"I'll take her to Hell," my father said.
"No, you won't," Grandpa informed him. "She is your weakness. She will go with Mother Nature. Someday she might go free, but until then she will be dealt with by one who is not tempted by her."
"Why are all you people staring at me?" Lucy demanded as she stood shakily and took in all the unfamiliar faces. "Who in the Hell are all you people?"
"That's no way to talk to your step-Gigi," Mother Nature admonished a shocked Lucy. "Your mother has fallen down on the job, so you get to be Temptation."
"But. . ." Lucy stammered.
"Don't thank me now. The job's a bitch, but you can handle it. Just remember that sex is fun, but temptation has many faces."
"But. . ." Lucy choked out.
"I know. I know. You'd rather be emotion or death or something more stable, but you get what you get and you like it. You are a True Immortal, Lucy. I've known for ages, but until you are called to serve you cannot be privy to the gift. The expense account is divine and the family dinners would be wonderful if all the bastards would show up." She cast an evil eye to my father who ran his hands through his hair and looked at the sky. "So darling, what do you say?"
"Do I have a choice in the matter?" Lucy asked, still dazed by the motherlode of info that she'd just been presented with.
"No, you don't. In the same way I have no choice about being beautiful," she said.
"And insane," Satan muttered.
"I heard that, you little shit," she snapped at my father and then turned her attention back to Lucy. "We all have a choice, child. You are Temptation whether you want to be or not. The choice is if you will step up to the plate and do the job. Sink or swim, baby."
"I'll swim. I always swim," she replied.
"Good! I'm outta here," Gigi said. "Bill, are you with me?"
"Always, my love. I'm always with you," Grandpa said as he gave me a quick kiss and hug.
Mother Nature grabbed Eve with one hand and Grandpa with the other. "Later," she shouted as they disappeared in a blast of iridescent glitter.
"Um, I think people are arriving for the dance," Stella said as my classmates slowly wandered into the gym.
"Oh my God," a girl dressed in a white tube top, mini, thigh high boot and wings squealed. "The decorations rock!"
My father magically disposed of Cole's body and sent Amanda to some padded cell in Hell before they were noticed. He took me in his arms and held me tight. "You might want to retract those wings," he told me. "They're kind of conspicuous."
I quickly pulled them toward me and they disappeared into my back. "Thanks, Dad."
"No problem. Will you come back to Hell?" he asked.
I glanced over at Hayden and I grinned. "Yes, we will be coming back to Hell very soon."
"He's part of the package now?" Satan asked as he gave my Angel of Death the evil eye.
"Yep. He's definitely part of the package."
My father sighed dramatically. "Fine. I suppose it could have been worse."
He disappeared in a cloud of black glitter and the crowd of co-eds clapped wildly. They thought he was a magician. . .if they only knew.
Elijah walked right up to Lucy and stared. "Would you like to dance?"
"My eyes are up here, douchebag," she said as he tore his gaze from her chest.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"You'd better be. I'll dance with you, but if you try any funny business I will knee your balls into you mouth."
"Duly noted." He grinned as he held his hand out to her.
"There's a match made in Heaven," Hayden said dryly as he pulled me onto the dance floor that had recently been a bloody scene of destruction.
I glanced around the room and smiled. Carl was waltzing with Janet. Myrtle was making out with Timmy by the broom closet. The baby Demons were at the snack table beating the Hell out of each other, much to the dismay of several faculty members who were at the dance. Stella had about ten young men vying for her attention and Lucy warily danced with Elijah. I laid my head on Hayden's chest and sighed.
"Can I feel you up?" Hayden asked with a glint in his eye. "It's a slow song."
"You have to spank my bumbum first." I giggled and snuggled closer.
"That could be arranged," his whispered in my ear as he lightly tapped my butt followed by a semi discreet body massage that should have taken place in private.
"I love you, my Angel," I told him.
"I love you too. Are you having fun?" he asked as he kissed me.
"Yep, but I want to go."
"Home?"
"Eventually, but I want to do something first."
"Can I guess?" he asked as he led me to the exit.
"Go ahead," I challenged.
"You want to fly."
I grinned and nodded. He led me out into the crisp cool evening and with a running start we launched ourselves into the night.
It was magical.
It was perfect.
And it was just the beginning.
EPILOGUE
Three weeks later
"Let me tell you something, Vampyre," Astrid hissed between her screams of labor. "If you ever pull out your penis again in this lifetime I will remove it with a dull butter knife."
"That will be fine," Ethan muttered. "Now breathe through the pain."
"Come over here," she grunted. "I'll show you how to breathe through my fist."
All the men in the sitting area outside of Astrid and Ethan's suite winced in solidarity. The Vampyre compound had been restored by Mother Nature as a gift for the arrival of the baby. Plus Ethan had threatened her with baby visitation rights. Now that the danger had passed, everyone had come home.
The ornate sitting room was filled with those who loved Astrid and Ethan. The Kev and Gemma sat close to each other and held hands. Pam, Astrid's strikingly beautiful and foul-mouthed Guardian Angel, and her mate, Ethan's father, paced the room with excitement. Satan and Sloth sat in a corner and quietly played cards. Astrid's cousins, Heathcliff and Cathy, along with their father smiled at everyone as they passed around refreshments. Mother Nature held court with the baby Demons as Grandpa looked on approvingly. Janet and Myrtle were folding a pile of onesies they had brought and Carl was bejeweling a tiny baseball cap. I sat on Hayden's lap as he traced little circles on my back and we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
"This baby is not coming out," Astrid ground out. "I will be pregnant for a thousand years." Her breath came out in spurts and she cried out when it became too much.
"Oh my God," Gemma said. "Does it always hurt like that?" Her face was ashen and she clung tightly to The Kev.
"I just squatted in a field and they fell out," Pam informed the room.
Her announcement was greeted with appalled silence.
"Everybody in here. NOW," Astrid demanded. "If I have to go through this, you do too."
The men held back, but the women rushed forward.
"Guys, come up here by my head," she instructed as she stiffened and groaned. "I have no problem with nudity, but I'm fairly sure Ethan will lose it if everyone gets a peek at my hooha. Ladies, I don't care where you stand, but watch out. If he ever comes out, he's liable to eat all of us."
"Get your shit together, asshead," Pam said as she lovingly pushed Astrid's hair from her face. "You ain’t the only woman in the world to blow out a baby."
"Yeah? How many women do you know that blow out eight-headed babies?" she grunted and tried to punch Pam in the nose.
"I thought it was six heads," Mother Nature added unhelpfully.
"It's twelve," Gemma chimed in, and then ducked as a vase of roses came flying at her.
"It's ten heads," Astrid snapped, and then screeched in agony.
"Darling niece," Satan said calmly as he approached the bed. "You can take down armies. I don't really see the problem here."
All the women in the room gasped and went for cover.
"He does have a point," Grandpa backed up his son. "Pam said she squatted in a field and dropped it right out."
"Should we take her outside to a field?" Ethan's father inquired politely. "Maybe if she stood up and jogged around a bit it would fall out."
"Outstanding point," The Kev agreed.
"Get out." Astrid's voice was murderous. "If you don't leave right now I will magic a fifteen-headed baby into the stomachs of all the penis-owning bastards in this room."
I'd never seen men move so quickly in my life.
"Not you, Ethan," she hissed at her mate as he tried to make his escape on the tail end of the exodus. "You will experience every joyous moment with me."
"Of course," he mumbled as he slunk back in the room.
"He's coming," she wailed as her grip on the bedpost snapped it in half.
We gathered around my cousin as she pushed with all her might.
And he came.
"Sweet baby Moses in a mesh tracksuit," Pam squealed as she took the baby and cleaned him. Ethan cut the cord and Pam placed the screaming child in his hands. His look of astonishment and joy brought tears to my eyes.
"What?" Astrid asked. "What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing," I said as I gazed at the small perfect bundle in his father's trembling arms.
"How many heads?" she demanded.
"One head, my love. One beautiful head," Ethan whispered reverently as he gave the little baby boy to her.
Astrid was silent for once as she gazed at her child. Her lips quivered and her magic swirled through the room. "He's ours?" She spoke in a voice so soft I barely heard her.
"He's ours," Ethan replied as he sat on the bed next to his mate and child.
"He has one head," she murmured as she traced the tiny lips, toes and fingers of her child.
"That doesn't mean he won't sprout a few more in the next couple of days." Pam snorted as she kissed Astrid and then the baby. "Put that little son of a bitch on your boob. He's gonna be hungry," she instructed.
"Vampyre-Demons can nurse?" Astrid asked, surprised.
"No clue, dumbass. Try it and see," Pam said.
Vampyre-Demons could nurse. The baby suckled with delight from his mother and Ethan watched rapt with a dreamy expression on his handsome face. He stroked the back of his child's head as the boy drank from his mother.
"What shall we call him?" he asked.
Astrid looked down at the baby and sighed happily. "Samuel. We will call him Samuel."
Samuel stopped drinking for a brief moment at the sound of his name, looked up and smiled a gummy baby smile.
"Did that just happen?" Myrtle asked, shocked.
"Yes, it did," Mother Nature said knowingly. "This is no normal child. Samuel will. . ."
"Stop," Astrid cut her off. "I don't want to know. Right now I have a perfect one-headed baby boy and I love him more than I thought possible. I can feel he is special and different, but I just want to hold him and be with him. I don't want to know his future. . .yet."
"Come on, let's leave them alone," Gemma said as she ushered us out.
The last thing I saw as I left the room was the passionate and loving kiss Ethan gave Astrid and two tiny little hands resting on the chins of his parents.
Hayden's arms were open and I ran into them. "Is that something you would like to do?" he asked as he pressed his lips to my hair.
I paused and considered. "Yes, but not yet."
"Should we go practice until we're ready?" His smirk made me tingle.
I giggled and took his precious face between my hands, then whispered in his ear. "I think that is a very good idea. . .a very good idea indeed."
THE END (for now)
###
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
:
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~ Robyn Peterman
KEEP READING in this ebook to read an excerpt from “Ready To Were”, now available in the
Three Southern Beaches
anthology
Excerpt from
READY TO WERE
Chapter 1
“You’re joking.”
“No, actually I’m not,” my boss said and slapped the folder into my hands. “You leave tomorrow morning and I don’t want to see your hairy ass till this is solved.”
I looked wildly around her office for something to lob at her head. It occurred to me that might not be the best of ideas, but desperate times led to stupid measures. She could not do this to me. I’d worked too hard and I wasn’t going back. Ever.
“First of all, my ass is not hairy except on a full moon and you’re smoking crack if you think I’m going back to Georgia.”
Angela crossed her arms over her ample chest and narrowed her eyes at me. “Am I your boss?” she asked.
“Is this a trick question?”
She huffed out an exasperated sigh and ran her hands through her spiked ‘do making her look like she’d been electrocuted. “Essie, I am cognizant of how you feel about Hung Island, Georgia, but there’s a disaster of major proportions on the horizon and I have no choice.”
“Where are you sending Clark and Jones?” I demanded.
“New York and Miami.”
“Oh my god,” I shrieked. “Who did I screw over in a former life that those douches get to go to cool cities and I have to go home to an island called Hung?”
“Those douches
do
have hairy asses and not just on a full moon. You’re the only female agent I have that looks like a model so you’re going to Georgia. Period.”
“Fine. I’ll quit. I’ll open a bakery.”