Forbidden Days (The Firsts) (32 page)

“Yeah?”   He listened intently.  Then motioned for Burne to end the call.  “Huh,” he said.  “Uh, Bas, there’s a chopper coming in.”

“Who’s on it?”

“
That
I don’t know.”

“I do.”  Eillia and Hamid swept in.  She looked upset.  “Bas, I hate to tell you this, any of you.  Park, darling, it’s your father.  I’m afraid he’s found us.  Well, he’s actually looking for me, but since he’s here, this close to you, you won’t be able to hide from him.”

Park looked shocked.

Eillia came over and knelt down near her.  “Honey, I’m so sorry.  He called me last night and said he needed to see me.  I tried to discourage him, but he’s
so
hard headed.”

Bas was furious.  “So he can find you, even over such a long distance?”

“Obviously.  That’s how I knew it was him before I even heard about the helicopter.  We can block our life force, given the chance, but he had me before I could try it.  I hoped he wouldn’t come.”

“Coulda used a heads-up.”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference.  Bas, if I had told you yesterday, you would have tried to set up some kind of defense.  I don’t want you on defense with Koen.  If you offend or upset him, I just don’t know what he’ll do.  But I don’t want any of you hurt.  So let me deal with him.  This was unavoidable.  You’re dealing with a first blood…you won’t win.  Please, all of you, stay here.  Hamid and I will meet him and try to persuade him to go.  If we can’t, we’ll proceed from there.  So.”  She let her eyes scour the room.  “At the risk of sounding like a pet owner…Stay.  Hamid or I will come if it is necessary.”

She looked at Park.  “I’ll do my best.”

Park smiled at her.  “I know you will.  If he’s unreasonable or dangerous, I’ll know.”

Eillia knew what that meant.  So did Bas.  Park thought she would have to intercede if he was dangerous.  He put his arm around Park and looked up at Eillia. She knew he would do what he could to keep her there.  Eillia and Hamid left quickly.

Everyone stared at each other.  The aggressive natures of the vampire in the room were having a hard time with the idea of hiding out.  Bas knew it and held his hand up.

“Stand down, brothers.  I trust Eillia and Hamid.  Still, Jake, have a few of your soldiers bring some weapons, their hottest vampire stoppers.”  He looked around the room at the buff and ready warriors.  “Just in case.”

Dez, ever the realist, hopped up.  “Well, until that happens, I’m not letting this food go to waste.”  She began to fill another plate, and the others eventually joined her.

Bas asked Park if she wanted anything, but she shook her head and smiled.  “No, I’m okay.  Go ahead, get your calories.”  He hesitated, then went on to the table.  Park looked down to hide her face.  She could feel him.  Her father.  The power, the confusion, pain, anger.  Eillia was right.  This had every chance of going wrong.  But… 

She wanted to know him…
this person who mourned her.  Who had
wanted
her.  She could feel herself reaching out to him now, she couldn’t help it…couldn’t stop it.  She loved Bas and her child, but she needed her father, too.  If she let him go, would she ever have enough courage to find him again?  Her heart ached, and she wrapped her hands around her belly. She wanted her child to know her grandfather, too.

She had never had a family.  People who loved each other because they belonged to each other.  She hoped she was building this with Bas, she knew her own child she carried would know that it was cherished and loved every day.  But she had never had it.  Koen looked at her with a love and need she had always wanted as a confused little girl growing up so very alone.

Hamid led Eillia through the upper corridors of the household which led out to a path that disappeared into the trees, and then out to Bas’s runway where the helicopter had landed.  They weren’t moving vampire-fast, but quicker than normal.  Eillia passed her companion.  “He’s going to be so pissed,” she said to him.

“Yep,” he said, and although he sounded flippant, she knew he wasn’t.   Koen had never been overly fond of Hamid, so he didn’t feel particularly safe from a raging fit by the oversized, overpowered old one.  But he wasn’t a match for a first blood.

“You nervous?”

“Yep.”

“Don’t be.  He won’t kill you.  He knows you mean the world to me.”

“He might
hurt
me a lot.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

Her voice trailed off as a large man walked into view from under the cover of heavy pine branches.  Hamid was tall…Koen topped him by another eight inches.  His chest was wide, arms heavily muscled, dark hair spilling over brilliant deep green eyes.  He was as handsome as Eillia was beautiful.  He always caused her to hold her breath for a few moments when she saw him.   First blood was just so stirring.  He was smiling, grabbed her and swung her around.  Hamid had to step back and bite his tongue as the man handled his woman.  He wanted to knock him down and call him out.  But jealousy was ugly, Eillia couldn’t bear it.  And there was the fact that Koen would wipe the floor with his shattered body.

“You’re okay,”  Koen whispered to Eillia, then sat her back on the ground.  “You had me wondering.”

“No, Koen, I told you, you shouldn’t have come here.”

“Your battle is of no concern to me.  I needed your help.  These headaches…they…”

He trailed off, his expression changed.  His eyes went wide.   Eillia stood still, and knew he was feeling her…reading her. 
Reading Park.

“What the hell….!”  He yelled explosively.

“Koen…Koen, listen to me.  There’s something I should have told you, but I couldn’t.  I promised…”

“Is that…am I…who am I feeling?!”

“It’s…it’s your daughter.”

He looked beyond shocked, and then he was gone.  Eillia could move as fast as he could, but Hamid couldn’t.  She glanced at Hamid with a pained look, and disappeared, too.

A cautious group had just sat down to finish the evenings breakfast when the door splintered into shards that flew into the room in every direction.  A huge beast of a man came in, although no one saw him do so.  He was just there, wild dark hair flying around his head, his eyes searching the room…and stopped on the redhead who stood up and stared at him.  He started walking toward her, and she started toward him, pushing Bas’s hands away as he tried to grab her.  Bas was shocked at how strong she was, able to dislodge him like he was a child.   He still tried to move toward her, but suddenly he was pinned, right where he was.  Arms, legs, body…he couldn’t move.  He looked around.  Neither could anyone else.

But Park continued toward the intense large man.  Their eyes were locked on each other. 

“You…”  The big ancient vampire stammered.  “You’re my daughter?”   He said it like a question although he already knew it to be true.  He felt her.

She answered him, as if she didn’t already know he knew the answer.  “I am.”

For ancient vampires who could move at a speed that seemed as fast as that of light, they were walking like they were infirmed.  When they finally came up to each other, they stopped four feet apart, green eyes recognizing the same green eyes.

It was Parks turn to state the obvious.

“You’re my father.”

Bas couldn’t believe it.  The object of all their terror was standing there with pooled tears in his eyes.  This was the monster they feared?

“I am your father,” he said.  “I felt you sending to me.”

“I didn’t mean to, but…I needed to see you, to meet you.  To know you.  I never thought I’d ever know my father.”

He stepped forward and lifted her up, gently, into his arms.  He wrapped his arms around her, and curled one large hand around the back of her head.

“I never thought I’d know my daughter.  I didn’t think I
had
one.  I thought I lost you.”

Eillia stood in the threshold of the wrecked door.  She couldn’t speak.  She couldn’t move, just watched the scene unfold with the young woman she had come to love and the man she had always loved.

Koen kept his head buried against Park.  He was reluctant to let her go, afraid it was a dream and he’d only imagined her.  She smelled like lavender and jasmine and he thought he’d never smelled anything more lovely in all his years.  His daughter.  The dream that had been lost.  It seemed she didn’t  want to let go either.  He could feel her…she’d needed him as much as he’d needed her for all these years.  And to think yesterday he’d been ready to…

Park lifted her head.  Her eyes were shiny and a little red.  She gently pushed back and looked from Koen to Eillia.  She started to speak and couldn’t. 

Eillia swept forward and took Park and Koen’s arms.

“We’re going to the garden.  Please, finish your breakfast.”  When no one moved, Eillia looked at Koen.

He shrugged.  “I didn’t do it.”

Eillia looked at Park, surprised.  “You?”

Park looked surprised, too.  “Me?  I froze everyone?”

“Well, you must have.  You are a powerful woman, Park.  All it takes with many of our talents is to think it.”

“Oh.  I just didn’t want anyone to stop me from meeting my father.”

“And you froze them.  Just think about letting them go.”

Park looked at her friends who’d become family and thought how sorry she was that she’d frozen them and that they should be released to move again.  It took a few moments, but then they could.

Bas hurried to up to her.  “She isn’t going anywhere without me. I’m coming.”

Koen’s eyes burned into Bas.  “I don’t think so, little vampire.”

Park though how ridiculous it was to call Bas “little” and then realized this could escalate into trouble.

She turned to Bas, a hand on his chest.  “Please.  I’ll be okay.  I can feel him, his intentions.  He would never hurt me.”

“I believe that.  I still think he’ll try to take you.”   Bas came up to Koen and faced him.

“I’ll fight you.  You won’t take her.  I ask you to honor this household and leave.”

“Not happening.”   Then Bas flew backward and crashed into the wall, the wallboard crumbling under the assault.  He’d hit so hard, it knocked the air out of him and he was struggling with unconsciousness.

Park was on her knees now next to him, holding his head in her hands.  He could taste the blood in his mouth that was bleeding along his forehead.

“Bas, you must trust me.  I will be safe.”

Eillia came forward and caught Bas’s eyes with her.  “Dear friend, trust me, I won’t leave them alone.  But she is in no danger here.  He’s…”  She searched for the word.  “Just…different, is all I can say.  I think it’s going to be okay.”

Bas knew when a battle was lost.  He trusted Eillia and Park.  And it was clear…Park’s father had enough power to kill him with barely a thought, and he would take her anyway.  He nodded, but gave Koen a look that terrified Park.  If Koen took offense…

Instead, he took Park’s hand and pulled her out of the room.  Eillia followed on their heels.

Below, in the gardens filled with night blooming Texas primrose, they sat on elaborately carved wooden benches.  Eillia sat across from Koen and Park.  Koen couldn’t take his eyes off of his new found daughter.

“Well, you’re beautiful.  But you would be…my daughter and all.”  He looked at Eillia.  “Someone needs to catch me up.”

Park and Eillia exchanged glances, but Park smiled.  “I will.”  She turned back to the stunning man who had fathered her.  She knew she had to be careful.  “I…um…  I didn’t have any idea who or what I was until just recently.  Well, you know my mother took off with me…”

She saw the muscles in his jaw tighten in anger.  Ookkaayy, that would
never
be a safe subject.   “We kind of lived all over.  I don’t know, maybe twenty different places, maybe more.  Eillia thinks I must have put a block on my life signs since no one could find me.  I couldn’t know better, I was a baby.”

Eillia elaborated.  “In utero, actually.  He should have been able to find you before you were born.”

Park looked at her, incredulous.  “Really?  I could have done that before I was even born?”

Eillia smiled and nodded.  “We’re very powerful.”

“Okay.  Well, so, guess the short version is, we moved a lot, you looked for me, but couldn’t find me.  Eillia says you looked a long time, and I’m sorry.   If I’d had any idea, if I was old enough to realize, I would never have blocked you.”

“It wasn’t your fault.  Your power kicked in to protect you.  You must have felt threatened.  Although, I’m surprised that you could focus it so young.”

“She had her amulet, “  Eillia said.

“Ah.  I never could find it.  I assumed it had either gotten lost in the manic search, or the breeder had taken it.  I figured if she had, it would have been pawned long ago.”

“I heard she was afraid to, “ Park said.

“How did you come to be here, amongst our kind?”

“Bas tried to compel me and when he couldn’t, he said that I was something different, something special.  We became…” 
Careful, Park
…  “…close.  And then a seer told me what I was.  Eillia came and filled me in the rest of the way.  When I got the amulet back from my mother, I knew then.  And now, there’s you.   That’s it.”

“No, it’s not.  Someone should have let me know immediately.”  And he stared at Eillia, who glanced down and started to speak.  Park cut her off.

“No.  It isn’t her fault.  If you fault her for anything, then it should be for becoming family to me when I’d never really had any.  For teaching me who I am and how amazing first bloods are.  I asked her not to let you know.”

He shook his head.  “Why?”

“We were given to understand you are an…intense man…not just by Eillia.  It was realized that when you knew I was alive, you would come for me.”

“Absolutely, I would.  No fucking doubt.”

“Well, I wanted to meet you.  I did, but…I can’t leave here.  Bas and I…we’re together.  I love him, and I couldn’t risk you taking me away.”

“You don’t belong here.  You belong with me.  You will forget him when I take you to the life you should always have had.”