Cherry Blossom (Vampire Cherry Book 2) (7 page)

My mom swiveled around, eyebrows arched. “Of course I missed you, sweetie! Why would you think otherwise?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t seen me in
six
years
, and all I get is, ‘Hi. Took you long enough. Yay, weight loss?’ Don’t you fucking
care
I’m back?” I felt like crying. For years I’d hated being unable to let them know I was still around. I worried they’d be devastated by my disappearance, and now she acted like I’d been on a planned vacation.

She gathered me close, and kissed me on the forehead. “I care more than you’ll ever know. I waited up for you every single night since your disappearance.” I tensed before giving in. She still smelled like apples, cookies, and fabric softener, only a million times more intensely than she used to.

She smelled like home.

Unshed tears shone in her eyes, and I finally saw what my disappearance had cost her. “There’s so much we need to talk about,” she said. “We missed you like crazy, but we always knew you were all right. Let me get you all something to drink, and we’ll explain everything.” She gave me one of her trademark glares. “And mind your manners. No more using the f-word while you’re under our roof; I didn’t raise a punk.”

I nodded and turned to the table, needing some space to compose myself. My gaze fell on Alex. He leaned against the kitchen wall, stiller than I’d never seen him before, and as obscure as his large frame allowed. I linked my arm through his, and pulled him forward to stand by my side, happy when the dejected look slid off his face.

At the same time, my dad held out his hand. “We all seem to have forgotten our manners tonight. I’m Greg. My wife’s Kathleen. Any friend of Gerri’s or Constantine’s is a friend of ours.”

Constantine let out a low chuckle at the sound of my human nickname. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he gave me a wicked smirk.

Alex took Dad’s proffered hand. “Alex. Nice to meet you.” Not like he was surprised to hear what I was really called; he’d found my missing person report file, including all my personal info, the day after we’d first met.

Constantine made himself comfortable at the table. “Alex is Cherry’s boyfriend. I have wanted to tell her everything since I found out, but couldn’t until I contacted you. And of course your number isn’t registered. When Alex insisted we visit you, I seized the opportunity to have you explain.”

“Cherry?” My dad arched both eyebrows.

“It’s what
Gertrude
goes by these days,” Constantine said, before I could speak.

I wasn’t little Gertrude Mosby any longer—hadn’t been in a long while—and my new name was only one in a list of changes I’d have to fill my parents in on.

“I’ll explain,” I said, “but later. First, Mom, how did you… How do you know Con—”

Mom turned from the fridge, and the words died in my mouth, as I saw what was in her hand.

Three bags of blood.

I felt my jaw drop. “What’s that?”

“Judging by the time, I guess…brunch.” She looked at Alex. “You
are
like them, right?”

“I don’t really…” Alex seemed at a total loss, which funnily was exactly how I felt.

“Alex is new. He isn’t yet comfortable with our ways,” Constantine said. “Your mother knows,” he told me. “She and your father both.”

No shit!

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you knew them,” I hissed at him. “I thought you were done hiding things.”

“I didn’t hide it. I couldn’t tell you.”

“Don’t blame Constantine. He promised to not tell a soul we know about your kind, and he’s a man of his word,” Dad said.

So yelling at my ex would have to wait. First I had to figure out if he’d compelled my parents into thinking him trustworthy.

Mom popped the bags in the microwave oven, and set it for half a minute, before placing three mugs on the counter. “How about some tea, then?” she asked Alex.

“That would be great. Lots of sugar, please.”

I let go of him, and ran both hands over my face. “Okay, this is too weird for me. How did you know about me? About us, in general?”

Dad pulled out chairs for us all, and Mom handed us the filled mugs. “I’ll tell you everything. Sit. Drink.” She fleetingly caressed my cheek, her touch tender as ever, grounding me.

I took a seat, and cupped my drink with both hands. I didn’t know what I’d hear, but my world would never be the same again. Hell, it had already changed. I’d just found out I’d wasted years I could have spent with my family, for no reason. They knew what I was. I wanted to blame Constantine for it, but I believed he hadn’t known sooner.

Alex sat next to me, and placed a hand on my shoulder. I rubbed my cheek against his knuckles, and steeled myself for whatever truth was coming my way.

“I—I don’t know where to start.” Mom gave us a watery smile.

“Try the beginning.” Dad winked at her, and they shared a look that made me happy deep inside. Whatever else had changed, my parents were still as perfect a couple as I remembered them being.

She nodded. “When I was five, back in Ireland—”

I frowned. “In Ireland?”

“Yes, I grew up there.”

“How come I never heard of that?”

“Really not what you should be focusing on, honey.” Mom shook her head. “A month after my fifth birthday, to be exact, my mother and I were attacked on our way home from visiting a friend. My mother shoved me behind her and begged our attacker not to harm me. The woman completely ignored me, but went straight for my mother’s neck. It was after sundown. I remember her opening her mouth, and her canines gleaming in the moonlight, long as my pinky. And I remember my mom collapsing, and blood spurting on my good dress.”

“A vampire?” I whispered.

“Not just any vampire,” said Constantine. “It was Ádísa.”

“You know her?” Mom asked me. She looked horrified.

“I did, Mom. She was… She had me turned.” Mom gasped, and I clasped her hand. “She can’t hurt any of us anymore. Constantine took care of her for good.”

Tears shone in her eyes, and she mouthed a silent thank you to him.

Constantine shook his head, as if killing his maker was nothing worth mentioning. “She was set on having your grandfather as her consort,” he said to me. “When he wouldn’t cheat on his wife with her, Ádísa decided to simply eliminate the competition. My maker always was a sore loser.”

That was unbelievable. “Ádísa was after grandpa Geoffrey?” And grandma Ross had won? I cheered inwardly for the woman I’d never met.

“She had already tried to seduce him, but he wouldn’t leave us,” Mom said. “I never found out whether he briefly gave into her advances or not. My mother never said. Maybe she didn’t know. Anyway, Constantine witnessed the attack, and heard your grandma cry that she didn’t want to leave her baby girl—me—an orphan. He…”

“I turned her,” Constantine said flatly. “I was no innocent. I’d done my share of indiscriminate killing, both as a human and as a vampire, but she… I just couldn’t let her die on the side of the road, covered in dirt, with her toddler watching.”

“You turned Cherry’s grandmother?” Alex sounded both incredulous and furious. I covered his palm with mine, and he sat back, but he was obviously still on edge.

“My grandma was a vampire? And you were her maker? Why didn’t I know this sooner?”

“I told you”—Constantine sounded impatient—“I had no idea you were her granddaughter. I didn’t recognize your family name.”

“But you knew my dad. You must have known his last name.”

“Listen to the whole story, and you’ll understand,” Mom said. “The important thing is he saved her.”

I stared at Constantine. He returned my gaze, unfazed by my scrutiny. Every time I thought I had the man figured out, he showed me another side of himself. As he’d done a couple months back, when I thought he’d betrayed me for Ádísa, only to watch him behead her—his own
maker
—to save Alex and me.

Or maybe he wasn’t all that chivalrous, and my grandma had been even better looking than Mom told me. Aunt Ruby was supposed to look a lot like her.

“Hold on!” I looked at my mother. “What about aunt Ruby? How was she born? She’s almost six years younger than you. Was grandma pregnant when Constantine turned her? But then she couldn’t have— How…?”

Mom and Constantine exchanged a look. To me, she said, “Stop interrupting. We’ll get to that.”

Hard as it was, I managed to keep my mouth shut. I’d keep my questions for when they were done talking. I had no doubt there would be more things to ask by then.

“After I turned your grandmother, I took her and your mother to your grandfather, and told him the truth about what I was. What his wife had become. I gave Geoffrey a choice. He either helped me keep her turning a secret, or I told the council about her, and she disappeared from her family forever. To his credit, Geoffrey wouldn’t give up on the woman he loved.

“He helped me keep her in the basement and feed her, until she tamed her hunger and could fend for herself. Then I helped her, your grandfather, and your mother relocate to London. We stayed in touch as they kept moving to a different city every five years or so, to avoid people asking questions. Your mother met Greg, who was visiting family in Cardiff, and soon she was pregnant with you.”

“Greg and I got married first,” Mom interjected.

“Yes, yes. Everything was done properly, of course. Anyway, once Geoffrey passed away, things changed.”

“Oh God, please tell me you didn’t sleep with my grandma.”

He smirked. “I always loved my women feisty!”

My horror must have shown on my expression, because Constantine laughed. “I never saw her that way, and I’m sure she never thought of me as anything other than a friend. What I was going to say was that, with Geoffrey gone, nothing kept your grandmother on that side of the Atlantic. When Kathleen decided to follow your father back to the States, your grandmother came too, and we decided to sever all ties between us.”

“We trusted Constantine, but phone calls and letters leave a trail, and we didn’t want to take any chances,” my mom said. “Three months after you were born, we moved here and changed our family name.”

“I didn’t see either of them since, and had no clue you were Kathleen’s daughter when I met you. I’d still have no clue, if Ádísa hadn’t made that comment about the women in your family,” Constantine said. “It was then I started looking into things. Your grandma managed to steer clear of our vampire registry, since she wasn’t turned in the States, and your parents stayed off the grid. It took a lot of digging before I found out you were Ross’s granddaughter. Or, I should say, Ruby’s granddaughter.”

Ruby’s granddaughter?
“Aunt Ruby isn’t your sister?” I asked Mom. My eyes felt about to pop out of my skull.

She shook her head.

Alex draped an arm around my shoulders, and squeezed my arm. I more than appreciated his silent support.

“She’s your mother?” I asked. “Ruby is Grandma Ross?”

Mom nodded. “She changed her name to Ruby after my father died. Said she wasn’t the same person any longer.”

“Well, fuck!”

Dad laughed at mom’s glare. “The girl just got a shitload of family secrets shoved down her throat. Let her deal with it her own way.”

I didn’t see how he could make light of it. “Nobody thought to tell me all this before? I mean,
you knew vampires exist
. People in horror movies die all the time because they don’t know the paranormal is out there, and you knew and didn’t warn me?”

Dad’s face fell. “We thought we were protecting you by keeping you away from that world.”

Yeah, that hadn’t backfired at all. I bit back the sarcastic retort when I saw the pain in his eyes. He and Mom did what they did out of love, and Constantine kept his mouth shut out of loyalty to them.

Their noble intentions didn’t make me any less upset, but they did make me less verbal about my feelings. My head was spinning. This was all too much. Ádísa had attacked my grandma before having me turned. My former boyfriend was my grandmother’s maker, as well as a family friend. I took a sip of the blood, and made a face. It was cold and tasted of anticoagulant, yet I still found it easier to swallow than what I’d just heard. I decided to take things one at a time.

“Aunt—
Grandma
Ruby visited in the middle of the day. How come she walked in the sun?”

Constantine’s head snapped toward my mom. “She did what?”

Mom nodded again. “She has a secret brew that makes her tolerate sunlight. I keep a few bottles of it around, just in case. I’ve added it to your blood and Alex’s tea, but it needs about three days of steady consumption to start working for more than a couple hours at a time.”

Alex switched into detective mode before our very eyes. A determined look descended over his previously perplexed expression, and he let go of me so he could lean forward. “She has a secret brew? She came up with it herself? Is she a chemist or something?”

Mom shook her head. “Herbs. I’ve seen her mix them, but didn’t recognize any, and she wouldn’t share the recipe with anyone. Not even me.”

That muscle on his jaw ticked. “And have you tested the limits of the brew? How long do the effects last at a time, once it kicks in?”

It was obvious he had more questions, but Mom held up a hand. “I don’t know how she came about it. She just did. It was long after we moved to California. She returned from one of her trips in the middle of the day. Any testing that was to be done, she did herself.

“Anyway, she needed to stay below the radar, since your vampire council didn’t know about her turning and she didn’t know what they’d do to her if they found out. Trying to be prepared, she began keeping tabs on the council members. She keeps her vampire life away from the family, so she never let me in on how she does things, but she eventually managed to hack into the VSS archives and began recording new turnings.”

This was incredible. “My grandma has solved the sun-allergy issue
and
is a hacker?” Ha! Coolest granny ever!

Constantine chuckled.

My mother cupped my chin, and the tenderness in that small gesture filled some hollow part in my chest. “She saw your birth name come up. Your father and I were devastated, but she convinced us it only meant we’d get you back eventually. When she tried to get more information on your whereabouts, she found the system had crashed.”

“Yeah, the VSS was shut down soon after my turning,” I said. It had been one of the consequences of my turning, actually. The old council, who’d established it, was overthrown by those protesting my semi-public turning. The new council members—including the two serial killers with world-domination aspirations, whom Constantine and I had dealt with—had decided to ban all new turnings. Without new fledglings, there was no use for the Vampire Social Services, the sole purpose of which had been to help newbies get used to their new life. “That’s where I met Constantine. He was my sponsor.”

“We had no idea. Your grandma never found out where you were. I’ve been waiting to hear from you since.”

“Oh, Mom.” I turned and buried my face in the crook of her neck, drinking in her familiar scent that I’d always associated with safety. When I raised my head again, I had to blink back tears. “I wish you hadn’t killed Ádísa,” I told Constantine, “so I could rip her head off myself.”

He rubbed his temples, and I felt a pang of shame. Whatever else his maker had been, she’d been his near-constant companion for centuries, and he’d killed her for me. I owed him not to discount that sacrifice.

“So first grandma gets turned, and then I do. What are the odds?”

My mom let out a forced little laugh. “It’s not just you two. I’m the only lucky one, I guess.”

“Why do you say that?” Constantine asked before I could.

“My own grandma disappeared before I was born, but there were rumors she’d been slaughtered by a beast,” my mother said.

Huh. The women in my family seemed prone to brutal attacks. When Constantine had proven his loyalty to me, not her, Ádísa had asked what it was about women in my family. My gaze locked with Constantine’s. There had to be something there. But what?

Mom yawned, and I realized it was way too late for the humans among us. I sighed. Delving further into my family’s past would have to wait one more day. My life was shaken enough as it was. Maybe I could spend the downtime raging at Constantine for keeping all this from me. His promise had been necessary to keep my parents safe, but I was no threat to them. He should have told me. And I really needed to yell at someone.

“Look at the time,” I said. “We better get going. The hotel Constantine booked is close by, so we can be back here right after sunset. We’ll pick things up then.”

“Nonsense.” Dad stood and pushed his chair back. “You’re staying here.”

“Dad, there’s no room for us.”

“Actually, there’s a bedroom and extra pullout sofa in the basement,” Mom said. “And we’ve installed a small bathroom. It’s a little cramped, but you should manage for a few days.”

The choice seemed as out of my hands as my unlife apparently was. I gulped down the rest of my blood, trying not to taste it, stood, and left my mug in the sink. “Well then, I guess we’re staying. We just have to get some stuff from the car.”

“Alex and I can fetch that,” Constantine said.

“I’ll help the boys. You ladies go make the beds.” Dad kissed me on the forehead. “Goodnight, Princess. I’m so happy to have you back.” He was so adorable, I didn’t tell him
the boys
would probably need no help carrying the entire car.

“’Night, Dad. It’s good to be back.”

Mom wrapped one arm around my shoulders and led me down the hall. “You know,” she said, tugging on a strand of my hair, “red really is your color.”

It really was good to be back.

I’d been shocked and disconcerted—and was still more than a little pissed off at everything the people in my life had been keeping from me, but I was ultimately happy to be home.