My Love Forever (The Night Movers Vampire Series Book 1) (24 page)

I hoped that Julia and I would be blessed with children. I know that Freya would make a lovely aunt and will spoil any little ones we did have.

She had in the past looked after children who were orphaned due to the Spanish Flu outbreak. She became like a mother figure to them and has kept an eye on their families ever since. I hope that one day she would become a mother again, in whatever capacity that may be. Freya was a complete natural when it came to motherhood.

I could only hope that I could be a good father, even though, between Brandr and Sebbi I didn’t have the best role models.

I ended the call, telling Freya that I would bring Julia to see her soon.

Julia stirred in her sleep and then moaned something unintelligible. I felt bad that the bond was affecting her this way. It was scaring me so god only knew what she felt like.

I got up and brought the quilt and pillows out of the bedroom to cover us both up. Because although she looked like my sweet Julia, I conceded that I just wasn’t brave enough to wake her up tonight.

Julia

The fortnight that my parents were away seemed to fly by. It became apparent that the bond with Alex was going to take a while to settle down in my system because it seemed to make my hormones rage, even without the bad case of PMT I had.

In one way I felt sorry for Alex having to put up with me, and I truly believe him when he said he wasn’t aware about how this would affect me hormonally. He said he hoped to have me pregnant ASAP anyway so I shouldn’t let the worry of another period bother me???

If I am honest I think I would like to spend some time getting to know Alex one on one before we started a family. We rarely seemed to be on our own much unless we were going to sleep or making love, and this was always because of work and the fact that the cottage was at the end of the lane where the work compound was. When I mentioned this to him he told me that he owned twenty four other houses in the UK and we could move to one of the other houses or buy another if I wanted to.

He then proceeded to tell me about the other houses, and while some were regular three bedroom properties scattered about the UK in various rural areas, there were also four large manor houses and two stately homes.

Alex went to the dresser in the kitchen and took out a photo album, which contained lots of photographs of his larger properties and their surrounding gardens and land.

I have to say that I was extremely impressed with them and wondered why he wouldn’t want to live in the more grander homes. He carried on flipping through the pages not really saying anything, and then he looked around his cosy cottage and said that he felt lonely in those large houses, but here in this cottage he said he had found the best of both worlds. He had his privacy in his cottage, but had Josh and Nik at each side of him if he needed them. He was pretty much on site for work and because you had to drive through the compound to get to the cottages, it meant that the security cameras from work could pick up any threat that came down the lane.

There was another photograph album showing pictures of Freya’s house in Aldbrough. It looked huge and like Alex’s larger properties, it appeared like it had been around for at least two hundred years.

He informed me that he and Freya had the property built around five hundred years ago, and he said it was the only home she had felt truly happy in.

She had human staff that had been with her since 1898, the butler was called Leonard and his wife Millie was the cook. They didn’t age due to them consuming a shot glass of Freya’s blood once a week, and Frank the gardener, along with his wife Sally the housekeeper did the same.

I could tell Alex had a great fondness for these people, and he showed me photographs on his phone that he had taken of them one evening. Alex, Freya and Josh were on a lawn around Freya’s home, playing cricket or something similar. I wondered why he thought he was lonely when he had so many people in his life. I must have sent him my thoughts telepathically because he said, “I was lonely because I didn’t have you Julia, and a property with twenty eight different rooms in it, including an unused ballroom, can take some filling up.”

I assured Alex that I did like it here at the cottage, it had started to feel like my home already and my parents lived nearby.

My mum and dad were due back in the early hours, so we called at their home to drop some fresh bread and milk in for when they got home.

We had visited every other day of my parents two week holiday, to check the house and move the post away from the door. We also made love in my old bedroom which seemed like a really naughty thing to do at the time, and although you couldn’t even tell that we had been in the room, I felt like somehow my parents would know when they saw me.

There were quite a few letters in the post today, but only one addressed to me. It was my decree absolute, which meant that my divorce was now final.

I thought I would feel upset or relieved or something, but I was just numb.

Alex looked at me when he saw what the papers were, as if to gauge my reaction, but he must have been unable to read anything from it because he took my hand and asked, “Are you ok love? You seem to be blocking your thoughts from me because I can’t tell how you feel about this,” he indicated to the papers in my other hand.

“I’m ok Alex. Just feel a bit numb really,” I said truthfully.

He kissed me on the lips and said, “Come on love, let’s go home for a bite to eat before work.”

I nodded my head and we locked up at mums and got into his SUV. It was a Honda CRV executive model with heated leather seats. Alex switched them on as soon as we got in the car as the weather had turned extremely chilly that day.

We drove in silence and didn’t really speak again until we got back into the cottage. I placed my divorce papers on the kitchen table and walked into the bedroom to change my shoes. I must have been there a while because Alex came in and told me he had made us both chicken curry with rice.

We sat and ate our meal, the radio playing with the sound down low in the background. Alex was a great cook and I was really enjoying my meal, until all of a sudden I couldn’t seem to swallow it down.

I looked over at Alex and he came and crouched down in front of me.

Holding both my hands he softly said, “Just let it out Julia. Don’t keep it locked away love.”

I cried silent tears but still couldn’t speak until Alex picked me up out of the chair and sat me on his lap.

“I’m not sad because I wanted to stay married to Gavin,” I said hurriedly.

I didn’t want Alex to think that I was still in love with Gavin, so I continued to speak. “I just feel that I have wasted a lot of time building a life and a home, just to receive a piece of paper a few years later telling you it was all for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing Julia. You had some good times didn’t you?  I know you travelled a lot because your dad used to tell me all the places you had been too. I watched you sometimes too, when you were at Uni and you first got engaged. You looked so in love with him and it tore me up inside. But you were having such a good time together. Maybe that got you through your studies so successfully.”

More tears came but a little harder now. I touched my fingers to his chin and I had words that I wanted to say but I couldn’t seem to speak, so I conveyed the words telepathically.

“Oh god Julia, don’t ever doubt my love for you, and don’t ever think that we are not forever. There is no paper that could break our bond. Only death can do that. And even then I would love you. My ghost would find you and stay with you. My spirit would not do that moving on shit that they talk about. When I come back to haunt you, I am staying put. I might do some of that cool floating through walls stuff to get to you too, and I would want to do some weird scary poltergeist stuff to Sergei to freak him out.”

He made me giggle, and then he pulled me closer and stroked my hair.

“Julia, this may be the wrong time to ask you this question, but do you think you would like to get married again. If you didn’t it wouldn’t matter because you are bonded to me now anyway. And legally, since a week ago now, you own half of everything I do. Freya, Josh, Nik and Gregor would take care of you if anything should happen to me and.....”

“Yes, Alex. I think I would like to get married again.”

“You would? So If I get down on one knee right now and proposed to you, you would say yes?”

“Well I don’t want to get off your lap so you can forget about getting down on one knee at the moment. But if you were to ask me, I would say yes.”

He looked at me lovingly and I expected him to ask me to marry him but he didn’t.

Neither did he ask me when we got back in from work the next morning. Even after a wonderfully satisfying session of love making the proposal didn’t come.

I thought about proposing to him instead and the idea really appealed to me. Gavin had proposed to me during a night out to see one of our favourite bands, so he got all the excitement of planning the perfect evening and buying a ring.

I realised that whilst thinking about a proposal from Alex for the last few days, my divorce papers no longer bothered me. Alex had done it again. He had managed to take away my hurt and a replace it with a way to look forward. I will marry this man, this immortal vampire, and I will show him how much he means to me every single day of my life.

Gina

I had been one the organisers of the Barrowfield bonfire night party at the Red Lion for a number of years.

Night Movers had sponsored the firework display and the villagers supplied the wood for the bonfire. It was a great night for the community and we held a raffle with lots of prizes, also supplied by Night Movers, which raised money for the Barrowfield youth club.

I called in to the post office to find out if Mr Singh had the raffle ticket books for us. He usually sold quite a few tickets and always attended the bonfire.

There were quite a few people in the queue so I looked around the chilled foods area of the shop. I saw a tub of twelve profiteroles drenched in thick milk chocolate, and I knew that Nik and I could have lots of fun with those later.

I thought I heard my name mentioned and I glanced to the side to see who it was. Sandra Jackson was a real bitch to me whenever she got the opportunity and today wasn’t going to be any different.

“Yes I heard that Gina had been having an affair with that Nik Harding from Night movers for years. I don’t know what he sees in her though, because she’s always been fat.”

That bit stung. I had been on a perpetual diet for years and no matter how much Nick told me that he loved my curves, I would never feel happy with my shape.

Sandra carried on with her gossip. “I feel sorry for her lovely husband Steve. He’s been deceived by her for such a long time, but I think a good woman would help him get over it. Their kids must be so upset and embarrassed by her behaviour I bet that .....”

She could talk about me, Nik and Steve all she wanted but there was no way she was talking about my kids.

“Hello Sandra, still busy sticking your nose into things that don’t concern you I see.”

“Just saying what we’re all thinking Gina. If you didn’t want people talking about you, you shouldn’t have been having an affair for years.”

“For your information Sandra, I wasn’t having an affair, but now I’ve sampled the goods on offer, I wish I had done it sooner. I mean you have to admit Nik is one hell of a man. Oh, and if you want to be the good woman to help Steve get over me then be my guest, I think you deserve each other. But listen up now because I will only tell you this once. If you ever talk about my children again I will beat you all the way to Rothley and back. Do you understand me Sandra, you mean gossiping bitch?” I said with my finger poking her in her flat chest.

Then I turned on my heel and grabbed the profiteroles out of the chiller, before turning back to the spluttering Sandra and saying, “I have to hurry back now as Nik is looking forward to licking this chocolate sauce from my lady parts, and I wouldn’t want to make him wait.”

I took the profiteroles to the till and sorted out the raffle tickets with Mr Singh before making my purchase.

I didn’t look back to see Sandra’s face, I just held my head high as I walked out of the shop.

Nik was just pulling up to the kerb when I stepped out of the door. He had been to collect the raffle tickets from Barrowfield Motor Repairs, which was down the road from Mr Singh’s Post office and general store.

He stopped the car abruptly and slammed the car door behind him as he came towards me.

“What’s wrong Gina, why are you upset?”
I knew Nik would be able to sense the swirl of emotions rushing around my head at the moment, and it was good to know that he was here for me. If there was anyone who could keep me grounded it was Nik, but I wasn’t sure how he would respond to this incident today.

“Let’s just get in the car love,” I said already opening the car door and getting inside. He leaned down towards me and captured my face in his hands before looking into my eyes, and telling me he loved me telepathically through our bond.

When he got in to the car I began to tell him what had happened and everything that had been said. He then took a look at the profiteroles and said,

“I think we need more of these,” before he got back out of the car and headed towards the shop. I followed him quickly, telling him through our bond not to do anything rash, but he had a very determined glare on his face which deepened when he saw Sandra. He went straight towards his favourite foodstuff in the world, other than my blood (Nik’s words not mine,) which was a large Jar of Nutella. Then he turned to Sandra and said, “It wasn’t too long ago that I bumped into you in here while buying some of this heaven in a jar, and if I remember correctly you insinuated quite strongly that you be more than happy to lick this hazelnut goodness from certain parts of my anatomy. And if I also remember correctly, you were a married woman at the time.”