Another Day

by C. L. Quinn

  Lauren knew. Tamesine had decided to let her know in advance so that they would all be there to support Bryn should he have some difficulty with this startling change in his life. Discovering that you are not what you thought you were, finding a family when you never thought you had one, could be overwhelming.

  Dez knew that more than anyone, she was still adapting to the newness of her changed life.

  The bustling dinner wrapped up and everyone separated to continue with their night, but Bryn wasn’t sure what he was doing here.

  “I still don’t know why we’re here, darlin’,” he commented to his mate.

  Lauren shrugged. “I had some business with Tamesine, and I wanted some company. Look, babe, she’s motioning us out to the balcony.”

  Bryn stayed beside his mate as she led him to one of Koen’s spacey cantilevered balconies. It was sheltered from the falling mist, so they could still sit on big cushioned benches and enjoy each other’s company.

  Tamesine’s gaze followed Bryn as he stepped out beside Lauren. Nodding, he smiled, then shifted his eyes to Dez, who had aided him last year in Brazil. The aggressive vampire had fascinated him from the beginning, but he remembered an awkwardness when he sat with her at first meal that night. Beside her sat Zach, Dez’s new mate, and a gorgeous brunette girl that reminded him a lot of Dez.

  As he lowered himself into a seat, he pulled Lauren down beside him. Was everyone looking at him?

  “Good evenin’,” he said, to break the odd tension.

  “Hello, Bryn,” Tamesine responded. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.”

  His head moved from face to face around the balcony, aware now that it wasn’t his imagination that they were all focused on him. His eyes moved to Lauren, and he felt the same strange vibe.

  “What have I done?” he asked.

  Tamesine laughed. “Nothing. Bryn, we’re here because I discovered something remarkable when we were in New York City.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes. Bryn, I think the easiest way to tell you is to just say it. You are a first blood vampire. Dez is your mother, and I am your grandmother.”

  His smile widened and he relaxed back into the seat on a chuckle. “Aye.”

  “It’s true, Bryn.” No one liked a gag better than Lauren, but he could always tell when she meant something, and now, she was dead serious.

  Sitting back up, he leaned forward, his elbows on his legs. “Ye’re all nutty. If I were first blood, don’t ya think I would have known it?”

  Dez shook her head as she walked toward him and dropped down in front of him. “I didn’t. A first blood needs a spirit amulet to connect to their power, and if you don’t have it, you kind of have a major missing connection. I’ve been through exactly what you’re experiencing, and not that long ago. Bryn, I had a baby centuries ago, I was told it was stillborn. Of course, I didn’t know then that the child couldn’t have been. It seems that you are that child that was taken away from me.”

  Bryn didn’t move. Lauren slid her hand into his, and he took it, but other than that, he was still and quiet.

  Standing, Dez cleared her throat. “There’s more. Might as well tell you everything at once so that you can begin to process it. You were in Ireland a few centuries ago. You wouldn’t by any chance remember a girl named Annie Malone?”

  “Annie? Aye, I do, she was a kind lass. I think I stayed with her for several months. A lovely girl. How would ya know that?”

  The young brunette left her seat and came to stand beside Dez.

  “I’m Olivia, and Annie was my mother. Bryn, it seems that you were my father.”

  The rain took that moment to increase its intensity, the drops splattering pretty tones on wind chimes hanging all around the balcony. It was the only sound.

  Bryn didn’t move a muscle, didn’t say a word, and now that the story was fully told, no one else did either.

  Finally, Lauren turned Bryn’s face toward her. “Say something, babe. I know it’s a shock, but we’re all here to help you understand everything and deal with it. What’s going through your mind?”

  “I’ve got a lot of Christmas presents and birthday gifts to catch up on, haven’t I? I’ve got to be the greatest deadbeat dad in the world.”

  Lauren pulled her mate into her arms and kissed his cheeks. “Humor never fails us, does it? I’ll go get cake and ale, and we’ll all get to know each other.”

  Bryn watched Lauren go, then turned his eyes back to Dez and Olivia. “Ye’re me mum? Hell on wheels, no wonder I’ve been a wild one. And this girl, no way ye’re me daughter. I could never have made such a beauty.” He smiled, his eyes misty. “But Annie could have.”

  Tamesine joined Dez and Olivia, taking their hands.

  “We cannot tell you how much it means to us to find you, Bryn, but know that we love you and welcome you into the family with grateful, loving arms.”

  Olivia dropped back into her seat with a grin. “But watch out for the family jewelry. It’s a bitch!”

  Fourteen

  TWO MONTHS LATER IN NEW YORK CITY

  “Good God, Fred, give a girl some notice!”

  “Sorry! Jonathan never gave me any, how can I give you some?”

  “But I just finished a work out and I look like shit!”

  Freddie laughed as she picked up two wine glasses on Margot’s desk and put them into the hidden cabinet.

  “You couldn’t look like shit if you were covered in it. Just brush your hair and put your shoes back on. That man adores you, there isn’t any chance he’s going to do anything but come in here and throw you across the desk.”

  “You’re a randy old lady, aren’t you? Okay, get back out to your desk and let me know when he gets up here.”

  Nodding, Freddie returned to her office, closing the door behind her. Margo opened a closet door to reveal a full-length mirror to take a peek at her appearance.

  Freddie was right. She looked really good these days. She felt really good these days. Ever since the owner of the law offices, and perverted sex animal, Michael Lipnicki, had disappeared, it seemed like everything in the company fell into order. A new C.E.O. showed his appreciation for everyone who worked so hard for Lipnicki Law, which was now renamed Lanager’s Legal Eagles after the company that bought it.

  And Jonathan Lanager was on his way to her office right now. A month ago, on a routine business dinner, he’d dropped his napkin, and when they both bent to pick it up, and their fingers touched, the chemical attraction that had been there from the first night they met at the company celebration event, had ignited into a wild moment in the backseat of one of New York City’s yellow cabs.

  Since then, they’d been carefully dating. Jonathan had thought it was a bad idea if the other associates knew about it, and Margot had to agree. The last thing she wanted after all her good, honest hard work was to have the rumor mill go overtime on how she’d “slept” her way to the top.

  And speaking of…

  Sex. With Jonathan, she’d let herself go, let herself enjoy him, let him in. Literally.

  One night, a little drunk, she and Freddie had curled up on her sofa and talked about their lives, their hopes, past dreams of young women and how they’d come true or failed to. For the first time in her life, she shared her messed up relationship with sex.

  “After he hurt me, Freddie, I’ve never been okay with the idea of some man pushing himself inside my body, you know? But with Jonathan. I don’t know why, suddenly, I found myself wanting to feel that connection to someone. No, actually needing it.”

  Reaching for another bottle of wine, Freddie had sighed as she turned it up to find only a few drops left. “I’ve told you a little about my past recently, although I’m still kind of surprised that I did. Sex was everything to me when I left home. I’d shag anything in pants, and, as you know, that wasn’t exclusively male. I loved it, I still do. That, ah, that feeling of having someone moving inside of you, there’s nothing else on earth like it.�
�

  “Well, I get it now. I don’t know why, suddenly, but I do.”

  Freddie hopped up to grab a full bottle of wine and popped the cork. As she topped off both of their tall wine glasses, her head bobbed. “I know why. It was that insanely fuckable hot Scottish man you had a few months ago. I can’t believe you let that one get away. Or didn’t at least throw him my direction.”

  “What Scottish man?”

  Freddie stopped and stared at Margot. “You cannot tell me you’ve forgotten the hottest body I’ve ever seen in this city. Huge, muscled, long hair, sexiest man I’ve ever seen, hands down. He had to be the best fuck ever.”

  Margot sipped carefully from her refilled glass.

  “Huh. I really don’t remember him.”

  “Damn, girl, then you had to be well and truly bombed when you were with him.”

  Margot shrugged. “Everything was kind of jacked up when things came to a head with Lipnicki. Every once in a while, I still get shudders when I think about the fact that they never caught him. That he could be out there and come back for me some day. But, hey, I wish I did remember that guy. He sounds awesome.”

  “He was. Aw, his cock was probably unremarkable, which is why he isn’t memorable.”

  “You’re probably right. Anyway, things are looking up right now.” Margot almost giggled. “Very up.”

  Freddie pitched a pillow at her. “How the mighty have fallen.”

  “More custard-filled donut holes?”

  “God, yeah!”

  Jonathan Lanager peeked past the half-open door at an empty office. “Excuse me, Ms. Napier, are you with a client?”

  His voice was even and professional.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have any clients scheduled tonight. Did you need anything?” Margot walked out of her bathroom and posed beside her desk.

  “Um, actually, I do,” Jonathan said, his voice cracking now as he closed the door and turned the lock.

  He didn’t continue into the room, he just leaned against the door and looked at this woman who’d blown him out of the water. She stood, legs apart slightly, a hand curled around a long white string of pearls, black six-inch heels on her feet, and nothing else.

  “Step into my office,” she demanded.

  OUTSIDE OF PARIS

  “Get yer bums off me bed. I’ve got a meetin’ at me brother’s house in just a few hours.”

  It took another twenty minutes to get the girls to move before Xavier could get up and head to the bathroom to clean up. Under the big showerhead with a generous water flow, he paused and let it rain down on his head as he palmed his cock. The thing had gotten another active workout last night before he’d fallen asleep with his two favorite ladies at his side.

  Josephine and Natalia’s highly skilled and creative sex-play wore him out, and all three had fallen asleep satiated, warm bodies collapsed in a tangled heap.

  And still the dream came. She always appeared in a perfect business suit, pristine and proper, her bright blonde hair tied back, shirt buttoned nearly to her throat, tight skirt that rode just above her knees. In the dream, she circled him, like a wild cat on the hunt, and he, naked, stood waiting, hoping, to be attacked.

  And even though in the dream, she never undressed, in all his years, he didn’t think he’d ever had a more erotic dream. Who the stunning woman was, he did not know, but what he did know…was that he wanted her, and desperately. The dream recurred several times a week, and had increased in frequency.

  After spending the day with his beautiful blood-bonds, he should be spent, but his cock rose at the mere thought of the blonde dream woman.

  He needed to talk to Tamesine.

  Dressing, he called down to have his staff arrange for his car. Thirty minutes later, he was at Koen’s villa.

  “Brother, is Tamesine here?”

  “Sure, she’s down at the beach with the twins.” Koen watched Xavier fidget. Xavier did not fidget. And he certainly didn’t ask about Tamesine. In spite of how well they’d gotten along in New York, the old Xavier was back and the connection he and Tamesine had built when he was the other Xavier had been gone since then.

  “Why?” Koen had to ask.

  “Nothin’. I just want to talk with her.”

  “Uh, sure, our business is finished, so if you want to come back after you’ve talked with her, we’ll join the others for second meal.”

  “Aye, brother,” Xavier said, patted Koen on the back, and raced down the stone steps that led to the beach.

  Xavier went toward a circle of lights placed to create a gentle glow around a seating area just beyond the reach of the waves. A small fire offset the cool air rolling in from the sea. Seated on a cushioned bench, Tamesine was singing a lullaby to her babies.

  “How I love my pretty babies…sweet and precious pretty ba-a-bies, how I love my pretty babies…honest to goodness I do…”

  She stopped suddenly when she realized that someone had come up behind her, startled when she saw that it was Xavier.

  “Hi,” she said, welcoming. Everyone had been surprised how Tamesine’s attitude had changed toward Xavier since he’d returned from New York City and his abduction. They wouldn’t know, but she’d had a glimpse into the real man, and knew he was so much more than the drunk womanizer he appeared to be.

  “Greetin’s. How’s the bairns?”

  “Absolutely angels.”

  She continued to rock them and hum the lullaby while Xavier sat on a bench opposite and just watched for a few moments.

  “Ye’re a grand mum to yer tikes.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I love them more than anything, and perhaps that’s the best a parent can offer.”

  Once she hummed another line of the song, she looked up into his fire-illuminated eyes. “What do you need, my friend?”

  “I need the truth. Ye’ve both told me that part of what happened in New York is still lost to me. Ye said that I needed to heal before I knew about it. That it was the trauma that sent me over the edge. But I’m havin’ dreams. They’re persistent and I need to make sense of them because they’re not goin’ away.”

  “Okay. What kind of dreams? Are they of Claude?”

  “Nay. A woman. Stunnin’, sexy, huntin’ me, stalkin’ me. Sexually, I mean. It’s a fine dream, I wouldn’t mind it normally, but I know it’s comin’ for a reason. What do I need to know, Tamesine?”

  “Ah. It’s time, then, for me to unlock that which your spirit amulet put into place.”

  Koen arrived with a bottle of Macallan and handed a glass to Xavier. “You’re gonna need this, brother.”

  Xavier took the glass as Koen dropped beside him.

  Tamesine watched the brothers together, so close and yet such different men. “It’s time, Koen. He needs to know who he became during those days.”

  “I figured.”

  “Keep an eye on my babes, okay?”

  Koen traded seats with Tamesine as she slipped in beside Xavier, and gently tapped each of the babies cheeks as their little eyes watched him.

  “You remember the spirit walk?” Tamesine asked.

  “Aye, it was a bitch.”

  “This won’t be so bad. I’m simply going to go into your mind and see if your spirit amulet will allow you to merge the memories. I believe the dreams are a sign that it will.”

  “I’m ready. No, wait.” Xavier killed half the glass of Scotch Koen brought him. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

  “Close your eyes and try to relax.”

  Seconds later, Xavier felt as if the ground fell out from beneath him and he was falling into open air. Dizzy, like before, but the horrifying images and ride that the first spirit invasion held did not happen. This time, his body dropped onto thick fresh grass and the images that came were awful, but repetitive…Claude, Tamesine’s forced conversion, shooting him over and over in the forehead. Awakening to confusion and pain to go through it all again, time after time until he knew he had to escape. And escape he did.

>   Later, new images, softer, that of himself, yet not himself, a man building a new life, new memories…a gentle man who’d found work, honorable, and satisfying. He’d found contentment! Then, he saw a woman looking out a tiny window, blonde, and when she turned to him, he knew her instantly…his dream stalker. The images hurried, then, numerous images, some blurred, and he was smiling in every one. His heart raced and his libido soared…this was a special woman. No! This was a mate.

  The days unwound and became cemented in his troubled mind. He knew who he had always been, and now, he knew who he’d been those last few months before he’d come home. Tamesine led him from the magical realm, and when he heard her voice pulling him, he followed.

  “Xavier!”

  Koen was calling. Where was Tamesine? And more important, where was his mate?

  Opening his eyes, Xavier looked between two worried faces and pressed his fingertips to his temples. A headache, a bad one, crushed in from both sides.

  “Where’s Claude?” he yelled, and then, more frantically, “Where’s Margot?”

  Koen had him now, his hands on Xavier’s forearms.

  Tamesine dropped back onto her bench, a hand pushing the rocking cradle as the babies began to squirm.

  “He’s back,” she whispered, her eyes sparkling.

  Koen slid off the bench, kneeling in front of Xavier, his eyes on his brother’s.

  “Xavier, it’s all right. You’re here, safe with me and Tamesine in France.”

  Unmoving, still confused about where he was and who was here with him, Xavier scanned his surroundings…the low-lit seating area, the fire-pit, the ocean just beyond white sands, the woman across from him and the man who held him in place. Memory swept in.

  His brother. And the insane vampire who was no longer insane. His brother’s villa that hung from a cliff near the Mediterranean Sea.

  Home. Not in New York City. Not at Claude’s mercy. Not at Lucky’s bar. And there would be no Margot here.