Hard Days Night (The Firsts Book 8) (24 page)

“It’s an essential part of who we are.  I’m just kind of amazed that Ahmose was in L.A. and that you’ve been with him. 
And are pregnant with his child.  He was always kind and gentle with us, but he never showed us the charming humor you describe.  Most of the women in the village had a crush on our leader.  I can only imagine that it must have been wonderful to be with him.”

“It was.  I wouldn’t mind seeing him again, but the fact that you said he would never have left me here if he knew I was with child frightens me.  I would never let him take my daughter from me.  It seems like it’s a good idea that he never finds out.  Can I trust you to keep my secret?”

Erin did not answer right away.

Kai knocked on the bedroom door, waited only a moment, and entered without waiting for a response. 

Bev stood in the center of the room, naked except for a white satin thong, a pale rose tee shirt in her hands.  He couldn’t help himself, his eyes dropped to her large breasts, displayed, almost as if framed, by the tee shirt in her hands.

“What are you doing in here?” Bev asked, and quickly pulled the tee shirt over her head, the soft cotton falling loosely over her full curves.

Kai didn’t know what else to do, so he walked right up to her, took her face into his hands, and kissed her, his tongue lingering as he pulled away.

Bev stepped back.  “I don’t understand.”

“I need to explain, but it isn’t what you think.”

“I think you brought your lover here when you had to know I was attracted to you.  If you wanted to discourage me, all you needed to do was say so.  I’m pretty freaking bright, I would have been able to get it, Kai.”

“That is not why I brought her here.  She’s here for Mal.”

“For Mal?
  Why?  What would that woman have to do with Mal?”

“I can’t explain
, you just have to trust me.  But it’s important, or I never would have called her.”

Bev fingered the tail of the tee shirt, which drew Kai’s eyes back to her breasts.  He’d always been a
breast
man, and hers were perfect, he hoped he would have a chance to show her his opinion some time.

“I need more of an explanation than that
,” Bev snapped at him.  “Mal is my best friend and if this woman has something to do with her recent experiences, I need to know.  Also, I am her therapist, when she needs one.  So start talking, dad.”

“I can’t tell you anything else right now, Bev.  Please understand.”

She just stared at him for a few more moments, then looked away.  “We’re done here.  I’ve had a lot of wine, and I’m tired.  Let yourself out.”

Bev dropped onto her pallet and rolled away from him.

Kai let himself out.

So much for the lovely dinner and evening out, but things had changed with Erin’s arrival.

As he walked onto the deck, his eyes searched the too comfortable scene, his daughter and former lover cozied up and chatting in the lounge chairs.  Erin was scooted to the edge of her seat, her hand lying on Mal’s belly.

“So what is happening out here?” he asked
.  The tightness in his voice belied the casual words of inquiry.

Erin looked up at him. 
“All good.  I was just getting to know your granddaughter.  Come here, Kai.”

Kai rounded the bottom of the loungers and took a seat near
Mal’s feet.

“Let me have your hand.”  But Erin didn’t wait, she just took his right hand and pulled him forward, placed his hand on
Mal’s belly, and her left hand on his neck.

He felt her presence in his mind, but that wasn’t unfamiliar, since
when he was her lover and blood-bond, she often merged with him during sex.  “Can you feel her Kai?  Can you feel your granddaughter?”

He wanted to pull his hand
away, this was too much, more than he wanted to process right now, but Erin kept his hand in place.  “Reach for her, Kai, hear with your heart and not your mind.”

With Erin’s aid, his mind cleared and he felt something intense, what he did not know.

He looked up at Erin and Mal.  “What am I feeling?”

Mal spoke, her eyes glistening.  “It’s my daughter.”

“So you really are pregnant?  There really is a child?”

Erin tilted her head.  “Kai, you have a granddaughter in here
.”

He sat stone still, his hand pressing into
Mal’s abdomen, where he could suddenly feel this baby, and while no words were exchanged
, how could they be
, he still knew that she told him that she was excited to meet her mother’s father. 

“Fuck me,” he said softly.

His eyes shot to Erin as she said, “Well, if you insist…”

“Not going to happen, Erin.
  You chew me up and spit me out.”

“I suppose I do, at that.  Still, you were my best ride ever, Kai. I miss you.  Did you patch things up with your girlfriend?”

“She isn’t my girlfriend, and now I doubt she will give me the chance.”

“Let me fix that.”  Erin hopped off the chair and headed into the house.

Kai started to stand.  “Erin, don’t…”

But Mal pulled him back.

“Pop, no.  I need to talk to you.  I need your help.”

He watched Erin disappear into the house and turned back to Mal.

“Are you okay?”

“How can you ask me that?  You felt her, I’m amazing!”

Kai smiled.  “This is real.”

“It’s real,
Pop.  It’s too real.  Erin says that if Ahmose knew about her, he would come for us.  He would never let her stay with me.  I need your help.  I think…”  She paused because she couldn’t believe she had to say something like this.  “I think I need to disappear.  Will you help me?”

The damn door opened again.  This time, Bev was pissed.  She rolled over to tell Kai to get the hell out, but stopped when she saw that it was the beautiful woman he’d brought with him.  Erin came through the door and closed it behind her.  “Hi. Bev, isn’t it?”

Bev sat up and looked hard at Erin. 
Good God, but
she was stunning
.  Bev knew immediately that she had no chance against someone this elegant and lovely.

“What do you want?” Bev barked
.

Erin sat down beside
Bev, her slender legs stretched out in front of her.

“You’ve nothing to worry about
,” Erin said quietly, her eyes scanning Bev.

Bev found her too bold and rude. 
“I didn’t say I did, and I certainly didn’t ask
you
.”

Erin laughed.  “No, you didn’t. I never wait for invitations,
though, they’re tedious.  He’s been through with me for five years.  So you
do
have a chance, and quite a good one, because he is very attracted to you.  Believe me, I know the man intimately.”

Sitting across from Erin, Bev decided to claim her space.  “
That’s
what a woman wants to hear from a man’s ex.”

With another laugh, Erin’s eyes twinkling, she suddenly touched Bev on the side of her neck with three soft fingertips.  “You smell nice. 
Very nice. Could I have a taste?”

What?
Bev’s head spun suddenly, as if she’d finished the bottle of wine, a languorous, sensual drunkenness came over her.  Her respiration matched Erin’s and she found herself nodding.  Why was she giving this woman permission to touch her?

Erin moved closer
and Bev stopped in place, then felt Erin’s tongue on her neck.  It was hot and travelled up the side of her face, over her jawline and up to her lips.  The slow, torturous sensuality left Bev twitching between her legs.  This woman was turning her on, and Bev had never been attracted to women.

“I think you are delicious.  Kai is a lucky man.”

“Kai is out of the picture,” Bev said breathlessly.

Erin pulled the loose neckline of the thin cotton tee shirt away from Bev’s throat and chest
as she continued her journey, her tongue stopped just above one of Bev’s nipples as it made erotic circles on her breast. 

Bev thought
that she should stop this arrogant, brazen, beautiful woman, and although she didn’t, she
did
keep her eyes closed.  Was she hoping she
wouldn’t
stop?

Suddenly the warm breath and tongue were gone and Bev opened her eyes to find Erin standing.

“You must believe in your ability to snare any man, it is the truth.  Give Kai another chance.  He’s worth it, and I am only a memory to him now.”  Then she was gone.

Bev dropped back, more aroused than she’d ever been
, and that confused and fascinated her.

Chapter 11

It was raining in London,
which wasn’t anything new.

Eillia loved the rain on a warm day, though, and raised her face to the soft mist
that covered everything in sight.  The refreshing coolness gave her a moment of respite from yet another horrible task.  Lamont and his group had been the only nasty thing in her life this year that had seen so many incredible gifts. 

Her mind went to Daniel and Caedmon and the new family she’d built with Koen and Park, as well as the
community on the continent of Africa that was becoming family, as well.  Looming ahead of them all was the unknown future of these increasingly powerful children born in record numbers recently.

Her eyes roamed across the four enormous men seated in a
booth that barely allowed their mass.  She smiled as she pushed open the door to the little sandwich shop to join them, and slipped her cell phone out.  The men’s mates back home would get a kick out of how comical they looked crammed into the red and yellow vinyl benches with huge milk shakes in front of each one of them, and what looked like a tray filled with French fries.

“I can see I’ll need a separate table.  Each of these benches probably seats four people, but you boys fill them up.”

“Aye, and we still barely fit,” Xavier complained.  “I think half my left ass-cheek is hangin’ in open air.”

Eillia glanced at the well-covered seat.  “All very fine asses, I’m sure.  But for now, I’ve connected with Taggert. He’ll be arriving shortly, but I suggest we need a different
venue.  This is just not private enough, in addition to the inadequate seating for oversized bums.”

“But the food is outstanding. It’s my favorite restaurant in London.”  To punctuate his comment, Koen lifted several of the fries and munched down on them.

“Fine, we’ll hit it again before we go.  For now, I found a gazebo in a park just down the street. Right now, it’s deserted and private.  Taggert is going to meet us there in twenty minutes.”

Sometimes, Eillia thought, it’s like dealing with children.  Even with men who were a thousand years old, they played like ten-year-olds.  And thank God for that.  The fact that they still had that sense of joy and play after so many years alive was everything.  That their lives were full and rich, and loved, with nothing stale or boring after centuries of trudging through
it all, through pain and loss, when it could so easily be so different, was a blessing and an accomplishment. 

She looked at the four men
who she was so close to now after fighting together for their families.  Koen, friend and family for most of her one thousand years, Xavier, raised as Koen’s brother, and while he was a challenge to get close to, he was a good man with strong ties to the first blood community.  David, a gentle giant who had lived through thirty years of torture to finally make it home to love and hope again.  He was new in her life, but such a kind, loving soul.

Ahmose.
  The biggest surprise to everyone in her world.  He was a first blood from a huge clan of first blood vampires that her own people had never known existed.  Less than twenty first blood vampires had been known to Eillia’s first blood community until Koen had unexpectedly found Ahmose’s hidden village in South Africa.  It had brought an amazed and renewed spirit to her people.

From the clan of
first bloods who called themselves the children of the moon, Ahmose was unique, quiet, powerful, with the strongest sense of duty and honor of anyone she’d ever known.  She knew he would play a significant role in the future of the first blood vampires.

It took a moment for the men to get out of the booth, which really was much too small for them.  Eillia wondered why the hell they had even forced themselves into it. 

Ahmose was the final vampire to crawl free and looked very uncomfortable with the situation.

Eillia looked up at him. “It’s odd for you, here, in the West, isn’t it?”