Haven (35 page)

Faith and I shared a long look. When she nodded in agreement with Tessa, I gave her arm one last squeeze and let her walk out the back door, wishing like hell I could be in two places at once.

Adrian tossed me my sweater-coat. “Don’t worry, babe. She’ll be fine.”

Mind reader.
With great effort, I put my worry for my friend aside. I had to trust she could handle herself.

Adrian waved and retired upstairs. Stella jerked her head at the back door. “
Andiamo, principessa
.”

The two vampires disappeared in a rush of cold air. Okay, time to switch gears.
I hurried after them, the little capitalist consumer half of me damn happy to shop, especially
as we intended to spend loads of Thomas’s money.

Payback. Sweet, sweet payback.

Sixteen

We spent Thomas’s money with gusto. At Naoki’s in the upper Haight, I bought myself a fitted, military-inspired black jacket, and a funky, chunky men’s bracelet in white gold for Alexander. Stella, too, got her shopping groove on, purchasing a black, jockey-style hat, and army green skinny pants.

Next stop, three boutiques in a nondescript, dark alley off Union Square downtown. In business for hundreds of years, they catered to a special clientele, aka the preternatural community. By appointment only, of course.

It was early evening when we called it quits.

“You know, Tessa, we didn’t do enough damage to Thomas’s credit card,” I joked, as we settled into the back seat of Lorenzo’s Mercedes. Unlike the Ferrari, Stella received permission to use this one.

“Indeed not. We must do this again. Quite soon, in fact,” she replied, tone buoyant.

A familiar male voice chuckled in my head. Thomas.
I think you two have done enough harm to my bank account for now. But, please, do consider today’s purchases as belated birthday gifts, cara mia.

“Dude, eavesdrop much?” I complained. “Seriously. This was girls’ day out, not
girls-with-guy-in-head
day out. Have you been here the whole time?”

If I say yes, will you seek horrible vengeance upon my person?

“You know it.”

A soft laugh.
Oh, my spirited child, you are easily riled. It is delightful.

“Shut up.”

“Thomas, darling,” Tessa purred. “Do not push the child over such triviality. We have graver matters to discuss.”

Agreed. Then in truth, no, cara mia, until this moment, you have been in the company of women. Exclusively.

“Good. Now, go away. No, wait a minute.” I raised a brow at Tessa. “What’s going on with you two? Last night, Tony hinted at something between the two of you.”

No reply.

Fine. “Are you two dating?”

Stella coughed. The other two vampires remained silent.

“Well? Are you?” I persisted. “Because, I sure don’t remember the two of you as a couple. Or if you were, you sure hid it well.”

“We were not together in the sense you mean, when you were a child living among us,” Tessa replied, voice even.

“Now?” I pushed.

Tessa shrugged. “We do not date.”

“Then what do you do?”

That is not your concern,
Thomas warned.

“Oh c’mon,” I objected. “We’re all one big, dysfunctional, but sort of happy, family here. So yeah, it’s my business if my surrogate uncle and mom are doin’ it.”

“Language!” Tessa admonished.

“Sorry, but why are you avoiding my question? What’s the harm in my knowing what you two do behind closed doors?”

“That’s quite enough. Thomas, please show her, so we can proceed to the more pressing matters.”

Thomas dropped a montage into my head.

Thomas watched Tessa dress my wounds after the memory wipe. Tears tinged with blood ran down her lovely face and fell onto my unmoving body. They kept vigil at my bedside, night after night, sitting on opposite sides of the bed. One evening Thomas moved his chair to her side. The next night he took her hand, and the next Tessa rested her head on his shoulder. Finally, they kissed.

We told no one, though Maurizio knew at once,
Thomas narrated while more images of their courtship moved through my mind.
I can keep nothing from your father. We are too closely bound.

The images disappeared.

I blinked. “Why all the secrecy?”

Safety in subterfuge.

“Meaning?”

One does not provide ammunition to one’s enemies.

“Sounds like paranoia to me.”

“On the contrary, my darling,” Tessa added. “One does not live to be as old as we without taking the utmost of precautions.”

Couldn’t argue with that. They had me beat by centuries. “Do you love each other?”

Tessa stared, eyes bright, while Thomas uttered,
It’s complicated.

“No, it’s not. Either you love her or you don’t, Uncle Tommy. Which one is it?”

Tessa spoke for him. “At first, it was grief. Losing you was hard on all of us. Once the deed was done, your father left for Italy, shutting himself away from the world for a time, losing himself in his music and art. Jonas accompanied your father, choosing to drown his pain in violence.”

We had a list, a long list,
Thomas interjected.
Jonas made it much shorter.

“I don’t understand.”

“As for Thomas and myself,” Tessa continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “We remained behind until the day you awoke. Then we, too, returned to Italy, choosing physical comfort as our distraction from the despair.”

“You’re saying you slept together to help each other forget about me?”

Oh, Carina, so young,
Thomas mused.

“No, dear child. We could never forget you. We had so much emptiness in us, where you had been, and we filled it with each other.”

“Okay, feeling miserable brought you together, but what kept you together?”

“Our union was built upon grief. From there, it grew into more.”

“You love him.”

“Yes.”

“And he loves you.”

Yes,
Thomas breathed through my head.

Tessa’s blue-green eyes glowed.

“Neat.” I was pleased. Once over the initial shock of discovery, I liked the idea of them as a twosome.

Thomas chuckled.
Grazie, cara mia. We are pleased you are pleased.

“But I still don’t get it. You’re in love but you don’t date. You’re together, but you’re not?”

“My darling, we are as together as one can be when running vast empires,” Tessa replied.

“Oh. Your work keeps you apart. Like a long distance relationship.”

She nodded. “An oversimplification, but yes.”

It also brings us together. As it has done now,
Thomas added.

Wham, back to me. My happiness vanished. “We’re going to talk about me and my issues now, aren’t we? That’s why you showed up in my head.”

Yes.

The car stopped. I glanced out the window, expecting to see my place, but we parked in the driveway of an unfamiliar, modern, two-story building.

“Where are we?” I admired the building’s natural wood exterior, tinted windows and thick steel framing. Similar in style to my place, though mine was stone, tint and steel. Still, I liked it.

“Moraga Avenue,” Stella replied.

Not quite the answer I wanted. “We’re in the Sunset? Why?” I bit my lip, pulse skipping a beat. Adrian said Alexander lived in the Sunset. Please, let it be his house. I unbuckled my seat belt. “Is this Alexa—”

Let us proceed.
Thomas’s voice bounced around my brain like a spiky ping-pong ball.

“Ow!” I massaged my temples. “Now what?”

Carina, our patience nears its end. We have brought you back to us, granted you sufficient time to readjust. But we can wait no longer.

“You call a few days, sufficient? I call it not even remotely enough,” I protested.

You were reckless, foolish last night, risking death for a moment of bliss. For that, there are consequences.

“Oh, don’t you dare go there. I got enough of that from Tony this morning. Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t have sex with Alexander. So back off.”

Sex is irrelevant.
Thomas smacked me with his cold power. I fumbled for the door handle with trembling hands, forehead on the window. Why was he hurting me?

Fight
, my inner voice spoke up.

Tessa intervened. “Thomas, my love, this is not the way.”

I disagree.

“Who died and made you Jonas?” I snapped. Resist. Punish.
Wow, he angered both my vampire and human sides. If I could figure out how to activate my power, I’d fight back. Unfortunately
,
my on-switch eluded me.

So
needed to work on that.

“The more you push her, the more she resists,” Tessa continued. “Like her father, once angered, she cannot hear you.”

Silence.

“I know you do this out of love, out of worry for what might have been this past evening. But she does not understand your passion.”

Very well.
His power disappeared.

Tessa drew me into her arms, stroking my hair, blanketing me with her soothing energy. The scent of lavender perfumed the air. I melted into her embrace, boneless, as if under the influence of a boatload of valium.

Nice. With her in charge, bring on the
you’ve-been-a-naughty-little-half-breed
lecture.

Tessa resettled me in my seat and smoothed some errant strands of hair from my face, tucking them under my headband.

“Thought I was glamour-proof, that you can’t compel me like an ordinary human,” I mused as she worked on my hair.

“Indeed you are, but what you experience now is no mere parlor trick. We all have our unique gifts and you, my darling, experience one of the many in my repertoire.”

My eyelids drooped and my vision blurred, making it difficult to focus on her face. “Why are you doing this? Are you mad at me?”

“No, dearest.”

“Then is this about last night?” I closed my eyes and visualized Alexander kissing me, biting my neck, his fingers slipping inside. I shivered.

“Stay with me, darling. Try to break free.”

“Don’t wanna,” I mumbled. “I’m glad you’re not mad like some people.”

Thomas grumbled in my head.

“Break free, child. Show us your strength,” she encouraged.

I didn’t respond, too caught up in enjoying the cozy ride she’d provided.

Tessa tensed. “So be it. I hoped to relax you, to open you gently to your power so we might learn of the binding’s effect upon you. Thus, we might begin your formal training in a pleasant manner. Sadly, you continue to resist us, no matter how light our touch.”

Frustration colored her voice, but I wasn’t in the mood to give up the floaty goodness.

“We’ve reached our first destination for the evening,” she continued. “We begin here, with a lesson in consequences, and for this you must break free of me, Carina. You are human but also vampire. Show us your strength and come back to me.”

Silence, save my deep, relaxed breathing.

“Now, Carina,” she commanded, voice hard. “For there remains much to impart before I will allow you to join my minion once more.”

Two things broke through the flower power haze. First, no one allowed me to do anything. Sure, they were hundreds of years older than me, but I wasn’t a kid. Second, who was her minion?

I opened my eyes, blinked. “Minion?” My brain tried to swat away the loosey-goosey spell holding my body captive.

“Yes. As Thomas has said, the two of you were reckless last night. I can forgive you that moment of weakness, my darling, as you are but a fledgling. But the Youngling is not, and he defied a direct order. More than one, in fact. For that, he must answer.”

He must answer.

Unease slithered up my spine and my heart pounded a chaotic beat in my chest. Every last speck of the lavender calm disappeared from my body. I pieced together the clues. Tessa holding back Alexander as my uncles bit into my wrists. Tessa ordering him not to interfere. Tessa’s secretive ‘
chats’
with both Alexander and Tony. Finally,
Stella, her fury last night, her words now echoing in my head,
You’ve defied our Mistress.

Our
Mistress.

I bolted upright. “
You
made him?
You
turned him into a vampire?”

She nodded, eyes gone black and glowing with her power.

That’s all it took to find my on-switch. My anger flared, as did my power. My eyes shifted to black, my energy flooding the car. “You
killed
him. Why would you do that? How could you do that to him?”

Ah yes, this is much better than my way,
Thomas interjected, voice dry.

My blood boiled. “You stay out of this.”

“Look at her, Thomas. Feel her. Strong emotion opened her. Alexander truly is her key.”

That was never in doubt.

“Oh, you know what I mean. Feel her, my dear, feel her.”

Thomas’s energy poured over me, but this time I was ready and I pushed back, my power hot, angry.
Resist. Fight. Punish.

Yes! Bravissima cara mia.
Thomas’s enthusiasm made me angrier.

“Shut up.” I scrambled from the car and made it one whole step before Stella appeared in front of me.

I glared at her. “Move.”

She raised an eyebrow, a clear
make me
.

My eye twitched.
Challenge accepted.
I threw an elbow strike, but Tessa appeared, halting my arm a breath away from Stella’s head.

“Let her pass,” she commanded.