I heard Teren scratch his stubble, and Alanna and Imogen looked at each other. Only Halina kept my gaze. "Do you really want to know?"
Taking in the reluctance around me, I sighed. "I'm going to find it...unsavory, aren't I?"
Halina grinned widely and sat back in her chair. "That depends on your definition of unsavory," she said sweetly. "I call it survival."
Twisting my lips, I sighed, "Okay, hit me."
She smirked and shrugged. "Well, in my many years on his earth, I may have crossed paths with a millionaire or two. They may have felt...compelled to donate some of their wealth to my well being." She shrugged again as Teren shifted beside me, watching me intently.
My jaw dropped practically to the floor. "You stole it?"
She tilted her head, her youthful face contemplative. "Well, that's where the savory-unsavory line comes into play." She shrugged causally. "I asked...they gave."
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Did they have a choice?"
She grinned merrily. "No."
I sighed and leaned back in my chair, taking in the "stolen" wealth around me. "So, all of this isn't really yours?"
Imogen leaned forward, her brows concerned. "Emma, it was just to get us up and running." She smiled lightly. "I'm pretty good with financials too, and I make sure that we have sound investments, so mother doesn't have to...do that."
I scrunched my lips at her and shook my head. "But if those investments ever dried up?"
Imogen raised an eyebrow, her face confident. "They won't."
I leaned forward. "But...if they did?"
Halina snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. "They won't." Her tone was definite; she clearly meant it in the literal sense. If they lost everything they had, money-wise, then she'd find another person with an abundance of it and "ask" him or her for a charitable contribution, one that they wouldn't be able to refuse.
Shaking my head, I murmured, "Now I sort of wish I hadn't asked."
I sighed again, not sure how comfortable I was with the situation. Teren squeezed my shoulder and looked about to speak up, but his great-grandmother beat him to it. Leaning over her arms on the table, Halina shook her head at me. "Try to understand the situation, Emma, before you condemn it solely on principle."
Hanging her head, she lowered her voice. "I was turned when I was nineteen. I was alone, in a foreign body, with a newborn infant. My husband was dead. My creator was dead. And every day, I worried that I might turn on my own child." She peeked up at me, the wisdom in her eyes betraying the youth of her body.
Tilting her freely swirling mass of black hair, she indicated the land around us. "My husband left me with a fraction of this ranch that you see now, and no one here to help me with it during the day." Sighing, she looked over to the window, out to the fields where dark shapes were standing still in the distance, sleeping. Every vampire in the room was stone silent, listening to her story; no one besides me was even breathing.
Shaking her head, she muttered, "I fed on cattle and what other animals that I could find nearby, too scared to even approach a human. Too scared that once I did, a bloodlust would take me, and I wouldn't be able to stop killing humans." She looked back at me, her eyebrows raised. "Believe it or not, but I didn't want to be that kind of creature."
Shifting her eyes to her daughter, she sighed again. "But eventually the cows started to dry up. Eventually I didn't have any left to get milk for my child. Eventually, I had to go into town, to feed her." Her eyes saddened as she looked back at me, and I didn't see the sultry vixen who liked to ceaselessly tease me anymore. I saw a concerned mother, same as me.
Imogen rested her hand on her mother's shoulder as Halina continued. "I fought against my hunger, as Imogen was my priority." Her lip quavered a bit as anger filled her voice. "She was screaming she was so hungry, and out of fear and desperation, I begged a man on the street to get her food." The anger fled her voice as wonder replaced it. "To my complete surprise, he did."
She smiled as she looked down at the table, shaking her head. "I watched him walk across the street, not even bothering to move out of the way of the cars on the road. I watched him break into a closed store and come out with bundles of food - rice, bread, and bottles of milk." Looking back up at me, she shrugged. "He walked right over to me, dropped it at my feet, smiled, and then left."
I felt a shiver run through me thinking about what she'd made that man do. It was so much power for one person to hold. I wondered what I'd do with her abilities? Would I use them for "good" as Teren had once teased me?
Tilting her head, her ageless eyes as awed as her voice, she said, "I had no idea that I had that kind of power until that very moment. I tried it out on others, getting the things that I needed." Smiling softly, she looked around the home, her home. "Soon, I had food, I had cows, I had help with the ranch," she focused her eyes back to me, "and most importantly, I had a way to keep my child healthy, happy and alive." She raised her eyebrows as she let that sink in. After a second, she shrugged and grinned. "I even compelled someone to take care of her during daylight hours, when I couldn't be there."
Marveling at the woman before me, I watched her lean back in her chair and raise her chin defiantly. "Now, given my options, Emma, what would you have done differently?"
Shaking my head, nearly speechless with awe, I could only get out, "Nothing..."
She gave me her trademark smirk, then swirled her hand around the room, similar to how I'd done it earlier. "So, now, this may seem opulent to you, but I'm providing for my family, all of my family, however many generations of us may come along." Looking around the room at her family, she met and held each pair of pale eyes. Teren smiled when she got to him.
In a low, passionate voice, she continued with, "None of them have my abilities and once I go...they are all on their own. I won't leave them destitute, penniless." She swung her eyes back to me, a fire in the icy depths. With a snarl of determination she spat out, "No child of mine will ever scream for food again."
Blinking back the tears, I shook my head. "You...really are an amazing woman," I whispered.
Slapping on an effortlessly casual crooked grin, she rested her leather boots on the table. "I like to think so."
Chapter 10 The Death and Life of Emma Adams
After dinner, I still had quite a few hours to kill before I died. Not really knowing how to spend the last moments of my life, I alternated between pacing, stressing and restlessly twitching. As the minutes marched on and on, each one bringing the sun just a fraction of an inch closer to rising again, my heart started accelerating. I wasn't dying yet, just anxious. While I knew the actual act was going to be a bitch, the waiting around for it to happen was probably going to be the worst part. The mind was a cruel weapon at times, imaging every ache before the body even gets a chance to feel it.
Teren squatted in front of me when I started biting my fingernails. Smiling softly, he cupped my cheek. "Come with me?"
I looked around the room. All of the vampires were watching me, all with expressions of anticipation that matched the jumble of nerves in my belly. "Where are we going?" My voice hitched nervously.
His cool thumb stroking my cheek, he soothingly said, "Just for a walk, just to get your mind off things."
I looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, chuckling in a bubbly, anxious way. "You think that's possible?"
He smiled sadly and shook his head. "No, but I'd like to try."
I stood and nodded. Everyone in the room stood with me. It was almost like I'd suddenly become royalty and they were all following my every whim. It made me laugh inappropriately; none of this was funny.
Halina smiled at me but Alanna and Imogen only looked even more concerned. They all started to follow Teren and me as we headed towards the slider leading out back, but Teren shook his head at them. "I'd like a moment alone with my wife."
They all nodded and only Teren and I stepped through the glass doors.
I shut my eyes as the cooler night air blew across my face. I could smell the awakening of life in the wind - new plant shoots, pollen, freshly cut grass, blossoming night flowers. It gave me a sense of renewal, grounded me with the power of nature.
Teren had told me once that he felt more connected to the world after his death. I already felt more in tune with it, with my enhanced senses. I wondered if that would change even more.
Grasping my hand, Teren led me to the edge of the flat rocked patio. I smiled over at the chorine filled pool as we walked by it. I had a lot of memories in that pool - diving in on a hot summer day, teaching the kids to hold their breaths, getting in a water fight with Teren, trying to race with him and losing miserably. But mostly, that softly lit water reminded me of getting married. We'd said "I do" over those shimmering-in-the-moonlight ripples. Dead or alive, it would always hold a special place in my heart.
Stepping off of the back end of the patio to a trail of granite steps that led down to where the equipment was kept, I felt the distance of the other vampires in my head. My children were the farthest, sleeping peacefully with my mother back in the city. Halina and the other girls were just where we'd left them, in the living room, probably watching me through the windows as I disappeared with my husband down the back of the hill. I knew they'd be able to find me once I gave out. Locating me was never a problem anymore, not since I gave off a GPS signal to them too.
Heading down a light trail in the tall, tan grass, Teren started swinging my hand like we were on a first date or something. I smiled over at him, grateful for his calming presence. "Thank you for doing this."
He looked over at me, a light smile on his handsome face. "I only wish I could do more." He shook his head, his eyes glowing brighter the farther away from the lights of the ranch that we got. "I wish I could take the..."
His voice trailed off and he looked down. I filled in the blanks. "The pain?"
Glancing up at me, he sighed. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I'd experience it all over again if I could, just so you didn't have to."
He sighed again, his face forlorn, and I cuddled into his side, ignoring the shiver that went through my body when I pressed against him. "Hey, how bad can it really be? I mean, I've had two kids, it can't be worse than that."
I expected him to laugh, but he only looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Swallowing, I muttered, "Right..."
I closed my brightly glowing eyes and laid my head on his shoulder. We walked along in silence, our eyes highlighting the vague trail that repeated passings from the Jeeps had created. We walked back through one of the empty pastures. The ranch hand's house was visible to my very left, but the large home was empty. The family brought in help a few times a year, but this luckily wasn't one of them.
The man who led the rotated groups brought onto the property, kept in contact with the family often and I'd even spoken to him once or twice. Peter Alton was a genuine cowboy and seemed to have the stoic character down pat. He never asked the Adams any questions about their oddities, but I was pretty sure he knew. The family seemed content to let the quiet man believe whatever he wanted to believe, as he'd worked for them for years and had never betrayed their trust. I wondered if he'd be going to Utah with them, or if he'd be "retired" from their services.