I slipped my hand into Alexis', and he squeezed my hand gently."Oni," I said carefully. "The baby is…healthy?" As if anything undead can be healthy.Oni nodded. "Yes. Healthy."I sagged in relief. I didn't want to be pregnant a minute ago, but knowing that I was pregnant changed everything.I was pregnant."Wait." Ran held Oni back from him at arm's length. "We can't have a baby, can we?" He looked horrified that he might have impregnated Oni with all the "feedings" that he'd been giving her.Oni smiled. "Un-living cannot have child with living. Only two living have child.""Then why did you call our child undead?" Alexis asked. "Two living things…I mean two humans make another human, right?"Oni shrugged. "Not in this realm. The un-living have always been here—never born, never made, just always. Only the undead can be born to this place." She looked at me now. "What you call demons."Alexis pulled me into his arms as if he thought I was about to fall over.Perhaps this had
Time was relative at the beach. Some days we spent hours trying to teach new words to Oni. Sometimes Alexis and I marveled at the beauty of the sun as it reflected off the ocean's waves or slowly set into the horizon. As my stomach grew, Alexis made me long flowing dresses. I would catch him staring at me as if he was searching for a glimpse inside of my soul. Whenever I saw him staring at me so intensely, I would remember the way I used to stare at Paul at the end, wanting to say more to him than I was allowed. The ache for what Paul and I had lost still remained, but it didn't cripple me. Even though our supernatural bonds had been severed, my human ones were still present.I still loved Paul, maybe I always would, but I didn't want to be with him anymore. I didn't blamed him for not ending his alliance with the Wolfpack. Hell, I couldn't even blame him for not rejecting Sasha and her baby. But I could never forgive him for not making me his Lupa, something that could have changed
Once we had formed a true friendship, I felt comfortable enough to broach the topic of her and Ran's relationship. "Are you happy with Ran?"Oni nodded enthusiastically. "Ran does not only desire to devour but to teach. Before, all I know is feast. Now I know to watch sunset on the beach. I know to speak with words. I know how to touch without eating."Her words were beautiful and lightened my mood.But it always nagged at me that one day when I moved back to the real world, Oni would return to her passive role inside of me. I didn't like the idea of that, and bringing it up seemed cruel, especially if I couldn't help her.I couldn't sit back and do nothing, especially when I could clearly see her growing in independence as her own separate being. So while Ran and Alexis were working on creating the farm, I asked her, "Oni, what would happen if you didn't come back to live inside of me?"Omi smiled. "I wait until I am called to go to the world of the living. You call. I will come.
That night in bed, I tried to get comfortable spooned against Alexis. Feeling his arms wrapped around me usually sent me straight off into a peaceful sleep, especially when he pressed his face against the back of my neck so that he could breathe in the scent of my hair and skin. Alexis often fell asleep that way, and tonight he was half-asleep before my backside had settled against him.He and Ran were working hard to finish the small farm, and Ran wanted to do everything by hand—and not have Alexis create crops already planted in the ground. They would need rain, the correct climate, and more things than a city girl like me would ever understand.Their farming ideas were all very interesting, but I had been distracted when he explained all of this to me earlier at dinner. I couldn't get the conversation with Oni out of my head.I turned to face Alexis. "What are wraiths?"His arm moved to rest on my hip. "Wraiths. Where did you hear of them?" He yawned."Oni and I were talking ab
"Let's do this in the house." I stood, and Oni followed me inside.I needed to leave a note, but we didn't have paper and pen. And if I asked Alexis to produce them, it might make him suspicious.I looked around for something to write with. Ugh! Why were Oni and Ran so neat?I opened the refrigerator and saw mustard. Like me, Ran liked hotdogs so they had plenty of mustard in the refrigerator. Perfect!I picked up the squirt container of mustard. "I'm about to mess up your breakfast bar. Sorry."Oni smiled. "It is okay."I squirted a simple message:I WILL BE BACKI could say more, but it wasn't exactly easy to write with a container of mustard.I looked at the pretty Succubus. "Let's do this."Oni nodded, her eyes never leaving my face.A moment later, she turned into billowy plumes of black smoke and vanished…~*~When Oni disappeared, I instantly felt lighter, emptied of some previously undetected weight. I never realized how much the demons inside of me meant t
A devil dog…Wait! Could I be bitten by a damned devil dog?Luckily, Oni increased our pace."Oni," I whispered while practically jogging behind her. "There's a devil dog over there."The Wraiths. They cannot hurt you as long as you stay on the path. Did we talk about this? I don't remember us talking about this.No worries. Just follow me."Yes." No worries. Nope none.I wasn't letting go of Oni. I wished I could have ridden on her back.We hurried along the questionable path for several long minutes. I stopped looking behind me because shadowy figures were trailing us.Oni said that nothing could touch me as long as I stayed on the path, but the shadowy figures were only a few steps behind us. What if one of them jumped up at me, scared me, and tried to get me to run?It was like when I first learned to drive a car. My mother told me that if a car moved into my lane that I couldn't kill the people in the lane next to me. I had to break, speed up, or whatever else I could
The Seer was like no other child in the village. Since birth, she seemed different, barely crying and content to spend quiet hours alone. Her parents did not confide to the villagers that their child could communicate without using words, and it appeared that she communicated with other unseen beings as well.As the child grew, she was able to show her family frightening things: the recent dead and spirits from worlds vastly different from their own. Strangely, the child was never afraid and considered these entities to be her friends.The family swore never to speak of these things, but their child revealed her talents as she felt compelled to heal the sick—even the sick that were, by all accounts, already dead. Soon the King learned of the child, but instead of decreeing that she be put to death for consorting with evil spirits, she became the King's Seer. And once the little girl was a Seer, she successfully predicted the outcomes of battles and aided the people of the land throug
But it wasn't only the humans that had forgotten. The Neratomay forgot their history. They did not remember who controlled their memories and prevented them from speaking of those memories that they were able to recollect. They did not remember the Chosen, and the idea of day-walkers became the stuff of myth and legend.They were taught to believe that their creator was She-Who-Is-First. Even the original Neratomay that knew all did not know the truth behind what had created them.Shrouded in mystery, the Committee taught the Neratomay not to question authority out of fear of pain and death.And without the ability for the Mother to intervene on behalf of her Children, over time the Chosen were made nearly extinct. Left in their place were their human children whose abilities lay dormant, awaiting death so that a spark of life could re-animate their un-living corpses.With their memories suppressed, the Neratomay did not understand their attraction for these golden mortals, but it