Haven (25 page)

The blood hit my stomach and made it feel hot, like a sunburn in my belly. The burn spread through me like wildfire. I needed to get it out of me.

I put my little hands on the monster’s head and gave the fire somewhere else to go. The monster released my neck and roared. The sound hurt my ears and scared me, but I didn’t let go of his head.

Actually, I couldn’t. It was like my hands were glued to him. He fell to the ground with me sitting on his chest. The fire turned him into a black statue underneath me. He smelled terrible. I wanted to let go of his head and make it stop, but I didn’t know how.

Then he was a body-shaped pile of ash. White. Gray. Hot.

So hot.

Do you see now, cara mia? Yours is a formidable power,
Thomas whispered through my mind.

His voice snapped me to the present where the adult-me huddled on Adrian’s kitchen floor, struggling with my power. If I touched someone, would they fry? If I didn’t would I implode? Either way, I was losing this fight and someone was going to die.

“No. You will live. We will all live,” Thomas proclaimed. He released a tidal wave of power into me, pushing the fire tigress to the back of her cage deep in my core, sealing her up tight.

But for how long?

I was trembling and nauseous when Thomas finished. Jonas hauled me to my feet but my legs buckled and I collapsed against him. His arms encircled me, but it was little comfort.

“I burned someone, I burned a monster,” I babbled into his shoulder. “It was trying to eat me and I turned it into a charbroiled statue and then a pile of ashes. I would’ve done it again. If you hadn’t stopped me I would’ve burned us all. I—”

“Sshhh.” Jonas held my quaking body tight.

“Who, what, I’m...what am I?” My mind raced with a few answers, none of them comforting.

Daylight-safe vampire, supernatural pyromaniac, split personality, parasite host.

Or, maybe I was crazy and none of this was happening. Yeah, maybe this whole saga was one big hallucination, maybe—

Thomas took me from Jonas. He cupped my face and captured me with his black gaze. “
Calmati, cara mia.
” A gentle command backed with power.

I calmed instantly and my eyes made that liquid shift back to brown. His reverted to their beautiful green, the color of spring grass. On the heels of that thought a dazzling field of shin-high green grass surrounded us under a cloudless, bright blue sky.

Thomas released my face and took my hand. “Come. Walk with me.” He drew me into the field until we reached a small clearing.

“Sit.” He helped me to the ground, a solicitous hand on my elbow. Jonas joined us.

I sat between the two men and admired our surroundings. I liked it here, so quiet and peaceful. I squinted up at the sun. “It’s nice here.”

Jonas snorted. “Tell her, Thomas, or I will.”

Confusion furrowed my brow. “Tell me what?” I vaguely recalled asking an upsetting question a moment ago, but Thomas’s magic clouded my mind.

Thomas patted my hand. “Now you know the great power you possess, but not the how or the why. For that, we must return to the beginning. Before we travel there, beloved one, hear me—every choice, every action, no matter how cruel it may seem has had but one goal. To protect you, our most cherished star.”

“I understand.”

“No, you do not. Not yet.” He paused, but kept me trapped in his intense, cat-eyed stare.

“We were in the great ballroom when it happened, celebrating Maurizio’s birthday and your impending arrival. Elena had been in labor all day, so we expected you to enter the world that evening. You did, but something went wrong and Edoardo called us to your mother’s bedside. He was mad with grief. ‘Save her. Please save her. Make her one of you,’ he begged of us. But it was too late. Her spark was gone, putting her beyond our help. It was a devastating blow for all of us, especially Maurizio. In all the centuries we have lived, I have seen him cry twice. This was the first.”

“I—”

Thomas raised a hand to silence me.

“I do not know how long we stood there, gazing at her beautiful, lifeless body. The doctor and nurse finished their care of you and handed you to Edoardo. You were wailing so fiercely, for you knew your mother was gone, the pain of loss so clear in your tiny, primal cry.”

Thomas cleared his throat. A flash of sadness crossed his face before he mastered it.

“Try as he might to soothe you, you found no solace in Edoardo’s arms. The nurse took you, then the doctor. They rocked you, murmured soothing nothings to you, and yet you cried. I held you next, and your desolate cry paused for a few moments. But all too soon, your little heart was not satisfied, and you took up your doleful wail once more.”

“Please don’t do this,” a new male voice interrupted.

“Who said that?” I glanced around, saw no one. But it sounded like Lorenzo.

Jonas glared off to the side at nothing. “Irrelevant. Listen.” His gaze returned to us, his slim body vibrating with excitement.

Thomas’s eyes locked with mine. “Your cries broke my heart and pulled Maurizio out of his grief. ‘Give me Elena’s child,’ he said. ‘Give her to me.’ Your cries ceased the moment you arrived in his arms. Your heart found its true home.”

“Of course. I love my uncle. I knew that already.”

Jonas snorted.

Thomas cast him a stern look and squeezed my hands. “No, Beloved One, brightest star in our night sky. He is not your uncle.”

“What are you saying?” Fear and excitement gripped me. If not uncle, then, “Father?”

Thomas nodded. “Yes.”

Twelve

My uncle is my father.

Hadn’t seen that one coming, although in retrospect, I should have.

For one, I’m his female doppelganger. Same pale skin, dark brown eyes, and long, wavy dark chocolate hair, though his is crazy curly with all of those ringlets. Then there’s my unusual strength and incendiary power. And the relentless
mostly human
cracks from the vampires, Dixon’s strange comment that I was impossible and finally Faith’s words at the clinic. An unexpected coupling, born in blood, of blood, from Life, from Death, the Father…blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I’m half human, half vampire. A bona fide freak of nature. A living, breathing walking, talking anomaly. Daughter of a vampire prince.

I’m a freakin’ vampire princess.

My life is one hell of a surreal, supernatural soap opera.

I sat on the floor in the guest bedroom, back against the bed, and glowered at the dresser. I came up here to swap out my bloodied T-shirt for a clean one but my heavy reality—featuring the big daddy news flash—sucked the life out of my legs and put me on the floor.

My phone vibrated.

The text from Faith read,
U OK?

Typed in all caps. She was worried. Must have gotten a psychic hit about me.

Suddenly, I missed her terribly.
No. i need u. @adrian’s.

already on my way. xo.

Good.

The shuffles and bangs of housekeeping cleaning up the mess downstairs mixed with loud curses and grunts from Lorenzo in the hall bathroom, where undead Dr. O tended to his injuries. Clearly, my brother was unhappy with the undead doc’s care. But he shouldn’t have tried to fight a creature with super strength.

Silly
brother, silly
human
.

“I’m on
ly
half human.” I said it out loud, trying it on for size. And truth.
Half vampire.
“I’m a half-breed.” An oddity among
both
species and my uncle, “My uncle is my father.”

O mio dio
. My God. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Cara mia.
Thomas’s voice caressed my mind.

No. No way. Not ready for more vampire story time. I was drowning in information overload.

“Back off.” I visualized a barrier, a massive, endless stone wall. No windows. No doors. No vampire visitors allowed.

Once finished safeguarding my mind, I sent a text to Adrian.
little accident downstairs. sorry about mess. my fault. will fix. don’t worry. stay @club. c u l8tr. xo.

I checked the time. We were a couple of hours from doors open at Haven, so Adrian might come home to see what happened. Half of me wanted him to, so I might avoid the vampires and the hot topic
du jour
. But the other half of me wanted him to stay away, at least until housekeeping cleared up the worst of the damage.

Adrian responded quickly.
WTF, babe. what part of play nice did you NOT understand?

Sorry,
I replied.

Not much more to text at this point.
I went to check on my brother. He sat sideways on the toilet, shirt off, elbows on his legs, eyeing the floor. A gauze patch covered his forehead and another larger one banded around his right forearm. Dr. O was sewing up a gash in his back with a curved needle and surgical thread. Ouch. Why wasn’t big brother complaining?

I greeted him from the doorway. “Hey.”

He gave me a floppy smile. “
Sorellina
, so gooooood to see youuuu,” he slurred.

“Uh, good to see you, too,
fratello
.” What on earth had Dr. O done to him? “You feeling all right?”

“Oh yeah, feelin’ fine.”

I suppressed a laugh. He was wasted. “What’d you give him, doc?”

“Morphine.”

“Mmm-morphine,” Lorenzo echoed, voice dreamy. I laughed outright. He swayed.

“Be still,” the doctor barked. A press of power from the creepy vampire stilled my brother.

I sat on the floor in the doorway. Lorenzo tracked me with his glassy eyes. “
Sorellina,
how are
you
?”

His ability to convey concern while in the grip of a drug haze impressed me, but I wasn’t in a sharing mood. “I’m okay, Lo-Lo. But you, what were you thinking? Fighting with Stella? Are you nuts? She can probably
bench press a tank.”

“Hardly,” Lorenzo scoffed.

“Oh yeah? What do you know about it?”

“Too much.” Sadness flashed across his face. “Seriously, you okay? With, you know, the news.”

I held up a warning hand. We were
not
going there.

But he wouldn’t let it go. “He’s your
father
. Aren’t you upset?”

I laughed, a harsh, unhappy sound. “You don’t want to do this right now, Lo-Lo.”
Because I might explode.

He sucked in a breath and blinked several times, struggling to shake off the morphine fog. “If not now, then when?”

How about never? Yeah, never would be good.

“Tell me how you feel,
sorellina. Per favore.
Talk to me.”

Aw, crap. We were going for it. I opened my mouth, closed it, cleared my throat. Tried again. “I never knew our mother, right? I was like, five when our dad—I mean when Edoardo died, so...”

Lorenzo gave me an encouraging nod.

“So, Uncle Zi was already like a father to me.” I focused on my hands, my
half-human
hands. “Now to find out he is my dad, well, I—” Emotion tightened my throat. “I wish he were here.”

Silence. My brother gave me a sympathetic look.

“Why isn’t he, Lo-Lo? This is a pivotal, game-changing moment in my life. In
our
lives. He should be here.” The words cracked my heart. But then anger welled up inside me and I let it flow, let it blanket and protect me from the pain, pain caused by my father’s—no, my
whole family’s
abandonment and deceit.

I shot to my feet. “You all lied to me my entire life. Let me believe my father was my uncle. How could you?”

My brother rose, unsteady on his feet. He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “Where the hell is he? Is he so afraid of Dixon and the Dark One that he won’t come here? To be with the daughter he supposedly loves? After all this time apart? Is this how a father shows he cares? Wait, maybe it is.” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “Because what would I know about it? I never had a father when I needed one.”

“Carina,” Lorenzo pleaded.

“No. Don’t you defend him, or them, or yourself. You all did this to me. You lied, stole my memories, and abandoned me for twelve years. I don’t want to hear that
we-did-it-to-protect-you
crap again. You could’ve found another way. You—” My voice cracked, tears welling.

Dammit. I would not cry again. “You wanted to know how I feel? Well now you know. I hurt. All of you betrayed me. And I hurt.” A few angry tears escaped. I swiped at them with the back of my hand.

Lorenzo’s face contorted in agony. He took a rocky step in my direction, but I backed into the hall, bumping into the railing overlooking the downstairs.

Thomas appeared in a whoosh of cold air. I rounded on him. “You!” I lashed out and he caught my arms, holding me while I struggled to free myself and give him a good pummeling.

“
Calmati, cara mia
.” He caressed me with his cool power.

“Oh no you don’t.” I resisted his command. “Don’t you dare try to wipe this all away with your magic. You lied and then you took away my whole life. How could you—how could
he
do that to me? My own father.”

The fight left me and I sagged against Thomas.

“How could all of you leave me?” My arms wrapped themselves around him.

“Come, little one,” he soothed. “Tear down that formidable wall you’ve built in your mind. Let us in.”

“No.” No more pain.

“Let us in, my little warrior,” Jonas added from behind Thomas.