Page 44 of Resurrection
She headed across the room as Waverly approached alone. He was a bear of a man, easily six foot four, and huge through the shoulders, a ginger tint to his hair, and a well-maintained, but long beard decorated his face, and actually seemed to soften the small bead of his dark eyes. “Boss,” Waverly said, sitting down across from Gabe.
The girls hovered near their table, all seeming a bit nervous. If this was how the evening was going to go, it would be brutal. Gabe didn’t care for unwilling food, or worse, scared food. It was a solid realization that had him sitting up straighter as he examined them. “I’m supposed to pick from them? Do you have anything not so skittish?”
Waverly laughed, a booming, almost affectionate sound that did nothing to ease Gabe’s headache, but did make him feel like he’d heard it before, many times. “I wondered about that. Thought maybe you liked skittish now. Though last time I met that witch of yours he was mostly steel instead of willow. But I brought Angelica too.” He waved his big meaty paw toward the bar and a woman stood. She was no scared kid, but a woman probably closer to forty than twenty, the vague beginning of lines near her eyes indicated she smiled a lot. And she wasn’t the thin twig the others were, instead curved and proud in tight jeans and a low-cut top. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, brown eyes confident.
She crossed the room without the hesitation or fear the other girls had shown and sat down in Waverly’s lap. He wrapped a firm arm around her and delivered a kiss, before saying, “He doesn’t like the chickens.”
“Who does?” She asked. Angelica held out her hand toward Gabe. The entire arm a bare stretch of flesh that shouldn’t have been all that interesting. But the blue trace of veins beneath, and thick smell of blood had Gabe clutching the table, his stomach trying to claw its way up into his throat. “It’s okay to be a bit rough,” she assured him. “I’m not as young as I look. Or fragile.”
“She’ll be changed in the next year or so,” Waverly added. “Had her almost a half century now?” His gaze met hers, as though he was confirming the dates. It didn’t seem possible that she could be that old.
Gabe’s teeth seemed to throb. Oddly enough, his cock didn’t react. Not like it had to Seiran when they’d been in the kitchen. Though he could smell her blood and felt himself begin to salivate. He blinked, his vision narrowing a little. But he took her hand, and luckily did not get a rush of memories from her. Either they hadn’t met before, or had very little contact.
And he hesitated, breathing in the scent of her blood, warm and fresh, not the decadent chocolate cake with fresh strawberries. More like spice and mulled wine. He pressed his lips to one vein, feeling it beneath the skin like a heartbeat. He knew in that instant a dozen things he’d forgotten. Like how to bite with precision, and heal a wound. He didn’t realize he’d actually punctured flesh until the hot bite of her blood flooded over his tongue. Not as good as his witch, but so much better than a bag.
Seasoned, Zoe had said. Yes. He very much preferred seasoned. He heard the small sounds coming from her, Waverly kissing her, their gaze locked, as he shifted the pain to pleasure for her. Gabe worried he’d drink too deeply, but Waverly reached out a hand, and laid it over the back of Gabe’s.
The memories were a sudden jolt like being struck with lightning. Gabe could do little more than hold on.
Chapter 15
Seiran worked to shove back the well of emotion battering him. He didn’t have the right to feel betrayed. He knew Gabe would need to eat, and not just blood from bags or him. He’d done enough reading, and asked plenty of questions over the years, to know the many things Gabe hadn’t shared back then. And bottled blood, which was no longer a thing, meant that vampires would need regular donors. The stuff from the bags, even as tested and monitored as it was, lacked a lot of the living nutrients and magic essence needed to sustain a vampire.
But logic, as sound as it was, couldn’t alleviate emotion, which was anything but logical. The anxiety over Gabe having to go back to ground intensified too. What if he hadn’t been ready? What if he went nuts and hurt one of the kids? What if Seiran ended up alone again? He supposed that was the least of all evils if he was being honest.
Gabe hadn’t been back long enough for him to get attached. Except that standing in that field, surrounded by horrors, and wrapped in strong, comforting arms? Nothing could compare with that. Maybe that was a memory he could hold on to for a while.
Seiran mounted the stairs in a rush, passing Jamie without comment. He had a feeling this separation—Mike showing up as he did to take Gabe—the verysecondthey arrived, was Jamie’s fault. He couldn’t help but be mad, even if Jamie was probably right. But he had more important things to deal with than his own struggles right now. His baby needed him.
Inside the entry, Kaine waited, looking small, like he rarely did, closer to his actual human age than his siblings, but the unmistakable fire of his hair and giant blue anime-looking eyes made Seiran just want to wrap him up in hugs forever. Technically, in the human realm, he was ten. And at that moment, he looked it, unfinished, young and afraid. Little more than a child, and not trying to mimic those around him with glamour and fae magic. Seiran grabbed his baby and squeezed, holding on tight. “What’s wrong?”
Kaine collapsed into Seiran’s arms, his face snuffling into Sei’s neck where it met his shoulder, hot tears finding their way to his skin.
“Oh, baby,” Seiran said, “Talk to me.” He carried Kaine through the house and out to the arboretum, where everything was still and silent. The only lights were decorative, rather than the rolling glow of the fae. The twins had a strong affinity to the earth, but this was Kaine’s play zone, as the other two had mostly outgrown the space. Toward the back there were a handful of beehives, full of fat honeybees that lived and loved the space year-round. But even their buzzing was quiet and distant this late at night.
Seiran sat them on a stone bench near the little water fountain Kelly had added a decade back. The sound a delicate gurgle of rolling water, soothing as they sat among the blooms. He let Kaine cry. Didn’t try to pry out whatever might be wrong, simply held him, rocked him, and whispered soft comforting things.
“I’m here,” Seiran promised. He would never abandon his kids. The earth would have to reclaim him first. The fae weren’t as kind, didn’t really think of themselves in the parental sort of way. He didn’t fault Bryar for that. Bryar tried more than most of the fae would, spent time with Kaine, tried to teach him things, and offer comfort. He copied a lot of things Seiran did, trying to provide for a child who wasn’t really wholly part of either world. They all sort of forgot sometimes, with the intense power that Kaine showed most days, that he was still part human, even if that part was witch.
Seiran hummed and sang a little. He didn’t do lullabies, had never really learned them, even in the children’s youngest days. They’d always been fonder of popular music. He sang through a couple Christina Perri songs he knew, the crooning easier than most of the more upbeat stuff the kids enjoyed. It wasn’t about the words anyway.
When the tears slowed and Kaine breathed deeply against him, he gently asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Kaine clung a while longer, time passing, but no one bothered them. Seiran hoped the other two were in bed at least. “It’s not fair,” Kaine whispered in a half-broken breath.
“No,” Seiran agreed. Nothing was fair. He didn’t know what at this particular moment, but found few things were. “Can you tell me about it?”
“The babies died.”
“Okay, which babies? Fae babies?” He didn’t think so as fae children were rare, at least among Kaine’s class of fae, which had been part of his agreement with them. The fae valued power. Magic created the fae, so Seiran’s power combined with a fae was certain to create a powerful child. And it had, but not one that really fit in either world. They thought they had all the answers, but Kaine was too human for them.
“Bunnies,” Kaine corrected.
“Okay. We had bunnies?” There weren’t any wild animals in the arboretum. Just the bees and occasionally the fae. And on the new moon they all shifted to play, the twins as foxes, Seiran as his lynx, even Jamie as the big bear he was, though he often swam with Kelly. Kaine bounced around in forms, able to have many without any sort of trouble. He seemed almost weightless most days, flying high without fetter. Seiran hoped his baby wouldn’t one day float away never to be seen again.
“Outside,” Kaine agreed.
“We had baby bunnies outside and they died?”