Blood Queen

A three-hour nap helped, but I was still groggy when someone tapped on my bedroom door. I got up to answer and was quite shocked to find Fox standing there.



"You know, I'm still coming to grips with the fact that Wlodek and Weldon ended up with the same woman," I said, inviting her inside. She sat down on a chair in the corner across from my bed while I dressed. She looked so cute, perky and young. I wondered how Wlodek felt about that.



"Weldon tells me you almost died saving his life, once. And Wlodek says you saved him several times."



"Yeah, well, Wlodek needs to learn when to hand out important information," I grumbled.



"He knows that now," Fox replied brightly. "He's worried you won't ever forgive him for that."



"Like Wlodek ever worried about those things," I said. "You ever stand in front of him while your life is hanging in the balance?"



"No. He scared me a few times while he still held the position as Head of the Council, though. He can be a little intense."



"Hmmph," I snorted. Fox smiled. "He regrets those things, Lissa. Very much. He still considers himself your second vampire sire."



"Yeah, well, I've already gotten the visit from Merrill, my surrogate sire. And I'm sure my actual sire wants to weigh in on all this as well." I hadn't thought about Griffin lately. Should I feel bad about that? And my parting with Merrill had been far from amicable.



"They care about you." Fox's words were simple.



"They have a funny way of showing it," I said. Jamie had placed a pile of clean clothing on the end of my king-sized bed and I was now putting all of it away in drawers and on shelves in my closet. I'd napped with it sitting on my bed. I know—how lazy was I?



"I didn't come to upset you, honest," Fox said. "I feel like I need to know you better. How about going with me to do some shopping? Kiarra's birthday party is coming up and I wanted to look for a gift."



"All right," I said. "Am I dressed properly?" I held out my arms—I'd put gray slacks and a black tank top on, with sandals.



"It might be too cool in London for the tank," Fox said, looking me over critically. "Same with the sandals." That sent me back to the closet and I pulled out a short-sleeved blouse in pink with low-heeled black pumps. "Very nice," I got Fox's approval when I came out again. She folded us to a huge mall just outside London. Malls were back in and this one could fit the Vatican inside it, plus a few small villages.



"She has so much jewelry already," Fox sighed as we passed a jewelry store. I shrugged. I didn't know Kiarra at all and had no idea what she might like. We looked at clothing next, but again Fox said that Kiarra was kept fully stocked. We looked at electronics. Gadgets, knick-knacks, doo-dads, gizmos, everything. We ended up in an art gallery where all sorts of artwork and sculpture were for sale. We wandered through that.



"I don't see a single thing that might appeal to her," Fox grumbled.



"Well, she's the Unicorn—can we look for something in that direction?"



"Yeah." Fox smiled.



"I was fascinated by unicorns in my early years," I admitted. "I once painted a unicorn for my graduate thesis exhibition. It was huge, like four feet by four feet. I even had some offers on it but I kept it for myself. It was hanging in the house when I was turned vampire."



"Can we go see it?" Fox asked, dimpling slightly.



"Can you get us back there?" I asked. "I mean, the best time to see it was probably the night I was attacked. I doubt anybody was in the house then."



"Sure," Fox breathed. "Let's go take a look."



Bending time is easy, I suppose, if you have the ability. It only took a blink or two and we were there; inside my house on the same night I was being attacked outside a bar fifteen miles away. I remembered the scent of the house as we landed inside it. It's funny, I know, that you don't really notice things like that so much when you're human. Now, scents were everywhere, telling me things I needed to know as often as not.



"It's in the bedroom," I told Fox, who'd landed us inside the kitchen. We walked down the hall I knew so well, then into the bedroom and past the bed I'd made up early that morning so I could get to the hospital. I sent up a quick mental I love you to Don—he hadn't been gone that long from where I was at the moment.



"This is it? This is incredible," Fox said, examining the painting. I'd always liked it, although my graduate committee had grumbled over it. The rest of my exhibition was more abstract—and in their eyes more acceptable—but I couldn't help myself on this one. The unicorn was white, of course, standing in three-quarter view and gazing off to the side as if it were on guard and watchful. The mane and tail rippled in an unseen breeze as twilight was falling, with the barest hint of stars over mountains off in the distance. The gold horn was long and sharp; I'd always seen it as a weapon. Otherwise, why have it at all?



"Does it have a title?" Fox asked. She was still staring at the painting.



"Vigilance," I replied.



"Right now, this is still yours," Fox turned to me. "Take it, Lissa."



"If I take it, then I'll give it to Kiarra. I'm not the Unicorn, she is. And this represents a part of my life when I still had idealistic dreams. That's what this painting is. May as well give it away." I hadn't had any idealistic dreams in a very long time. They'd all been stolen or beaten out of me. I lifted the heavy painting off the wall—I'd had it framed nicely in a dark wood. Fox folded me back to my suite at the villa and I set the painting against the wall inside my closet. There was still plenty of empty space inside it, after all.



"I'm getting mindspeech from my mates," Fox smiled. "Time for dinner. Why don't you come with me? You haven't met Steve or Gilfraith, yet." She named two of her five mates.



"Fine," I muttered and Fox folded us again.



Chapter 13



"Look who I invited to dinner," Fox announced brightly as we landed in a very pretty kitchen with a huge, arched window on one side. There were several people there, Wlodek and Weldon among them. There were two I didn't know and one had me drawing in a huge breath; I'm sure the shock must have been plain on my face. He was Ra'Ak. Or had been Ra'Ak—he had the scent, still, but it was overlaid with other things.



"That's Gilfraith," Fox patted my shoulder, smiling at the male with pale brown hair and golden-brown eyes. He wasn't tall—perhaps five-nine or so, but that didn't matter. If he turned to Ra'Ak, he'd be formidable.



"I'm an expatriate," he nodded politely and offered his hand. "And I don't manufacture poison or turn much. I've helped train the spawn hunters and some of the Saa Thalarr." I could see how that might be helpful—Gilfraith probably knew all the Ra'Ak tricks.



"And I can't tell you how happy I am to hear it," I said, shaking his hand. He smiled.



"And this is Steve, Conner's oldest son," another man came forward as Fox introduced him.



"I hear you're mated to my half-brother, Connegar," Steve said, shaking my hand.



"Yeah, that's the current rumor," I said, feeling embarrassed.



"Hey, what's this? You didn't tell us where you were again; we had to send out blanket mindspeech," the twins showed up with Shadow.



"Do I have to tell you everything?" I asked, my hands on my hips as I stared at all three of them.



"You do not, but we would like it very much if you did," Connegar folded in, too. Weldon, the schmuck, snickered off to the side.



"Hey, keep your furry ass out of this," I leaned around Drake to point a finger at Weldon.



"I'll keep my furry ass out of it if you'll bake cookies," Weldon was still laughing.



Everybody ended up having dinner with Fox. I offered to help cook and a mountain of food was prepared. And I baked a truckload of cookies. Three kinds, in fact—oatmeal, chocolate chip and peanut butter. I did get help—Fox, Grace, Devin and Mike all pitched in.



"I remember these," Weldon bit into a peanut butter cookie with a satisfied sigh.



"I remember you could eat a dozen by yourself," I said, handing him a glass of milk.



"Why is everyone getting cookies and I'm just now hearing about it?" Kiarra folded in with Adam, Merrill, Griffin and Amara.



"Baby, may I hug you?" Griffin came over and looked at me with the saddest expression on his face. What was I supposed to do? Refuse and embarrass both of us in front of all those people?



"I guess," I said. Griffin hugged me tightly.



"I'm so sorry, baby," he whispered against my ear. "Just believe me when I say I love you." He kissed my temple and was wiping his cheeks when he stepped away from me.



"It's not worth crying over," I said, handing him a napkin.



"Sweetheart, you have no idea what you're worth," he said. Amara came over and hugged me, too. I know she wanted me to call her Mom. I just couldn't. Maybe someday but not that day, and she hadn't done anything to deserve otherwise. I was going to have to get comfortable with the idea, first.



"Cookies!" My nieces appeared, bringing Flavio, Dalroy and Rhett with them. I was worried we'd have to make more.



"This is the first time I ever got to eat anything Lissa cooked," Wlodek was very happy with the oatmeal cookies.



"You, maybe," I said. "Merrill there was drinking coffee and eating barbecue at least once a week the whole time I stayed with him." I wanted to call Merrill names. Tell him how awful he was. I couldn't. Kiarra was right there, and everybody else was watching. The vampire mask slid into place.



"You knew that?" Merrill looked shocked.



"You came in smelling like barbecue or some other thing all the time," I said, hugging myself and turning away. "I knew you weren't just vampire the first time I met you. Those sunglasses in the Range Rover weren't Franklin's either. You think I'd let that cat out of the bag and risk my life doing it? Jerk," I muttered.

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