“You love me.”She said that she did, with all her heart.“And I love you too, my dearest Calla Lily.Soon you’ll be fat with our child, and I’ll have to take better care when we make love.No more roughhousing when we get in the mood.”She pouted, and he laughed.
“You’re perfect for me.I love the way we roughhouse, as you called it.It makes me come all that much harder.”He felt his face break out in a large grin.She could do that to him, make him happy with just a word or two.“Your mother will be here soon, and we need to get going to be ready for her.I’m glad that she agreed to stay with us.We certainly have the room for her.”
“She’ll still think that we’re being put out.But she has magic that will change the room should she want to.And I’m sure that she will if only to have a few of her things around her while she’s staying here.”When she nodded and continued to look out the window, he knew that she was distracted and decided to see what he could get away with while she was.“Sirous is planning to die once he’s here.I hope that he’ll do it when we’re not around while his body will turn to ash.”
“That’s nice.”She turned to look at him.“There is something out there that I can’t see.”He asked her what she meant.“I can feel a presence, but I can’t see them.It’s not the wolves.I can feel them and where they are, but this…well, this thing is out there and can’t get into the house without an invite.Could it be one of your friends?”
“They’ll be your friends soon enough, and let me see what I can find out.”He reached out to the others and asked them if they had arrived.“It’s Rutger.He’s surprised that you can feel him.He was trying to hide in the event that we were too busy to mess with him right now.”
“Does he mean sex?”He nodded.“Well, tell him that it wouldn’t matter if he was at the door or not, I’d finish, then come let him in.Come on, get dressed so that we can meet him.Kenneth is in the living room watching something on the television.He’ll be happy to see the other vampire.”
Brew was happy too to see his old friends and hurried to get dressed.Once he was, he ran down the stairs, picking up Calla as he went, and carried her to the door.Putting her down just as the door opened with his magic, he looked at his friend and nearly burst into tears, much the same way he’d done when Kenneth had arrived several days ago.
“I invite you into my home forever.”As soon as he stepped over the threshold, Brew pulled him in for a long hug and hardy embrace while fighting the tears that threatened him a great deal of late.“I’ve missed you.”
“And I you.”They hugged tightly for another few minutes, and when they released, they hugged once again.“I want you to meet my wife, Calla Lily Smith.Calla, this is Rutger, one of the few friends that I can count on to come when I want to see them.Rutger, Calla is my queen and best thing that has ever happened to me.”
“I can tell.”Rutger got down on one knee before Calla.“I pledge to you, my queen, my life and all that goes with it.I shall forever be at your beck and call from now to the end of the ages.You are my queen.”
“You’re supposed to do that to the king.”He said that Brew already had his loyalty, but he wanted her to have his life.“Thank you, Rutger.Hopefully, I’ll never need you to lay down your life for me.And in turn, I would do everything within my power to make sure that you’re safe and well, as your queen and hopefully friend.”
Rutger hugged Calla, and he found that he wasn’t jealous at all for her being hugged by another man, much less a vampire.As they separated, he asked about the babe, and it was with a huge grin on her face that she told him that she was going to have a baby in the early spring.
“I just went to the doctor for our kind this morning and found out.He said that I had to eat more food for the baby, but otherwise, I was in good shape to carry it to term.He said that he could tell us what it was, but we already know that it’s a boy.I’m so happy to be having Brew’s baby that I could about bust.”Her charm was infectious, and soon Rutger was gushing about the baby as well.
Calla had that sort of charm to her when she wanted to be.There were times when she’d be so upset that he feared for the other person on the receiving end of her anger.But she was calm and cool when dealing with others, and he loved that about her, too.
So far, they’d only had to deal with one vampire that was in trouble with the laws that govern them, and she’d dealt with it better than he might have.He would have killed the man outright for his misdeeds, but she gave him a second chance to mend his ways.Time would tell if it worked or not, but he had a feeling that the vamp would turn his life around and not be making baby vampires anymore.If he did, then Calla said that she’d deal with him, and she never gave a third chance.Nor would it be a quick death, as she would string it out for days, and he’d be begging for death that might not ever come until she was finished with him.That scared even him just a little.
Kenneth was just as happy to see Rutger as they were.When the three of them were together, they hugged each other again and got a little teary-eyed.It had been far too long since they’d seen each other, and he was glad that they could get together.Friends like his weren’t ones that came around in several lifetimes of living.They were the kind that lasted until well beyond death.
His mother arrived just as Calla was sitting down to dinner.The four of them joined her because they got a kick out of the things that she ate.Tonight she was having a burger and French fries with a malted milkshake.Her sucking on the straw had him hard as stone again, and he knew that he had to behave himself or she’d take him to task.He loved it when she got bossy with him and couldn’t have been happier when they made love to make up for it, too.
“I’ve heard that Sirous is planning to kill himself when he arrives.”He looked around the table, then back at his mom when she continued.“The poor man has been around for longer than most and hasn’t met his mate.What are you going to do about it, son?Allow him to do this thing?”
“I cannot stop him.Oh, I guess I could order him to live, but I won’t do that to him.”Brew glanced at Calla as her burger stopped between the plate and her mouth.“I told you about it, love.You were distracted, but I did tell you about him wanting to die.”
“You tricked me, is what you did.”She put down her burger and glared at him.“You’ll order him to live, and that’s final.Or I will.I’ll not have him coming here to off himself when there are plenty of things going around here that can change his mind.If I have to, I’ll line up every single and married woman around to see if he can find his mate.He won’t be able to do it once he finds her.”
“He thought you might do that.He said as much to me.”She glared at him again.“I don’t want this any more than you do, love.We’ll all try to convince him to stay, but I don’t know that it’ll work.He’s set on doing this, and there is little to nothing that we can do to change his mind.”She asked if ordering him not to die would work.“Yes.But do you want him here and happy while we can get him, or forever and heartbroken while he’s here?”
“I don’t want either thing to happen.”The rest of the table agreed with her, but again, there was little for him to do to stop him from doing what he had his heart set on.“Sirous is a very good man, but he was also stubborn, and once set in his ways, there was no changing his mind.I know this as well as the rest of you do.”
“Once I saw him chase a man for slighting him for years until he was able to find him.Then all he wanted was for him to say that he was sorry.I forget now what it was about, but he was determined to find him and make him do it.I almost felt sorry for the human.He had no idea what Sirous was talking about when he did catch up to him.”The others had much the same sort of stories about their friend.His stubbornness was well-known, and they thought it was funny that anyone could change his mind once he’d made it up.“Not only did all he want from the man was an apology, but he and the human became good friends until his death some years later.”
They each had stories like that of Sirous’ stubbornness, and it was a good laugh for them all about him.He couldn’t wait for him to come to the house with the others.Yosef was running late as he had things that he needed to pick up before coming to visit them all.He had a feeling that it was whatever blade he was planning to use on Sirous when the time came.Yosef might not want to do it, but he was true to his word when he made a promise to someone.
The rest of the evening was spent reaccounting times gone by.They talked about their childhood and how they’d always end up at his house when they were just starting out as vampires.This had been when his father had been alive, and it was nice to talk to people who had known him as well ashe had.He had a lot of fond memories of his parents when they’d been together, and he was glad that his friends had some of the best memories of their life they’d told him while hanging out at his house all the time.
As they went up to their rooms one at a time, he stayed in the living room with his mom, and when Calla went up too, he told her how much he loved her, and she told him the same.As soon as she left, he asked his mom if she liked her or not.
“Of course I do.She’s made you a better man for sure.”He said that she made him want to be a better everything.“I can tell.It was the same with your father and me when we got together.You just find ways to make things better for the two of you all the time.She’s very sweet, but I bet she can be a real ball buster when she’s pushed into a corner.”
“You’ve no idea.And I love that about her as well.”His mom smiled at him, and he felt the warmth of her love all the way to his toes.“I don’t want to sound ungrateful that you’ve come to visit, but other than meeting Calla, what did you come here for?I have a feeling that I’m not going to like it.”
“You may well not.I’ve been thinking along the lines that Sirous has.It’s been a lonely life without your father around, and I’m sick of it.”He told her that he couldn’t handle her leaving him.“I’ve been away for a long time, Brewster.We barely talked for the last century and a half.I know for a fact that you were thinking the same things as your friend.”
“Yes, but I’ve since changed my mind.Stay with us now.We’d both love to have you staying with us for when the children come.”She eyed him hard, and he smiled.“She’s breeding now.We’re to have a son in the early spring of next year.”
