Lost Paradise (33 page)

“Robin’s nice,” she said. “She does a good
job cleaning and keeps to herself. We’ve been spending time, as the
bears don’t really like her—”

Wait, a werewolf named Robin?

“—
she’s living in the basement, she
said she prefers it, it’s more like a den to her.”

Well, whatever made her feel at home. I hoped
she wasn’t spending time in the dungeon. “That’s good, then.”

“Sar, are you ever coming back to stay?”
Serena said. “I miss you.”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Most likely not
anytime soon.”

Serena looked at me sadly, then turned the
conversation back to gardening.

* * * *

Over the next few weeks, I put in long hours
with Danial’s business. It kept my mind off Dev. My attraction to
him had seemed so easy to forget with his absence, but it had
returned in full force now that he was here most days giving Elle
lessons.

She had rebelled at first, refusing him as a
teacher. But when Danial had threatened that it was either Devlin
or no lessons at all, Elle had relented. A small upright piano had
arrived the next day. Danial had had it placed just outside his
bedroom. He’d done that deliberately; I heard the music from start
to finish, no matter which room of the house I was in.

Danial’s scheme worked. It was hard for me to
know Devlin was there, so close to me, and not go see him. Devlin
had skill with the piano; it sang for him, the music both
breathtaking, and heartbreaking. But despite his attempts to lure
me, I resisted. Each time I thought of going down to him, I made
myself remember him and Catherine together. And I never went down
to him.

Lash stayed away, too. When Serena mentioned
on one of her visits that he was helping clear the gardens of
weeds, I gave my folder of garden ideas to her, asking her to give
them to Lash for me. I’d proposed roses of fire and ice, as well as
regular red and white, plus red and white tulips, white flocks, red
bee balm, white violets, and black pansies for the empty spaces
between; someone might as well use my ideas. Serena didn’t want to
bring them to him on my behalf at first, but she finally
agreed.

Janice and Cia had been running around like
crazy for the whole month of May, trying to get the former’s mating
ceremony and reception planned out. I helped as much as I was able,
like putting the ribbons and dates on the fox-shaped cookie cutter
wedding favors. It was fun, and got me some samples of wedding cake
as a bonus.

My weight was up, but I still took walks in
the forest, while the treadmill gathered dust. Now that the ice and
snow had melted, there was no way I was staying inside.
Experiencing the sheer exhilaration of spring becoming summer was
not an opportunity to be missed.

Danial continued to ride, but now it was Elle
who joined him, with Theoron sometimes riding in front of her.
Danial had wanted them both to be good in the saddle, and Elle took
to it like she was born to it. The greater problem had been getting
the horses to accept her werecougar scent. But with time and a lot
of gentle persuasion, Poe and Annabelle Lee did. It was a pleasure,
to sit on the wraparound porch on a Saturday evening, and watch
them cavort in the front yard.

I also sat down Theo early one night when
Danial was away, and asked him what he thought about names. “Did
you have your heart set on anything? Theo Jr.?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I talked to
Danial, and proposed naming the baby after him. But he said he
would rather we didn’t. You know how he feels about his past.”

I nodded. “Any second choices?”

“Why don’t you pick the name?” Theo replied.
“You haven’t been the one to make a lot of the decisions regarding
your pregnancy. You should at least get to choose the name.”

“I will then,” I agreed happily. “Let me do
some searches online and get back to you.”

* * * *

On the sixth of June, Nineva showed up for
his visit. Theo, Elle, and I went to meet him at the airport.

I almost didn’t recognize him getting off the
plane. When I had seen him last years ago, he’d just been through
horrible grueling torture. Now he was beaming with health, his dark
skin shining, his long hair in dreadlocks to his shoulders. Elle
raced into his arms as soon as she saw him.

“Look how big you are!” he exclaimed, his
brown eyes shining with emotion.

Theo came over, and offered his hand. Nineva
just hugged him. Theo hugged him back, both of them a little teary,
remembering the circumstances of the last time they had seen each
other.

“I’m glad you got out,” Theo managed
finally.

“If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have,”
Nineva replied. He turned to me. “Sarelle.” He hugged me very
gently, careful of my huge belly. “You look wonderful.” He turned
back to Theo. “I see you’ve been busy,” Nineva said with a
laugh.

Theo and Elle spent most of the two weeks
running around Danial’s forest with Nineva. He was completely
recovered from his ordeal, nothing like the pale shadow he had been
when I had seen him years ago. His lion form was magnificent: all
golden fur, wild mane, and tufted tail, with the loudest roar I’d
ever heard.

With Nineva staying with us for his visit, it
quickly became apparent to him that Danial, Theo and I were sharing
the same bed.

“I told him, Sar, when he asked me,” Theo
said one night. “All of it. And he said if you ever needed to hide,
to get away, he would do his best to keep you safe. No matter who
it was you were hiding from.”

I was touched, especially knowing how much
Nineva hated violence. “That’s sweet of him. But it wouldn’t work.
He doesn’t know what the other Rulers are like, or what Lash and
Dev are capable of—”

“And Titus,” Theo added, glowering. “Don’t
forget that monster.”

“What do you have against him?” I said,
putting my hands on my hips. “He saved you from that love spell. He
saved you from poisoning—”

“He also eats people, Sar,” Theo said coldly.
“He ate Neoline, probably drank her blood first, just like a damned
vampire.”

“How can you say this?” I said, aghast. “A
vampire is your best friend!”

“Danial tries never to kill,” Theo replied
abruptly. “I know he has, but he tries not to. But Titus has to.
And if a being is so evil that it has to kill to live, maybe it’s
better for the world if that being wasn’t in it—”

“So you hold against Titus that he was born a
demon,” I said angrily. “You’re blaming him for something that he
didn’t have any choice in?”

Theo looked at me, his expression conveying
that he had never thought of it that way before. I nodded once,
then walked away, leaving him to think of the similarity between
Titus and himself.

* * * *

When it came time for Nineva to leave, none
of us wanted him to. Danial even offered him a job, which Nineva
declined. “I like the quiet life,” he said, giving Danial a smile.
“I’ll help you if you ask, if you need me sometime, of course. I
owe you a great debt, for what you did for me. But I don’t like
violence, or killing.”

I was glad then Terian wasn’t around to hear
that. Nineva sounded like Terian once had, before his human nature
had been influenced by his demon side. Saying good-bye to Keriam
and putting his past to rest had helped Terian heal old wounds. But
there was something darker about him these days. I wanted to think
it was Sundown, that being with her had changed him. He swore a lot
more frequently and easily, and he could be both cruel and
sarcastic now, where he had not been before. Most of the fault lay
with Solutions, Inc., or so I concluded. Theo and Terian didn’t
kill people for profit as Lash did, but they had killed in
self-defense several times in only a few months. And Terian made no
pretenses about enjoying it now.

Titus seemed to give no sign of awareness of
the change in Terian, though I talked to him about my concerns.

“Terian hasn’t changed,” he replied. “He’s
steadfast in his morality, Sar. I do wish he would let his mother
back into his life, though.”

I cringed. Terian still refused to talk to
Leri, or see her, though Titus was back with her now. “Devlin said
you were thinking of building a small house for her and you on the
outskirts of Hayden.”

“Dev won’t let her live in the main house,”
Titus replied. “Dev’s balking at my proposal, too, but I’ve
sweetened the deal with something he won’t refuse.”

“What?” I said, my tone saying that it had
better not have anything to do with me.

Titus smiled. “I offered to work the next
year for him free of charge.”

That was bullshit, but I didn’t call him on
it. I had no proof. Besides, even if whatever he had offered Devlin
did have something to do with me, I had nothing real to threaten
him with anyway.

* * * *

Life remained relatively peaceful until the
afternoon before the end of June, the day before Janice’s ceremony
to Ivan.

I was harvesting the garden with Serena’s
help. Not much was ready yet, except a few little carrots, and
radishes. This was more for me, because I shared a lot with her
that I no longer could share with my one-time best human friend,
Kat.

I’d avoided Kat all spring because of The
Lust. But sometimes even if you avoided people, they found you.
We’d run into one another, one night when Danial, Theo, I and the
kids were all out together getting ice cream with my parents. She
had seen me and come over to say hello. The moment Theoron had
looked at her, she had known he was my son. Hearing him call me
“Mom” a minute later had cinched it. She had also seen I was
pregnant.

She and Brett had been polite, then excused
themselves. After that, she’d stopped taking my calls, though I
tried her every day for the next three weeks. While I kicked myself
for not trusting her, for not telling her, I rationalized this was
for the best. She didn’t need me in her life, and the danger I
would bring her and her family. We’d more than grown apart in the
years since I’d met Danial; we were in totally separate worlds now.
And like I’d told my mom, there was no going back.

Theo hadn’t understood what her loss meant to
me. He’d only had Danial for most of his adult life. He’d told me
that I had a lot of friends, and not to let it get me down. But
Serena had understood.

“She was the last part of your old life,” she
had said softly.

I’d nodded, feeling the tears come. “Yes,” I
said, brushing them away. “I’ve lost touch with most of my
neighbors, and the people I used to work with. An elderly woman I
was close to died, and her son, who I was also close to, has gotten
married, and moved away. I never had a lot of friends. The only
people I’m still close to that I even knew back before I met Danial
are my parents.” I took a breath. “My life has changed so much,
from knowing Danial. I’m happy, but I also feel like I’ve lost a
lot of friends. I’m not who I was, and that bothers me.”

Serena hugged me. “It was the same for me,
when I came here. My mother died when I was young. It was a problem
with having me, because of the two types of were. My father loved
her very much. After she died, he crawled inside a bottle, and
stayed there until I was ten.”

I hugged her back hard, imagining what her
childhood must have been like.

“We moved to Rio,” she continued. “He tried
to get clean. He stopped drinking, and got a job in the engine room
of a cruise ship, and he was gone most of the time. He met a nice
woman, a human. She took good care of me.”

I could tell by her tone this wasn’t the end
of the tale. It was too happy a conclusion for a voice that empty.
“What happened?”

“He fell off the wagon. She was lonely
because he was gone so much, and began to suspect he was seeing
other women. She was right. I smelled them on him sometimes when he
came home. Sometimes we both could smell the alcohol on him.” She
paused. “When I was sixteen, she packed her bags and left. He got
drunk on the ship that night and fell over the side. No one saw
him, or missed him. It wasn’t until they found his body washed up
on the beach.”

I hugged her. “You don’t have to tell me the
rest if you—”

“No, I want to.” She paused, then began
again. “I got a job at the diner. I was a decent cook, from fending
for myself when I was little. And Rosa had shown me some recipes
when she took care of me. It wasn’t great, but it was a job.”

I waited, hoping her story got better because
I was thoroughly depressed now.

“Years passed that way. Then one night, back
in the late fall, Jazz came in, with Vince and Nick,” Serena said
quietly. “They knew at once I was were. Before they left, Vince
asked if I’d consider being with him and Nick for a price. I was
flattered. Vince was good looking, to me anyway, and you’ve seen
Nick.”

Yes indeed, I’d seen Nick when I’d visited
Hayden. And if I were single, I would have liked to have seen a lot
more of him. “Yes.”

“The money they offered was more than I made
in a month,” Serena continued. “I hadn’t been with anyone before,
not ever. But I was desperate for rent money, so I took their
offer.”

I hadn’t expected to hear this. “You were a
virgin?”

Serena saw my expression before I could cover
it up. “I know,” she said. “They were shocked, too. But they were
also pleased because I was a clean slate. I was young and naïve.”
She made a face. “I didn’t know back then there were some things
most women usually balked at doing.”

Let her not tell me what they did with
her, God
. “So then Dev offered you a job?”

Serena nodded. “Devlin came to see me and
proposed this job. I accepted.” She shrugged. “And here I am.”

Serena had gone from tons of detail to almost
none in her last sentences. That meant one thing. “He was with you,
wasn’t he? Dev?”