“Hello, Mum. Nice to see you too,” she added, intent on sounding sarcastic.
“Can I hold her?” Olivia asked her arms out.
Serina gave her a vexatious glare. “Are you insane? How do I know you won’t evanesce with her?”
Olivia’s arms dropped limp to her side.
“I’ll be joining my husband on the other side of that damned door. Excuse me.” Serina shoved open the door and found her husband, who’d hit the stairs running when they’d entered the house, and brother-in-law on the floor, André on top and Lucian the bottom. Getting mauled.
Broken furniture, shattered glass, and blood-splattered walls now gave the room a morose ambiance. All that was missing was the crime scene investigating team. “André?” Serina whispered, “I have someone who wants to meet you. Look at me. Pssst!” She tried again and when no one answered she yelled, “André, it’s me, Serina. You need to listen to me. Stop biting your brother.”
When he lifted his head and turned to her, she gasped. His sunken, blood-shot eyes looked right through her. Bloody tears splattered his cheeks. His hair, which he always kept neat, was a cluster of angry curls and new fangs rested over his bottom lip, stained red, but Serina was thankful he recognized his name.
Serina, the true optimist. If she’d had a free hand, she’d have pat her own back.
“Serina!” Lucian’s voice spilled onto the floor, along with his blood. “My brother sits on the brink of madness and here my wife and daughter stand, like a fresh milk and cookie snack. My wild rose, you wouldn’t go to the zoo and play with the lions, tigers and bears before they’d been fed, would you?”
Lucian, it will be fine. You need to trust me.
“Serina, André isn’t himself at this moment. He’s not feeling well. I have to wonder about you too, bringing your baby into this.” Jovan spoke up as she pulled the darts from her unconscious brother.
Serina asked, “Jovan, come to me. Now please.”
Jovan didn’t budge.
With a bug-eyed glare and nod of her head Serina urged, “Take the baby and walk to your husband.”
“Serina, no!” Lucian screamed again, louder.
“I’m not deaf, Lucian,” She snapped. “If Mohamed won’t come to the mountain… Jovan, meet Elyza, your niece. Elyza, this is my stubborn, older sister, Jovan.” Serina skirted around the broken glass and objects and placed her little angel in Jovan’s arms.
André methodically followed her every step.
Jovan met the little girl’s curious gaze and tears fell. “This baby is a miracle, a new beginning—a lifeline to carry on our love and families. She brings us hope, when we have had none for so very long.” Jovan blew a kiss to her sister.
Jovan stood and carried the baby to her husband and in a soft tone said, “Look who I have in my arms, André. See what you and I have to look forward to in five months. André, she is so beautiful and full of life. She needs both her parents just as the two babies I carry will need you.”
André swung his head back to Lucian then glanced at Serina, his head off to one side, his giant bluish-black eyes void of life.
Lucian tapped his arm. “André, do you remember when I first turned?”
André followed the sound of Lucian’s voice back to him, and rested on all the blood covering his twin. He licked his lips then gave pause. “Ask me first if I remember you.”
“You will. Serina is going to set up a few things and give you blood. You are a little anemic right now. It’s why you’re having trouble concentrating.”
“Anemic? That’s what this is called now?” A gurgled laugh crawled from André’s throat.
Apprehension still very apparent, Lucian looked at his wife and nodded. “Serina, ask Raven to get the blood ready.”
“André, what do you think of your niece?” Jovan gingerly put her hand on her husband’s shoulder to keep his train of thoughts to more pleasant things.
He turned, and she jerked back her hand. The blood oozing from her wrist caught his attention.
Speaking in a low monotone pitch, Lucian suggested, “André, if you take her wrist to your mouth, two things will happen. You will get a small taste of what your wife has to offer you and your saliva will coagulate the wounds you’ve given her. You can heal her right now. I didn’t have anyone to help me when I first turned. You have all of us.”
“You are a sick son of a—” He inhaled. The scent of blood exploded in his airway; he doubled over, a tight grip on his abdomen. “Why would anyone want—” André squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. In what felt like a lifetime to him, memories of his previous life flooded his circuits. About to say something he gagged, then spit-up some gooey, black sludge that looked like something drained from a 1920’s pick-up truck all over his twin.
Lucian wiped the mess from his eyes. “And I thought Elyza’s spit up was foul!”
André reached for Jovan.
Jovan readily stepped back.
Wiping his mouth off with his sleeve André tried again. His voice raspy he asked, “Lucian, what did you do this room? Who pissed you off?”
Lucian choked back a mixture of tears and laughter.
André turned to Jovan. “Cherié? What happened? Did Lucian hurt you?” More sanguineous tears rolled from his cheeks. “I’m so confused. Please tell me what the hell has happened. I don’t recall anything. I feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining—completely insane.”
Trapped under him, Lucian coughed a few times. “Uhm, what about me? Forget who you’ve pinned to the floor? And for the record—”
“I know. I haven’t been able to do this in years. So why can I now?” André shifted his weight to allow Lucian to move out from under him. He plopped down on the floor beside him. “Luce, what happened? Can I hold her? She’s so little,” he said reaching for Elyza.
The three of them screamed a collective, “No!”
André recoiled. “Explain to me why you are both covered in blood, and I can’t remember a damn thing.”
“What is the last thing you do remember?” Donovan asked his garlic gun aimed at André.
Looking cross-eyed down the barrel of the gun, André asked, “What have I done to deserve this?”
“Point the gun at the floor, Donovan.” Lucian slapped the weapon out of André’s face.
André shrugged his shoulders. “Donovan, Jules and I went looking for the vamps that killed the cops and Ethan.”
Lucian answered, “Maybe it’s a protective brain mechanism. Amnesia or something like post-traumatic stress.”
André stood, aggravated. “You still haven’t told me what happened and why can’t I hold my niece?”
“Jovan,” Serina said, “it’s all right. Let him hold her.”
Within a heartbeat, Lucian wormed his way in between them. “Oh, I think not.”
Serina walked around Lucian as he turned with her trying to block her, which proved futile. Serina placed Elyza in her brother-in-law’s arms. “Lucian do you honestly think I would endanger our daughter?”
“Why the hell am I a danger to anyone?” André asked, exhausted. He immediately covered Elyza’s little ears. “Oh, Elyza, I’m so sorry. Uncle André isn’t used to holding babies, or his tongue.”
“Papa, mouth,” Savanah slid in as she crossed the room to sit beside her father.
André glanced at Savanah out of the corner of his eye. “Good one, Peanut.”
Elyza produced an all gums smile before curdled milk shot onto his shirt. “Uncle André isn’t used to that either.” Jovan handed him a towel to wipe up the mess.
Lucian said, “Listen to me carefully. Ands, you and I are now identical in all matters of life and death and all that falls between. Welcome to my world.”
The words didn’t register at first. André thought they were pulling a fast one on him until Jovan wouldn’t look him in the eye, nor his brother. He noticed Donovan disappeared again, literally. Without thinking he bent down and kissed Elyza’s forehead, lingering m
omentarily, enjoying that new baby smell because she definitely had a fresher scent than he did.
Lucian lunged, but André held his hand up. “She’s fine.” Seeing Lucian so distraught, André handed Elyza back to him. Even though he knew the answer he asked, “Tell me you are joking?”
No one answered. André looked at himself lengthwise, touching body parts randomly, making sure everything was intact and where it should be, including his manhood. He took in the room, the damage done to his family and the furniture. Bending over, he picked up a piece of broken mirror and peeled his lips back. The reflection sliced into his sense of self. The glass fell through trembling fingers back to the floor, and shattered to even smaller pieces, just as his heart did seeing a new set of dents.
“Oh sweet mother of God. Who did this to me? I’ll kill them.”
“Actually, Ands,” Raven came in with all the paraphernalia to set up a transfusion, “it was me.”
“You, Beauty? Why?”
“She didn’t do this, my Prince. I did.” Donovan stepped out of his shadow and got between Raven and André.
“But she just said…”
Cutting Raven off, Donovan finished, “I had no choice. You’d have died otherwise. I asked her permission.”
“I’ve got a mammoth headache, and I feel like Grimmy—the real one, had his way with me.”
“He did.” Julian rubbed the newly formed lump on his head. “You think you’ve a headache. Look what you did to me.”
André turned toward Julian’s voice. “Grimmy, you tried to kill me.”
“Yes—I mean no, André,” Julian confessed. “I got you killed. You were shot four times by the locals.”
“So what constitutes you getting me killed? I remember you telling me you were attacked, and I started after you. This is not your fault, Jules.”
Donovan butt in, “Sire, I bit you to bring you over—to save you.” The lanky vamp dropped to his knees before André. “If you wish my life, take it now.” Donovan bowed his head.
Raven caught her breath.
“Breathe, Beauty,” André said as he ran his hands through his sister’s hair. “Odd way to go about saving people don’t you think? Doesn’t this constitute killing them with kindness? The twenty-first century does have hospitals and doctors, all though we’ve never had a real need for them. Get up, Donovan. I cannot kill a man who brought me back from the brink of death even in the most unorthodox manner.” Once he noticed Jonah and Payton still out cold he asked, “Is that my handy work?”
Julian nodded. “Jonah took the brunt end of the taser gun. He’s gonna be mad at you when he wakes up.”
André had the audacity to smile until he realized all the blood, tubing and needles were really for him. In a flash his smile vanished.
Savanah took one look at her father and burst out laughing. “Oh, Papa, you’re green. Well, honestly not green but grayish-blue.”
“Ands, we need to get you taken care of. Sit.” Lucian helped Serina set up the blood transfusion.
“Lucian, I’m sorry I hurt you. All of you. Can you forgive me?”
Jovan snuggled in to his other side and kissed his cheek. “You did nothing wrong, Bebé.”
“Oh, Cherié, but I did.” He took her wrist, and carefully inspected the damage.
When his lips met her flesh, she asked, “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“We’ll have fun finding out, won’t we?” André kissed the length of her arm, his tongue soothing the wounds.
****
“Jovan?” Olivia’s voice rattled as she pushed the bedroom door open and stepped in.
Each and every member of the St. James household turned on her like a pack of starved wolves. “I—I—I’m going to go. Yes, right now. If you ever need anything, just call out to me.” Olivia back peddled to the door when a triad of ill-fated events went off more accurately than dominos tumbling.
Julian crossed the room and blocked the door before anyone saw him move. The bump on his head torn open and bleeding didn’t slow him down one iota.
“Olivia, come—” Jovan stopped and said to André, “You’ve gone white yet again for no apparent reason. He needs more blood.”
“Oh, I need blood all right! Hers!” André spat.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Julian shouted right in Olivia’s face. “You and I made a deal. Your heart for theirs, ring any bells?”
André ripped the tube from his arm spilling blood all over the carpet and headed for the strange woman.
She swung around to face him.
Head cocked to one side and eyes focused on Olivia as if no one else existed, André said, “I know you. You invaded my dreams for years. Your face—it tormented me and does so to this day.” He crossed the room with sure-footed steps. “For nearly twenty years.” He stopped one step from her. “Every night I lay awake afraid to go to sleep because I knew you would be there…waiting, in my closet, under my bed, in my head. You’re a dream snatcher. But instead of stealing away a young boy’s dream you stole me. Why? What did you want with me? Who are you and what are you doing here now? Answer me!” He grabbed her shirt collar.
“Stop it, André. You’ll scare the baby.” Serina said.
“You’re the one who should be scared, Serina. She’s the devil in disguise. Don’t let her near your child.” André closed the gap between them. “Tell me you are not Serina’s mother. Tell me that you did not touch my wife and children. Any of them!”
“Ands, you’re freaking everyone out. What’s going on?” Lucian asked.
“Do you want to tell them or shall I?” André poked Olivia in the chest.
“André, enough!” Serina pried her way between her mother and her brother-in-law, her back to Olivia. “What are you talking about?”
Julian tapped Serina on her shoulder. “I suggest for the time being you remove you and your daughter from what might very likely turn into a war zone.”
Serina spun to Julian landing squarely face to face with her mother. The two women locked their emerald eyes.
“Serina, he’s right. Get away before anything happens.”
One step short of hysterical, Serina pleaded, “Please just tell me. It can’t be that bad, Mum.”
“Don’t bet the house on that,” Julian chided.
“What the hell do you two know that I don’t?” Serina asked completely aggravated.
Olivia cleared her throat, and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. “Please don’t make me do this. Not here—not like this.” She looked between both men. Neither looked sympathetic.
“Okay, can we focus on the good things she’s done? André, she saved Jovan. For the three days you were lost in space, she monitored your babies and kept Jovan alive, because she wouldn’t had made it other—”
Before Serina finished and anyone could stop lightning from striking, André ripped Olivia off her feet and hurled her body through the wall. Not into the wall, through it, clear into the hallway. The aftermath—a jagged hole in the plaster and broken beams to boot. Pandemonium followed Olivia out the door.
Savanah headed for Olivia, but her father grabbed her.
“No,” he said anxious. “Don’t touch her or allow her to touch you. Ever again.”
“Why, Papa? What could she have done? She saved Mum and the babies.”
Serina passed the baby to Lucian and ran to her mother’s aid.
André nudged Olivia with the tip of his shoe. When she moaned a grin spread across his face. “She’s a poisoned apple. Sweet on the outside and then you take a big, juicy bite and find you’ve bitten a lethal snake in half.”
Delirious, Olivia spilled a century worth of her secrets. “I didn’t mean to kill your mother, Julian, Jonah, Jovan. I swear it was an accident. André, I needed the money your aunt Chyna offered me. I’ve had a lifetime to regret stealing you away from your family, for ruining the relationship you should have had. I’m sorry I lost faith. Thomas has been the only man I ever allowed in m
y heart, in my bed. I’m sorry I ruined Oliver’s life as well. And I’m so sorry for not allowing either of you children. I’m just sorry.”
“No!” Serina backed away from her and tripped on the top step of the stairway. Inches before her head slammed into the stairs Serina froze, suspended midair like a flyer in a circus, minus the life supporting ropes and net below. As blood rushed to her head veins bulged in her temples. Gravity took over control of her skirt and shirt and left one very exposed upside down woman. No panties on and her breasts spilled free of her bra. No one said anything even though they all took the time to peek.
Reaching out for Serina, Olivia found André’s hands reaching at the same time for her neck, full throttle.
No longer able to control the beast screaming inside him for retribution, André’s temper exploded. His fingers burned white from pressure as he gripped and squeezed the life right out of the hag. “You ruined the relationship I should have had with my siblings, with my parents. What you did is inconceivable. They died without ever realizing I was their son. God will never forgive you for what you’ve done, and I sure as hell won’t.” Crouched over her, he enjoyed watching her struggle to breathe. “If you’ve marked my unborn children in any way I’ll come to hell to find you.”
In between gasping and choking, Olivia slipped in, “Get—in—line. Julian wants me…”
Ooh! Words were spoken. Too much air getting in. Tighten the grip! André waited. Waited for her to stop bloody breathing once and for all. He felt nothing and that should have bothered him, but it didn’t. It bothered him that he should feel bad killing this woman, killing Serina’s mother in front of her and his family, but still, zero remorse. He tried to think up reasons that it should affect him that he was indeed killing someone, but still, deeper inside him sat a black, empty cave of nightmares and repugnancy that saturated his soul and would not wither away without revenge. So, he gripped her a little tighter and watched. Killing her might actually feel good. Just as she passed out, vice grips bore into him.
Donovan tugged and yanked, but André’s powers were a force to be reckoned with. He clung to Olivia’s neck more determined. Lucian joined Donovan, but together they were no match for the newly turned vamp.
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