Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night

“It’s nice to be worried about,” he assured me. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he fake smiled the way he was now. “Really, it’s just nice to know you still worry about me.”

I didn’t respond with more than a smile. He wanted a different answer, that much was clear. But I wasn’t in a position to give it to him.

It was the story of our relationship, it seemed. From the moment we’d met, we’d both been on very different pages with each other. At first, he’d been in love with his dead wife, and I’d been enthralled by Cyrus, my first sire. When I’d finally gotten over that—and Nathan had accidentally resired me and saved my undead life by giving me his blood after I was attacked by Cyrus—Nathan realized he wasn’t anywhere near finished grieving for his lost wife. Then, when he finally was, Cyrus had come back into my life, and departed it just as quickly and painfully. Every day I began to appreciate more the way Nathan must have felt when I had pressed him again and again to give me love he just hadn’t felt. I wasn’t whole enough to give him love now, but I could certainly give him sympathy.

“Ah, well,” he said to break the awkwardness between us. Still, I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I was relieved when Nathan’s cell phone chirped.

“Nathan Grant,” he said after he’d flipped the phone open. I’ll never understand why men always seem to answer the phone that way, stating their names instead of just saying “hello.” I shook my head as I turned toward the fireplace. A fire might be nice, in the morning.

I heard the soft drum of something falling to the carpet, and I turned. Nathan stood, empty-handed, the phone still open on the floor. He stared at it as though it were a talking frog or a shimmering mirage, something you hear about but never see. A mixture of fear, disbelief and, strangely, happiness warred on his face.

As he made no move to pick up the phone, I knelt and lifted it to my ear.

The voice through the speaker was tinny and broken by static, but a chill of recognition ran up my spine. “Hello? Hello? Nate, are you still there? Dad?”

It was Ziggy.

Chapter Two: Unhappy Returns

“Scusilo, dove è il deposito di pattino?”

“That sounds terrible. Your accent is all wrong.”

Max turned from the mirror and pulled his headphones from his ear, hitting the pause button on his iPod. “You know, your ‘helpful’ criticism really isn’t helping. We’ve been here three weeks and I still can’t talk to anyone. It doesn’t hurt to try and learn something new.”

With a sympathetic look, Bella held out her arms, and Max crossed the bedroom to join her on their bed. The French doors to the balcony stood open and afternoon sunshine poured in. He stepped around a band of it on the floor, forgetting, as usual, that he no longer needed to fear it. Taking a deep breath, he walked through the warm rays and slid onto the crisp white bedspread.

“Why do you always do that?” Bella asked, her voice still rough from sleep. She slept all the time lately, but Max couldn’t fault her for it. It was common, apparently, for pregnant women to be exhausted, and he guessed that doubled for pregnant women who were recuperating from nearly mortal injuries, as well.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, turning his gaze back to the sunlit windows. “I just always have my fingers crossed.”

His full change from vampire to half-vampire, half-werewolf hybrid creature—the word lupin was as hated as he’d expected it would be in a werewolf pack, so he never used it—had been more gradual than he would have liked. The worst part was, they’d had no idea what traits would stick until after he’d actually shifted into his wolf form. After that, a whole world of weirdness opened up to him, and between hairier legs and a sadistic urge to pull riders off their bicycles and devour them, the vampiric aversion to sunlight had somehow vanished.

It had been a fortunately happy accident that they’d discovered it at all. From the moment they’d arrived to, in Max’s opinion, a hostile welcome in Italy, members of Bella’s family had made it very clear that no concessions to his vampirism would be made. And, since the family—the entire family—lived in the same, window-covered villa on a sunny, sun-drenched cliff, he’d found himself confined to Bella’s bedroom every day. Only when one of Bella’s “well-meaning” aunts had come into the room while they slept and opened the curtains, flooding the room with frying light, had he realized that he no longer had to worry about such “well-meaning” people burning him to death with UV rays.

He’d also realized that it would take a lot more than Bella’s love for him to convince her family he was an okay guy. Hence the studying Italian, so that he could fit in and also, admittedly, so he could tell what they were saying about him.

More importantly, he’d realized that he really didn’t give a damn about what they might try to do to him. He was actually, really, truly in love with the woman who was carrying his child, and, despite having to drink blood and change into a wolf at the full moon, he felt more normal than he had in years.

He dipped his face to sniff Bella’s neck and planted a kiss on her sleep-warmed skin. Rather than simply patting his thigh and rolling away from him, as she had been doing for the past few weeks, she stretched her neck and writhed her body against his. Jackpot.

He loved her. God, did he love her. And he understood that pregnancy could be rough on a woman, even one as strong as Bella. But it had been a long, long time, and he was only…not human.

“So, is this official, or are we just getting my hopes up to dash them again?” He smiled against her neck and gave her jaw a playful nip, so she would know he was half joking. And he ground his hard-on into her hip, so she would know he was half-serious, too.

Bella laughed, a sound that was so oddly delicate coming from a creature that was all dark and smoky. “If I told you now, that would spoil the fun.”

“You’re a devious bitch, aren’t you?” He slid one hand down the length of her body, bunching the white satin of her nightgown higher by fractions, revealing the tight, olive-tinged skin over her thighs. He danced his fingers from her hip to her knee, watching her face for any flicker of change. “Can you feel that?”

She moaned a little and gave a nod, and relief clutched in his chest. The car accident that had paralyzed her while they’d been in pursuit of the Oracle had at first left her with no feeling below the waist. The doctors who’d examined her in Italy had warned him that the loss of sensation might be permanent, and Max, stupid, stupid man that he acknowledged he was, had only been worried about whether or not she would be able to have sex again. He knew he wouldn’t want to live a life condemned to never getting off again, that was for damned sure.

Luckily, they’d already discovered that wouldn’t be a problem for her.

Moving her legs gently apart, he pushed the nightgown to her waist. Her fingers worked fast, undoing the button and then the zipper of his jeans, letting him spring eagerly into her soft, warm hands. He almost came right then, just from being touched after so long. “I have to be inside you,” he groaned, and she whimpered her agreement into his ear as he leaned over her. The tip of his cock was poised, trembling, at the glistening pink core of her and he pushed in, taking it slow, just a centimeter at a time it seemed. So painstakingly slow that he ground his teeth to keep from ramming hard into her. It took more willpower than he’d known he had to ignore her pleas to go faster. There was no way he was going to mess this up, not after the wait he’d had. Just a few moments more and he’d be home, encased in her sweet, clutching body. All he needed was infinite patience…

A voice and violent banging on the door brought everything to a crashing halt.

Infinite patience, and for all of his in-laws to die in a horrible explosion that rained body parts all over the picturesque Italian countryside.

“Oh, no,” Bella said softly, though her voice held more disappointment at the interruption than dismay over the words muffled by the door. “My father needs to see you.”

“Now?” He thought they called Italian a romance language. Words to summon him away from imminent sexual pleasure shouldn’t even exist in it.

Bella gave him a sympathetic nod and he reluctantly withdrew, reminding himself firmly that grown men do not cry. “Fine. Tell this guy I’m on my way.”

If there was one thing he’d learned about pack life, it was that when the paterfamilis called, you answered, or else…well, there was no “else.” You just did it.

Bella yelled something to the door, and the banging stopped. “You should hurry. He is not in a pleasant mood lately.”

“I wonder why,” Max muttered, pulling her nightgown down so that she was decently covered again. He let his hand linger a moment on her stomach, which had been flat before and now bowed just slightly out in a hard little bump. It was hard to imagine a whole person fitting in there, even one that looked like the tiny shrimp he’d seen on the ultrasound picture.

He stood and zipped his jeans, hoping his erection would calm down, fast. Nothing got on a man’s bad side faster than obvious, physical evidence that you’d just been fucking his daughter. “Do you need anything before I go?”

Bella smoothed her nightgown, repeating Max’s action of petting her stomach. “Send for my cousin. Maybe I will take a walk.”

Max arched an eyebrow at her.

“I will take a wheel, then,” she said with a laugh, and threw a pillow at him as he retreated through the door.

The man waiting outside, a skinny, swarthy guy in a faded Van Halen T-shirt, was a runner, a lower-ranking member of the pack who carried messages for the family. Usually, Max had learned, runners weren’t related to the pack or they were family members in disgrace, and he wondered how long it would be before he ended up an errand boy. “Go get one of Bella’s cousins. She wants some company.”

The man said something that Max guessed sounded affirmative and went off on his way, leaving Max to his awkward visit.

It wasn’t that Max didn’t like Bella’s father. After all, he’d granted Max safe haven and let him stay with Bella. That alone was deserving of eternal gratitude. But the man knew it, and he was definitely going to cash in the eternal gratitude coupon as much as possible. He had also made it clear that Max was staying on a trial basis, and could be kicked out on his half-werewolf ass at any time.

The house—the “den,” as the pack called it—was the kind of place that made Max wish he’d managed his money better, so he could have one all to himself. Not that his digs back in Chicago had been shabby, but this place made the penthouse look like a condemned building full of sick cats. It was built on a cliff overlooking Lake Lugano. From the drive, it appeared to be a long, low, Roman-style villa. For all Max knew, it dated back to actual Roman times. Inside, though, it was way, way bigger, just the tip of an iceberg that carved into the cliff face. Most of the time, you couldn’t tell you were underground, owing to the windows facing out at the lake, but the lowest floor was windowless, the walls unfinished rock. Bella’s father kept his meeting rooms in that section of the house, and there weren’t any elevators, so Max had to trudge down eight flights of stairs, quickly, to get where he was going. The pack leader’s meeting room was kind of a throne room, with guarded doors and all that medieval jazz. He gave his name and waited to be allowed inside.

The smooth marble columns flanking the doorway were the last bit of added ornamentation. The meeting room was a cave. Max couldn’t tell if it was a natural one or if it had been blasted out to accommodate the pack leader. The furniture was comfortable and modern and very European, but moisture trickled down the walls and the whole place definitely smelled like it was underground.

“Ah, Maximilian.” The pack master stood in the middle of the room in his sleek tailored suit, trying hard to look pleased to see his daughter’s vampire boyfriend.

Lupin, Max reminded himself, then struck the word from his mental vocabulary again as Bella had taught him. Vampire-werewolf hybrid.

“Pack Master,” he replied. “You wanted to see me?”

A polite smile creased the man’s face as he crossed the room. He looked oddly similar and at the same time very different than Bella. She’d inherited her father’s exotic, tipped-up eyes, though hers were golden and his gleamed black. His hair was as midnight dark as hers, but it was white at the temples and wavy. Bella’s was as straight as a line. They had the same gestures, which must have been genetic, and the same lithe grace that Max had wrongly assumed all werewolves possessed.

“I did want to see you,” the man said, coming closer. “And call me Julian. We are family now, are we not?”