Authors: Ginger Voight
She wailed in ang
uish as he slumped in her arms.
Vincent touched
Michael’s arm where he stood helplessly watching from the sidelines. “It’s time to end this,” he said.
Michael nodded.
“It should be her,” he said. “It was always supposed to be her.”
He went over to where she knelt with Nicholas. She could barely make out
Michael’s face through her tears. She shook her head at his unspoken request. She couldn’t leave Nicholas yet. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over.
Maybe if she just took the stake out of
Thaddeus’s heart… like Nicholas had done so many years ago…they could be together. They could find a way…just one minute more. One second more.
Vincent read her thoughts. He came to her and produced a small, silver sword.
“He loved you enough to set you free,” he told her. “Return the favor.”
She held Nicholas just a few moments more, feeling the warmth race out of a body that should have been dead long ago. They had their time and somehow she knew that they would again. Death was no longer finite. It was as
fleeting as a second and as fluid as the ocean. Love was the constant, and Adele knew that she and Nicholas would always be one heart, one soul.
They were tied together by an unbreakable cord, in this life and in every life that would follow.
She kissed his dark hair and laid him back carefully on the floor. With not another tear shed she took the sword from her brother and advanced on the monster that had terrorized her family, but had taught her something about faith and love in the midst of life and death.
One day she might even be able to thank him.
But first she had to kill him, for certain, for the last time.
With the s
wift and sure swing of a sword, she did exactly that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The sun filtered through the partially opened curtains in a bright and airy bedroom. Upon white and yellow cotton sheets lay the unmistakable black and white hair of Adele, who slept peacefully with a smile on her face.
The sunshine glinted off of a gold wedding ring on a strong male hand as it slid up her bared thigh, and she murmured happily as she turned toward her husband.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Michael teased with a smile. “You’d think you were a vampire in a past life or something.”
She cuddled up to his bare chest and trailed her fingertip along his flesh.
“I thought you didn’t believe in past lives. No wonder they kicked you out of the ministry.”
He
nuzzled her neck. “They kicked me out of the ministry because of this…” He captured her mouth with his for a deep, passionate kiss as his hand cupped her breast possessively.
Her body had finally been pledged to him only, and he made the most out of every moment.
Before they could further enjoy their heated embrace, a small bundle of energy in pink polka dot pajamas burst through their bedroom door and pounced immediately on the bed. “They’re here!” Dani announced in a happy sing-song voice. “They’re here! Get up!”
“
Not yet, young lady,” Michael said as he pulled Dani down in between them. “We need to get a proper start to these birthday festivities.”
With that they proceeded to tickle the giggling girl until the entire family was laughing.
The jubilation carried over the next few hours, when Brenda and Vincent joined the pink-themed party complete with a hundred balloons that filled the house, and hot pink party decorations for the princess for the day.
Dani even had her own tiara – made with rhinestones but familiar in design to the genuine one that was tucked away in a
red velvet box in her mother’s dresser.
Adele planted a kiss on the birthday
girl’s head as she gathered up the dishes of half-eaten birthday cake to take into the kitchen. Vincent followed her as she went, and wordlessly lent a hand when she started to rinse off the plates and set them in the dishwasher.
“
So what’s up?” she asked him with a sideways glance. They had only met a brief two years before, but their twin bond was as strong as the soul connection they shared through the ages. They would always be family, till the end of time.
“
I can’t hide anything from you anymore, can I?” he said jokingly, but his mood was anything but light. She leaned against the counter and waited. He sighed as he wiped his hands on a towel. He dug out a scrap of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
The headline was unmistakable.
“Murdered child.” “Drained of blood.” “Possible serial killer.”
She sighed as she dropped into the kitchen chair. After a couple of peaceful years building a family with Michael, the beast of their past was rearing its ugly head again. It
wasn’t over.
Vincent joined her at the table.
“I have to go.”
She nodded.
“Denise,” she said simply. Her mind raced with the logistics of going with him. But who would take care of her family? And would they even let her go?
“
It’s not your fight,” he assured her. “Not anymore.”
“
Your fight is my fight, Vincent,” she said as she took his hand. “It’s what we were born for, remember?”
“
Your family needs you. That’s your job now.”
She gulped back any objections. He was right. There was no way she could go gallivanting across the country chasing after vampires. She was a wife now. And a mother. She had far too much to lose.
“Promise me that if you need me, you’ll call.”
He just smiled and reached across to kiss her cheek.
“If I need you, you’ll know.”
They rested their foreheads against each other for a quiet moment. She
didn’t want to think about saying goodbye to him yet. There was still so much to be shared. So much left to be said.
She remained quiet for the rest of the night, and before he left she held
onto him an extra minute more.
If Michael noticed her mood, and she knew that he did, he
didn’t say much. He was just the rock he had always been, and pulled her into his arms as they snuggled into bed and squeezed her tight. He was her safe harbor, and she could no longer remember a moment that she hadn’t loved him.
They
didn’t even need words as they kissed, but their ardor was interrupted by the sounds coming from a baby monitor sitting next to the bed.
They both laughed.
“That’s my cue,” she said as she slid out of bed and slipped into her robe.
She padded softly into the room with blue paint and painted teddy bears. She turned on the lamp in the corner and illuminated the faces of two toddler boys – one with dark hair and a mole pierced on his left cheek, and
another with one blue eye and one brown.
She knelt down by the two fussy twin brothers with a patient and loving smile.
“Another bad dream, guys?” she asked as she touched the face of each one. Softly she began to sing, “Your love gave my soul wings; I was reborn in your eyes. If our parting this day brings, so shall my soul die.”
The dark haired boy immediately calmed at the sound of his
mother’s voice, but his fussy brother promptly slapped him.
Adele lifted the offending boy up into her arms.
“Now, now. You both have a long life ahead of you. You better learn to get along.”
She kissed him on the forehead, which calmed the other boy considerably.
He hung onto her in protest as she tried to put him back to bed. “If you love him,” she said, “you’ll do it.”
Another kiss on both of their sweet smelling heads and she extinguished the light and left them to cuddle together and go back to sleep.
She never heard the faint, evil peel of feminine laughter that echoed almost from another time and place, and bounced off the walls of the nursery.