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Louis-Cesare picked up the box of weapons, I stuffed the gun from under my pillow into the box as he was leaving, catching his eye over the bulging box of goodies, he grinned at me all the time now and I invariably found myself grinning back; our honeymoon period was likely pissing off everyone around us, but we’d only been ‘married’ in vampire terms for a few days, so I didn’t think anyone could get too mad about it yet. He leant back as he turned to leave the room and pulled me up with the hand he didn’t need to carry the box and planted a sloppy kiss on my lips, practically prancing out of the door once he was done.
‘Careful with that’ I yelled after him, ‘there’s a couple of dislocators in there!’ I heard an incredulous huff as he started down the stairs, waving me off like he could handle anything. I never doubted it.
I looked around the room, soon to be filled by fey guards and felt a tug of sentiment, I would miss this run-down room with its faded pink and green cabbage rose wall paper and weird stain on the ceiling. It was full of memories, both good and bad and most recently the place I had marked Louis-Cesare and bonded us together for as long as we would live. It had been my room within Claire’s home for a few years and was the first place I’d ever felt like I belonged. I picked up the last box of clothes, turned off the light behind me before rounding up Stinky from the room he shared with Aiden. I wasn’t sure Stinky fully understood the move and I knew we’d have to come and visit regularly, the boys had developed a bond and Stinky wouldn’t stand for being parted too long. I expected he may want to go with him when Claire took Aiden back to faerie, I didn’t know if it would be too hard on me, but we weren’t there yet. I found him trying to pack Aiden into a box and had to pluck the small blond out of Stinky’s arms and explain Aiden couldn’t come. After a few minutes of coaxing I persuaded him we would be back, but that there were a lot of interesting friends to meet at our new home, where he had his own room and could eat anything he wanted. This got his attention and we finally trudged down the stairs saying goodbye to Gessa, though I had no doubt that we would see her sooner rather than later.
Claire stood by the door, she wasn’t crying, but it certainly looked like she might, and soon.
‘I’m only moving house, I’m a couple of hours drive away, we’ll be here all the time.’ I placated, knowing what was coming, Claire threw herself into my arms and hugged me tight.
‘I know I wasn’t ok with Louis-Cesare at first, I didn’t understand. I am so happy for you though. I know its not a human thing, but you did get married in a way, so I bought you something, as a gift. Stay put.’ She demanded as she darted out of the hall towards the kitchen, returning with a large box, wrapped in a pretty silver bow and a card stuck to the side.
‘Don’t open it until you get there?’ She said, more menacingly than necessary, I promised not to and with a final hug and another promise to come for dinner at least twice a week, I headed out to Louis-Cesare and the truck of vampires full of mine and Stinky’s meagre possessions. The lead vampire, one of Ray’s contingent, I thought his name was Eric, though it could have been any of 16 I’d been trying to learn for the past few days, took the box off me and drove the van away while I made my way to the car Stinky was already being strapped into by my husband.
I stopped to look at him, all 6 ft 4 ins of gorgeous, grappling with a small ball of fur and trying to work out how to fit him into a child seat in the back of a very nice Mercedes. I hoped Claire had bathed Stinky this morning or we may end up with a terrible mess in the back seat. I checked out the World’s Greatest Ass for a while then headed over to help. Stinky was strapped in, sort of, but it wouldn’t hold anyway. Stinky didn’t like to stay still too long and would find a way out of the seat long before we arrived at our destination. I climbed into the passenger seat instead as Louis-Cesare got into the driver’s side and drove us away, we had settled on moving into the estate a few miles from the Consul’s home, it was large enough to house us, and keep a rotation of both families coming and going. I had let Ray and his guys stay in my suite at the Consul’s temporarily, but I though Ray may become a bit more of a permanent addition to the household once things settled down and he was back on his feet again, I thought he might struggle with Louis-Cesare, as he was the one to pull out his spine, luckily for us both he was made of tougher stuff and would make a full recovery as well as understanding that Louis-Cesare was just the instrument of another’s will and not the one responsible, I was glad that my second wouldn’t be an issue between us, though I thought it was likely to be a bit tense for a while, even if neither of them thought it would, I guess we’d deal with that when it came up.
A few hours later I’d moved the majority of my worldly possessions into the house, and already discussed making a few changes to the décor with Louis-Cesare’s decorator, luckily my husband didn’t care what the place looked like, ‘as long as you’re there with me it could be a cave.’ He had exclaimed. I didn’t want a cave, but the place could do with warming up a little. I felt my stomach grumble at me, having been all of a couple of hours since I’d been fed and dragged my other half into the kitchen to rustle up our first meal in our home together. Verrell, the vampire chef, was delighted to see his new mistress, his words, not mine. He made us his amazing omelette and left us to eat at the stainless-steel kitchen island alone.
The present from Claire had been left on the island, so Louis-Cesare opened it while I ate, the card was a lovely wedding card signed by every fey guard in the house, Olga, Gessa, Ymsi and Sven, Claire and a squiggle where Aiden had been given a pen by his mother. I put the card on the table after reading the well wishes and listening to the fey song one of the guards had spelt into the card, it was lovely. The gift was a selection of coffee makers, a French press and some flavoured ground coffees and a pod machine with a selection of pods and some flavoured creamers. It was a little bit of my old home now in my new one, and I loved them.
‘Welcome to your new home Dory’ Louis-Cesare said, pulling me against his body as I finished my excellent meal and put away our gifts. I straddled his lap and kissed him deeply, my fingers tracing over the tiny bumps on his neck, invisible to anyone but the very creatures who were meant to see them. We were both senators, we’d been together months and yet we’d expected backlash, well I had anyway. It hadn’t come, even Marlowe had softened a little from his usual anger to just a general bristle as he’d met us during the swearing in ceremony. Mircea had stopped panicking for the moment and the Consul had barely even noticed. I was still new to auras, but ours seemed to have merged into one colour pretty soon after the marking.
I deepened the kiss, the evidence he was enjoying himself digging into my thigh, I stood up, dragging him along behind me.
‘Shall we go christen our bed as newlyweds?’ I asked him eyebrows waggling as I pulled him towards the stairs, only turning away to make sure I didn’t trip over the steep concrete steps to the ground floor. I felt him grip me about the waist, nuzzling into my neck, letting all that auburn hair fall across my front, and I felt more contentment than I had felt in all my long life, here we were, two several hundreds of years old beings giggling like kids as we half clung to, half dragged each other up the two stories of opulent stairs to our room.
Finally, after what felt like too long, and a quick look in on Stinky, who had passed out while chewing on the pink bear Louis-Cesare had won at the carnival, we made it back to the room. I was sweaty and dusty from the move, but my husband refused to put me down for a shower, finally lifting me fully into his arms so our eyes were on a level briefly before flinging me on the bed, waggling his eyebrows in a poor attempt to mimic my movement earlier, I laughed, dragging him to me for a kiss which curled my toes and reminded me that we had had a week and all I wanted was to curl up and spend a few days wrapped around him, to forget the pain and the near losses and rejoice in each other and our new exciting and scary future.
Of course, Louis-Cesare wouldn’t let me ponder on our unknown future too much, his talented hands made all thought disappear, along with my clothes, and my sanity as he finally got to make love to me until neither of us could see straight. Yeah, a girl could get used to this, I thought hours later, drifting to sleep in his arms.