Hard Days Night (The Firsts Book 8) (18 page)

“Look, you can’t know what happened to him.  You can’t find him in your condition.  You’ve been traumatized.  I think you’re experiencing a mild form of PTSD.  I think the Captain is right.  For your safety, and so that you can put your mind at rest and really get well, you need to disappear and just take care of yourself.”

Bev scooted closer to Mal and brushed back her wild, disheveled hair.  “Would you like me to go with you?”

“I’m not a child, Bev.  I can take care of myself.  And, yes, please, if you could, I would love you to come. I need you, my friend.”

Although she considered herself a mountain of strength, Bev wasn’t surprised that, even with all of her training and responsibilities, this strong, independent woman she’d befriended brought tears to her eyes.  There was just something so vulnerable about a woman who defended the world the way Mal did, and had no idea how to live in it.

“I’ll go home and pack.  Why don’t you book us two first class tickets?  Here, use my name and this credit card. I have a
lot
of unused frequent flyer miles. Let’s go tonight.  They usually have first class seats available at short notice prices.  I’m actually excited!  I’ve never been to Hawaii!”

Mal smiled.  “It really
is
paradise.  You’ll love it.  Okay, let’s do it. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

Bev left, closing the door firmly.  Mal stood in the middle of her apartment, the phone in her hand, and knew that she had forgotten something important.

Jeffrey Kordalis wondered how this was going to go in the end.  He was almost certain that Luka was dead.  No one had found anything at all, and Canzone was locked up tighter than a vacuum seal, protected from everything the police department wanted to do. 

Everything
that he’d worked so hard for was getting fucked up by a man too powerful and too corrupted to touch.

All he
wanted at this moment was to make sure Mal was safe.  He hoped like hell Bev could convince her to go.

A large bottle of Maker’s Mark lay in the bottom desk drawer, mostly abandoned, but tonight, he needed a stiff drink.  The office was empty, everyone putting in more than their shift, but he wasn’t going home tonight.  Somehow, he felt closer to his missing officer right here, right now, in this place where he’d last seen Luka Huerta.

God, he prayed he was wrong.

He glanced again at the bottle, and reached into the drawer.

C
hapter 9

The place looked just like she remembered it.

Mal paused before she walked up the stone steps that led to the doorway.

“It’s pretty,” Bev said.

“It’s a piece of heaven.  Wait until you see the view from the back. 
Breathtaking doesn’t even come close.  I played there until I was in school, and then rushed home and burst out onto that deck the second I got back.  Mom laughed at me almost every day.”

“You have good childhood memories,” Bev said, but it was more of an inquiry.  She noticed that Mal didn’t answer right away.

They continued to the door, where Mal entered a key and pushed it wide. 

Bev understood immediately as they stepped inside. 

A large room with a long glass wall faced them.  The sea beyond the glass wall pulled her across the room right behind Mal, past sheet-covered furniture, where they both just stared for several seconds.

“Wow,” Bev said softly.

“Very happy memories,” Mal finally said.

Mal
glided the sliding glass doors aside and they both stepped out to a strong, cool breeze that shoved past them into the room that had been closed up for over a decade.

“I can’t believe you left.”

Mal looked at Bev.  “I didn’t.  My father did, and I was still a child, so I had no choice.  Once, I asked if we could come back. He had been drinking, and he was usually more mellow then, so I asked him if we could go home.  He looked at me and said, ‘As soon as your mother does, we will too.’  I never asked again.”

“I’m sorry, Mal.  Your mother sounds amazing.”

“She was the prettiest, funniest, smartest person I’ve ever known. I’ve never stopped missing her.  I never will.”

Bev put an arm around Mal as they both watched a sailboat in the distance.

“Neither has your father, obviously.”

Mal shook her head. 
Then pulled back to look at Bev.

“We should get the groceries in.  I’ll go back down for some ice in a little while.  The grocery store at the bottom of the road is small, but they have basics. 
A lot of booze.  I think I’ll pick up some bottles so we can entertain ourselves.”

“Is your father really coming?”

“He said he is.  I won’t be surprised either way.”

“
Where should I put the luggage?”

“There are only two bedrooms.
”  Mal walked into one of the bedrooms with Bev behind her. “We’ll use this room and share.  We never had beds, so I’ll make us a roomy pallet.  Dad will take the other one if he comes.”  Mal paused.  “This was the room he shared with my mother.  I doubt he’d want to sleep here.”

Bev nodded and carried the two small suitcases in as Mal carried several cloth bags with groceries into the small kitchen. 

She thought she would be overwhelmingly sad, coming back after all of these years, her mother long gone.  But something inside of her belly was thrilled to be home, and she put a hand to her chest. 

“I’m home, mom,” she whispered.

An hour later, lying on the deck, Bev rolled the ice around in her glass.

“This deck is incredible.  What is it, thirty, forty,
feet long?”

“Fifty-two.
  Mom wanted it as long as possible, and it was as wide as they could make it without cutting into the rock.”

“Outstanding. I think I would have loved your mother.”

“Everyone did.  That’s another reason the deck was so big.  The house is small, but we had big parties.  Over there, near that cutout, see?   That’s where we would dive into the sea.”

“What?  That’s ridiculous!”

“We were daredevils back then.  It was a wonderful way to grow up.”

“May I ask?  How did she die?”

“Nothing remarkable.  Breast cancer.  So far along when they found it, she never got a chance to fight.  It seems like they told her she had it, and before I could blink, we were saying goodbye.  She died in the room where we’re sleeping.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

Mal smiled and took a sip of wine.  “It’s okay.  Really, I feel better now than I have since…”  She trailed off, then looked at Bev.  “Maybe since I left.  I don’t know, but it’s serene here.  I think this is exactly what I needed.”

That tickle welled up from her belly again and she put her hand against the bare skin above her bikini bottoms.

“My tummy is certainly happy.  It’s like I have butterflies, but
happy
butterflies, since we landed at the airport.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Bev said, and took another long sip, then dropped back to rest against the back of her lounger.

“Let’s just stay here,” she sighed, her eyes closed.

“Sure.  We’ll write novels and live off the land,” Mal agreed.

“Historical romances, right?”

“Hot
, sexy thrillers that sizzle.  With vampires,” Mal followed up, and felt a little odd.

Bev opened her eyes.  “I didn’t know you read fantasies.”

“Vampires aren’t fantasies,” Mal said suddenly, then blinked at herself.

Bev laughed.  “Okay, girl, one more bottle of wine, and I’m cutting you off!”

Mal laughed too.  Both women laid back and watched the star-filled sky.  Mal wondered why the hell she’d said that, and why the hell she really believed it was true.

IN SOUTH AFRICA

Ahmose set Eras aside as Starla brought him another plate.

“You have to stop feeding me, Star. And you’re getting close to delivery.  Shouldn’t you be sitting down?”

“What am I?  Human?”

Jacob joined them, with two plates, and set one in front of his mate.  “Starla, sit your ass down and finish.  We guys have got the boy, so all you have to do is relax.”

“I can’t.  She’s restless tonight, and so am I.  Will you walk with me to the falls after we eat?”

Ahmose would have protested, but Jacob was her mate, and perhaps the wiser man.

“Yes, my love,” Jacob answered.

Eras grabbed a
spoon and banged it on the edge of the table.  Ahmose took it away and turned to fill another spoon with some softened food for him, when the spoon he’d taken from his son lifted from the tabletop and floated back to him.

Starla and Jacob watched while Ahmose grabbed the spoon.

“These children are going to be unmanageably powerful,” he said to Eras’s other two parents.

Jacob tore into a thick piece of bread. 
“Um, humh.”

“Helpful.”
  Ahmose turned to the child.  “Eras, no magic. No magic, my boy, until you are older.”

Starla grinned, her hand on her expanded belly.

“You tell him, Pop!”

Ahmose rolled his head away.  Yes, he knew they were in for a crazy ride with all of the unexpected numbers of first blood children arriving, for the first time in history.  They all agreed now that something epic was coming.

Across the gardens where the first bloods gathered for first meal buffets, he saw Chione leading Luka to a table near the perimeter.

“Excuse me.  I need to check on my new vampire.  Jacob, will you tend to our son?”

“On it,” Jacob said, and slid the little boy’s chair closer.

“Be nice, son, or I’ll sic your mother on you.  She’s badass tonight.”

“Don’t be argumentative, dad, or you’ll end up without…”  She dropped her hand to his lap, and tugged at the strings of his loose fitting pants.  “Attention to this, tonight.”

Jacob behaved.

Luka watched the massive man approach.  His sire.  The man who made him vampire, saved his life, and wrecked it all at once.

“Good evening, Chione,” Ahmose said as he arrived.

“Master,” she replied, eyes downcast.

Luka thought it was bullshit, that these people treated him like a king.  In this day and age, the idea that someone must be revered because of
who they were.  Ahmose was just a man.  Well, an enormous one…who had been born a vampire, and as such extraordinarily powerful.  Probably had an enormous cock. 
Shut up,
Luka
, he told himself.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” Ahmose asked Luka as he took a seat across from Luka and Chione.

Luka could feel Chione’s eyes on him.  She was waiting for him to fuck this up, to be rude to this important member of this community.  So he wouldn’t disappoint her.

“As well as possible when you’ve lost everything,” he answered.

“You haven’t lost everything.  You loved Mal, am I right?”

Luka shot a hostile look at Ahmose. 
What the hell did
he know?

Ahmose raised a hand and waved it.  “Never mind, I know you did.  Luka, I told you this when you were converting but I see you may not have remembered.  Mal asked me to convert you.  She asked me to
save
your life.  So you see, you are a living legacy to her love for
you
.  I have not only kept you alive, I have given you centuries to discover how you can rebuild what you had.  No, it is not the same.  But this life is magic.  I won’t tolerate surliness in this community.  So take your time, adjust, adapt, but know that I expect you to be a committed, productive, loving, member of this village if you are to stay.”

Luka
glared into Ahmose’s dark eyes.  “Maybe I won’t.”

“That is entirely up to you.  Well, I have said what I came to say. Chione, you are a goddess to take care of this one.  Don’t let him spoil you.”

“My mood remains intact, master.”

“All right.
Enjoy your meal.  And Chione, I wish you would call me by my name.”

She lowered her head and smiled.

As he walked away, Ahmose drew forth Mal’s image.  Her face remained etched in his mind, her generous heart close to his.  He hadn’t forgotten one moment of his time with her, so much so, he had not wanted any other woman since he returned.  Sex was as vital for a vampire as blood, but he was functionally celibate.  He’d be okay, eventually he would take another lover, but right now, when he thought of another woman, he found that he was just uninterested.