Conversion Book Two: Bloodlines

by S. C. Stephens

  Then duty and obligation calmed his breath and he gently, but firmly, pushed me away. Panting, I opened my eyes and stared up at him, disappointed and grateful for his level of control. His lips inches from mine, minutely coming forward, before pulling back again, his eyes struggled with easing the rush in his body.

  I did what I could to help, still not wanting to abuse this amazing draw. I stepped back from him, removing my hands from his body and holding them at my sides. Every fiber of my body screamed at me to touch him. I ignored it and bit my lip, containing a whimper in my frustration. I knew this would soon pass, but it was torture to not give in. Especially when the memory of the few times we had caved, started filling my head. In this state, climax was effortless and easily repeatable. My body was yearning for it.

  He closed his eyes, inhaling deep. I knew he was trying to ground himself too, but I also knew he’d smell my desire in the air, and I knew that wasn’t helping anything. He bit his lip and started shaking. “Emma,” he said, his voice shaky as well. “I have to…help Ben. We have a lead with a very short window.” He opened his eyes, they were pained. “There’s a chance that they’re leaving their nest at nightfall, and it will take hours to get to them. I’m sorry, but I need to reach them before they leave. I don’t have time for this.”

  My eyes flared, my anger cooling my desire. “You never have time.”

  He straightened in front of me, his body coming under control as my tone eased his desire. “You know why I have to do this.” His eyes flashed down to my stomach and I felt myself flush.

  Yes, I knew why. I was reminded with every kick, every squirm, every thumping heartbeat, why. I couldn’t escape the reasons – they were with me constantly. But I missed him…and I worried for him. He took a step back from me as I struggled for something to say to that. Not having anything, I watched him turn away from me and follow where Hot Ben had gone.

  I turned away from the sight of his muscular back leaving me. I felt him exit the main building and enter a side wing. I knew exactly which room he’d gone to, at the far end of the ranch. I stared at the crying woman fountain, feeling tears spring into my own eyes. It wasn’t fair. He’d promised me when he’d proposed to me that he’d never take a single second together for granted, and here we were, just a few months later, and possibly the last few months I had, and he couldn’t spare twenty minutes to ravage me to oblivion.

  A part of me knew it was petty. A part of me knew it wasn’t as important as what he was doing. But the majority of me was pregnant, and hormonal, and sexually frustrated.

  Feeling a low growl building in my chest, I twisted my head to where I could sense him through the structure of the home. “Screw this,” I muttered.

  I blurred to the room and busted open the door, cracking the frame. Hot Ben jumped about a foot in the air and squeaked in startlement. Teren had already been looking at the door, sensing me coming. His brows furrowed at me, his face not happy. Mine wasn’t either.

  “I’m coming with you,” I stated matter-of-factly.

  He straightened, shaking his head and walking across the room to me. “No, you’re not, Emma.”

  He walked up to me as I put my hands on my hips. “Yes, I am. We were supposed to do this together, Teren. That was the deal, remember? That we’d look for the mixed together.” I looked up and down his lean body, my own responding in conflicting ways – angry and aroused. “It’s the only way to spend time with you, anyway.”

  He sighed, sensing my two moods and not knowing what to do with either of them. He put his hands on my upper arms, squatting to search my eyes. His pale ones looked tired. “Well, things changed, Emma, and now you can’t. I can’t risk you coming with me. You have to stay here, where you’re safe.”

  I raised my chin, feeling childish and empowered. “You’re not the boss of me, Teren. It’s my decision to make and if I want to go, I’ll go.”

  He gave me a look parents give insolent children, and I narrowed my eyes at seeing it. His tone matched his look as he used logic against me. “I am the boss of you when it comes to this, when it comes to your safety, and the safety of every human you may come across, if you convert in the field.”

  Internally, I cringed, knowing he was right. Irritated, I jerked away from his body and snapped, “That’s not fair.” Damn male logic.

  He shrugged, straightening. “No, it isn’t, but it’s true and you know it. And that’s why you’ll stay here.”

  My hormonally revved up body heated to a boiling point, and again, I said something that sounded rather childish. “Sometimes I hate you.”

  He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, seemingly exasperated with me. After a supercharged second he looked back down, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m going to believe that that’s the hormones talking, and not you.”

  I crossed my arms as well. “Believe whatever the hell you want.” Oh yeah, I was definitely crossing into pre-teen territory. In fact, I think I’d had a much similar argument with my mother over going to a boy/girl slumber party in the eighth grade.

  Really not liking my tone, he dropped his arms and twisted to run a hand through his hair. “I can’t have you around me, Emma.” His hand flung out to indicate my body. “You’re too distracting.”

  My mouth dropped at that. “Well, get a grip on it, Teren. I’m coming.”

  Hot Ben cleared his throat and resumed shoving things into a green army duffel bag. I tuned him out, concentrating on my suddenly chauvinistic husband. He ran his hands down his face, looking like he just wanted to order me to stay, and have that be the end of it. He knew me well enough to know that it wouldn’t be that simple – not this time. I was done waiting around.

  “Emma.” His voice was strained. “I can’t protect you out there. It’s too dangerous.”

  I stepped up to him, grabbing his face with my hands. His stubbled skin was course against my sensitive fingers. It sort of matched my mood. “That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be going. What you’re doing, provoking vampires - It’s too dangerous!” My eyes shifted over to Hot Ben, his eye a horrid mix of black and yellow. “Look what you’re doing to Ben!”

  Recalling my phone conversation with Tracey, I leaned around Teren to snap at him, “UFC, Ben? Really?”

  Ben straightened from shoving objects in his bag and then shrugged at me, his model face looking sort of sheepish. “What? It seemed like a good excuse. I’ve always wanted to…” He didn’t finish that and ran a hand through his highlighted hair. That was when I noticed what was in his hands, what he’d been shoving into the bag.

  Stakes. Handfuls of sharp, six-inch long stakes - some wood, some silver and some, a hard looking plastic.

  My mouth dropped as I looked back to Teren. He stiffened as he noticed that I’d finally noticed. “What the hell are you doing?” I backed away from him, a hand automatically going to my stomach, my horrid dream of that man staking Teren’s shins suddenly fresh again in my mind. Incredulous, I gaped at him. “What…are you guys some sort of…vampire hunters now?” I looked between the both of them, noticing other objects that Ben was packing – silver knives, one of the journals, a short sword, and a gun, most likely containing silver bullets. They looked like they were going to war. I looked back up at Teren. “Have you gone mad?”

  Teren lifted his jaw and clenched it. His eyes looked both worried and infuriated. He obviously didn’t want me to see this part of his “meetings”. He slightly raised his hands, his head shaking. “Vampires are starting to hear about us. They’ve been…resistant to talk.” He shrugged nonchalantly, like it was all no big deal. “We make them talk, that’s all.”

  I gaped at him. “You make them…” I didn’t even want to think about what that meant. I didn’t want to think about him turning into a crazed torturer, just like our abductor. Panic clenched me at the thought of the two of them walking into a potentially deadly nest of vampires that we didn’t know, but who may be expecting him, who may have heard of him. I clutched his upper ar
ms tight, my new strength making my grip hard enough that he actually flinched. “Don’t do this. Are you crazy? They could kill you, both of you.”

  He jerked out of my grip and pushed my hands away. “We’ll be fine, Emma. Please don’t str-”

  I cut him off. “Do not tell me to not be stressed about this. This is dangerous and stupid, and I’m going to stress as much as I damn well want to stress!”

  Hot Ben behind Teren sighed and I glanced over at him running a hand through his hair. “He’s right, Em. We’ll be fine.”

  I gaped at him. “Well, aren’t you a far cry from the man who sobbingly begged me to not let my fiancé eat him!”

  Ben flushed and turned away. I turned back to Teren, my panic increasing my irritation. “I never see you anymore. You’re always out tracking down some farfetched lead that some random vamp gave you. You’re becoming this other person I don’t even know. This isn’t like you. You’re obsessed!” I hissed.

  His face got furious and he leaned down, right into mine. “Of course I’m obsessed!” His hands flashed down to me and I actually took a half-step back from him. His fingers rested on my stomach and a twin jostled under his touch. “They are my children! My life! And I will do anything to protect them – to protect you!” His eyes searched mine, heated and impassioned. I barely recognized him. “I will do anything to keep you alive! Anything!”

  Backing away from him, fear and anger took over my mouth. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you pissed off a hungry vampire!”

  He stepped back like I’d slapped him in the face. His expression was beyond hurt, tortured almost, and his eyes started to water. I saw my Teren again in that betrayed expression and I felt my own tears stinging. “Teren…I…”

  He took a step back from me, lightly shaking his head, and then he blurred from the room. I felt him leave the house, then felt him leave the property. I thought he may have just decided to run all the way back to the city, or wherever they were going.

  I dropped my head to my hands, not even believing I’d just said that to him. Of all the horrid, hurtful comments I could have made – that was the worst. I knew he felt guilty. Knew he hated to even look at the scar still visible on my neck. And I knew, he thought all of this was his fault. I’d just sliced him open and dumped a trailer load of salt in his wounds. I sort of hated myself.

  Hot Ben walked up to me, slinging his bulging duffle bag over his shoulder. More calmly than I ever would have thought possible, he placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “I’ll watch over him, Emma. We’ll be alright. I’ll bring him home.”

  I looked up at him, his blue eyes confident. He was so different from the man who’d clutched my hand in terror in that fateful parking lot. I wished I had his assurance, but in my head, I imagined that Teren would be the one most likely keeping Ben alive today, and maybe not even succeeding in that. I numbly nodded at him, appreciating his sentiment, since I couldn’t quite believe his promise, and he patted me on the shoulder and headed out after Teren.

  Chapter 17

  The Breaking Point of a Good Man

  Almost immediately upon feeling Teren leave the property, I felt Alanna dart after him. I suppose she had heard our entire argument and had some thoughts on the matter. Imogen confirmed that for me, by repeating over and over that she had no idea he’d resort to such extremes to get what he wanted. That she couldn’t believe he was being so reckless and foolish. Like me, she was convinced that he’d only get himself killed. And also like me, she seemed to know nothing about Teren and Ben’s method of “interviewing”.

  Feeling Teren and Alanna’s lives zipping away from me, I sank to the floor of that room. It looked like an old office and smelled musty, like it hadn’t been used in years. As I crouched onto my knees and started to sob, I oddly noticed that there were tons of maps in this room. Some were scrolled and tucked up in bookshelves. Others were tacked up on the walls, a large one of North America taking a place of prominence next to a wide, sunny window. That map had several pinpricks in it - the little pins, with red balls on the end. Tracker pins. As tears slid down my face, I absentmindedly thought that it was probably a map of everywhere the Adams vamps had lived or visited over the years. If Teren and I made it out of this mess in one piece, I wondered if I’d visit any of those pinpricks.

  I sensed when Teren shifted his direction away from his mother, obviously not in the mood to talk. But I had to give it to the determined woman, she wasn’t about to let him go, and she was fast, just a smidge quicker than he was. She gained on him inch by inch and finally, after what felt like an eternity to me, both of their presences stopped.

  I held my breath, my hand covering my mouth and holding in my grief. I felt like I was going into shock. I couldn’t move off the floor, couldn’t run to my husband, couldn’t beg for his forgiveness, or plead with him to stay. I couldn’t even comfort Imogen, who was actively cursing the sun that was keeping her a prisoner in the house. I was immobile with pain. All I could do was wait on my knees on the floor, and pray that Alanna could do what I had failed so miserably at – talk some reason back into Teren.

  My knees started to ache as I waited. My breathing came back in stuttered pulls and my body started to shake with tension. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to be able to hear Alanna’s heartfelt pleading and I wanted to hear Teren agree with her. I wanted to feel the pull in my body of him returning. The desire to feel it ached worse than my stiff knees. But after what felt like an eternity to me, I eventually felt Alanna’s presence returning to the house.

  That was when I broke down in sobs. Because Teren did not return with her. He never even came back towards my direction. As Alanna shifted to me, he shifted away, off to madly chase after vampires with his human companion, who was probably picking him up at the very moment and driving him away from me.

  Imogen lightly began to cry in her room too, as Teren got farther and farther away. As my head dropped to my hands and I felt each individual tear coolly splash onto my skin, I wondered if they’d still let me stay with them, if Teren got himself killed today because of me. That thought only made my sobs come out in a tortured wail.

  Then Alanna’s soothing arms were around me and she was picking me up. The woman was no bigger than me, and what with my pregnant girth, she was actually much smaller, size-wise, but she lifted me easily. She cradled me in her arms and I cried mercilessly on her shoulder.

  My breath hitching through my words, I managed to get out, “You couldn’t get him back?”

  She swallowed, her eyes heavy with pink tears. Kissing my forehead, she muttered into my hair, “I needed to get out of the sun. I kept him from leaving, but I couldn’t block him forever. He kept an arm’s length from me and waited me out. He knew I only had so long to get him back.” She rested her cheek on my hair and sighed brokenly. “The entire time we were talking, he kept telling me that he had to go, that he was running out of time. He just kept repeating it over and over again.” She lifted her head and stared straight ahead, a pink tear dropping to her cheek. “I’ve never seen him look like that, Emma. He was almost…unhinged.”

  I clutched her as we walked through a covered breezeway, the difference in the air temperature blazingly apparent on my sensitive skin. Hiccupping as I sobbed, she walked me upstairs to Imogen’s room. A second set of hands were on me then, and I was carefully laid out on Imogen’s bed and tucked in like a child. With neither woman saying anything, they silently comforted me with tender arms strokes.

  Eventually my grief ended enough that I was able to take in the young faces watching me. My enhanced eyes could more easily see the differences between them than my regular eyes did – Alanna’s hair was a shade lighter, Imogen’s eyes were a touch bluer. In the dark, candlelit room, all of our eyes glowed softly, and I noticed that even that phosphorescence was in slightly different shades. We were each our own persons, but we shared a common heartache – Teren.

  I eyed his mother. She tried hard to keep ser
enity on her face, but her jaw was tight and her free hand clenched the edge of her jeans, twisting them in her tension. I shifted my gaze to her mother. She was turned away from me, staring through the walls of the home, towards the direction where I could feel Teren getting farther and farther away from us.

  “Will he be okay?” I whispered.

  Imogen looked back to me, her eyes red with unshed tears of almost pure blood, her cheeks stained with ones that had already fallen. She didn’t say anything, only shrugged. A thick tear dropped to her cheek.

  Alanna, on my other side, watched her mother and then started to cry. It only took a half-second for Imogen to switch positions, her body flashing to the other side of the bed as her arms went around her child comfortingly. I watched them, my tears resurfacing. I’d done this. This pain was all because of me. This was supposed to be the most joyous time of our lives, the impending birth of Teren’s children, but instead, it had gotten twisted into something painful and dangerous and just plain…awful.

  My sobs resurfacing, I managed to choke out, “I’m so sorry.”