Vlahos Tower, Montreal
Two months later
“I can’t believe the look on Lucinda’s face at the divorce hearing when she learned she wasn’t getting much now that Cat lives with me. “Nyssa was calling out from her kitchen. “Is it petty of me?”
“Okay, Mag. You have to ask her,” Cat whispered to him from across the table.
“That bitch deserves everything coming to her,” he responded back to Nyssa from the dining area of the penthouse.
Beyond the expansive windows, the late evening sun was setting on the streets below, radiating on the last few snow patches clinging to the darkest corners of the pavements, the few dormant trees below slowly returning to life. Spring was coming to Montreal.
“You have to,” Cat insisted, and he cast her a fond smile.
The teen had changed from her school uniform into a pair of comfortable exercise pants and a t-shirt, her hair in two little buns at the sides of her head.
After her homework, they had settled for dinner.
Nyssa had dismissed the daily housekeeper as soon as she’d come back from her office and this was their time together before he headed down to the Serpent. Their time as a family.
He looked at the remnants of their dinner on the table. The little white wine left at the bottom of their sleek crystal glasses, the rest of the spanakopita casserole from Nyssa’s mom’s recipe, the Greek meal lying in a sleek stainless dish at the center of the table, and the now empty square white plates that he would soon take back to the kitchen.
Everything so modern and glossy. So efficient.
How had he, the immortal who spent his time in the dark recesses of his club watching the sins of this world as time ticked on, found himself living the busy bustle of a partnership in raising a teenager.
Because he was kind of a dad now.
LaChance hadn’t been mentioned since Cat’s abduction. And Mag knew for a fact that his friend Amelia Akande had built a case against him. He was now rotting in jail with others like him who had run the children traffic for Norwell. The kids had been turned over to child protection services, with heavy counseling paid by the Catalina Vlahos Foundation. Señora Moreno had somehow managed to claim the compound and its former clientele had received chilling visits from Vince and his squad.
“Come on, Mag.” Cat wouldn’t let it go and she was right. It was time.
Mag shot Cat a complicit smile, thrilled at her beaming expression. “You think I should do it now?”
A few flutters kicked in his stomach as he fingered the small velvet box in his pocket. But his heart was certain.
“Yes,” Cat stated. “It’s been months.”
“Just two months, kiddo.”
“What’s been two months?” Nyssa walked in with a warm pie plate.
She still had her business attire on, a pencil skirt that cuddled every part of her sleek curves and a light blue silk shell that drew out the glow of her soft gray eyes. She had discarded her jacket and her bare arms were strong, just as she was.
The immortality suited her perfectly.
She beamed at him and his heart pounded in his chest like it did every time he set his eyes upon her, every time his touch settled upon her skin.
And every moment when he crawled under their bed sheet at dawn, still amazed at his happiness, at his incredible luck to have found her. They would make love in the early morning, her body warm from sleep, his seeking her freshness after a night at the Serpent.
“Come on.” Cat elbowed him in the rib.
“Maybe wait for Saturday?”
“No!” Cat protested. “I want to be there when you do.”
He was just teasing the kid. Nyssa always came to the club on Saturdays while Cat either stayed over at her friend Livy or caught a movie with Mr. Julien.
While he was blissfully happy in their domesticity and had made his home in her penthouse, she also wanted to be part of his nightclub life. She’d wear the skimpiest dress and the highest heels, eclipsing any of his dancers with her classic sexy aura, her blonde hair curlier than usual, her makeup a little more dramatic. His blood would boil with intense lust, pushing him to lose himself in her supple body and drink from her, deep into the night in his apartments above the Serpent.
“What are you two talking about?” Nyssa placed the pie dish at the center of the table and took off the oven mitts. She sat and poured herself more wine. “Go ahead, Cat. You serve. It’s strawberry rhubarb, your favorite. Mrs. Daviot said the market was open today and she made it just for you.”
“Not now, Nyssa.” Cat’s serious expression strummed his heart. The kid was as invested as he was. “Mag has something to tell you.”
“Really?” She turned to him. “Has Charlotte returned from Louisiana? She said she was thinking about coming back now that spring is here.”
His mother had left as soon as Merritt and her nasty brother had been dispatched, calling her mission to help him a success. He’d promised to call, not sure where that left them, but he was aware that Nyssa was in constant communication with her as she had decided to study and catalogue each of his artifacts as her new project.
“No. This has nothing to do with Mom.” Before he realized it, he was kneeling at Nyssa’s feet.
“Oh my god, Mag.” Her hands flew to her mouth. “What are you doing?”
“Nyssa, mon amour.“ He opened the jewelry box where a sleek diamond rested, the design made by a local modern artist, commissioned the month before by Cat and himself. “Would you do me the honor of being my wife?”
“Your wife?” Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed as she gazed at him in shock.
He waited, his heart crashing in his chest. They were both immortals, living together with no end in sight. He knew how his touch made her feel, how she trusted him with her sister. He knew how she loved him, body, and soul.
But this, this proposal, made it right. Made it official to the whole world.
“Magnovald.” Her tone was filled with emotions. “I don’t know what to say. I—”
“Just say yes!” Cat blurted.
“Yes.” Her palms pressed together. “Of course. Yes!”
She dropped to her knees in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh god, Mag, I love you so much. “
His heart soared. She was his. All of her, now entirely his.
“Put it on,” Cat gushed. “Put the ring on.”
Nyssa pulled back and took the ring from its velvet cradle. “Oh wow, this is gorgeous.”
“At first I wanted to look for something antique, but then I remembered your taste.” Mag was near overcome with emotions. “You prefer this, right?”
“Honey, I love it.” She gazed at him with nothing but adoration in her eyes. “I would have loved anything you chose.”
She slid the ring on her finger and it fit perfectly. The sleek design was set with the biggest diamond he could find.
“Were you in on this, Cat?” Still kneeling on the floor in front of him, Nyssa rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“You bet I was. We chose the design together.”
“Your sister’s even tougher than you are when it comes to getting what she wants,” he chuckled. “She drove the guy mad.”
He gathered Nyssa in his arms and lifted her from the floor. Drawing her in his embrace, his chin at the top of her head, he inhaled her familiar daytime perfume and he let the warm feeling of her body pressed against him fill his soul.
The sunset cast early evening shadows in the wide-open living space of the penthouse, its rays playing with the silver drapes, dancing on the living room furniture where they usually settled on Fridays for pizza-movie night with Cat.
This special time, when the day was over and night just started, was theirs.
The time they came as a family. Soon to be blessed by the world as husband and wife, with Cat as the youth he had always wanted to guide through life.
When he had wanted a child of his own, it hadn’t been about legacy. He realized it now—he had actually wanted a family.
He breathed in his happiness, his gaze taking in the spectacular reds and oranges of the sunset announcing good days to come.
He loved the woman in his arms more than anything.
And she was his now.
Want to know if there is anything going on between vampire Emmmeline Dubois and Mag’s more serious immortal brother, Justin St-Amand? Find out in A VAMPIRE’S SOUL, Book 3 in the Vampires of the Black Oak series. Click for more.
Dear reader
The idea for this book came to me when I was visiting my mother outside Montreal and watched a local documentary on young girls being groomed into sex trafficking by predators pretending to be their boyfriend, the girls being broken down with repetitive sexual assaults and drugs, before being shipped to Toronto and the US. Some escaped and recovered, some disappeared for good, and their family never heard back from them. Many of these teens did have families who loved them, but they became easy preys during that difficult transition into adulthood.
As a teacher working daily with young teens, this report broke my heart and, while I work daily to support their social-emotional needs here in Seattle, I also thought they needed a staunch savior in the shape of a bad-boy vampire willing to risk anything to save them.
And that is how I created this story, which is also steeped into the history of my people in Québec. While I distorted a few facts for story’s sake, the Daughters of the King and the Society of the Sons of Liberty are a real parts of French Canadian history.
Thank you for taking this journey with me into Magnovald’s search for happiness and, as always…
…trust your heart,
Marie-Claude xoxo