Chuckling, I flex my chest muscles and say, “It’s because my inner-beast wants the world to see my prowess.”
Loud guffawing fills the room quickly followed by groans.
Maddox elbows Caden again.
Fucking hell, I forgot how it is with those two when they get together. Maddox isn’t a mute, but if he has Caden to talk for him he uses him. I’ve never understood it, but from what I can tell it’s as if Maddox considers Caden the bigger, older brother.
“He says it’s because you fancy yourself as Fabio.” Caden snickers.
Raising my eyebrows, I shake my head. “Fuck you too.”
Motioning for all of them to leave with a wave of my hand, I wait until the door shuts before I lean down and kiss Chloe on the lips.
It’s a long kiss, and the lack of response breaks my soul just a fraction.
“I wait for you, my love,” I whisper quietly in her ear. “Please come back to me.”
Standing up from the bed, I head out of the room and shut the door gently behind me.
Out in the living room, I see my children sitting around on the various couches or chairs. Ambrose stands in front of the window, of course, but he is alone and not dancing now. Instead, his arms are wrapped tightly around his chest, as if to keep himself closed off.
Walking up to him, I ask, “Are you okay?”
“Yes, though I must apologize for breaking you from your meditations. I felt it prudent to assist you from the thoughts you were having,” he says quietly.
“You knew what I ask thinking?” I ask, startled.
“Only vaguely. I felt the thoughts were towards me, and I could surmise that the melancholy nature was because of my past.”
“Ambrose… I promise you, we will do everything we can to find a soulmate for you.”
Shaking his head quickly, he says, “Don’t promise the impossible. Simply agree to aid me if it ever happens again.”
Sighing, I nod my head to him. “Agreed.”
His head turns to face me fully and I see a dark glint in his eyes. “If any come near my mother to harm her, I will end their existence.”
With that, he turns away from me and gracefully glides from the room, returning to his station outside my door.
Andrei finds me twelve hours later, waiting by her side. My fears are only growing. She still hasn’t gone through the turning. Her body lies on the bed as lifeless as she was the moment she died.
“Father,” Andrei says quietly.
Looking up to him, I wait for him to go on. I’ve talked to them all during this waiting period, and I have no voice left for them.
“I need to take her blood,” he says and tries to ease his way to my side to sit by me. “It might give us some hints.”
Nodding my head, I move her arm toward him and continue to hold her hand. It’s pliable but her fingers won’t grasp mine.
I know she’s there inside her body.
She’s somewhere in the light, trying to find her way to the cool darkness. The darkness where the truth is.
Where I wait for her.
I watch as the blood flows into the tubing then into a small vial.
Andrei isn’t taking much, just enough to look under the microscope that was delivered a couple of hours ago by another one of my children, Kian.
When he leaves the room, I slump back down.
None of us have heard of a turning taking more than half a day.
This day marks the beginning of the second.
Thirty-six hours later and my brain is fucking melting from the inside out.
Raphael comes into the room and shakes me from my stupor. “Asher.”
“What?” I rasp.
“Kian’s back from the city,” he says quietly. He looks to Chloe then back to me. “We need to talk.”
Ambrose glides into the room at the words and flows over to stand at the foot of the bed.
His hands lift up as he says, “Do you think Mother will know the minuet? I dearly hope so. I would dance with one of my brothers, but they don’t seem to know the rhythm of reality.”
Tilting my head, I’m not entirely sure what the fuck he just said or asked.
“I… If she doesn’t,” I shrug, “I’m sure she would love for you to teach her.”
“Hmm,” Ambrose hums to himself as he begins to dance around quietly. Dancing as if he’s a ghost dancing around a grave. “Perhaps she’ll know the more modern foxtrot.”
Raphael looks at me as we leave the room. “You just had to invite the funny farm.”
“Leave him be,” I say, and walk to the kitchen where the maps have been laid out on the table.
Looking at the maps, I ask, “What’s going on?”
“We’ve been doing a shit ton of snooping around,” Kian, my technology guru, says as he looks up from a laptop in the corner of the room.