…Mal, I’ve come to know over the past two years that sometimes destiny has a plan. I believe we are completing the plan.”
“Ahmose, I thought about you as well. I mean, the sex was incredible. In spite of the fact that I thought you were a little insane, I knew you were a good man. But we couldn’t know anything real about each other. I thought I was just projecting my feelings for you because I found out I was pregnant. Do we really have feelings for each other?”
Stepping forward, Ahmose took her face in his hands. He scanned her face, her tremulous smile, the uncertainty in her eyes.
“We will be together. You will believe.”
“You don’t love me. You don’t know me.”
“I know enough about you to know that I will. Although I believe you might be wrong. What I feel, it’s deeper than anything I’ve felt for a woman ever before in my long life. It’s why I couldn’t forget you. It’s why I cannot even begin to make you understand what it meant to me to find out that you were alive.”
His eyes shined, and Mal knew he really had been devastated to have lost her. Everything she had just said to him seemed irrelevant right now.
Surging forward, Mal faced him and slid onto his lap, arms tight around his neck, and held on, her face buried into his neck like his was earlier against hers.
“Thank the spirits, the universe, God, every possibility that might have let me find you again with our child.”
He just held her for moments, for minutes, silently, before Mal spoke.
“I don’t know where we go from here.”
“We will find our path.”
Mal suddenly pushed off his lap, ignoring the fullness she’d felt in his crotch area.
“I…um. I have to go back to the house. Erin and Jack will be worried about me.”
“I won’t leave. If you want me, if you need me, I will be here on this island.”
“I need time, Ahmose.”
He smiled. “We have all the time in the world now.”
“We’ll see.” Mal paused. “Ahmose, how is Luka? Is he doing okay?”
“Yes. He will be, anyway. It’s still a challenge, but he’s slowly adjusting. I put him with one of my best aids to guide him these past months. She’s an angel with him and he seems to have taken to her. Still, even with her, he’s surly.”
Her eyes misted again, but she smiled. “That’s Luka, all right. Goodnight, Ahmose.”
With one last long lingering look at him, Mal turned and walked back to the house, up the stairs, and opened the door. Erin waited with Brigitte in her arms.
“He’s magnificent,” Erin said quietly.
Mal took her daughter and held her close to draw in her scent. Was she trying to purge that of her father’s?
“God, he is.”
“I sent Jack home.”
“Thank you. I need to sleep.”
“You’re overwhelmed. Go ahead, I’ll take Brigitte below with me in case you need to have some time to think.”
“Thank you, Erin.”
Mal went into her room and dropped onto her bed, and although she clos
ed her eyes, she knew she wouldn’t sleep.
An hour later, rolling around for most of it, Mal sat up in the darkness. He was out there, she knew it. This was his day, and he would have no place else to go here.
But that wasn’t it. She knew he was out there because she could feel him. Why the hell did she feel him?
The nightgown Mal wore was nearly sheer, a fabric with a loose weave for the warm nights. She should have dressed, she knew that. She also knew why she hadn’t.
Barefoot again, she so rarely wore shoes here, Mal walked down the stairs towards the beach. The moon had moved from one side of the sea to the other, but still lit the sands with its glow.
It also illuminated the tall man who sat on the sand some distance from the house.
It took a few moments to walk to him, but Mal refused to hurry. She didn’t want to send the wrong message.
As she approached, Ahmose looked up and smiled.
“You should be sleeping.”
“No. I usually live a vampire’s hours. Because of Erin.”
“Ah. She’s taken good care of you.”
“She’s been wonderful.”
Mal dropped down across from Ahmose, her legs crossed and looked into his eyes. “We’re new now. We don’t have a relationship. What we were before, was exactly as I said, a spectacular hook-up. I meant it when I told you that I don’t know what to expect here, and I don’t know where to go. I don’t believe we have a mystical destiny. Erin told me you’re from a powerful, noble race. I don’t belong with you then.”
“If you think that I am from this powerful race, then why don’t you trust what I tell you?”
“You’re just mistaken. I don’t believe in fairytales and picture-perfect movie endings. We are not destined.”
Ahmose smiled, his perfect white teeth almost electric in the moonlight. “You’ve challenged me.”
“What? No, I just…”
“You’ve challenged me, and I will rise to the challenge. You don’t know if what we had together has any chance of being real. You don’t know if I’m insane, or if destiny really does have a plan for us, for our little family that we’ve created unexpectedly. I believe that we do. So, I accept the challenge. I will prove that we are a great deal more than a one-night-stand. Prepare to be persuaded.”
