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She entered like a strike of thunder. Everyone felt the power coming from her in a sickly wave. It was unnatural, like a dead thing in a forest of life. No one should have that much power. Her face flushed, her eyes sunken. This was Anastasia after a blood binge, and I was shuddering with terror at the prospect of her being near me. Would she be as unstable as James and I had been? She was already unstable, this might tip her over the edge.
Even so, her power made her terrifyingly beautiful. Her skin radiated with it.
Kent looked appropriately surprised at her arrival. “Who are you?”
“I am Anastasia Bathory.” Her voice sounded strange, almost like an echo. “I am here to save my people.” Who better to save us than the one who almost destroyed us? Loving the irony, mom. She came closer to the center where we stood. For a split second, she caught my eye. “The humans can leave.” We moved one of the benches so the humans could get out. Olivier and Renard went with them to ensure they got to safety.
Kent laughed under Anastasia’s control. “Not going to kill us all at once, love? Disappointing. I would’ve-” She held out a hand and cut him off with her powers.
“Don’t speak again,” she ordered. “Your voice makes my spine rattle, and I dislike that. One word and I will snap your worthless neck.” I felt her power diminish only slightly. She couldn’t keep this up forever. “We will accept your surrender.”
Kent laughed again. “You really think you are in a position to-” Her hand still out, she cut him off a second time, this one permanently, and when her fist closed, his neck broke with a crack.
“We will accept your surrender,” she repeated, her strange voice echo growing stronger.
“Release us,” one of them ground out. She contemplated for a moment, listening for something, and then she held out both hands. The turned were free, but they had no intention of surrendering. They started to charge at us, but Anastasia had her hands out for a reason. She made them both into fists and dozens of the turned fell with broken necks.
My mom still sucked, but lame she was not.
“We will accept your surrender,” I shouted. “Kneel and you will be spared.”
Half of the turned had been frightened into submission. The instant they knelt, the vampires next to them made sure they would not get up again.
“So be it,” I said. “Mom, smash ‘em.” She nodded to me, and as our enemies came, together we destroyed them until nothing was left except the few left that surrendered, and our small army of survivors.
The battle won and victory ours, Anastasia floated over to me. She said nothing, simply pressed a paper into my hand. Knight came up, dragging a survivor from the carnage. I pulled the turned’s face close to mine.
“Where is Alistair?” I demanded.
He coughed up blood and had the nerve to smile. “Gone. And you’ll never find him. The day you see him again is the day your world dies.” He laughed and gurgled when my claw swiped his neck open. I dumped him onto the ground with the other bodies.
Anastasia was gone into the night, the phantom who’d saved our skin. The paper was still in my hand. I opened it and inside she’d written:
‘I love you.’
LACE AND FLOWERS REIGNED today. In a small white tent, I checked my small bit of makeup in the mirror and adjusted a few hairs here and there. I’d done it mostly by myself, with the unskilled help of Olivier and Merrick. My calf length dress was a simple thing, with embroidered flowers and sheer fabrics. Nothing fancy.
Olivier was wearing black like she usually did, and Merrick wore green to go with her bright green eyes. She and I had come to a comfortable friendship, thankfully. I fluffed my curls one more time and breathed out some anxiety.
“Jitters?” Olivier teased.
“No. Not one bit.” I knew what, and who, I wanted.
Finished, I stood and slipped on my silver flats, and we left the tent. Outside were the ruins of a castle that was once our home. Several months of work were turning it into a meeting hall for us to gather in. We didn’t live together anymore. Instead, we were forming a community around the area with our new brothers, the Lycans. Some of the rogue packs had decided to stay and become our neighbors, Jesse’s among them, one of the many Lycans who had helped us along the way.
One wall had been finished of the new meeting hall, a wall with three large windows that pointed at the top. I liked the bright open space and was glad our new designer hadn’t chosen hunter green to decorate it.
Knight stood in the middle of the windows, looking very nice in a tux. I’d insisted he didn’t need to, but he insisted he did so I would tear it off him again. Still, he looked handsome with his hair slicked back and a smile on his face.
Everyone stopped when they saw me. Olivier and Merrick stayed by the steps where there was no wall, only bits of stone left. I walked alone up the aisle to the man standing at the end.
On the front row of the crowd was my father and aunt. Lucas sobbed beautifully into a handkerchief while Clara patted him consolingly on the shoulder. They were my third set of visitors, and after everyone had agreed to pardon Lucas and let them both stay, it had made me very happy, as Castilla said it would. Balthazar was next to them holding Kitty. She sat up on his lap and kept trying to climb into Clara’s, much to Balthazar’s chagrin. Toni sat on his other side and she gave me a blank nod. She and I would never be buddies, but Balthazar adored having her around so she tolerated me. Arthur was on the other side of the room. We’d been a good team since the war ended. We would never hang out outside of work, but having his feelings in the open hadn’t messed up our work relationship, and that was good.
The most important person in the room, Knight, looked at me like I’d imagined a man looking at me on our bonding day. He held out his hand when I reached him and helped me up the steps to the platform. A table was there for us, with the goblets and the knife. I filled mine, and he filled his, and we drank our lovers’ blood. I knew what his tasted like, but he had never drunk blood before. He smacked and looked like he was about to burp, then it passed. We put our wounds together, held wrists, and stepped in a circle. My blood flowing into his blood flowing into my blood. The circle ended, and we said the words:
I pledge my life to you. I will spend every moment hereafter with you. You are my family, my hearth. And though the seasons change and the world renews, within your embrace is where I will stay. I will never take another, even should there be a day when you are not by my side. Our love will never fade. Eternal and unchanging we shall be. Together.
We drew close and kissed tenderly, forever bonded. Everyone clapped for us and we stood before them as one. We had a party again, with good food and games and dancing. Our numbers were so small now, we had few friends left, and those that we did, we cherished.
Knight and I danced to the song he’d played when he proposed, and I sang along to it with my head against his shoulder.
You’re all I ever wanted...
We left the party first and went to our new little yellow home down the road. Knight tried to carry me over the threshold, but I told him that was silly, so he picked me up anyway and did it. Then, after our passion was sated, we drifted off to sleep in our bed, and I fell into a dream.
I dreamed of the house again, the one from my nightmare. I was frozen in fear of having the same dream, but this time was different. The house wasn’t in shambles now. There was fresh paint on the walls, simple furniture, and the smell of bread in the air. I walked from one room to the other until I got to the front door.
The screen door opened for me and I saw a party outside. I was wearing a white cotton dress and flowers in my hair. A woman approached me. She had dark curls and tanned skin. Kitty? No, Kitty didn’t have tanned skin.
“Mother, we’re about to start,” she said. She tugged my hand to a table decorated with party things like balloons and cake. Another woman with dark curls saw me and smiled.
“Mother,” she said too. Her eyes were purple and blue. Kitty.
Then a man and another woman came. The man was tan with black locks that looked like they refused to be tamed. The third woman looked different from the others, with blonde straight hair and blue eyes.
The man came and kissed my cheek. “Happy birthday, mother.”
The third woman came too and did the same. “Happy birthday, mother.”
Birthday? Vampires didn’t celebrate birthdays. And four people calling me mother? What kind of dream was this?
“Give her some room, kids,” a voice said from behind me. Knight was here too. He set his chin on my head and held me tightly in his arms. “You know how she feels about birthdays.”
I turned to look at him, and there was something about his face that made me believe he knew what was going on. “What is this?” I asked him.
He chuckled at me and stroked my cheek. “Four hundred years of life and you still don’t know what a vision looks like.”
“This is my future?”
He shrugged. “Who wants cake?”
The four adult children scrambled to get some cake from him. The haze of sleep left and I slipped into the dream like it wasn’t a vision, as if it was simply a dream. I joined them at the table and joked over who would get the biggest piece, and put icing on the boy’s nose with a laugh.
If I’d slipped into my future, it was one I wanted to go to. When I woke up the next morning, I felt strange to be back in the yellow house instead of the farmhouse with the four children. Knight wasn’t there, but I smelled food cooking. I put on a robe and walked into the kitchen. Knight was at the stove making something. He saw me and smiled.
“Good morning, my bonded mate. I made bacon.” He held out two plates, each holding an entire package of cooked bacon. “My bacon, your bacon.” He handed me one and I sat at one of the bar stools.
“I had a dream.”
“A dream? Was it about me? Was it naughty?” He gasped with a grin.
I simpered at him, smiling. “We were at a farmhouse somewhere. I’ve never seen it before. There was a party outside and there were four children calling me mother. One of them was Kitty.”
He crunched some bacon and brought over a pan of eggs to dump onto my plate. “Four kids? Sounds like a lot of work. How many looked like me?”
“Two.”
“Only two? Pssh. I need to step up my game.” He sat next to me. “Was it happy? The dream. Was it a happy dream?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
He toasted bacon with me and kissed me with tasty bacon breath. “Then our future looks pretty good.”