Page 22 of Love Lives
This time, it was Aldrich who caught him. He cradled the mortal's body in his arms even as black spots still danced before his vision. Cursed light sensitivity. "What the hell was that?"
"Who can really say?" Puck asked. "Dhampirs are unpredictable. That's what makes them so interesting."
"Unpredictable..." Aldrich scoffed. Then he glared at Elena as well as he could with his impaired vision. "You said this was safe!"
Caspar cleared his throat. "It's safe for mortals. We... uh... may have neglected that this family has vampire genes."
"You may have...!" Aldrich started repeating Caspar's words, then found himself too enraged to speak on. He'd come across a few truly dumb witches in his time, but this one took the cake. Including the candles. "I promise you, if he's not coming back from this I'll--"
"Aldrich," Talon cut in. "No need to threaten the witch." He nodded at the mortal in Aldrich's arms, who wasn't much of a mortal after all. His eyes hadn't opened yet, but he wore a smile on his face.
What?
Aldrich didn't understand what was going on, but seeing Remy so at ease relaxed him too. At least a little bit. His gaze found Jared in the crowd. "You." He pointed at the mortal. "Come here."
Chapter Nine
A small childwas playing by a creek. The sun shone brightly on his honey-colored hair as he grinned at me, exposing his fangs. He spoke in a language that I didn't understand, yet somehow did.There's fish, Daddy!
Try to catch one,I told him, but my voice sounded strange to my ears. Like it wasn't my voice at all, even though it was. I didn’t let that bother me, though. Nothing really mattered in this dream-like world. There was only love. For my child. And the man who'd given him to me. My vampire. He wasn't out with us, but he was waiting for us in our little house. I saw him now, my handsome man with that streak of perfect white in his hair.
As I reached out for him, though, I woke.
"What...?" My tongue felt thick and foreign in my mouth as dream gave way to reality. I found myself staring at a different vampire now. A red-haired one.
"Back in the land of the living?" he asked.
Groggily, I took in my surroundings. I was on the living room floor. Well, half on the living room floor and half in Aldrich's lap, which was a little bit embarrassing. What had happened? Memories of the séance came back to me. We'd talked to my dad, and then we'd tried to talk to... what was his name? Atlus? Yes, Atlus. I tried the name on my tongue, then looked up at Aldrich again, wondering about the metallic taste in my mouth. "Did it work?"
"No."
"You went unconscious." That was Jared's voice. He was sitting on the floor near me, touching his own wrist. Had he fed me? Was that where the metallic taste came from? I swallowed, trying to focus my thoughts, but they kept drifting back to that dream. To my child and my mate.
Wow, my mind was messed up. I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to get a grip. I did not have a child or a mate. I couldn’t miss them because there was nothingtomiss.
It had felt so real, though, even if it was just a dream. No, not a dream. Some new sort of premonition? That didn’t seem right either. The child didn't have the right coloring to be Collin's or Jared's... and I'd never found myself inside another person's head in any of my visions of the future. Could I now live in other people's heads while I was asleep?
I shuddered at the thought. Just what I needed. Another creepy skill.
"Are you feeling okay?" That was Elle.
I did my best to give her a smile so she wouldn't see how disoriented I felt. "I'm great." Physically speaking, that wasn't actually a lie. No headache, no pain in my limbs... I actually felt energized. As if I'd slept for much longer than a short fainting spell.
"You lit up," Elle told me.
"Really?" I straightened, removing myself from Aldrich's lap and the floor. At this point, nothing could surprise me anymore. "Did we find out anything about the stones?"
Silence as my siblings looked at each other. No one seemed to have a good answer. For some reason, Jared's boyfriend was staring at me. When I met his gaze, he looked away, then left the room.
Odd.
"Maybe it's like the stones we already have," Luke said, distracting me from Silas's weird behavior. "You know, like the Blood Crystal and the Seeker Stone. Vlad mentioned they were part of a set. And that they had some connection to this God who created vampires."
"Good point." I rubbed my chin, thinking. "But where do we find this third stone?"
"And what will you do with it when you have it?" Puck mused.
"We don't know yet," I admitted. "But we'll find out." It was tough to focus, though, with that weird dream still on my mind.
