VA 2 - Blood Jewel (6 page)

Before Chansey was able to
formulate a suspicion about my family’s actions, Sebastian quickly
answered, “Yes, Curry will be your Landra.” This brought a
beautiful smile to her face, and I was glad to have dodged another
argument concerning her future as one of us.

Solomon took a drink from his
goblet and smiled. “Curry can’t wait to be your Landra,” before he
shot me his well-known smart ass grin.

My eyes shot daggers in Solomon’s
direction, the wooden kind, and he laughed under his breath as I
replied in my lowest tone to prevent Chansey from hearing, “Please,
do not encourage her.”

Our conversation continued, unknown
to Chansey. “Come on, I’m just having a little fun since you seem
to be the funny guy tonight.”

Solomon continued to laugh under
his breath and Chansey was unaware she was the topic of a near
silent conversation playing out right before her. If it came to be,
then it just did, but it wouldn’t happen with any help from
me.

We sat with the family at the table
talking into the morning. Chansey didn’t want to give in to her
fatigue, but I encouraged her to go to bed because she looked like
she couldn’t hold her head up another minute.

Solomon overheard our debate and
said, “There’s no way you’re going to bed. It’s still early.”
Solomon pleaded. “We have lots of embarrassing stories we could
tell you about Curry if you’ll stay.”

Lairah spoke up in Chansey’s
defense. “Don’t harass her, you jackass. In case you’ve forgotten,
she still keeps daylight hours.”

I walked behind Chansey and pulled
her chair out as she stood and said, “Thank you for including me
tonight. You made me feel so welcomed.”

“We enjoyed having you. Please,
join us again.” Gia invited.

“I would love that and I will be
taking you up on the invitation.”

After we told my family goodnight,
I escorted Chansey toward my quarters. She looped her arm through
mine and said, “That was fun.”

I stopped in the hallway to look at
her. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“What do you mean?” she
asked.

“You sat at a table full of
vampires as they drank human blood and you never appeared the least
bit uncomfortable,” I said in awe of this beautiful woman about to
become my wife.

She reached for my face. “Why would
I be uncomfortable? I was born to accept you and your family as you
are.”

I leaned forward to put my forehead
against hers. “I know, but I couldn’t help but fear the human part
of you would be frightened or sickened by what we do to
survive.”

“I could never reject what is
natural to you. Don't’ forget...it is what I have chosen for
myself, as well.”

There were times when I was glad
Chansey was so accepting of me and what I was, but her easy
acceptance was always a reminder of her desire to become one of us
and our conversation always steered toward the topic of changing
her. I was becoming a master at changing the topic and I
demonstrated my expertise well by saying, “We only have one more
day before we go back to Pascagoula, so I want to take you into the
city tomorrow night. Would you like that?”

She had not mentioned the
significance of tomorrow. I wondered if it slipped her mind because
of the crazy events during the last few days or if she was testing
me to see if I would remember. Regardless, I held my tongue and did
not mention her birthday.

She smiled mischievously and I knew
the date had not slipped her mind. “That sounds like fun. What do
you want to do?”

This was a test and I intended on
passing with flying colors, so I decided I needed the help of my
sisters to make this a birthday she’d never forget. “I haven’t
decided yet. It’s been a while since I went into New Orleans. Do
you have anything you’d like to do?”

“I’m up for anything,” she
said.

“Well, anything can be found in
New Orleans. How about I surprise you?”

“Sounds perfect. I love
surprises.” She placed her palms against my chest. “But, I can
think of one surprise I’d love to have,” she hinted. She leaned
forward to take ownership of my mouth and ran her hands under my
T-shirt and up my chest.

I pulled back and looked at her
deceivingly angelic face. “You thrive on tempting me.”

She smiled and replied, “You thrive
on denying me.”

I took her hand and pulled her down
the hall. “Come on, it’s very late and you need your
rest.”

“I’m going to let you off the hook
this time because I am very tired,” she surrendered.

I kissed her forehead and said,
“Thank you for your mercy, Love.”

I opened the door and allowed her
to enter first. “Enjoy it while it lasts because I might not be so
generous next time,” she informed me and I knew she meant every
word.

Chansey gave me a quick kiss and
went into the bathroom, so I quickly changed into my sleep pants
while she performed her bedtime rituals. As I laid in bed waiting
for her, I closed my eyes and thought about her birthday and how I
could make it special for her.

I had almost dozed off when I heard
the bathroom door slowly open. I hesitantly opened my eyes and saw
Chansey standing at the bedside wearing one of my button ups that
hit her mid-thigh. “Gia and Lairah don’t have anything non-sexy for
me to wear to bed. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your
shirt.” she said as she climbed onto my side of the bed and slowly
slinked across me to her side of the bed.

I had to give it to her. The girl
had skills and she knew how to use them, but I refused to let her
know she was getting to me. “No, I don’t mind at all.” I lay on my
back with my fingers laced across my chest so I could keep them to
myself as I stared at the ceiling. “What’s mine is yours, isn’t
that the old saying?”

“Yep, that’s what they say,” she
said through a huge grin, knowing all along what she was doing to
me. “It’s too hot for all these covers,” she said as she threw the
bedding to the side and lifted my shirt above her waist.

“I’ll adjust the air for you,” I
offered. I attempted to get up, but was disrupted by her
hand.

“No, you always feel so much
cooler than me.” She turned her back to me, shimmied closer and
pulled my arms around her. “That’s much better. Don’t you
agree?”

She had to be the devil in
disguise. “You know exactly what you’re doing to me and shame on
you.”

“I don’t have a clue what you
mean,” the little vixen lied. “I’m just trying to get comfortable
so I can go to sleep since I’m a human that needs her
rest.”

“By all means, please get
comfortable so you can go to sleep and stop tormenting me,” I
admitted.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I tormenting
you, Curry?”

“Just a little” I gritted through
my teeth.

“Good,” she said and hesitated
before she added, “Night.”

I was thankful she decided to call
it a night because I was dangerously close to giving in to my old,
self-satisfying ways. She would never know how close she came to
getting her way tonight and I was grateful she falsely believed my
will was made of steel. “Goodnight, Chansey.”

I waited until she was asleep to
leave her side, slipping away as quietly as a thief in the night.
My family was no longer gathered in the dining room and I walked
outside to find Gia and Lairah in the pool taking a late night
swim.

“Tell me you didn’t leave your
bride in the bed alone,” Gia huffed.

“She’s not my bride. She’s my
fiancé and I need your help with something big. Tomorrow is
Chansey’s birthday and I need some ideas. I want to take her into
the city and do something special, but I have no idea
what.”

“Well, you made the right decision
by coming to us instead of that buffoon you call your best friend.
Really? What is his deal?” Lairah said.

“I think he’s jealous,” Gia
answered. “And yes, Solomon...I know you can hear me inside the
house.”

“Take it easy, girls,” I
urged.

“Alright, we’ll forget the buffoon
and get back to the task at hand. You’ve already given her the most
precious piece of jewelry she’ll ever wear. Any type of bling-bling
you come up with will only pale in comparison, so you shot yourself
in the foot when it comes to jewelry,” Lairah told me.

“She loves your art, so paint her
something. You can have it ready by tomorrow because you’re so
awesome,” Gia suggested.

I blew that one, too. “That’s not
going to work. I did a soft pastel of her on the day I met her, so
anything I did would pale in comparison to that. Now, I’ve shot
myself in the foot when it comes to art.”

Solomon walked out of the house and
added, “Nice going, one trick pony.”

“In my own defense, she was never
supposed to see it. It was supposed to be for my own private
collection.”

Sol jumped into the pool with the
girls and then came up. He ran his hands back over his slick dark
hair. “I’m not jealous. If anyone is jealous it’s the two of you
with your crazy ideas and dreams of romance that’s never going to
happen for you. Both of you are living vicariously through this
poor human girl and she’s probably scared to death to tell either
of you ‘no.’ Shame on both of you.”

“You’ve become such an ass since
Curry found Chansey. There’s no way you’re not jealous. I just
haven’t figured out if it’s because Chansey is taking Curry away
from you or because you want an Agápe too,” Gia accused, then
bumped fists with Lairah.

A smug look crossed Sol’s face.
“Well, this ass has a perfect idea for Chansey’s birthday, so do
you want to know what it is or not?”

I threw my hands up. “Hey, I didn’t
accuse you of anything. You’ve always been an ass in my book and
that hasn’t changed since Chansey came along,” I joked.

He nodded in recognition and said,
“You damn skippy.”

I was anxious to hear his
suggestion. “So, what’s your idea, Skippy?”

“If I’m right, Chansey is so going
to dig this and you’ll score some major fiancé/husband/Agápe points
with her. Do you remember when you went back to Pascagoula about
twelve years ago and went by your house?”

I was puzzled by where this was
going. “Yeah , I remember.”

“If I recall correctly, you had
just become very interested in photography and you took a lot of
pictures of the house. You made me look through like five thousand
pictures I cared nothing about, but I remember the owners were in
some of them and they were having a birthday party for a kid out in
the yard. Is it possible for that to have been Chansey and her
family? If it was her, then you saw her for the first time when she
was a kid and you captured it on film.

He was right. I went crazy taking
pictures that day and used every roll of film I had with me. “You
are absolutely brilliant, Sol. Girls, you can’t call him a buffoon
anymore.”

Gia splashed water at Sol and said,
“You don’t know if that was Chansey and her family, so we reserve
the right to call him a buffoon until we have proof
otherwise.”

Sol dunked Gia and when she came
up, he said, “You are both going to eat your words on this one,
girls. There’s no doubt in my mind that those negatives are full of
Chansey Leclaire and her family because he was like a madman with
all of the pictures he took of that girl and her family. At the
time, I wondered if he was some kind of weird vampire pedophile,
but it all makes sense now. It didn’t matter that she was a child.
Even then, he was drawn to her because she was his
Agápe.”

“I think you’re right and what
makes this even more awesome is that Chansey told me today that she
has no pictures of her family together because she lost all of them
in Hurricane Katrina.” I started walking toward the house. “I’ve
got to find those negatives before Chansey wakes up. Thank you,
Sol. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m pretty
awesome,” he boasted.

I went to my old darkroom where I
kept my negatives filed away and began my search. Ugh! I should
have filed these by date or something because I had years and years
of negatives to search through. My heart pounded as I searched and
I prayed Sol was right. Please let it be Chansey and her
family.

After twenty minutes of searching,
I found the negatives from that day. I held them up to the light
and saw the outline of a family but even my vampire vision couldn’t
make out if it was Chansey and her family or not.

I stopped using film when digital
photography became popular, so it had been years since I printed
photographs from negatives, but I didn’t need any of those supplies
because I could scan the negative and upload it to my computer. Got
to love technology.

I silently went to my bedroom and
moved all of my necessary equipment to another bedroom so I
wouldn’t wake Chansey and ruin the surprise. I scanned the
negatives and waited to see the images on my computer screen. And
there she was...a young Chansey with her family. I was ecstatic
because I was going to be able to give her the one thing no one
else could...an intact photograph of her family
together.