| |
THE first person she met was a redhead who looked a lot like her and had a baby belly the size of a Buick. She’d quietly welcomed Miranda and asked her to sit next to her.
Miranda took the other woman up on the offer, not surprised when her vampire took the seat on her left. He introduced her to the people seated on the table with them. The great hall had several hundred tables spread throughout it. About a fifth were occupied. Mostly by creatures wearing turquoise sashes. Like Adric’s.
His family. He had a large one, didn’t he? Did he realize how lucky he was? She’d never had a real family, not even back in the human world. Two of the other women at their table looked at her from eyes the same color as her own, in addition to the woman Adric said was his sister-in-law Mallory and the blonde seated next to the healer.
“You definitely look like us,” the blonde said. Jade? Was that her name? “It’s nice to meet you, now that you’re awake. I think you may be our aunt.”
“That’s what Dracula said.” Miranda didn’t want to be anyone’s aunt. Not at this stage of the game. But it was hard to look past the fact that they all looked like her, had the same eyes as her. Same cheekbones. She and Mallory had the same color hair, but the wild rings she’d hated for years were just like Jade’s blonde ones. She was definitely related to these people.
Perhaps they’d be willing to help her, just out of family loyalty or something?
“I’ve always thought Dracula was a nice name,” one of Adric’s brothers said. “Perhaps that’s what we should call our son, Mallory?”
“I’m leaning more toward Bram or Lestat. Please ignore my mate, Miranda. He’s long had a strange sense of humor.”
“I know the feeling. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Sometimes I say things before I think.” What else should she say? She looked at Adric. He was just as handsome as his brothers, wasn’t he? He passed her a plate piled high with food. Real food. Not sticky rice and funny looking potato things.
There was even a donut on her plate. Miranda forced herself not to dive in like Petey would. Petey, who they had left behind sleeping in the suite. She’d promised to bring him back breakfast, if he behaved. She should have brought him. There was a Border collie underneath the table, snuggled around a wolf that apparently belonged to Mallory’s mate.
It had been years since she’d sat down at a table with a real plate of food in front of her.
Barlaam the healer must have known how she was feeling. He leaned over the table. “Do not overdo it. Your changed physiology will reject too much right away.”
“Ok. I think.”
She could do this. It was just a table full of food. Of people. People she was supposedly related to. People he was related to. She was safe—she could act normal for a while, couldn’t she?
As she took her first bite of yummy yeasty goodness—she’d always loved donuts—it started to sink in that maybe she wasn’t alone anymore.
Maybe there were people out there willing to help her.