An Immortal Valentine's Day (2 page)

The vibrations from his cell phone brought him back to the present. “Marcus?” he whispered with his hand over his mouth as he left the nursery on tiptoes. “Give me a second.” He headed toward the Japanese studio where he would ask Pietro for a strong cup of espresso and croissants fresh from the oven.

****

Marcus heard the exhaustion in Alexander’s voice and chuckled. “Another sleepless night?” He rubbed a hand over his stubble, at least three days’ worth of black beard he would have to shave for the Valentine’s party later that night.

“Arianna’s teething and kept everyone up.” Alexander yawned. “How can you keep those ungodly hours and still sound so cheerful?”

Marcus removed the moka from the stove and inhaled the comforting smell of the strong espresso. “Watch your mouth, Greek. Nobody has ever told me I was cheerful and lived another day to talk about it.”

Marcus’s eyes turned to the stairs leading down to the basement, where his vampire wife and were-bat kid were sleeping the day off behind a metal door. Since he had married Diana, Marcus had switched to her lifestyle and started living at night. As an immortal, he needed the power of the sun to keep healthy, so once or twice a week he went to sleep later in the afternoon and spent a few hours on his terrace to get his fill of the sun’s rays. He drank his espresso black, and glanced outside the kitchen window. The sun was covered by a thick blanket of white clouds, but he knew that, although cold, the healing particles contained in the rays still filtered through them. “I’m a Roman centurion, living at night and forgoing the light of day is nothing compared to what I used to do.”

“You do realize it was a rhetorical question?”

Marcus snorted. “Just toughen up.” He refilled his cup and grabbed one of the vegetarian savory pastries Diana had baked for him the night before. Even though she didn’t consume food anymore, she enjoyed cooking for him. He always fed her soon after, so in his blood she could taste the spices and flavors she used to prepare a dish. After he took a bite of the phyllo dough and discovered a soft cream of porcini mushrooms and mozzarella, he smiled and walked to the narrow hallway leading up to the terrace. “What do you need for tonight?”

“I’m glad you asked. I didn’t think you Romans could be polite,” Alexander said.

Marcus and Alexander never tired of that game. If anything, the older they grew, the more creative their insults became.

Marcus opened the door to the terrace and stepped out. A cold gust of wind ruffled his hair and he felt more awake. “If it weren’t for Diana, who loves this holiday, I’d be a no-show tonight, but just try and guess which finger I’m raising at you.” He sat on one of the cozy chaise lounges Diana had bought for them the previous summer so they could enjoy the star shower.

“Are you up for a short trip to Quintilius’s Reserve?”

One hand under his head, his legs crossed at the ankles, Marcus looked up at the sky. “What for?”

“Ravenna wants roses and orchids for the floral arrangements and I thought about going to Wolf’s Haven to pick some. I don’t think there are any flowers left in all of Rome to buy. Not in the quantity I need.”

The traffic sounds from the busy roads reached the terrace and Marcus rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you think of that like yesterday or even the day before?”

“I have three kids. Planning has become a chore my baby brain can’t manage anymore.” Alexander sighed out loud.

“Still. There’s this thing called the internet. I heard you can order all sorts of stuff from it. Days in advance even. But I forget you’re Greek and somewhat adverse to technology. Not your fault really. Just the way your mind is wired. Wrong.”

“Are you done?”

“Just starting.”

A loud sigh escaped from the phone. “In any case, are you coming or not?”

“Of course, I am.” Marcus pressed both boots on the terracotta tiles and stood.

“You are going to gloat at me, aren’t you?”

“You betcha. See ya in a few and I’ll bring the cavalry.” Marcus walked back into the kitchen, took a piece of paper on which he scribbled a note for Diana. Then he attached it to their bedroom door. She wouldn’t wake during the day unless Daniel did and she wouldn’t leave the light-tight room, but he loved to leave those notes, knowing she’d discover them later. This one read, “Can’t wait to kiss your heart again.” He knew she would blush all over her petite body. The heart he referred to was a mole shaped like one Diana had on the inside of her right thigh, where her leg met her more intimate core. Marcus had named all the moles on her skin, but the
heart
was by far the one that received more attention from him. He was glad her transformation into a vampire had erased her scars—they had attested to her sad past and he had hated the mere sight of them—but not the moles. He could spend hours tracing them and making her shiver.

Marcus engaged the state-of-the-art alarm system he had installed soon after they came back from their honeymoon in Amalfi as Alexander’s guests. The first time he had to leave the house during the day while Diana slept, he was so worried about burglars he had called Alexander and asked for the name of the agency he had used for both his Roman house and Villa Eloisa.

Before Diana, he had often left the entry door unlocked and never checked on the state of the windows. Despite the crime rate always on the rise in Rome and his carelessness, his house had been broken in only once. He had been inside at the time. The three thugs approached him and had to crane their necks to meet his eyes. The moment they saw how big he was and the scar on his face, they were gone, leaving him robbed of a good fight. After Diana and then Daniel came into his life, he couldn’t watch the news anymore without thinking of all the horrible things that could happen to them when he was out.

The vampire Claudius, was an ever-present threat on their perfect slice of heaven because no alarm system could ever stop him. Claudius wanted Marcus to suffer for something that happened two thousand years ago, and he continued attacking all the people around Marcus just to make a point. More than two years had passed since Diana had been abducted by the vampire. So many things had changed in Marcus’s life, and yet the terror to lose his loved ones to Claudius’s hands was always there, seething under the surface, ruining Marcus’s peace of mind.

The previous spring, Marcus was forced to relive Diana’s ordeal when he accompanied Samuel to Claudius’s nest in Castel Gandolfo. The angel was looking for answers regarding an attack on him and his life mate, Martina, only to discover it was all a diversion. Vampires lured Samuel out of his apartment while Claudius was torturing Martina. Diana saved the mortal by changing her, but it had been a close call. When Marcus, Samuel, and Alexander finally made it back to Samuel’s, they found that Ravenna, Ophelia, and Diana had the situation under control. He had been so proud of his levelheaded Diana, who performed the procedure to transform a mortal into a vampling without having done it before. But, at the sight of Diana holding a lifeless Martina in her arms, Marcus had imagined a different scene, one in which he was holding a dying Diana and had no power to save her. With Claudius still on the loose, Diana would never be safe. And now Daniel too.

A year ago, soon after they had adopted Daniel, Diana asked him, “Are you ever going to leave this house again without me?”

She had prepared a vegetarian stew for him and he was eating while she cradled their baby to her chest. Daniel, the small devil who had changed their lives overnight, cooed at his mother.

“I worry too much when I’m not here with you.” He was always honest with her. Although, if things went the way he so desperately wanted, they had an eternity before them, life was still too short not to speak the truth anytime she asked for it.

She raised her feet to the chair and tilted her head as she let her fangs down. “I’m a vampire.”

“I know you are strong and lethal—” He watched her eyes lowering to his throat and shivered, his dinner already forgotten. “And so beautiful I can’t think straight when I look at you—” Daniel let out a few happy bubbles from his perfectly shaped mouth and that was enough to douse Marcus’s ardor and make him laugh. “It’s not going to happen tonight, is it?”

Diana’s fangs snapped back inside with an audible pop and she laughed too, bringing the baby to her mouth for a soft kiss on his crown. “Isn’t he the most beautiful baby in the world?”

“He must be.” Marcus always wondered how a baby so small could be so perfect in every detail. Sometimes, he and Diana stood awake to look at Daniel, counting his little fingers and toes, tracing the round shape of his ears with a little tuft at the apex suggesting their form when he would change. “I still can’t believe he’s here, with us.”

The night they were called by the paranormal adoption agency and asked if they were interested in a were-bat baby, Diana answered the call and screamed, “Yes.” Then, without remembering they had been in the middle of a lovemaking session, she dragged Marcus out of the door. She was wearing only the purple negligée he had bought her for their anniversary. He kissed some sense into her, playfully swatted her bottom and sent her back to their bedroom to change into something appropriate as he zipped his pants and looked for a shirt that hadn’t been torn to pieces by her fangs.

Once at the agency, they spent hours talking with the nocturnal staff, going through all the papers that needed to be signed before they could even lay eyes on the baby. A sour-looking social worker explained how a were-bat had special needs, and he would require constant supervision because he would eventually be able to fly. They were asked, by the social worker first, then by the psychologist, and finally by the pediatrician, if they understood an adoption was forever and not a whim.

Marcus saw the tears shimmering in Diana’s eyes and answered for both of them, “If we’re so lucky to be the parents of that baby, forever isn’t long enough for us to love and cherish him.”

Dawn was looming when the social worker finally escorted them to the nursery where the small bundle lay all alone in a crib too big for him.

“Why is he so small?” Marcus asked when he realized his hand was larger than the baby.

Instead, Diana went still, her eyes transfixed on the crib.

“Were-bats are smaller than other species at birth, but he will grow up, don’t worry.” The social worker paused, then added, “His parents were very tall.”

He hadn’t commented on the baby’s size because he was worried about how tall he would grow. Marcus was terrified to touch him without hurting him. But he didn’t explain that to the social worker. He let her talk about their responsibilities for a while, hoping that if he didn’t interrupt her, she would let Diana hold the baby. The whole time the women blathered about adoptive parents who didn’t understand what it meant to have a child, Marcus looked at the baby and at Diana staring at him. Had only the woman stopped a moment to breathe, she would have noticed Diana’s longing to be a mother. Diana’s desire was evident in every nuance of her face and the way her body angled toward the crib. But that night, Diana didn’t get to touch Daniel.

Months later, when Daniel was safely tucked between them, they talked about the adoption process, and Diana had commented, “In a way, it’s like we went through a pregnancy. At first, we didn’t know we were expecting, then we wondered if he would’ve been a boy or a girl, then we just had to wait for him to be home with us.”

“And now he’s here and it was all worth it.” Marcus caressed the baby’s head. Diana had helped him overcome his fear of hurting the infant by holding Daniel together at first.

But soon after, Marcus’s worries had shifted to their safety. Again, Diana had set him straight, and by the time they had celebrated the baby’s first birthday, Marcus realized he could relax and leave the house for a few errands on those days he set aside for his mandatory sunbathing.

Still, before he drove to Alexander’s, he double checked the alarm was on, and he even walked around the house to be sure he hadn’t left one of the windows on the ground floor opened.

****

Samuel was awake when Marcus phoned him but didn’t take the call. He was busy worshipping Martina.

“I love you.” He kissed her lips, his tongue brushing the corner of her mouth, then slowly pushing inside to caress her fangs. She was hungry and it showed in the way she shivered under his touch. Her skin was covered in goosebumps he created by circling his fingers over her arms, as if he was using her body like a canvas. She kept trembling as he continued the motion down her back, her sides, and up to the swell of her breasts covered with cream lace.

They had gone out for a romantic date earlier that night—something they did frequently since the moment he had decided to show his true form to her. Soon after they started living together, Samuel had ditched his cover as a cripple. Now, when in the mortal world, he only hid his broken wings.

Martina had teased him the whole time with a see-through top that showed the bra he bought for her at the La Perla boutique. When, before going out, he presented her with the small bag, she blushed and told him he didn’t have to buy her such extravagant gifts. The truth was he loved showering her with them. Martina never asked for anything and she was so humble, he felt compelled to make her happy.

She didn’t model the lingerie for him, though, as he had asked. Instead, she wore a little, ivory dress that complemented her complexion, exalted the color of her hair and liquid dark brown eyes, and let him know how well that bra cupped her small, perky breasts. While, at the same time, the dress made him wonder how the small strip of lace matching the bra would hug her perfectly round bottom.

Taking their time, they walked up and down the Spanish steps, now decorated with pink and red roses for Valentine’s Day. The place was crowded with Romans and tourists alike, looking like an ocean of undulating humanity. But to him, only Martina existed. Her heels ticked on the granite surface as her knee-length skirt showed her shapely calves. Martina had covered her outfit with a trimmed, black jacket she had seen on display in one of the Promenade boutiques that catered to nocturnals. She appeared ravishing in the elegant outfit, but he knew what a sight she was without it and had to restrain himself from dragging her up the stairs and through the entrance of the Hotel Hassler, where he would rent a suite for the rest of the night.