Eden's Charms (2 page)

“This store is insane, Serrie.” Raven pilfered through the dresses, her voice raised. “Would you look at this? Oh, my boys are going to love me to death in this little number. And look at the price tag! It’s almost a negative number.” Raven held up a black, silk dress to herself, shaking the slinky little thing to show Serina once she popped her hand up and waved a silky black thong in her direction.

“Over here!”

The dress was a mini. Almost too short to be called mini.
Swatch worked
, Serina thought. Serina gave up her smile at the last second; she liked the dress as long as she didn’t have to parade around in it. At five-foot-seven, Raven could pull it off. At five-foot-three Serina couldn’t pull off a box of cereal from the top shelf of a market! It wasn’t fair!

Raven added, “Jonah, Payton’s and mine one hundredth and ninth year anniversary is this week.”

“You amaze me. Most people can’t hold a relationship together one year let alone well over a century, and you do it with two men, mind you. Just think Raven, if we could be on one of those daytime talk shows you could tell your story to the world. Of course, we’d all be slaughtered shortly after, but you’d have your fifteen minutes of fame for what it’s worth.”

“Sounds more like trash telly where they all go about claiming someone else is the baby’s dada. Repugnant truly, that phrase.”

Raven’s brilliant grin faded before Serina’s eyes. Irritated now, the few wrinkles Serina owned were cast in stone. “You’d think by now public opinion would have changed about us.”

“Serrie, give it up. Vamps are the scum of the earth. I heard there is to be another godforsaken reality show featuring the hunts and kills of anything non-human. There are way too many fanatics running the streets starting wars, both vamps and vigilantes. Hollywood and science have taken art imitating life well past the point of ridiculous. Our little family is going to have to be flawless or else…” Raven dragged her finger across her throat. “Hey speaking of our little family, when is Savanah due home?”

“Right about the time I’m due. Thank the Goddess she’s finally out of that dreadful relationship with that antique of a thing. He always smelled like mothballs.” Just the thought of the bony man made Serina cringe.
Odd couple?
She believed Savanah and the crypt keeper—his not-so-affectionate nickname—made Bill and Hillary look like Ozzie and Harriet.

“Raven, your cell’s about to chirp. It’s Savanah. Her ears must be ringing.”

“I hate it when you and Jovan do that. It takes away the mystery.” Raven gave her sister-in-law the evil eye and flipped open her pretty pink phone. Before she got it to her ear Savanah’s voice hit the airways.

“Hey, you two, you talking nice about me?”

“Savvy?” Raven glanced at Serina. “You were right.”

Serina winked. “Am I ever wrong?”

Raven shoved Serina off balance in a playful gesture as she spoke to her niece. “Where are you?”

“London for the next few hours then Jules and I are headed to Cairo on the red-eye. We’re on to a few leads about some vampire’s artifacts.”

“Peanut, I think each one of us is old enough to qualify as an artifact. You could put your entire family on display. When will you be home?”

“Definitely could put
you
on display, Aunt Ray,” Savanah teased. “This summer. Come see me. You have no excuses.”

“Other than I hate flying. And your Aunt Serina gets seasick with just the mention of getting on the raft in the pool. And since neither one of us mastered time travel or evanescing, we’re stuck on this side of the pond. Don’t get mad at us.”

“I’m not. I just miss everyone. A girl gets lonely. My parents are coming over soon.”

“Have you met anyone worthy of bringing home yet?”

“Give Auntie Serina a giant hug. Love you guys.”

The line went dead. Raven glanced at Serina. “You heard her. And she evaded my last question. Rudely.” Raven shoved her phone back into her black, patent leather abyss. “This summer! That’s a lifetime from now.”

“Definitely one life!” Serina rubbed her belly. The one hundred year childless hex her mother condemned her to had finally ended! With one helluva good bang.

Standing with her back against the wall, Serina waited for Raven to make it through checkout. She watched as a man hidden behind dark sunglasses and a red baseball cap sporting the 2004 World Series Baseball team, shove people out of his way, all most tripping over Serina’s feet in his wake. He was on the heels of a pretty woman with long dark hair; following her obscenely close out the door. If the woman put on her brakes she and the gentleman were going to need formal introductions of sorts after being removed from her delicate derriere. Serina did a double take thinking the woman was Raven, she resembled her that much.

“Serrie, I’m sorry. Oh my God! Some guy just grabbed me from behind, swung me around and kissed me like I haven’t been kissed in a long time. After an awkward minute of swapping spit he licked his lips, then apologized. He said he had the wrong woman. Whew! Sweet!” Raven readjusted all her bags under her arms and blurted out, “Do you remember the guard at the manor that always spied on us just before André almost got crowned king?”

“It wasn’t us he watched. It was all you, dear.” Amazing how one hundred nine years had flown by in the blink of an eye.

“Remember Donovan?”

Serina nodded. “Hard not to. He had the dark hair with mysterious olive eyes and a tight tush. I’ll bet Payton and Jonah remember him as well, although, not as fondly.” Serina nudged Raven’s arm.

Raven grunted. “Anyway, that guy reminded me of him. My tummy’s rolling. I’m famished, and yes, I mean that. I brought a few spare pouches of type O neg. They’re in the limo, on ice.”

****

As she stared out the window of their limo, Raven frowned. Once she gathered her courage, she confessed, “I bit him you know, Donovan.” The weight of Serina’s gaze crushed her. “Desperation took over one night, and he was there.”

Serina’s voice cracked. “I’m listening.”

Raven readjusted herself in the seat to face Serina. She took in a large breath and released it slowly. “It was fantastic, Serrie. I remember it as if it were yesterday.” Raven touched her lips. “We ended up naked so fast.” Raven searched Serina’s face. Not even a twitch. “Well are you going to say anything?”

“Raven, you’re an adult. You’re not married, although it seems like it even if it is to two men. You explored other avenues of your life. There’s nothing wrong with that, and the fact that it only happened once—”

“Higher,” Raven cut her off.

“Two?”

Raven’s fingers pointed upward. “Keep going.”

“Twenty?”

A cacophonous grunt echoed through the car. “It happened four times. God help me, I couldn’t say no to him. I didn’t want to.”

“You had sex four times or bit Donovan four times?”

“Both.”

Serina rubbed her jaw. “I’m not certain I want the answer, but is the man who just had his tongue down your throat Donovan?”

Raven closed her eyes in hopes to hold back the tears. It never worked. She blindly reached for a box of tissues in the console, her hand grasping at air.

Serina jammed a wad of tissues between her fingers. “Oh, Raven!” Serina cajoled, “We have to find him. You’re his bloodline. You sired him.”

“Serrie, I’m pretty sure when he’s ready, he’ll find me.”

“What do you mean?”

Raven dabbed at her nose and eyes and then pulled the sweater just below her collarbone. “He nipped me in the store.” Ashamed, she turned abruptly back to the window and watched people along the sidewalk meld into one long stream of legs, heads and torsos as the limo sped up. “What have I done?”

Serina laid her hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder. Trying to lighten her mood, she asked, “Tell me he wasn’t the one with the Red cap on sporting little red socks?”

Raven wiped her eyes and attempted a grin. “You and your Yankees.”

Chapter Two

June 6

The House that Ruth Built, New York, N.Y.

Lucian St. James hesitated purposely, as he produced his best sexy smirk, which worked like a charm every time. “Who do you think will win today, M’sexy lady? The team that
finally
broke the curse after seventy-six years or the not-so-evil empire?” He egged her on as he led Serina to her seat behind home plate.

“You’re not the least bit funny, St. James.”

“Luce, you can’t say stuff like that to her. She’ll get mad and try to juju ya, and we all know how well that goes—or doesn’t!” Payton whispered as he, Raven and Jonah settled into their seats beside them.

Lucian’s eyes went wide. He put a silencing finger to Payton then wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her to him. As he slid his hands over her ripe abdomen, her stomach went rock hard and then relaxed. One minute later the same thing happened, each time his wife’s face reddened. Concern crept in.

“Serina? What is that?”

“Braxton-Hicks contractions. Been getting the annoying things on and off for the past few days.”

“You’re certain that’s all they are? Not the real ones?” Lucian asked.

“No worries. These have no rhyme or reason. And we’re still a few weeks out. M’lord, the baby wants a hotdog with the works, a pretzel slathered with cheese and some water. Ooh, and some cotton candy. I’ll lick your sticky fingers after we’re done.” Serina lifted her eyebrow in a non-prim, non-proper fashion.

“Would you stop all ready?” Raven teased. “Dear God, woman, you’re pregnant, act like it!”

A wave of scorching heat blazed a trail to Lucian’s groin with the mere thought of his wife’s lush lips anywhere on his body. Nine innings suddenly seemed a little too much like eternity and although he had eternity on his side, he didn’t feel like waiting to get steamy and naked with his wife. His very beautiful, very pregnant wife. The same little devil that put a restraining order on their conjugal visits until their wee one made her grand entrance into the world. Serina worried he’d poke her head with his penis. Yes, that comment did wonders for his ego.

A mere two strikes away from the seventh inning stretch, Serina stood in her chair and screamed at the home-plate ump for a bad call against the newest member of the team, number eighteen. She didn’t have to like him in pinstripes, but if she rooted against him? She couldn’t go there. Superstitions were like bad hair days; you had no idea when they’d pop in to haunt you. “Come on eighteen.
You can do it
.” Serina yelled trying to sound just like one of the characters in the movie,
The Water Boy
.

“Ah, so you do like
número
eighteen.”

Serina bit her cheeks before spewing, “That’s blasphemous.” She stuffed her last bit of her pretzel into her mouth and then licked her fingers clean.

“It is not, M’lady. You like him. Admit it.”

“No—I do not. He’s a transplant a—a—a spy from another team,” she spewed flustered.

“I agree,” Jonah added.

“So what if he looks awesome in pinstripes.” That last part she mumbled as she smacked her lips together.

“I agree,” Raven tossed in. “Love a man in uniform!”

“I do believe this is a case where the lady doth protest too much. He’s a great player. He was great when he played for Boston. He’s just better now that we have him on our side. Face it, luv, you’d even like a few of the other players on Boston if they were in stripes, specially the one with dreds.”

Serina laughed as Lucian jerked back away from her just in case she swung at him with the pink, fluffy ball of fairy floss.
Like I’d waste this scrumptious little confection on him…

“Jail-bird stripes.” Serina never turned to see her husband’s reaction.

With the next pitch careening backward toward her, Serina waited with the patience of a lizard, his tongue ready to snag the first bug that buzzed him. Net or no net between she and the players that foul ball had her name on it. Out of seven innings this was the closest a ball had come. Nor was she waiting for Skippy, the ball boy, to bring it to her. Seemed his interests were well occupied with all the pretty young things who weren’t bursting at the seams with child. Serina jumped non-to-eloquently as only someone eight and half months pregnant could do, over the sidewall and proceeded to waddle as fast as her puffy little feet could carry her.

“Doc, stop!” Payton yelled, his amber eyes ready to spark. He turned to Lucian. “She’s your wife, get her off the field before we have to go bail her out.”

Serina took chase after the ball where she found—she too was being hunted down by security. She stopped, picked up the ball—triumph plastered on her face in the form of a giant smile as the guard closed in on her, then changed her smile to a frown, dropped the ball, grabbed her stomach, and looked down at her feet to see a flood of water spilling from her body. Her new comfy shoes that expanded to accommodate her swollen tootsies were now soaked in amniotic fluid.

“Oh my God, Lucian!” Serina yelled, with a protective hold on her abdomen. “It’s not what you think,” she shouted to the guard. Fear swiftly replaced embarrassment. “Lucian!”

Lucian got on the field before she finished screaming his name a third time. He approached the camera operators and asked them, “Please stop filming my wife. Doesn’t the team have a policy of not filming crazy pregnant ladies jumping on fields?” To no one in particular he mumbled, “One hundred years of keeping our identity a secret—blown in a New York minute and on national television to boot.
Fuck!!!
I can say that coz they’re only bleeding gonna bleep it anyway.”

“Lucian.” Serina panted. “We’re about to have our baby.”

“So it appears, my wild rose. So, Doc…Braxton Hicks or the real thing?” Lucian shook his head. Once beside her, he lifted her into his arms.

“Ouch! Oh, Lucian, put me back down,” Serina whaled. “I think the baby’s got other plans on where she wants to be born. Ah-hoo-ah-hoo…” She practiced her Lamaze breathing.

“Oh not here, Serina. I knew you wanted to meet your number two, but this?” Lucian gave himself the hand-to-the-forehead slap.

Just then, as if hearing his name, the team’s illustrious captain and a few other team-mates came out of the dugout to see what the hold-up on the field was about. Serina shrugged her shoulders and gave a little waggle of her hand to them. It was all she had.