Blood Jewel

  Luckily, I avoided having to answer her because we heard the overhead boarding call for our flight. “That’s us.”

  Once loaded, we were seated on the plane and I couldn’t stop thinking about the happiness she felt during her pregnancy dream. I felt a renewed sickness with myself because I was reminded of how I would never be able to give her the child she so clearly would love to have.

  After the plane was in the air, I turned to look at Chansey and her head was rested against the back of the seat and her eyes were closed. She was tired. We both were because we had taken advantage of the last night of our honeymoon well into the morning.

  I wondered if she would fall asleep and dream of swollen bellies and babies, but she opened her eyes and looked at me. “You’re anxious about something.

  I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what, so I shook my head and said, “It’s nothing.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Why don’t you take a little nap? It was late when we finally went to sleep.”

  “It was late for both of us, so maybe you should take a nap, too. I’m sure you and Solomon will be up late talking rescue strategy.”

  I was certain she was right, but I was too disturbed by her dream to go to sleep, but I couldn’t tell her that. “I’ll try.”

  She reached for my hand, rested her head against the seat again and closed her eyes. She was quiet for several minutes, but I knew she wasn’t asleep because I had learned to feel the difference over the past six days.

  She lifted her head from the seat and looked at me. “What has you so rattled? Please, don’t tell me again that it’s nothing because that would be a lie.”

  I wasn’t loving this part of the bond. I admit I had a small habit of occasionally lying to Chansey, but it was always for her own good. I was sure she didn’t think that would make it alright, but what was I suppose to say in this situation? ‘I’m sorry that you’ll never know what’s like to be pregnant or have a baby because of me.’

  I mean...there were always medical interventions if she wanted a baby.

  She sat up and twisted toward me. “You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  I stroked my thumb across the top of her hand. “You know I would move heaven and earth to give you the things you want, right?”

  “Yes,” she slowly drew out because she was so afraid of what I was going to say next.

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you a baby, but there are ways to make that happen if you want to try.”

  I felt her mood change instantly and it wasn’t one of happiness. She shifted her lower jaw and shook her head at me. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I felt her anger rising, but I needed to say these things. “No, I’m quite serious.”

  “Is this about that stupid dream? How could you propose something so absurd based on a dream I had no control over? How do you even know I would want a baby?”

  “You told me you wanted children. Two or three, as I recall,” I reminded her.

  She looked lost. “When did I tell you that?”

  “When we were taking care of Lorelei and Lily,” I said to jog her memory.

  “Things were different then. I didn’t know what we were when I said that,” she argued. “I was just a girl thinking about making beautiful babies with you because you were so hot. Girls imagine stuff like that.”

  “But I felt your happiness when you were dreaming of being pregnant. I felt it again when you were watching those little girls in the airport,” I argued.

  “You are reading way too much into all of this. You were happy in my dream and that made me happy. When I saw those little girls at the airport, they reminded me of myself and my little sister when we were small. They were thumb wrestling and that’s something we used to do all of the time. It was a happy memory for me. That’s all. I wasn’t sitting there pining for babies.”

  Shit! I felt like a total jackass. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. It’s this bond thing. I’m still trying to figure all of this out.”

  “Curry, my body being able to conceive and carry a baby means nothing to me unless it could be your baby. If you can’t have children that means that I can’t have children. It’s that way for a reason. Kids don’t fit into the whole vampire/human equation.”

  “You’re right. Forgive me?” I leaned over, hoping for a forgiveness kiss and she didn’t let me down.

  She laughed as she said, “Now, I’m super tired because some wild, sex machine kept me up all night, so I’m going to shut my eyes and take a much needed nap.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  We found my black Lexus sedan in the parking lot of the airport, just where Solomon said it would be, and Chansey was surprised when I unlocked it with the keyless remote and opened the trunk to put our luggage inside.

  “Let me guess. Solomon’s car, right?” Chansey asked.

  I began transferring our luggage into the trunk and replied, “No, it’s mine. Do you like it?”

  She laughed and said, “Uh, yeah...just a little bit.”

  “Then, it’s yours,” I offered.

  The shock registered on her face and I loved the way she could be so easily pleased. “What? You’re just going to give me an expensive car like this?”

  I put the last bag in the trunk and closed it. “I’m not a stranger, I’m your husband. It’s not unusual for a husband to give his wife a vehicle.”

  She continued to admire the car. “Most husbands don’t provide their wives with cars that cost as much as this one.”

  I walked to her side of the car. “I can afford it. Besides, I like my truck. It’s a classic, sort of like me.”

  “You mean antique, not classic,” she laughed.

  I opened the passenger door for her and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’m like a fine wine, Love. I only get better with age.”

  I shut the door to walk around to the driver’s side, but I heard her whisper from inside the car, “Yeah. I don’t know if I’ll be able to take it if you get any better.”

  I laughed to myself as I opened the door and got into the driver’s seat because I wasn’t sure if she meant for me to hear her comment or not.

  I backed out of the parking place and we began our drive toward home. “Is the compound far from here?” she asked.

  “Maybe about 20 or 25 minutes if traffic isn’t bad.”

  The sun was shining directly in Chansey’s eyes, so she reached for her purse and put on her sunglasses. “This fledgeling at the compound...she’s mine to follow, right?”

  I wasn’t expecting that, but I should have. I was disappointed she brought it up so soon because I thought she would want to wait a little while after the things we discussed on our honeymoon. I wasn’t ready to give her up the way she was.

  While I was thinking of how to answer, she said, “You promised, Curry.”

  I reached for her hand. “I know what I promised. I just didn’t want...” Wrong choice of words. “I’m just surprised because I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon. We’ve only been married six days,” I tried to explain, but it wasn’t going to make her happy anyway I put it.

  Her eyes were on me as I drove and I felt her disappointment rising. “Are you going back on your word?”

  There was no way for me to win. If I didn’t allow her to follow this fledgeling, she was going to be pissed. If I did allow it, she would get what she wanted and I would pay the cost of losing her as human. “I’m not going back on my word. It was my idea and I made the agreement, so I’ll stick to it even if it is much sooner than I wanted.”

  She leaned over and kissed the side of my face. “Thank you.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to reply. I couldn’t give her a cordial ‘You’re welcome,’ because I wasn’t glad to do it for her.

  We rode in silence the rest of the way to the compound. She could feel my sour mood and she didn’t want to provoke it any further by discussing the fledgeling.

  I felt her relief when I turned off of the road and
we saw the gates to the compound. I stopped to enter the pass number on the keypad and then we watched the gates slide open.

  I felt her surprise when she saw the large stone house at the end of the drive and I wanted to put our recent discord aside, so I said, “Welcome home, Mrs. Brennan.”

  “It’s so different from the compound at New Orleans. I think I expected another 200 year-old plantation.”

  Sol didn’t enjoy living in the past. He embraced change and a plantation would never be his first choice. “Sol likes modern things as you see from his choice of design.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  I parked in the garage with our other vehicles and we got out of the car. Chansey studied Sol’s eclectic collection in the garage and said, “Let me guess. All of these belong to Sol?”

  I nodded and she said, “A boy and his toys.”

  “Sol has this way of trying to find happiness in things. When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for in one thing, he moves on to the next. It’s one of his many character flaws.”

  “It appears as though it’s been an expensive search.”

  “You have no idea,” I muttered as I took our luggage from the trunk.

  We entered the door leading to the kitchen and Chansey stopped just inside. “This kitchen is huge. Why did he want this? He’ll never use it.”

  “Resale value.”

  “Really?”

  “If we decided to sell, no one is going to want to buy a house without a kitchen. Besides, it would seem a little weird to the builders to not have a kitchen. It might bring up issues best left alone.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  We walked down the hall off of the living room where Gia and Lairah told me our quarters would be. I opened the door and stepped back for Chansey to take the lead in seeing what my sisters had created for us.

  “Oh. My. Goodness. Curry. It’s incredible.”

  The king size canopy bed was what grabbed my attention first. It was facing us as we walked in and it was covered in ivory and deep red bedding with sheer ivory fabric hanging from the top of the canopy frame. I couldn’t stop the smile from forming on my face because it reminded me of our wedding night at the Bed and Breakfast.

  The wood plank flooring was a rich brown, but a deep red and gold wool rug lay in the center of the room covering most of it. The walls were deep red with a dark glazed overlay finish and the windows were covered with layers of long, deep red luxurious drapes that blocked all sunlight. I had to give it to my sisters; they might be vampires, but they knew ambience and romance.

  “They did a good job,” I understated just to see how she would correct me.

  “Are you kidding me? They did a fantastic job,” she said as she walked toward one of the closed doors. “What’s behind this door?”

  She opened the door and we saw all of my art supplies on one side of the room and the other was set up as an office with a desk and computer. She turned and looked at me smiling. “Gia and Lairah are so awesome. They remembered the studio for you. I told them Harvey was building one for you at the New Orleans compound.”

  I was worse than a child at Christmas. I couldn’t wait for her to see her room. “I saw some other doors. Want to see what’s behind them?”

  “What else could there be besides a bathroom and closets?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to see,” I hinted and she eyed me suspiciously.

  After we inspected the bathroom and closets, I opened the last door for Chansey and she walked into the sitting room designed with her in mind. Its decor was an extension of our bedroom’s minus most of the romance. A plush gold couch stretched against a red glazed wall and it faced two built in mahogany cabinets from floor to ceiling. Her guitar rested on a stand next to the couch and I watched the smile form on her face as she realized the room was hers.

  “For me?” she asked as she smiled.

  “Yea, I wanted you to have your own room as well,” I explained.

  She wrinkled her forehead in confusion at me. “Why would I possibly need my own room all to myself?”

  “Maybe you’ll take up knitting or crocheting and need a quiet place to do it,” I laughed.

  “Well, I love it and I love you,” she said as she slipped her arms up around my shoulders and placed a slow, seductive kiss on my mouth as she arched against me. Her lips brushed along my jaw and hovered over my ear.

  “They’re asleep for the day?” she whispered.

  “Doesn’t matter if they’re not because there won’t be a sound to pass through these walls around us,” I reassured her.

  She reached for my T-shirt and pushed it up over my head and I heard her ask, “So we don’t have to hold back?” as she tossed my shirt to the floor.

  I picked her up and tossed her over my shoulder to carry her to our new bed. “As if you could hold back, Mrs. Brennan,” I laughed.

  15 Love It When A Plan Comes Together

  It was incredible how easy it was to fall asleep with Chansey pressed against me in our bed. Our bed...I loved how that sounded.

  When I woke up, I had no idea how long we had been asleep, but it felt like it must have been a long time because I felt incredibly rested. I turned to the clock to see what time it was because the vampire in me was steadily losing its natural ability to differentiate between daytime and nighttime. Eight o’clock. That meant Sol and the fledgeling were up and wondering where I was.

  “Chansey,” I whispered and she slightly stirred. “Chansey, Love, it’s eight o’clock. I have to go see Sol and the fledgeling.”

  She sat up in the bed with the sheet tucked under her arms. “Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll come with you.” She gave me a quick kiss on my mouth and said, “I want to meet my fledgeling,” Her fledgeling? Awesome.

  She slid off of the bed and gathered the clothes on the floor. She slipped on her black bra and panties and then held up a pair of jeans too big for her. She tossed them in my direction and said, “Not mine.” I reached for the jeans that landed in front of me and put them on after my boxers. I watched her put on her jeans and black blouse and I wondered how watching her get dressed could be as sexy as watching her get undressed. It was incredible.

  “Give me a sec to freshen up in the bathroom.”

  After she disappeared behind the door, I went in search of my shirt lost in the ruckus and found it on the floor of Chansey’s sitting room. I pulled it over my head as I stood in the middle of her room and looked around. It was really a great room and I knew she was going to put it to good use for something.

  “I’m ready, Curry,” I heard her call from our bedroom and I shut the door behind me as I left.

  We walked to the living room and found Solomon sitting on the couch waiting for us. He got up to give me a hug and said, “Finally! It’s about damn time you showed your ugly mug.”

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “We fell asleep and just woke up. Jet lag,” I laughed.

  I could see from his expression he wasn’t buying, but I didn’t care. “Yeah, right. I don’t think that you can blame jet lag when you never changed time zones.”

  I watched his expression completely change when he looked at my wife and then he hugged her. He looked so tender and loving, a Solomon I had never seen before. “I’m sorry, Chansey. I really didn’t want to interrupt your honeymoon. I debated about it and discussed it with Sebastian, but we couldn’t find a solution without Curry’s help, so we were forced to call.”

  I took notice how Chansey was the one to let go first. “I just thought of something. Curry never told me the fledgeling’s name.”

  “Her name is Jennifer Ferrand, but she prefers to be called Jenn.”

  “Jenn,” she repeated, as though she was repeating it so she wouldn’t forget it later. “Where is she?”

  “She’s downstairs.” He finally took his gaze from Chansey and looked at me. “A Blood Swan came today, so I gave her plenty of blood to curb her appetite for this meeting. Is it o
kay if I go ahead and bring her up to meet you? ”

  I had to be certain of Chansey’s safety. “She understands about Chansey?

  “She does.”

  “Then I’m okay with it,” I consented. “But warn her again, just so she is clear.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. “I’m not going to put Chansey in danger.”

  He left to go downstairs to get the fledgeling and Chansey asked, “He’s going to tell her you’ll kill her if she tries to come after me, isn’t he?”

  I stood with my arms crossed as I watched the door to the stairs. “After the way he looked at you just now, I think he’s telling her that he’ll be the one to kill her if she makes a move for you.”

  “I can feel that you’re jealous, but you shouldn’t be,” she whispered, as if that would keep Sol from hearing her. “Solomon thinks of me the same way you think of Gia and Lairah.”

  She was right, but I didn’t have time to agree with her because Sol came through the doorway with Jenn, the fledgeling that would help bring my human wife one step closer to becoming a vampire.

  Sol and Jenn stopped a few steps outside of the door and he was holding her hand. “Is the craving too much for you?”

  She shook her head and looked up to smile at Sol. “No. I’m okay.”

  She looked back at us and Sol introduced, “Jenn, this is Curry Brennan and his wife, Chansey.”

  She looked so young, much younger than Solomon and I were when we were turned. Her straight blonde hair was cut into long layers that hung well past her shoulders and her blue eyes were surrounded by black smokey eyeshadow.

  Chansey stepped forward to offer her hand because she was a nice Southern girl, but I quickly threw my arm in front of her to act as a barrier. She looked up at me and I shook my head to tell her it wasn’t a good idea.

  When the introductions were complete, we went into the living room to sit down and Sol announced, “We all know why we’re here, but Jenn needs to explain this situation from the beginning so there are no misunderstandings.”

  He turned to Jenn and said, “It’s okay. Go ahead and tell them everything you told me about Vincent and his coven.”