Desire Awakened (Aaron's Kiss #13) (12 page)

He was perfect. Dark hair like Mac’s covered
his tiny head, and his skin looked as soft as down. When Duncan ran
his finger down his cheek, the baby opened his eyes and looked
right at him. Sara held her breath as they stared at one
another.

“You and I are going to have a grand time,
young man. I shall tell you stories of your father that will curl
your hair. He was not as saintly as his mother thinks.”

Mac laughed.

“And do not let that mother of yours fool
you. I have some stories of her as well. But for now, you must meet
your new family.”

Duncan stood and handed her the baby. He
even told her to be careful of his little head. She laughed and
told him she would be especially careful as she showed him to
Aaron. They fell in love instantly.

~~~

Mathew moved to the game room again and
picked up the controller. He was playing one of the games when a
man came in to sit down in the chair next to him. Mathew tried to
ignore him, but he just kept staring. He finally paused the game
and looked at him.

“You don’t like babies?”

Mathew shrugged.

“I have five. All little girls. Well, not so
little any longer, but I have them. You’ll have to meet them.”

“Thanks. Why are you down here and not up
with the new kid?” He flushed when the man laughed. “I didn’t mean
that. It’s just everybody here is related to him and I figured you
all would be up there.”

Mathew played with the controller in his
hand when the man spoke again. “You like this game? I never really
cared for it much, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.”

“It’s okay. The graphics are good, but the
game is sort of lame.” Mathew looked at the man. “You’re Tristan
St. James, huh?”

“Yes. And you’re Mathew Burris. I’m pleased
to meet you.” Mathew put the controller down on the table and
started for the door. “Are we finished talking?”

Matthew stopped just before leaving the room
and turned to the man he’d just insulted. “I just said your game is
lame. I wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore.”

Tristan got up. “I didn’t mean to upset you.
Come on back and show me how you came to the conclusion that it was
lame. I sincerely want to know. It’s actually important that I
know.”

“Why? You probably know this game better
than anybody.”

“Probably, but this game was written some
years ago. See the little girl? That’s Lizzy. And the little boy is
Mac. I wrote this one when I was staying here when…well, I was
doing a favor for someone. But I met my mate so it turned out
well.”

He hesitated. This man was big, much bigger
than his dad, but not fat. He wasn’t scary, but he was a stranger.
There was something else about him that Mathew had noticed about
all the other people around here today. “Can I ask you a
question?”

Tristan nodded.

“What are you?”

Tristan leaned back and looked at him.
Mathew waited for him to tell him he was just a man, and he knew
that would be a lie. He wasn’t sure what they all were, but they
weren’t human.

“I have to ask you something before I tell
you. And it’s huge, Mathew, something that I’ve never asked of
anyone before.” Mathew nodded. “Can you keep a secret no matter
what?”

“You mean if they tear my fingernails out
and dip me in boiling oil kind of secret?”

Tristan didn’t laugh at him, but nodded.

“I can do that. I can keep the best kind of
secrets.”

“I’m a vampire.”

Mathew sat down on the couch and stared.

“So is Aaron and most of the other men in
this house right now.”

“But not the ladies?”

Tristan told him that some of them were
because they’d been changed. But a couple of the women, his mate
included, had been made also, but not by a person. They were
special. He said that Lizzy was more than that. “I’m a pureblood.
Do you know what that is?”

Mathew nodded but then shook his head.

“It means that both my parents are vampires
and their parents before them all the way back through our history.
Lizzy is more than that. Her dad is a made vampire, meaning that
someone converted him, but he’s really old, nearly two thousand
years old, and Sara is a powerful person because her cousin Mel,
you’ve met her, she’s the queen of all magic. Mel’s brother is
Sara’s dad.”

“So will Lizzy change my dad into what she
is?”

Tristan hesitated.

“She’s already done it, hasn’t she?”

“I don’t think she meant to. I think it just
happened. But your dad isn’t going to leave you or hurt you.”

“I know that.” Mathew stared at the paused
television. “But someday he and Lizzy will have their own baby and
I won’t be needed because I’m not like them.”

“What balderdash.”

Tristan stood and bowed before the woman who
came in the room with them. Mathew did as well, not sure he’d ever
met this lady before. And Mathew was positive that he’d remember
her.

“Lady Elizabeth, I don’t think you’ve met
Lizzy’s son, Mathew. Mathew, this is the Lady Elizabeth,
grandmother to Mel and the first queen of magic.”

Not sure what to do, he bowed too. “I’m not
really her son. I’m my dad’s son, but Lizzy and my dad are…I think
he said mates. They’re mates.” The lady looked at him like he was a
bug pinned to a wall. He sort of felt like one too. She turned to
Tristan and told him to get them something to drink and to leave
them alone. He nodded and left, but not before winking at him.

“You’re her son as much as that baby
upstairs belongs to Mac. Sit.”

He did so and sat up straighter on the
couch.

“What sort of person do you think I am?”

“Scary.” He put his hand over his mouth,
embarrassed that he’d said the first thing that had come to mind.
She laughed, but he didn’t relax; she really was a little
scary.

“When I was made…not made, created, I was an
adult. I had no parents, nor did I have anyone to show me the ways
of the world. Of course it was much smaller then, less people, no
planes or cars. They were still setting about this world in ships
and walking everywhere. So I created Avalone. It was a place for me
to go and practice my magic. And out of that the Tree of Life was
made. Have you seen it when you went to the castle?”

“No, ma’am. I saw a dragon, but we were only
there for a little while. And Miss Tess said that they didn’t like
humans running around without someone to watch over them.” She
nodded. “I guess I’ll never see the tree.”

“Next time you come, I’ll show it to you. In
fact, you and I will take a tour. But I digress.”

Tristan returned, handed her a glass, and
gave Mathew a soda. He sat it on the table without touching it. He
wasn’t allowed pop of any kind at any time.

“You don’t like it?”

Mathew shrugged at her.

“Ah. He won’t allow it. Smart man, your
father. Good. What would you like? I can get you whatever you
want.”

“I like orange juice please.” He looked at
the bottle he’d put on the table when she nodded to it. “It’s
juice.”

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

He nodded and grinned at her.

“You’re easy to please. Anyway, I was
created, and my mate was a man who was guard to me. He and I fell
in love and had a baby. Then that baby grew up and had one of her
own until we got all the way to Lizzy. And now we have you.”

“But Lizzy didn’t have me. She’s not my
mom.” He thought of her more than his mom sometimes, but she wasn’t
ever going to be. He looked up at her when she laughed.

“That’s what makes you her son. You don’t
get to pick your family usually, but sometimes one picks you and
you’re happier for it. That little boy upstairs is your cousin as
much as any other baby that come along after you. And those will be
your younger brothers and sister as much as you are theirs. None of
them will be human, some will be something like their mom, and
others will be like their grandda, but none of them will ever be
more than you. Do you know why?”

He shook his head.

“Because none of them were the first to see
everything you get to see today and beyond.”

“So I can tell them everything they missed
being born after me?”

She nodded.

“I should take notes for them. Keep them…I
have a camera. I could take pictures too and keep them.”

“That would be lovely. I think you should
have a great camera. I would hate for you to miss something. And
you should talk to my mate. He would be your great-great…well, you
can call him Grandda too. He has been the keeper of information
since I’ve known him. He can show you how to keep good
records.”

Excited now, he and Lady Elizabeth, Grams
he’d decided to call her, went up to see the new baby. Lizzy hugged
him to her, and he felt so loved he nearly burst from it. When Mac
asked him if he wanted to hold his son, Mathew nearly went
cross-eyed with happiness. He sat on the edge of the bed and held
the little guy on his lap.

“I’m going to tell you about today as soon
as you get big enough. And I’m going to take your picture all the
time.” A light flashing made him look up, and Phillip, Elizabeth’s
mate, had taken his picture. “See, little Dunc, it’s starting
already.”

“I don’t really care what you think. In
fact, don’t do it again. Thinking is bad for your health.” Megan
glared at the two men in front of her. “Where are they living if
not in the mansion? That should be simple enough, don’t you think?
They have to be staying somewhere, and we all know it’s not at the
castle. Logan is human. Humans don’t live at the castle.”

“But they aren’t around here either. They
were at that house that has the new one, the baby vamp in it. We
couldn’t get in there, not with all those others around.”

She’d heard about the new baby. Everyone who
had come into her shop had mentioned it. She was frankly sick to
death of the baby and it was less than two days old.

“Well, keep looking. I need for you to bring
me Logan within the next couple of days. The sale is supposed to go
through in four, and I have to make him understand that he can’t
just buy what’s mine.”

And if that didn’t work, he would just not
be around to make the sale. She started for the stairs to go and
talk with Lula again, but got sidetracked when someone came into
her shop.

She was really sick of people coming in and
telling her they were “just looking around.” Looking around at
what? The place was one room, and even that was small compared to
what she really wanted to do. Why did it take them so fucking long
just to look? Buy something and she wouldn’t care if the person
looked for months.

It was nearly seven hours later before she
was able to get to her prisoner. And by the time she got down
there, she was dead. Fuck. Now she had no bargaining chip to make
Logan do what she wanted. Looking at the dead woman, she wondered
what to do with her and decided that putting her in the dumpster
across town was her best bet. Even if someone found her, they’d not
know who she was. Not unless they had some dental records, of
course.

Megan put her in the shower curtain that
she’d found on sale a few weeks ago just for this purpose. She had
hoped that she’d live a little longer, might have too if she had
maybe taken better care of her, but Megan had a life to live too,
and taking care of a stupid woman who’d been dumb enough to get
caught wasn’t her problem.

Loading her in the back of her truck wasn’t
a big deal. The neighbors were used to seeing her moving crap in
and out of the building and would more than likely think that it
was just more of the same. She was pulling out of the lot behind
the house when she turned and something cut into her leg. Looking
down at the blood on her thigh, she got out and reached into her
pocket.

The green bottle from yesterday had
shattered. Megan went back into the building, stripped off her
pants, and put on fresh ones. She hated going to the Laundromat and
tried to wear her jeans a couple of times before she had to wash
them. Now she’d have to figure out how to get blood out of her
pants or buy new ones. Megan stomped out to the truck, pissed more
about the jeans than she was about Lula dying. She thought of her
parents and wished she had a way of going back in time and asking
them why they’d done this to her. Why they hadn’t stood up to the
queen and demanded to stay in Molavonta where she could grow and
have all the things that Lizzy had.

She’d been fifteen when her mother had been
called to the throne room. Megan had been told to stay away from
the proceedings, but she had snuck in the room and hid behind the
curtains. But there were several others ahead of her mom and Megan
had fallen asleep. She woke to hear her mom crying, begging to the
queen for mercy.

“You’ve been given more than enough time to
take care of this, Dahlia. It’s been months and nothing has
changed. You’ve left me no choice in the matter. Unless you do as I
ask.”

“I cannot, my lady. I cannot do that to her.
She is all I have.”

Megan thought they were talking about her
and had opened the curtain a little to see if her dad had been
there as well. She saw him standing next to her mom sobbing.

“Then I have no choice but to strip your
family of their magic and sentence you to the human world. I’m
sorry, but that’s all I can—”

“You can’t expect me to live with the
humans,” Megan said. She remembered the look on the queen’s face,
thinking that she’d known she was there all along. “You think up
something else. Whatever they’ve done isn’t bad enough for you to
make us go to the humans. I hate them.”

“Whatever
they’ve
done? You’re the
one that has sentenced them to this, Megan. What did you expect to
happen after you destroyed a part of the forest? Did you know that
when you practiced your dark magic there, you killed over ten
thousand plants? And because of that, nearly twice that in fairies
and brownies are now without jobs?”