Page 62 of My Master
Isis gave a brisk nod just as the door opened and in walked Antonio, Maria and a strange girl. Antonio took one look at Isis and raised his eyebrows. “Doth mine eyes deceive me? Or have I died and gone to heaven?”
Isis put her hands on her hips, unembarrassed as she glared at Antonio, Maria and the amused looking girl.
“Dear lord, Isis, get some clothes on.” Maria’s cheeks flushed red and she turned her head in a different direction.
“No, Isis, you look fine.” Antonio smiled a teasing gleam in his eye. Isis had no chance to reply because Ezzy already bounded over and threw the hospital blanket about Isis’s shoulders. Then she rounded on Antonio.
“Hitting on our friend infrontof me, Antonio? I suppose you would since she has gorgeous, voluptuous curves that she’s not afraid to flaunt while all I’ve got is a fat stomach. I mean, why not? Go for it since you’re not attracted to me anymore.”
Isis couldn’t see her face, but she could tell that Ezzy was crying.That’s what I mean about moody,Isis thought with a little amusement. She didn’t even have to be a mind reader to know what Antonio was thinking.
“Oh, shit.” He ran to Ezzy and cradled her in his arms, murmuring god-knows-what to her.
Isis took the opportunity to look at the newcomer; she was about Maria’s height, a little taller, with auburn curls spilling out and over her shoulders from underneath a black fedora. She wore a dark green jacket and a simple shirt and she had a long colorful flowing dress on with small brown heeled boots underneath. Her face was dark. Not that natural color like Antonio’s or Isis’s, but the kind that looked as though she had worked outside often. There were freckles along her nose and cheekbones, her eyes were cat-like, slanted, regarding Ezzy with cool amusement.
“Yeah, about those mood swings…” Maria started. “Guys, this is Anya, here to make that healing potion thing for Esmeralda.” The woman—Anya—inclined her head but said nothing. Isis felt intrigued.
Esmeralda sniffled. “She’s not a vampire, or a wolf. What is she?”
“I am a witch.” Anya replied. She had a Dracula-type accent.
“Witch?” Esmeralda narrowed her eyes. “I thought witches weren’t real.”
Anya smirked. “We are very much real, though we mostly reside on the far side of Romania, in covens.”
Isis smiled. She had never met a witch before, though she knew they were hardly myth as everyone thought they were. And that’s what her accent was—Romanian.
“So what’s this potion stuff you’re talking about?”
Anya opened her mouth to say something but in that moment, Ezzy keeled over, grabbing hold of her stomach.
“Ezzy, what’s wrong?!” Antonio gripped her by the shoulders.
There was a sound, like water splashing on to the ground. They all sniffed the air and then looked down at the floor. Her water had broken.
26
Esmeralda screamed.
Antonio wanted to scream too—needed to, because all of the pain she felt was projected into him, with a clear message from Ezzy. ‘If I’m going to suffer through this, then so will you.’
So suffer he did at first. Feeling her stomach pains like his own but sensing all of his own emotions as well. Worried, because this was her first pregnancy and it wasn’t going to be easy, with a vampire child and all. Scared, because, well, damn it, why was she in so much pain? And anxious that he would be holding his child in his arms soon enough.
He had picked Ezzy up, as gently as he could and took her to a doctor, with his sister, Anya, and Isis trailing behind him.
He wanted to talk Ezzy through it, but he was as panicked as she was and had no idea what to say, so he just breathed with her and tried to project happy thoughts into her mind. It didn’t seem to work with the useless images until he started projecting his memories of her parents into her brain. He found a doctor soon and followed the man to the delivery room.
“Did you just call me fat?”
“No—”
“I am not fat!”
He opened his mind to her and showed her the first time he ever met Katheryn back in Madrid, the way Ignacio had ditched his best friend to walk her back to her hotel; Katheryn, staring through a microscope, in a white lab coat; Ignacio, his long delicate fingers moving across piano keys creating the most beautiful melody anyone had ever heard.
“I love her, Antonio,” Ignacio paced the floor, running his hand through his hair as he talked about Katheryn.The way Ignacio ran to America for Katheryn—to save her. And, finally, he projected images of Antonio and Ezzy. The way he saw her, all fire and water—perfect contrasts. An innocent goddess wrapped in sweet passion. He loved her so much.
She relaxed in his arms.
