I cupped her cheek in my hand, pulling her mouth to mine and kissing her long and deep. A warm, foreign sensation spread through my chest. I’d been on my own for so long that I forgot how it felt to have someone. To belong to them unequivocally.
We were interrupted by the sound of her mother stepping into the room and clearing her throat. Beena’s eyes danced as she took in the two of us together, and I was relieved that she approved of my relationship with her daughter. Now I only had her father to contend with.
Beena set the cups and teapot down on the coffee table that had managed to survive getting damaged when the house was trashed. Tom returned, shoving his mobile phone into his pocket and rubbing at the stress lines on his forehead.
“Well, that’s all taken care of. They’re sending someone out to inspect the damage tomorrow.”
“That’s good, love,” Beena said, pouring the tea.
Tom’s eyes narrowed when he noticed Alora sitting on my lap. Embarrassed, she quickly scooted off and sat on the other side of the sofa. I wanted to smile, but I held it in. We made polite chit chat for a couple of minutes, and I almost spilled my tea everywhere when Beena let out a loud gasp. Turning my head, I found that Alora was having another vision, her body going into convulsions.
I pulled her into my arms and waited for the shakes to ride out.
“It frightens me every time this happens to her,” Beena said with an anxious expression. Tom rubbed his wife’s shoulders to calm her down.
“You don’t get visions like Alora does?” I asked Beena a couple of minutes into the episode. Alora’s convulsions were still going strong.
She shook her head. “No. I’m an empath. I read people’s emotions.”
“Oh.”
“I can see the depth of your affection for her. I’m glad she’s found someone that feels the way you do about her.”
Just before I got the chance to ask what she saw in Alora’s feelings for me, the woman in my arms stopped shaking and blinked open her eyes.
“Hey, Goldy,” I said softly. “You okay?”
She nodded and sat up, asking her mother for a glass of water. I rubbed her back and whispered soothing reassurances in her ear.
“I think we need to go and see Tegan,” she told me after she downed the water her mother got for her.
I furrowed my brow. “Why?”
“Because I saw something about her baby.”
Tegan
“What do you think?” I asked Rita as we both sat in the back of Ethan’s new car. We were parked on the road outside her house. Construction had just been started to repair the damage done by the fire all those weeks ago.
“Well, it’ll certainly beat living in that RV. I might be a small woman, but even I need my space.”
“The house should be as good as new within a couple of months,” Ethan said from the front.
“Oh, before I forget, I want you to look at these spell ingredients,” I said, pulling out the list Emilia gave me before she died. “Emilia said that if I take this every morning and night my baby will survive the birth. Was she telling the truth?”
Rita took the list from me and looked it over. “Hmm, there’s nothing suspicious looking on here. It should be alright for you to take it.”
I sighed in relief. “That’s good news.”
“It looks like your dear bunica did one kind thing for you before she died,” Ethan said.
A tiny trickle of grief settled in my belly. Now that she was gone, I regretted some of the things I said to her when she was alive. I knew she was hardly going to be getting any Grandmother of the Year awards, but maybe I could have tried harder to have a friendship with her.
“Yeah, I guess she did,” I finally replied.
We spent another few minutes watching the builders work on Rita’s house before my stomach started to rumble. Ethan chuckled affectionately. “Sounds like somebody’s hungry.”
“I’m starving,” I admitted. “And do you know what I’d love right now?”
“Tell me, and your wish is my command.”
“The biggest, greasiest, unhealthiest cheeseburger we can find,” I said.
“Oh, I could definitely go for a burger, too,” Rita agreed.
“So, it’s settled then,” Ethan said before he started the engine and pulled away from the side of the road.
***
I broke my personal record when I managed to stuff my face with three huge burgers. Rita and Ethan watched me eat in amazement. The funny thing about being pregnant with a dhampir baby was that you could eat and eat and you hardly ever felt full. The energy was burned up too quickly.
We arrived back at the house just after lunchtime and found Alora and Finn waiting for us in the living room. Everybody moved out of Ethan’s yesterday and went back to their own homes now that the danger was gone, so I wasn’t sure what they were doing here.