And he did pause as that sunk in. "It will be quicker if I just go after work. Besides, I'm not going alone."
I rubbed a hand over my expanding belly, feeling a twin wrestling for space with the other. "Huh?" I could hear Alanna and Imogen talking in Imogen's room, and Halina was sleeping out the remnants of the sun downstairs. I didn't know who he was talking about.
"Ben is coming with me." I unintentionally laughed at that, part out of nerves, part disbelief. Hot Ben was his backup...seriously? I swear I could hear Teren frown into the phone. "Why is that funny? Between the two of us, he's the one that has actually staked a vamp before."
I sighed. Because, confident or not now, all I picture when I think of Hot Ben is the guy who begged me to not let Teren eat him. "He's human, Teren. You're walking in there with a meal? You know how that jerk-off reacted to Ben and me. He didn't see people, he saw a buffet."
He sighed too. "One bad seed doesn't make them all bad. Look, I've met vampires before. On rare occasions, when some have been out traveling or hunting, they've come across our scent and have come out to the ranch to say hello. They are not all like him. He was...off." I wanted to protest, but honestly, the only vampires I knew were Adams vampires. He took my silence as acceptance. "We'll be fine. I'll see you before bed."
"Fine, you better," I muttered sullenly.
He laughed and I closed my eyes, memorizing the sound, sensing his location, so incredibly far from me that it felt like the other side of the Country. Tears started slipping down my cheeks and I sniffled, just once. "Hey, Emma, don't cry. I'm doing this for you. I love you."
"I know. I just miss my husband." I let myself sniffle again, since he'd already heard it.
He paused and I heard him rustling around. I pictured him running a hand through his hair, torn. "I tell you what, when I get home, we'll go upstairs and I'll stay with you. I'll give you me, for as long as you want. I'll be your husband, over and over again."
Desire shot right through me at hearing his words. Our "reunions" when he got home, had continued to be heated ones, but he always pulled himself away from me. Always let duty clear his mind and calm his body. I wanted, just once, to let that crazy passion just run away with us. "No stopping?" I asked slowly.
He laughed, a smile creeping into his voice. "Definitely, no stopping."
I smiled that he had understood my vague question. I wanted to feel that intensity. My body was already burning with the need for it, but first, he'd be doing something possibly really dangerous. "Be careful, be safe. Come home to me."
"I will. I love you."
I repeated his sentiment and then we hung up. I sighed and sank down to my bed, wishing he was home and not miles away from me, about to get even further. After a couple long sighs, Alanna asked if I was alright. I told her I was, not having to elaborate on my mood since she'd heard that entire conversation. I wasn't as embarrassed about that as I would have been, probably because I could hear everything too, and in this house, someone was always having an intimate conversation or moment. After awhile, you just sort of got used to it.
Later in the day I smelled the enticing aroma of fresh blood from a recent kill. It compelled me to walk downstairs to the kitchen, where the scent in the house was the strongest. Alanna smiled and gave me a swift hug as she cleaned herself up. She and Jack had been outside, making a new batch of fresh steaks. Blooding the cow was Alanna's favorite part, for obvious reasons, and she was freezing containers of it for her family. By the number of freezer tight boxes, it had been a big cow.
I momentarily felt bad that I used up so much of their blood, especially since I could eat regular food too, but Alanna brushed off my concerns, telling me that she and the girls ate less and less every year. Halina could even go a few days without even noticing it. She said they'd met older vamps who could go weeks. Teren could only go a few hours before he needed a quick fix.
I sat and talked with her about some of the vampires that had visited the ranch, wanting to hear about the non-evil kind, so I would stop picturing bad things happening to Teren. She sat a small glass of plasma in front of me, and told me a story about a very nice female couple that had stopped by a few years ago. She laughingly told me that they'd been quite taken with Teren, when he'd come up to visit over the weekend while they were there. She started to explain how one of them had tried to bite him and my eyebrows shot up my forehead. I was concerned over that, but seeing my face, she quickly shook her head and said, "Oh, no she wasn't attacking him, she was..." She stopped talking and bit her lip, maybe realizing that perhaps Teren's wife wouldn't want to hear about this.
I flushed, realizing that she was talking about foreplay. I remembered Teren telling me that vamps did feed off each other, and I remembered his devilish smile when he'd said he would like it. I knew I was his first bite, but had he been bitten? Curious, I peeked up at Alanna. "Did she? Bite him?"
Alanna busied herself with cleaning up the kitchen, her hands moving blurringly fast. "I don't think so," she said lowly. "Anyway, they left soon after that. Nice couple." She started humming as I narrowed my eyes at her.
Right, she didn't think so. Teren and I were seriously going to have to have the exes talk. I could see that now. Taking my empty glass, she immediately switched over to tales of male guests. The sun went down while she was talking and Halina sauntered into the room, sitting up on a stool and delighting in the conversation she'd walked into. She went into graphic detail on a couple of the male vampires that had crossed paths with her. I blushed furiously and studied anything but Halina's face as she told me every horrid thing that I was afraid Teren had done with that female. Yeah, we definitely needed the talk.
I sighed as I felt his location. It had shifted a few hours ago, when he'd gotten off work and headed to the vampire's home. And it unfortunately hadn't shifted any closer to me; he'd headed miles north, towards Santa Rosa. I hadn't felt the distance lengthen or shorten since it had stopped; he was still there. I hated it, knowing where he was but not "how" he was. I wondered if it would just stop if he died. Would the GPS binging in my head vanish the second he was staked, or would it continue to go off until his dead body was disposed of? I closed my eyes. God, I did not want to think about that.
Imogen's cool hand went to my shoulder, as she'd come in to join us. "He'll be alright, dear."
Halina stood up, adjusting her short skirt. "Yeah, it's just a vamp nest, a small one even. He and Ben will be fine." She smiled crookedly as she mentioned Ben, and I wondered how she knew all the details. She'd been asleep when he'd called. That could only mean that they'd discussed this plan last night.
Irritation at that flowed through me. I hated being left out of loops. "Why aren't you with him? Aren't you the protector? Isn't that your role?" I snapped that at Halina and the entire room silenced. No one generally talked to Halina like that.
She cocked her head as she stared at me. I couldn't tell if she'd laugh, or knock me off my chair. She leaned into me, her hands going to her hips. Her ageless eyes burned with a sudden anger. "You know nothing, about what I am," she said coldly. Then, abruptly, she straightened and smiled. "Besides, he'd be done by the time I got all the way out there." Blinking at her sudden mood shift, I watched her turn to leave the room. "It would be a waste of my time," she said before she left.
Still dazed by the display, I turned my eyes back to Alanna. She was watching her grandmother intently. When I felt Halina leave the house and then the property, going for a run apparently, Alanna's eyes came down to mine. "Teren forbid her." She shrugged. "It's sort of a sore point."
I cocked my head. "He...? Why would he do that?"
Alanna bit her lip and looked over at Imogen. Imogen shrugged, her grandmotherly appearance looking a little lost as to how to explain it. She tried anyway. "Mother...might know these vampires, and they may not...react well, if she showed up."
I tilted my head at her, even more confused. "What? Does Teren know them?"
Imogen shook her head, a dark lock of hair escaping from her loose bun. "No, this was before he was born." I raised my eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, and she eventually sighed and shrugged. "We think it's this woman vampire, who may or may not have had this mate, who Mother may or may not have slept with, at some point, when she and her mate may or may not have still been together." She shrugged again. "It's all very vague, and we're not really sure. Teren just didn't want to start out confrontationally, if it really was the woman we think it is."
I dropped my jaw at the revelation. "He's going to see the scorned woman of his great-grandmother's lover?"
Alanna and Imogen shared a look and then they both shrugged. "Possibly," Alanna answered.
I shook my head, irritated at the little vampiric soap opera. "She's going to stake him when she realizes who he is."
Alanna quickly shook her head. "He won't tell her."
I groaned and ran my hands back through my hair. "You all look exactly alike! He's a walking advertisement of Halina's genes! All of you need to start keeping that in mind!" I knew I was ranting, but I really was not a fan of being left out of plans.
Alanna looked at Imogen like she was seeing the resemblance for the first time. I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Hmmm," Alanna muttered. "You do have a point." Quickly she turned back to me and smiled a warm, reassuring smile. "It will be fine. The nest was only her and her new mate." She grinned and started making dinner for Jack and me. Looking over her shoulder, she added, "Rumor is, she staked the old one."
I closed my eyes, not feeling any better.
I didn't feel any better during dinner either, as I felt each long minute that he was north of me, tick by. I didn't start to feel better until Alanna was clearing away everyone's dishes. Then I started to feel a lot better. It happened like it always happened. The minute that blip on my internal radar started moving in my direction, I started to feel it. It was faint as first, since he was so far from me, and I only closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
Halina across from me chuckled as I felt her eyes on me. She was still wildly amused by my reaction to Teren coming home. "He's on his way," she muttered, laughing a little on the end.
I stayed in my chair, stiff and straight, with my eyes closed. The pull was faint, but I knew it would get stronger and I was starting to prepare myself. This was just what I did when Teren came back to me every day. I found some place to stay very still and practiced my deep breathing. That usually worked for awhile.
He was farther away from me than usual, and I sat in that chair for over an hour as the other vamps went about their evening routines, Alanna and Jack going downstairs with Imogen to look over the books, Halina staying seated across from me, watching.
Eventually, as he got closer, my mouth dropped open and my breaths came in shorter pulls. My hands came up to the table, holding onto the edge so hard that I was probably marring it. He was within a mile of me, approaching fast. That's when things really intensified. It was like we were two huge magnets, each fine, and fully functioning as long as we were kept apart, but start bringing us closer to each other, and you could practically feel the energy crackle between us. The thought that we weren't going to do anything to stop that unbelievable energy, wasn't making my waiting any easier.