Blood Bond (Anna Strong Chronicles #9) Page 11
But in my head I see Frey’s gently frowning face and a shaking finger. Not the language to use with your mother, he’s reminding me, in a voice so real, I think he might be standing right behind me.
He’s right. I take my mother’s hand and squeeze it. “You haven’t spoiled anything. In fact, you made me realize how silly it is for Frey and me to wait to get married. And you know me.” I wink at her. “If you hadn’t made the suggestion, Frey and I would have dragged our feet, finding one excuse after the other to hang on to the status quo. I’m such a procrastinator. It would have had Dad climbing the walls.”
She laughs at that. “I can’t believe how silly he acted this morning. You’d think you were a child.”
“To him, I am. But I am sorry to have embarrassed him. I didn’t know—”
“That he was going to intrude on you so early in the morning? Don’t be silly. I told him to leave you alone. That you’d get up when you were ready, but he insisted. He should never have been at that bedroom door to begin with.”
We’re both laughing now, at the memory of Dad’s embarrassed reaction to having heard Frey and me behind that closed door. Still, though, I give myself a mental thump on the head. We are not at home and it could have been John-John or Trish dispatched to fetch us. Frey may be right about forgoing sex until after the service.
Realistically? How likely is that?
Our laughter fades. The silence stretches. Mom turns to me.
“What is it, Anna? What do you want to say to me?”
Her eyes search my face. My heart beats so furiously I’m sure she must hear. I turn away, suddenly afraid, suddenly unsure. What do I want to say?
“Anna?” Her soft voice with just one word pulls me back, insistent, demanding as the magnetic pull on a compass needle.
I meet her eyes.
“You know you can tell me anything.”
“Can I?”
Mom looks shocked. “Why would you ask that?” Her tone is hurt, reproachful.
I’m immediately swamped by guilt. I swallow hard, clench my hands in my lap. “Stupid thing to say. I’m sorry.”
She watches my hand wringing. Her expression morphs to alarm. “What is it, Anna? You’re scaring me.”
Great start. “I don’t mean to scare you. But I’m afraid I’m going to. It’s why this is so hard.”
“Go on.”
“I have a story to tell you. It’s not going to be easy for you to accept. All I ask is that you let me explain in my own way and wait until you’ve heard it all before you react.”
Mom’s eyes lock on mine, she nods. “Go on.”
The words pour out— The beginning. How I was attacked and raped. How my attacker turned out to be a vampire. How he turned me into one, too. What it means—to need human blood to survive. How I survive, where I go to feed, how the human hosts are protected and that it’s not painful for them. That I am the Chosen One, a leader who makes decisions that affect the entire vampire community—and as a result, the human community, too.
I edit as I go—some things I don’t want to share. I don’t tell her that their living in France was my doing, arranged for their protection. Or that Trish is not really my brother’s child. When Mom is gone, I want my father and Trish to find solace in each other. I tell her that Frey knows my true nature and accepts it. I don’t tell her that he and John-John are otherworldly, too. I speak quickly, afraid if I pause, I’ll stop altogether.
Then I explain what I can do for her. That I can make her whole again and immortal. That she can have many more years with Dad and Trish and that it will be tricky, but—I think of Chael’s offer—there are vampires in Europe who could show her how to feed safely. She wouldn’t be a monster. She would be like me.
When I run out of words, the silence is ponderous, pressing in on my heart until I want to cry out with the pain.
When at last my mother speaks, it is so quietly I have to bend near to catch the words.
“I don’t understand.” Her tone is stammering, uncertain. “A vampire? They’re not real. How can you imagine yourself such a creature?”
“I don’t imagine it, Mom. Think. When was the last time you saw me eat food? Touch my skin. It’s cold.” I look around, spy what I’m searching for on the dressing table. I hold the mirror up so she can see only her face is reflected there. “I cast no reflection. I don’t know why these things are, but it’s the way it is. For vampires.”
My mother’s shoulders slump, her face crumbles. She begins to cry, rasping sobs that wrack her body. I start to reach out but hold back.
Maybe the tears are because she’s repulsed. Maybe she would pull away from me in disgust. I couldn’t bear that. I stand up, step away from her bed, tears of my own cascading down my cheeks and spilling onto my hands.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have said anything. If you want Frey and John-John and me to leave, we will. We can be gone by morning. I’ll tell Dad something’s come up. That we—”
And in the next instant, Mom has pushed herself off the bed and is hugging me so tightly my words are choked off. “How long has it been like this for you?” she whispers.
“Almost two years.”
“Oh, Anna.” Her words are muffled against my shoulder. “How can you ever forgive me?”
I have to step back, too stunned by her words to do more than hold her at arm’s length to study her face in disbelief. What is she saying? “You’re not afraid of me? You don’t hate me?”
She takes a step back, too, and sits on the bedside, pulling me down to sit beside her. She cradles my face in her hands. “I’m not crying because I hate you, I’m crying because of what I’ve done to you. You’ve had to face so much alone. When you needed me most, I made you afraid to come to me. Even before, when you left teaching, I was judgmental and cruel, trying to mold you into what I wanted instead of letting you find your own way.”
I raise my hands to stop her words, but she grabs them and continues on.
“And you were attacked . . . My god . . . One of the worst things that can happen to a woman and you couldn’t come to me. I made you afraid to come to me. What kind of mother does that to her daughter?”
I’m crying again now, too, and grasping her hands like a lifeline.
Mom’s voice softens. “Instead of applauding the strong woman you are, I forced you away.” She draws a sharp breath. “I’ve heard such awful things about vampires. The blood. The killing. I never believed they existed, of course, I thought it was all fiction. But I only have to look at you to know that there is nothing inherently evil in what you’ve become.”
I put my hands over hers. She doesn’t wince at the contact. “I could make you well,” I say simply. “It would be painless. There’s a period of adjustment, but I would take care of you. We could tell the family we’re going to a clinic—to try a new treatment. When you come back, you will be strong again. The cancer will be gone. You’ll have your life back. Yes, it will be different, but I’ll stay with you as long as you need me to.”
Mom is quiet for a long moment, her eyes straying to a picture on her dresser. It’s a family portrait, taken when I was a child. My mother, father, brother and I, all in our Easter best, posing with broad smiles and happy faces.
“Thank you for offering,” she says at last. “But I can’t accept.” Her hands tighten on mine. “My faith is strong and I believe in an afterlife. I know it will be hard on Dad and Trish when I’m gone, but they have you and Daniel and each other. I think it was God’s plan to bring Trish into our lives, knowing I had not long to live.”
She pats my hand. “We will be together again one day. You and your brother and the daughter he never met. All of us, when it is time. For now, it seems you have a destiny to fulfill. An important destiny. And you will soon have a husband and a wonderful little boy to raise. Make the most of your time with them, Anna. Don’t let it slip away.”
Then we’re hugging again, holding each other tightly. Mom’s voice at my ear.
“I am so proud of you, Anna. So proud of the woman you’ve become. You are so much stronger than I have ever been.”
After a long moment, she breaks away. She’s frowning. “I suppose this isn’t something we should share with your father.” Her expression is serious, but her words carry a hint of humor.
“Probably not,” I agree. “At least for now. He has enough to deal with, I think, without the knowledge that his daughter is not exactly normal anymore.”
“Then it will be our secret.” Mom pats my cheek. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll tell him when I think he’s ready.”
A shudder wracks her body. She leans back against her pillows, her face drained of color. “I think I’d better rest now. We have another big day tomorrow.”
I bend over her, tucking the blankets around her, trying to keep the alarm from my face. “We will take care of everything,” I reply. “If you want to spend the day in bed, you just do it.”
She smiles—a real, genuine smile full of love and acceptance and it warms me. Suddenly, I feel better, lighter in spirit, than I have in days. I sit at her bedside until she drifts off.
It’s only as I tiptoe out of the room that sadness descends once again.
I glance back at my sleeping mother. In some ways, telling her about me, offering her the chance to overcome the illness strafing her body was a victory.
In other ways, though, it was a bitter defeat, because for all my talk of immortality, I can do nothing now to save her.
* * *
FREY FINDS ME LYING IN THE DARK—CURLED ON OUR bed, knees drawn to chest. He shuts the door quietly and slips into bed beside me, letting me burrow back against him.
“I guess I don’t have to ask how it went,” he says.
My voice is a soft monotone when I recount the conversation. When I finish, he strokes my hair.
“Your mother’s faith in her own kind of eternal life is strong,” he says. “She does not fear death. It isn’t surprising that she wouldn’t agree to be turned.”
“But she’s not thinking of anyone else,” I snap. “She’s being selfish. She’s not thinking of what her death means to Trish or Dad or me. We need her.”
I’m crying again, angry tears that burn hot and seem to sizzle on my skin. Frey’s arms tighten around my waist but he doesn’t say what I know he must be thinking. He simply waits for me to say what he knows I will.
“That was stupid, wasn’t it?” I struggle into a seated position, wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt and shifting so I’m facing Frey. “I just called my dying mother selfish. She accepted what I told her. Made me feel accepted and loved. Even apologized for criticizing my life choices when I left teaching. And I just called her selfish.”
Frey is smiling, one arm resting behind his head on the pillow. “You didn’t mean it. I understand.”
I snuggle back down beside him. “How do you put up with me?”
“It’s a constant struggle.”
I push myself back up. “One thing I didn’t tell her,” I say, half turning so I can look at him. “Is the part sex plays in the vampire dynamic.”
“Probably a good thing,” he says, slipping his free arm around my waist. “That might have been a little too much information.”
Then I’m smiling, too. To a vampire, sex and feeding warm the blood. They are the two things that make our bodies feel alive, feel human. The two things that make what would be an intolerable existence endurable. I read the fire in Frey’s eyes, know what he’s thinking, feeling. He understands. He always has.
“So do you really think we should practice abstinence for the next couple of days?” I ask, pulling my sweater over my head.
Frey sits up straighter. “Probably. We don’t want to cause your dad any more embarrassment.”
Leaning down, I gather Frey’s T-shirt at the waist and strip it off, dropping it on the floor.
“Or we could be very, very quiet.” I’ve got his jeans unzipped about the same time he’s managed to lower mine and we kick out of them together.
He pins me beneath him. He’s hard and ready and I raise my hips. When he slides inside, he moans, a deep, guttural cry of joyful abandon.
“Yikes.” I push a finger against his lips. “We have to be quiet, remember?”
Even in the dark, I see the color spread up his face. He drops his head momentarily, then with a wicked gleam, begins to move. He drives my passion ahead of his own with each thrust and at the moment of climax, when I forget myself, he smothers my own joyful cry with his lips.
After, when we’re lying together, spent, sated, I hear his soft laughter. “See?” he says, tracing a finger along my backbone. “Being with you is a constant struggle.”
CHAPTER 19
MOM IS DOWN EARLY FOR BREAKFAST THE NEXT morning. She looks so much better, rested, relaxed. I’m determined to see she stays that way. We share a conspiratorial smile and a quick hug before taking our places at the table. Trish and John-John are deep in a good-natured discussion about who would win in a duel to the death—Iron Man or The Hulk. Even with the age difference, John-John seems to be holding his own.
Frey and Dad discuss the wine business; Mom and I go over the wedding list one last time. There really is nothing to do today but fill out that questionnaire from the wedding planner and wait to hear back about when we’ll meet. The real action takes place tomorrow when David and Tracey get in and the grounds are turned into an open-air wedding chapel.
I insist Mom spend the day relaxing. The next two days are going to be more than a challenge. She gives in reluctantly, but does give in. She rises from the table to go up to her room when the front doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it,” she says, switching directions to head for the door.
Conversation between the rest of us—me, Frey, Dad and the kids—swirls around how to spend our Saturday.
But as soon as I pick up on what’s happening at the front door, I’m on my feet. Frey raises an eyebrow, but I wave him off and make my way to join my mother.
She smiles when she sees me. “Look who’s here, Anna. Your friend Monsieur Chael.” She switches her smile to Chael. “Have you come for the wedding?”
Smooth as only the best charmers can be, Chael has taken my mother’s hand and raised it to his lips. “Of course, Madame Strong. I wouldn’t miss it.”
My eyes widen. You speak English?
I’ve been practicing.
Mom shepherds Chael to the dining room, looking back over her shoulder to mouth at me, “Is he—?”
I bob my head in quick affirmation. Her eyes widen and she opens her mouth again in a silent “Oh my.” But she doesn’t miss a beat; she makes the introductions and at Chael’s acknowledgment of each person in English, Frey’s eyebrows shoot up, too.
Chael turns down an offer of coffee and turns to me. “I apologize for disturbing your breakfast. But I have a message for you from another old friend.”
Dad motions to the kids. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Chael. If you’ll excuse us, we’ll let you speak in private.”
I wait until they disappear through the kitchen door, Mom following, and turn to Chael.
“You speak English?”
“I told you I’ve been practicing.”
“So why didn’t you tell us?”
“You didn’t ask.”
I ball my fists to keep from smacking him. “You have a message for me?”
Frey puts a finger to his lips and bobs his head in the direction of a cacophony of cheery voices coming from the kitchen. “Let’s go outside.”
Good idea. I motion Chael ahead and we step through the front door into the bright sunshine. But before Chael tells us what he came for, he puts a hand on my arm.
“I am sorry about your mother. She is very sick. I am glad you are here. It will make her last days easier.”
My stomach lurches. “What do you know of her last days?”
He touches the tips of his fingers together. “I felt it when we touched. She does
n’t have much time.” He looks at me from beneath a furrowed brow. “If you wish it, I could arrange for her to be brought over. It would be painless. We could spirit her away to another land where she could learn to live as we do. In time, you could be reunited.”
I see Chael in a different light. For the second time, he is offering me a gift—he’s offering to save my mother. There is sincerity in his words just as there is sympathy in his thoughts. In his way, he is trying to be kind.
“I appreciate the gesture,” I say, finding I mean it. “But my mother believes in a god that offers her a different kind of eternal life. She is at peace.”
Frey takes my hand as he directs his words to Chael. “You said you could ‘feel’ that she hasn’t much time. How is that possible?”
“In my mortal life, I was a healer,” Chael replies. “I was born with the ability to diagnose through touch. The gift has become stronger with time.”
We have been strolling toward the vineyards. I wonder why I wasn’t given such a gift. My talents seem to lay in brute strength and physical prowess. Worthless talents. If I could have felt Mom’s illness in December, maybe—
You are wrong. Chael is in my head. You have the ability to lead. That is an extraordinary gift in itself and not to be thought of as worthless. As the Chosen One, you determine whether we live in peace with mortals or war against them. Given the choice, I’m sure your mother would prefer you as protectorate.
I think back to her words last night. In a way, she would.
She said I had a destiny to fulfill.
Frey stirs beside me. “I’m assuming the message you came to deliver is from Steffan?”
His words bring Chael and me back to the reason for his visit. For a moment, I’d almost forgotten.
Chael nods. “Yes. King Steffan is requesting the honor of your company at a small party tonight. If it is convenient, of course.”
Frey and I look at each other.
“If it’s convenient, huh?” Frey is grinning. “Well, Anna, it’s up to you. This will be one of our last free nights before the wedding.”