VA 2 - Blood Jewel (35 page)

She huffed and said, “Thank you. I
really needed to hear that.”

I watched her eyes in the mirror as
she watched me kiss her neck. “And don’t you be forgetting any time
soon how beautiful you are, Mrs. Brennan.” I moved to the spot
between her neck and shoulder that always sent chills down her
body.

“Maybe I should show you how
beautiful you are after the celebration,” I proposed.

“You keep on and you’ll be showing
me before the celebration,” she threatened.

I moved around to the other side of
her neck and kissed it slowly. “Hmm...I believe that is the best
idea I’ve heard all day.”

“I think it’s rather brilliant
myself, but we have guests waiting. It would be rude to keep them
waiting any longer.”

I pushed her dress strap away and
kissed her shoulder. “I’ve never been known for caring if I was
rude or not.”

I heard her heart rate increase
while her breath quickened. She leaned into me instinctively and I
knew she was close to giving me the green light, but then my go
ahead was interrupted when we heard a knock on the door. “I bet
that’s Sol. I’ll get rid of him. Don’t move a muscle because I’ll
be right back.”

I swung the door open to find Gia,
Lairah, Jenn and Avery. “We came to see if Chansey needed help
getting ready.”

Gia looked at me with a look of
suspicion on her face. “Are we interrupting something?”

Chansey walked out of the bathroom
and gracefully glided across the floor in her sparkling gown. “No,
you weren’t interrupting anything. I’m ready. We’ll be right
out.”

The little vixen was actually
cutting me off.

She gave me a wink as she
whispered, “You’ll enjoy it even more if you get to fantasize about
it for a few hours.”

“Maybe I had already fantasized
about it for hours. Did you ever think about that?”

“No, I didn’t,” she said as she
kissed my mouth. “My bad.”

“Yes, you are bad...very, very
bad,” I groaned.

She gave me her pouty look and it
made things worse because I wanted to nibble her pouty bottom lip.
“Forgive me?”

“I will if you promise to make
that face for me later tonight,” I said.

Even in her heels, she was still
several inches shorter than me and she stared up through her
impossibly long lashes as she whispered, “I think I can do that for
you.”

I offered her my arm and then we
strolled to the living room where our family and guests were.
Everyone was dressed in formalwear and the ladies all wore shades
of white, silver or ice blue to reflect the colors of
Winter.

Sol was the first to greet us.
“Chansey, you are glowing. Pregnancy is beautiful on
you.”

“Watch it, pal. She’s taken,” I
faux warned. “There’s plenty of other women for you to flirt with
besides my wife.”

His face turned from humorous to
something else...something sad and I immediately wanted to take
back my words for some reason.

“I’m sorry, Sol,” I apologized. “I
was only joking.”

“No, it’s not you, Curry,” Sol
explained. “I’m just having some issues I need to work
through.”

“Anything I can do to help? You
know that you can talk to me about anything,” I offered.

“No, it’s a problem I need to work
out on my own and I just need a little time to figure some things
out. Don’t spend tonight worrying about me. We’re having this party
so we can have fun and relax.”

He smiled and patted my shoulder.
“I’ll catch up with you later, man. I’m going to go talk to Mallory
Black. I think she’s hotter than she was the last time I saw
her.”

Something was off with Sol, but I
couldn’t put my finger on it and that bothered me.

“Is he alright?”

“No, something is definitely going
on with him, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Have you asked him what’s
wrong?”

I thought about how little Sol and
I had spoken recently. I hadn’t asked Sol anything about his life
because I was too wrapped up in my own life to have any concerns
for anyone else. “I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t asked him
anything. There’s been so little on my mind other than you and
these babies, but I promise to find the time to talk to him later
tonight.”

We mingled through the room and all
of our guests wanted to be introduced to the beautiful pregnant
human at the party. They found Chansey intriguing and when one
guest was sated by her attention, the next would be in line to
steal her from me.

This went on for a few hours and I
decided to take the opportunity to try to speak with Sol. When I
didn’t find him inside, I walked out to the pool and found him
sitting on the patio.

“It’s December. What are you doing
out here?”

“I thought the cold might help
clear my mind.”

“Has it?”

“No.”

“What’s going on with you,
Sol?”

“It’s nothing you would
understand.”

“Why don’t you try me? I might not
have experienced what you’re going through, but that doesn’t mean I
can’t help you through whatever is going on with you.”

He stared ahead toward the dark
behind the compound. “I feel ridiculous saying this, but it’s about
a girl.”

Jenn Ferrand. “A pretty little
blonde living at our compound, perhaps?”

“Exactly! She makes me crazy. I
can’t stop thinking about her. She smells so good and I want to
touch her so badly, but I’m afraid. I can’t sleep anymore because I
lay awake thinking about her. I think I’m in love with her, but I
know I shouldn’t be.”

“Who says that you shouldn’t be in
love with her?”

He turned and looked at me like I
had lost my mind. Was he referring to his authority over her as her
mentor? “You know why I can’t be in love with her.”

Did I know? There was nothing wrong
with a mentor falling in love with someone he helped transition. “I
don’t agree. I think it’s...”

I stopped mid sentence because
something was wrong with Chansey. I heard her screams in my head
and I felt her suddenly engulfed with pain and fear. I streaked
into the house and looked around for her.

“She’s in here, Curry,” Sebastian
called from the living room. “Dr. Knight had just left, Lairah is
on the phone with her and she’s turning around to come
back.”

I was immediately by Chansey’s side
and I took her hand as she screamed in agony. “Where does it hurt,
Love?”

She didn’t answer and I noticed the
crowd standing around staring at Chansey. “If you don’t live in
this house, I need you to leave now,” I yelled.

I reached for Chansey’s forehead to
wipe the sweat from her head. “Love, you have to tell me what’s
happening. Are you in pain from contractions?”

“It’s Marsala,” she whimpered.
“She’s doing something to me.”

No, it couldn’t be. “What is it?
What does it feel like?”

“Like something is shoving on my
belly trying to push the babies out.”

I reached for the hem of her
evening gown and pulled it up over her belly. She began to scream
again and I watched as Chansey’s abdomen became contorted like an
invisible fist was pushing down into it. I reached to the spot
where the invisible fist would be, but I felt nothing and I
realized that I couldn’t do anything to help her.

I whirled around to look at
Sebastian and he shook his head. “She’s using Black Magic and I
don’t know how to stop it.”

“Think! There has to be something
we can do to help her.” When no one offered any kind of solution, I
screamed, “Please stop, Marsala.”

“Curry, I can hear Marsala in my
head. She says she will stop on one condition and if you don’t
agree, she is going to kill me and the baby.”

The baby? “I’ll do anything you
want, but please don’t hurt Chansey and the baby.”

“No! I won’t allow it,” Chansey
yelled and then the pushing on her belly started again, causing her
to scream out in agony again.

“Stop, Marsala. What is your
demand?” I yelled.

Chansey stopped screaming and
panted to catch her breath before she whispered, “She says that you
must come back to her with the baby if you want me to live, but
she’s not getting my baby. She’s not getting you.”

The cycle of pushing on her abdomen
and her screams began and I couldn’t stand to see Chansey in pain,
“Okay. I’ll do it, but please stop hurting Chansey. You could hurt
the baby if you keep pushing on her uterus and I know you don’t
want to hurt our baby.”

Chansey whirled her head in my
direction. “You’re not doing this, Curry.”

“I don’t have a choice, Chansey.
She’s going to kill you if I don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter because if you
leave me and take the baby, I’ll want to die anyway.”

“I have to. She’s not giving me a
choice.”

“I’ll hate you forever if you do
this.”

“I rather you live and hate me
than watch her kill you and our baby.” I leaned forward and stared
deeply into her eyes. “Do you understand what I’m
saying?”

Every word was a lie for Marsala’s
benefit and I pushed my emotions into Chansey’s brain as I stared
into her eyes so she would know I didn’t mean the words coming from
my mouth. I would never let Marsala win and unfortunately for her,
I knew how she ticked and it gave me the upper hand.

I felt her understanding in my head
and knew she going to play along, but it still hurt like hell when
she squeezed her eyes tightly and said, “I hate you
forever.”

Dr. Knight rushed through the front
door and to Chansey’s side. “What is happening?”

“A vampire used Black Magic to
squeeze Chansey’s abdomen. It was very hard and I’m afraid she
might have hurt her badly,” I said as I stood and ran my hands
through my hair.

“Curry, I need you to listen to
the babies and see if they both have heartbeats,” Dr. Knight
ordered.

I hadn’t even thought of that. I
lowered my head to Chansey’s belly, like I had a million times, and
prayed as I listened for the heartbeats of my children. Both of
them. I shut my eyes so I could concentrate and differentiate
between the two. There was always about a ten beat per minute
difference between them, but that’s not what I heard. One sounded
like it’s normal rate and the other was faster, a lot faster, and I
smelled blood. I lifted my head, expecting to see blood gushing
from Chansey, but I saw none.

“One heartbeat is normal. The
other is a lot faster than normal and I smelled blood, even though
I don’t see it,” I told Dr. Knight.

She began to feel of Chansey’s
uterus. “The smell of blood, her uterus being very rigid and the
baby having tachycardia lead me to believe the trauma to her
abdomen has caused a silent abruption.”

“What does that mean?’

“I believe her placenta is
bleeding inside her uterus and that means we’re going to the
hospital for a c-section right now. We don’t have time for an
ambulance come for her. We’ll transport her by car. Carry her to my
car and I’ll call and tell them to have an OR ready and waiting for
us.”

“She needs to lie on her left side
in the car so she will get better cardiac output to perfuse more
oxygen to the babies,” Dr. Knight instructed me as I picked Chansey
up and carried her to the car. I laid her across the back seat on
her left side with her head in my lap.

I stroked her hair away from her
face as Dr. Knight pulled from the drive onto the road. “I’m so
sorry this happened, Love.”

This could not be happening. I
couldn’t even protect my family from that monster! No more hiding.
No more running. Marsala was on her way for me and I would be ready
for her when she arrived. She no longer had the power of sire over
me. The broken bond between us gave me the release I needed to be
able to kill her and that was exactly what I planned on
doing.

31
Until Another Day

Dr. Knight screeched to a stop
under the awning at the admissions desk and a crowd of nurses were
waiting with a stretcher for Chansey. Dr. Knight immediately began
shouting orders to them as they rolled Chansey into the
hospital.

I ran alongside the stretcher
holding her hand until they rolled her into an exam room to prep
her for surgery. I stood helplessly against the wall as I watched
them do what was necessary and I was reminded of the time I carried
Chansey into the emergency room after Julian kidnapped and drugged
her.

Someone tossed scrubs, a surgery
hat and a mask my way and said, “Here, put these on if you’re going
back with us.”

“He’s going,” Dr. Knight
announced.

Chansey was prepped for surgery in
under four minutes and Dr. Knight said, “Let’s move it to the OR,
guys.”

I followed behind them and Dr.
Knight walked next to me. “Chansey will have to go to sleep for
surgery because we don’t have time to do a spinal and wait for it
to work. Things are going to move really fast once we get in there,
but no matter what happens with the babies, you remember what you
may have to do, right?”