Instead of taking me to the local motel as I’d expected, Evan drove several hours away and checked us into a four star hotel. He insisted that he wanted to keep me safe in a place that Max would never think to look. He immediately called Megan to tell her our location, but, to our surprise, she asked that we keep it to ourselves for fear that the spirits would hear as well. In fact, she refused to stay on longer than necessary for fear that they could trace our whereabouts from the energy connection of the telephone call.
I sighed with frustration over the feeling of helplessness that consumed me where Max and that incubus were concerned.
Megan had packed an easy week’s worth of clothing for me. As I began to empty my suitcase, I noticed a few very nice dresses in the mix.
“Good,” Evan said as he took the dresses to hang in the closet. “You have something to wear to dinner tonight.”
“I don&
It took ten days for Megan to contact us and tell us that, with the assistance of a priest, she’d managed to rid the house of the incubus. She expressed her exhaustion over performing such a task while battling the forces that were constantly being sent her way from the evil spirit witch. She was eager to have me return so that she could work with me in hopes that I could help her talk reason to the wicked witch and get her to leave on her own accord since all of the banishing methods that Megan knew had failed. Why she felt that I would be able to do something that she wasn’t able to do surprised me. Then, perhaps I placed too high of expectations on my friend who was, after all, only human. As she might be doing on me. Even so, I was willing to give it a try.When I asked about Max, there was a long silence before she spoke. He was behaving more like his old self, but he was hurt and angry that I’d gone off w
We’d spent a good deal of time talking and working through emotions that had built up since the fire. When we were finally at peace with what had happened and what was between us, we promised each other that we’d work hard to make our marriage work. No matter what happened in the past, there was a strong love between us that we were sure could be salvaged and reignited. We sealed our agreement with blissful, passionate love making. It was as it used to be… as if we’d never returned from our honeymoon.Waking up from a deep sleep, I felt a need to cuddle, so I rolled over and searched the darkness for my husband. I was surprised to discover that I had the entire bed to myself. I opened my eyes and struggled for them to focus on the digital clock. The red numbers were so bright in the darkness that they hurt my eyes as I waited for the blurriness to clear up. It was four o’clock in the morning.
If I hadn’t been in a position to have to make the funeral arrangements for Max, I think that I would have begged to stay at Megan’s home and never leave it. I found the energy light, airy, and cozy all at the same time. It lacked the heaviness that is caused by death and invading entities; be they earth bound or inter-dimensional. By the second day of being there, I felt whole and healed.It was like living in a fairy tale land. Sadly, when I left her house to brave the real world again, all of my grief, guilt, and anguish came flooding back at me.Megan accompanied me on my trip to deal with the funeral director. As anticipated, pasty faced, creepy Zacharias was his usual arrogant and obnoxious self. I was able to get away with being rude and aloof because of my grief.Max never attended church, so I didn’t bother to be hypocritical and have the service in one. Instead, we held it at the gravesi
Megan’s light, airy, and cozy cabin suddenly felt cramped and stuffy as I sat staring at the flames in the fire that Evan lit . It wasn’t that the air had a chill. It was more to warm the mood that had overtaken the cabin and its occupants.I was furious with Max. So angry, in fact, that I was at a loss over how to express it. Since Evan and Megan knew about his secret life and hadn’t immediately told me, I used that fact to focus on and turned my disappointment with their lack of telling me as an outlet for my rage.Not only could I not look at them or talk with them, but I desperately wanted to be free of their company. I needed to be out in the open air where I could breathe without hindrance and allow my body the relaxation that it just couldn’t find while within those four walls with them.Using the excuse that I needed some air with an attitude that warned them against offering to join me, I slipp
I didn’t know what to do. Should I wake up Evan and Megan? Were we truly safe inside? Evan had done all that he could to secure the cabin. Was there something that he missed? Were we foolish to leave my house to come here? Which was the lesser of the evils? A wicked spirit witch that was hell bent on tormenting Megan and my creepy shadow person or werewolves roaming the property?I sat in the corner on a straight backed chair and peeked out from behind the curtain into the long shadows that were caused by the brilliant moon. My heartbeats drowned out any other sound that I might have wanted to focus on which was probably for the best. It overpowered the creaking of the creature’s weight on the porch as well as the buzzing of the soft communications between the other two who stood in the lawn.I was about to go back to the fireplace to stoke the fire when my aunt Lily’s ghost appeared in front
I stumbled out of the lawyer’s office in total shock after the reading of Max’s will. Either he hadn’t thought things through or he expected that he’d have time to change his will in the future after we’d started a family or – more likely - he thought that I’d die before he did. Whatever the reasoning behind his creation of such a will, I’d probably never know since Melissa insisted that he was off into the wild blue yonder with her and there was no ability to connect from where they were.Max had secretly purchased the house that I was renting almost immediately after the realtor asked me if I was interested in buying it and I’d said that I was, but I needed more time to pay down school loans. He then willed the house to me upon his death and had the rent money that I paid to the leasing agent put into an account for me; minus her commission. In short, I was paying myself to be ab
I pulled Evan behind me to the stairs as I whispered my intentions once we got to my room, which didn’t include sleeping. He threw his head back with laughter and swept me into his arms, taking the stairs two at a time at vampire speed.When he set me down, I said, “What if you fed off me tonight?”His eyes went wide. “I don’t ever want to feed on you.”“Is it dangerous?”“Not really. It’s just that… this may sound silly…”I sighed, impatiently. “Tell me.”“Vampires don’t think highly of blood donors. They get little respect. I didn’t want you to lose their respect,” he stammered.“How would they know?” I asked. “Does it show that you fed off of me or something?”“It does not,” he said.“Then, whose respect would I be
Off in the distance, I could hear Megan’s incessant tapping on my bedroom door. It competed with Evan’s heartbeat as I lay cradled against him with my head resting on his chest. I struggled to be coherent enough to separate the two sounds in the darkened room. When I was awake enough to understand what was happening. I found it easier to roll over Evan’s body to the edge of the bed, rather than to try to lift the dead weight of his protective arm off me. When I did, I was surprised by the fact that he didn’t awaken. He was clearly at ease for the first time in a long time.I grabbed my robe to cover my nakedness and answered the door.Megan stood with the look of a woman who’d just woken up from a long winter’s nap.“It’s after midnight,” Megan said with a sleepy voice. “I fell into a ridiculously deep sleep.”“I
Megan was waiting for me at the airport when the private plane landed. She’d brought Evan’s van to transport him in. I found that to be a touching thought. He’d like that rather than to be loaded into a hearse.Since he wasn’t human, we couldn’t offer him the traditional burial service, but I didn’t think he’d want that anyway. We took his body to Megan’s land and buried him beneath the ancient oak tree that he was prone to sit under when we were staying with her and he wanted to think. He said it gave him a peaceful feeling. As for attendees. It was me, Megan, and my aunt Lily.I’d asked his proprietor friend to take care of notifying whatever vampire committee needed to be notified of his death and he’d agreed. I had to trust that was enough. I didn’t know how to contact his army people and, quite frankly, after what Roman had done, I had no desire to rea
Evan had purchased a dozen boxes of condoms in anticipation of our wedding night and we put them to good use. In fact, we didn’t leave our room for several days. There was something very sacred and special about consummating a marriage commitment that we just couldn’t get enough of. We were in agreement that, somehow, the sex felt different. Better.By the time Megan called to tell us that the coast was clear and we could come home, we’d been behind closed doors for three days; opening them only to receive the meals that Evan had convinced his friend to supply us with, rather than make us join the others in the dining room.Although we would have liked to continue with a nice long honeymoon, I was eager to get started on my research for vampirism. Fortunately, Evan understood.We purchased tickets for a flight back home the following morning. It was a very early flight, so Evan went to the front desk an
I’d spent the two and one half hour flight with my head rested on Evan’s shoulder and my eyes closed. Part of the reason was because I was exhausted from the trauma of the day, but it was also because I had a foreboding feeling that I wasn’t ready to talk about. He was very astute when it came to my moods and I was afraid that he would pick up on it.He gently shook me alert so that I could enjoy the city lights as they boasted the excitement that awaited us once the plane landed. Since I’d never flown into a city of such magnitude in the dark before, I thought the lights a sight to behold. I kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for waking me while the flight attendant announced that we were about to land and everyone should be secured in their seats.The energy of the city consumed me as soon as we stepped out onto the sidewalk and hailed a cab. I found it a completely different feel to that of Las Vegas.
I’d expected Megan to be angry at discovering that the incubus had attacked me again, but I hadn’t anticipated the intensity of that anger. After she calmed down enough to consider how it got through the barrier, she realized that she’d put the barrier up against physical intruders, not demons or spirits. The fact that we hadn’t seen a spirit since we left my old house made us forget all about them.“Now that I think about it, we haven’t even seen your aunt Lily since we moved in here,” she said to me as she accepted the glass of brandy that Evan offered her. “That surprises me.”“I’ve been so busy settling in and setting up that I hadn’t noticed, but you’re right,” I said as I sipped on the iced raspberry herbal tea that my fiancé had fetched for me. I looked at the engagement ring on my finger and wondered how she’d react to my hastiness in accepti
We spent the next two weeks focusing on setting up the lab and making sure that the entire house was put in order. Like me, Megan had an aversion to clutter. We didn’t mind if a room was either empty or sparsely furnished as long as it was clean and not riddled with dust. So, while we shopped, lugged from the store as well as the old house, and organized, the cleaning crew was kept busy going from room to room.By the time we were finished and satisfied with the way things were looking, I felt exhausted on both a physical and emotional level.As odd as it seemed, setting up the new lab made me think of Peter. Perhaps it was because I was preparing to do research on the very thing that took him from me. I wondered if he’d made any progress with his research in Africa. It would have proven handy to be able to know his findings and share in his progress. Instead, I was starting from scratch.Megan ma
Megan and I took our time exploring the house. Even though we were searching for a suitable place to set up the lab, it didn’t detract from the fun of exploring.One of the first things that we discovered was a dumb waiter that led to a large room on the second floor. Megan called it the ballroom and, since the house was old enough, it may very well have been used for that. Shortly after, we found a butler’s elevator. Since the house had three stories and a basement, we were certain that the elevator would get a lot of use. Before moving on, we checked it for hidden doors like the one in my house had. We were happy to discover none.I checked out the basement. It consisted of a large room and then smaller rooms that ran down a narrow hall. Most of the rooms had concrete floors. One was a furnace room and the others were used for the utilities and for storage. At the far end of the basement ne
The master suite consisted of three rooms and a bathroom. I found the mahogany, French provincial furnishings a little ostentatious for my tastes, but I could live with them.The king sized bed sported a mattress that looked and felt so new that I questioned if it had ever been slept on. The cleaning crew had steamed it on both sides. The bedding for it, including a cotton covered memory foam mattress pad were laid in a neat pile at the end of the bed.I quickly set to making it.By the time I’d put my bed together, I could feel the muscles in my body begging for a reprieve. I discovered a deep, jacuzzi tub in the bathroom that was just begging to be filled with steaming hot, lavender scented water.While I waited for the tub to fill, I breathed in the scented steam that rose from it as I pinned my hair on top of my head. In the corner of the spacious, marble tiled room was a free standing oval mirror
To say that the estate house was impressive would be an understatement. I was so shocked by the magnitude of size and wealth that this house portrayed that I was completely speechless. The cleaning crew that I’d hired just hours earlier were impressively efficient. They’d managed to clean up a few rooms for Megan and I to start off using.It was clear that they had an easy month to go before they’d be done getting the place back into a livable condition. It wasn’t run down. Not in the least. It was just so thick with dust after years of sitting dormant that it looked like a light layer of snow inside the rooms that were yet to be addressed by the cleaning crew.“I thought that my house was too big and imposing. I could put three of them in here. Maybe four,” I said with wonder. “Who needs a house this big? Better yet. Why build a house this big?”&ld
Evan spent the night helping us pack up what we wanted to take to the estate house. It was shortly after midnight when we decided to call it quits. To my surprise, he went to his apartment to sleep. He said that it was because he still had things to do to prepare for his going before the vampire army board, but I guessed it was also because he wanted to put some space between us.I was assured that he loved me by the number of times that he’d said it. The fact that I was carrying Max’s child didn’t diminish that. It was more that he was serious about lessening the vampire bond between us. I could understand his desire to want to be sure of the source of my feelings for him. I even appreciated it. I also felt terrible that he had such little confidence to think that I’d only want him because of the vampire lure. I was eager to prove to him that my feelings were real. If that meant s