Cherry Blossom (Vampire Cherry Book 2) (8 page)

Mom kept the subject light while we made the double bed. She told me Dad had made her a small vegetable garden in the back yard, and how she’d love to have a cherry tree, but the climate just wasn’t right. I let the sound of her voice caress my ears. It had been forever since we last chatted about little, everyday things. It was so comfortable and soothing.

“Are you taking the sofa, or are you and Alex sharing the bed?” she asked, when we moved to the pullout.

There went the easy chitchat. “We live together,” I blurted, smoothing an invisible crease on the bottom sheet. “All of us. Well, not
that
way. I mean, Alex and I live together
that
way, and there’s also Constantine and three young vampires. And my friend Sheena.”

“Is that all?” Mom was completely expressionless as she tucked in the corners.

“And Wesley. That’s all.”

She sat on the bed and pulled one corner of the light summer blanket on her lap. “Is it… Is it an actual relationship? Constantine has explained about vampires and polyamory.”

“What? Oh, God, no! No! It’s Constantine’s place, and Wesley is his butler.” I went on to explain the circumstances that lead to us all sharing a roof, and soon I was telling her about Alex’s insistence we meet each other’s parents.

“Oh, he introduced you to his mother? Things are serious, huh?”

I resisted the urge to say ‘deadly.’ “Pretty much, yeah. I don’t know if he and I have the same ideas about the future, but we’re as in love as can be.”

Mom smiled and let out a rushed breath in what could only be relief. “So you’re happy.”

I sidled up next to her, so I could feel her warmth. “I am, Mom. And I’m so happy to see you and Dad again.”

She placed a butterfly kiss on my temple, and I felt her smile.

Chuckles from the upper floor reached my ears. “The boys are back. You should go to bed.”

She nodded and squeezed me, before getting up. “See you tomorrow, Gerri.”

I didn’t correct her. She needed to know some things hadn’t changed, and if calling me by my old name helped, I’d play along.

****

“I swear to you, the only reason I didn’t tell you was my promise,” Constantine said when the humans of the house went to bed. “You have to believe me, but I understand if you don’t. I’ve betrayed your trust before.” His kicked-puppy look was as effective as Alex’s.

My anger deflated. There was no use yelling at someone who didn’t fight back, so I chose my next words carefully. “I get why you did it, but I still don’t like it. I’m asking you one last time—is there something else you’re keeping from me?”

“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate.

“Are you fucking serious?” Alex took a step toward Constantine, but I stopped him with a hand on his stomach.

“I want to know what it is,” I said.

Constantine nodded. “Give me twenty-four hours to check the validity of my information, and I’ll tell you.”

“Twenty-four hours,” I said. “And you never keep things from me again.” I wanted to add ‘or else,’ but had nothing to threaten him with. I had to trust he didn’t want to disappoint me again.

I had to trust a lot of things those days.

Constantine bid us goodnight, and said he’d call home and let everyone know we were all right.

Alex got frisky as soon as the bedroom door was closed behind him. I didn’t share his enthusiasm. Not with everything we’d found out.

Not with Constantine
not
sleeping right outside.

“My parents,” I whispered. “They’ll hear.”

“I’ll be quiet as a mouse.” There was that smirk again—the one I didn’t like. I’d never seen it on human Alex’s lips. Constantine assured me we didn’t lose our soul when we turned. I certainly felt the same person—if a little more street smart—but that nasty curving of Alex’s lips made me wonder if that rule was universal.

Well, hello, paranoia. Constantine and my parents had hidden things from me, and now I was suspicious of everyone.

“I still feel weird,” I told Alex. “I haven’t set foot in this house in years, and I get laid the first time I visit?”

“That’s not what bothers you.” He undid my buttons so fast, I didn’t realize my shirt was open until he peeled it off me. “You just don’t want
him
to hear.”

I was too emotionally drained to get into a fight about his stupid jealousy. I framed his face with both palms and slanted my lips over his. “I don’t want
anyone
to hear. I don’t want an audience when we make love.”

He undid my jeans and shoved them down with his knee. “You didn’t mind an audience when you were in porn.”

“And we’re done here.” I pushed him back hard enough to make him stumble, and pulled my jeans back up. I told him about my past from the beginning, and he accepted it. I gave nobody the right to judge me for my choices, much less someone who claimed to love me. “You and Constantine can share the bed. I’m taking the sofa.” I was so furious, I’d have sent him packing right there and then, if I didn’t believe he was dealing with some sort of identity crisis.

Still, that excuse was wearing thin.

He got in my way, puppy eyes at full force. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean it. It was supposed to be nasty-sex-talk. I guess I went overboard.”

“You did.”

“Forgive me? You know I love you.”

“I know.” But I wondered what his definition of love was these days.

He pulled me against his chest, and kissed me gently on the lips. “We both know I’ve got the foot-in-mouth syndrome. Apparently dying doesn’t cure that.” He laughed, but I wasn’t amused.

“Listen, Alex, I’m tired. I need to rest, and I need to figure out how to deal with everything. I’m really not in the mood.”

He ran a hand down my spine and cupped my ass, oblivious to how genuinely angry I was. “I could try to get you in the mood.”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

“Damn.”

“Yup.”

“Can we at least cuddle? And maybe I could have some blood?”

I couldn’t say no to that. I burrowed in his arms and let him feed from my neck, until exhaustion got the better of me. “I need to be horizontal ASAP,” I mumbled.

Alex tenderly licked his mark, then lifted me and carried me to bed. He dug in our overnight bag for my t-shirt and pair of shorts that acted as pajamas, and helped me into them. “Sleep tight,” he said, spooning me from behind. “I’m here. Won’t let anyone hurt you.”

It sounded like an odd thing to say, since we were no longer on the run, but I was too tired to give it much thought.

Chapter Nine

Not used to keeping a human time schedule, I lay in bed for hours, staring at the wall, and wondering if anything in my unlife was what I’d believed it to be.

I’d suspected before that Ádísa had issues with my family, but my grandma and me sharing the same fate had to be significant.

I already knew my turning hadn’t been at random. A couple months ago, Constantine had confessed Ádísa had instrumented my turning and arranged for him to become my mentor. She ordered him to make me fall in love with him, and he was very successful in his mission.

Although he’d also fallen for me, and claimed he still loved me, she managed to seduce him while he and I were still together. I broke things off, and Constantine tried to get me back for years, before Ádísa’s promises of power made him return to her side. That was when he found out about her role in my turning.

In the end, he’d chosen me.

I remembered Ádísa threatening Constantine with a sharpened stake for having helped me.

“What is it with the women in your family, Cherry? No matter. Your allure worked against you this time. It got you right where I wanted you. It’s such a pity Constantine will share your fate, but maybe I’ll get to keep your new friend.”

She’d meant Alex, and I had no doubt she’d have gone for him too, if Constantine hadn’t rid the world of her vile presence.

Alex tossed and turned beside me.  Nightmares again.  I couldn’t blame him. Just weeks ago he’d been viciously attacked and left for dead. I thought I’d lost him, despite giving him my own blood.

Until Constantine had brought him back to me.

“I really did and do love you, Cherry. I’d do anything for you, including sit back and let you be happy with a human.”
At the time, Constantine had been playing the long game; Alex’s life was finite, while my ex and I were immortal.

But Alex wasn’t human any more, and Constantine was still letting me be happy with him.

Thinking of it was more taxing than thinking of Ádísa, so I steered my thoughts back to her. Assuming the rumors about her having been a Valkyrie—or as old as one—held merit, Ádísa had already been ancient by the time my great grandmother had been attacked. Too old to have focused on a woman she met a hundred-odd years ago, and to have gone after her family.

Maybe I should look into our family tree. Go back further.

My vampire inner clock screamed that the sun was up, but I couldn’t wait until the evening. Waiting is the thing I do worse. I even iron better than I wait. I sneaked out of bed, wrapped a blanket over my shoulders, and flew upstairs. Dad was gone for the day, but Mom was up and about, and hurried to shut the drapes as soon as she saw me.

“Gerri, you shouldn’t be up! The potion hasn’t started working yet.”

“I couldn’t sleep. And please call me Cherry, Mom. I’m not the girl I used to be.” My voice broke, and her hand trembled as she adjusted the blanket so it covered my head too.

“Big bad vampire or not, you’ll always be my baby girl.”

I could spare a few moments to be just that, so I burrowed into her embrace and just stood there, listening to her heart beat. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this. It had to be one of the reasons the council forbade fledglings contact with family members. Seeing my mom, having her hold me, reminded me of all I’d lost. Because of Ádísa.

She was no longer around, so I was going to find Willoughby and turn him to dust for the life he’d taken away from me.

I don’t know how long Mom and I held each other, but when we let go, I felt an inner peace I hadn’t experienced in a while. “I need your help,” I said. “I need to figure out how far back Ádísa’s thing for our family goes. What caused it.”

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” my mother said.

“All this, just because Grandpa didn’t choose her? If she was the one who attacked your grandmother, there had to be something before that. Do we have any old family photos? Notepads? Anything you can dig up? Maybe we could ask au—Ruby?” I couldn’t really call her Grandma.

“She’s in Europe for the next few months. She calls me every few days, but I can’t reach her in the meantime. There are some boxes in the attic I’ve never gone over, though. I think I remember her lugging them around every place we’ve been.”

“The attic it is, then.”

She shook her head. “No curtains up there. You better stay here, while I go get the boxes.”

I raised the edges of the blanket, forming batwings. “Nah, I’ll brave it.”

Mom smirked. “I haven’t dusted in a while. There could be cobwebs.”

Scary-ass vampire or not, I won’t approach a spider, if I can avoid it. “I’ll wait right here. You take your time.”

She laughed, and pinched my cheek. “I see immortality hasn’t changed
some
things.”

“Nope, spiders are still on the top of my phobias list.”

“Good thing you have a good man to squash them for you now.” Mom winked.

“Yeah, I’m lucky.” I smiled, but my eyes stung.

“Uh-oh. What’s wrong, honey? You seemed fine last night.”

Mom could always see right through me. Even over the phone, she could tell when something bothered me, which was why I’d only been calling her sparingly once I’d decided to get into adult movies. I hadn’t known what to say if she asked me about my career, just like I now didn’t know what to tell her about Alex and me. Only this time, I wasn’t afraid she’d disapprove of my choices. My fears and worries were just too vague to put into words.

“Nothing,” I said. “This whole Ádísa mystery is just stressing me out. Can you please get the boxes now?”

“Of course. I’ll be right back.” She kept stealing worried glances at me on her way up.

****

The boxes weren’t a couple. They were eight, and one of them was as tall as me.

Mom got hold of an old hooded robe, and we replaced my blanket with it for ease of movement, before I followed her back to the attic. The robe was thick, but made no difference to me temperature wise, since vampires emanate no body heat. I pulled the hood up, kept my head down, and followed my mother’s feet around the cluttered space, praying there’d be no spiders. Even with the two of us working together, it still took several trips up and down the stairs.

We began going through the boxes one by one, but their contents were in no order we could discern. In the end, I emptied them around us in messy piles. I could see the annoyance in my mom’s gaze. She said nothing, but I knew her inner neat freak was having a stroke.

“I promise to put everything back myself,” I said. “And I’ll vacuum.”

“Good.” She heaved a sigh. “Now let’s see what we have here.”

For three long hours, we waded through old, faded pictures and frayed documents. Of the ones with dates scrolled on them, the oldest seemed to have been written sometime in the 1440’s. The month and last digit in the year were nothing more than smudges on the fragile parchment, but I had no idea what was written on the legible parts of the note either. “I think it’s in Italian.”

“We can have Constantine translate it.” Mom plucked it gently from my fingers. “Seems to be a letter to a Francesca.”

“Was she our ancestor?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Doubt Ruby would either, this far back, but I’ll ask when she calls.”

It made no difference either way. I found more notes and letters in the same writing, and stacked them neatly one on top of the other, without even bothering to look at them twice. As I lifted the tenth one in a row from the mess around us, a separate piece of paper fell from inside it. As large as my open palm, it landed face down by my foot.

Milano, 1447
, it read on the back. I flicked it over, and saw a drawing of a woman. It was a portrait, and not a very detailed one. The hair was pulled back, and she showed too little cleavage for what I’d known of Ádísa, but it could totally be her. I searched the drawing for a signature or name. Nothing but the place and date.

“I’ll get Constantine. He might know where she was around that time,” I said, shedding the robe. The sun was low enough by then that I no longer needed the extra cover, and the basement had no windows anyway. On the way down, I thought of waking Alex too, but maybe some rest would make him less confrontational.

At the entrance to the basement, I froze. Constantine was sprawled on the pullout, an arm over his eyes. The sheets were only covering the bottom half of his body, and the part that was visible was naked. And smooth. And pale. And perfect.

Admiring beauty wasn’t cheating, I told myself, but I still didn’t let myself gorge on the sculpted abs and pecs, or the broad shoulders. What I focused on was his face. I hadn’t seen him so serene in years.

Then again, I hadn’t watched him sleep in years, though it hadn’t been all that long since I’d last seen him naked.

“Constantine,” I whispered, “we found something you need to see.” No response. “Constantine?” I leaned in, and lightly touched his arm.

Eyes still closed, he flipped onto his stomach, driving the covers even lower, and exposing the top half of an exquisite—and very naked—ass. I trained my gaze to the ceiling. I hated his habit of sleeping naked. Couldn’t he have worn underwear for once? I considered going back up, and having my mom fetch him, but that’d be an entirely new level of awkward.

“Is there some specific reason you’re here at this ungodly hour, or are you just admiring the view?” His voice was muffled by the pillow.

I didn’t take the bait. “You really need to get up. Have to show you something we found.”

“Go away.”

“No, seriously. You have to come with me.”

“If I get out of bed with you here, I’ll get accused of indecent exposure. What’s more, I’m quite certain your boyfriend won’t appreciate my reminding you what you’ve been missing.”

I could say Alex’s cock was just as big as his, or I could be a grown up. And damn it, it was a hard decision. “We found a drawing that might be of Ádísa. Do you know where she spent the 1440s? And wasn’t there a war in Milan around that time? I think I remember something from The Borgias, but I was never good with dates.” Naked asses make me ramble. Deal with it.

“What are you on about?”

He began to roll over, but I turned around before I saw more than a girl in a monogamous relationship should see of her ex. It didn’t help much. I still recalled every detail of his naked body from his last attempt to seduce me, just after Alex and I had gotten together. It hadn’t worked then, and it wouldn’t work now.

“Mom and I have been going over old family stuff. We found a drawing of a blonde woman, along with some letters. They’re in Italian, but I looked for her name. She wasn’t mentioned anywhere.”

“That’s because she was going by Adalgisa back then. I think I remember her being in Italy for part of the 15th century, but not exactly where. It’s not as if we could just Skype back then.”

A rustling came from behind me, then springs creaking, and finally the sound of a zipper.

“You decent?” I asked.

Constantine heaved a sigh. “Constantly. Whether I want to or not.”

That was true. He’d been way more decent than I’d had the right to expect him to be. He’d opened his mansion to Alex and me, never made a pass at me, and had now joined us in this family reunion, turned quest for answers to an age-old mystery.

“You know, you’re a good guy, deep down,” I said, and led the way up.

“It’s a burden I carry with style.”