Unraveling Mordecai, Marisa Maichel [ebook reader .TXT] 📗

hates herself for it, for her past mistakes, and the way she’s been treated, made her self-esteem plummet. It all started with Nales.” I ground my teeth at the mention of his name. “He’s the one who caused this. If he’d never raped her, then she wouldn’t have been crying, and I wouldn’t have….” I trailed off and looked at Mother.
She smiled weakly. “You blame yourself, don’t you, son?”
“Think about it. If I’d never been infatuated with her in the first place-“
“You can blame the Fates for that, dear.”
“The Fates had nothing to do with it. I made so many mistakes, Mom, and I’m making one right now. Mom, I’m losing interest. I’m attracted to Scarlett Hart, of all people! And you know her history with Sarah.”
Mom looked furious. “You are my son, but if you break Sarah’s heart, I’ll crush your skull between my hands. Do I make myself clear?”
I gulped. “Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled. “It’s natural to feel some tension occasionally. Couples fight, and even lose interest in each other. Every relationship has its ups and downs, it’s how you handle them that matters.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Certainly not. I’d rather die than break that girl’s heart. I’ve already fought with her twice. I don’t want to hurt her anymore. I know we will probably fight again, Sabine and Selena and I fight all the time, but that doesn’t mean I love her any less.”
“You really care for my girl, don’t you, Mom?”
“Of course I do. The Fates would never grant Marina Santorino Nicolai’s child a mate that they could not handle.” She fluffed her wildly curly raven-black hair. I noticed something.
“You cut your hair,” I noted.
“Oh, yes, I trimmed off a foot or two. I needed a change of hairstyle. I’ve had the same hairstyle for four hundred years! Isn’t that a riot? But your father and uncle haven’t changed their hairstyles in thousands of years. Your cousin at least went short once or twice. In the old days, long hair was a sign of beauty and skill. Of course, we now know that it depends on the heart and soul, not the length of a person’s hair.” She pressed a fist against her chest.
“How are the babies?” I asked.
She smiled and put both hands on her belly. “Come feel.”
I eased forward and carefully put my hand on her. She was huge, no offense meant. But then again, she was having triplets. She was sure that at least two of them were boys. “Little princes”, she called them. She called the girl “a sweet angel.”
“She doesn’t kick at all,” Mother said, putting my other hand on her. “My boys are feisty and ornery, while the girl is quiet and sleeps a lot. I hope that is a good thing. You know, I had so many miscarriages and stillborns, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever become a mother, something I wanted to be more than anything. It was only when I became a vampire that one of my trysts with my ex-husband bore a fruit, which became Selena. Years later, I married your father and romped with him, which of course resulted in you.”
“Too much information, Mom.”

Sarah and Sabine avoided each other, and by that afternoon, Sabine had run away again. While Mother sent out search parties, I tried comfort Sarah. I managed to convince her that it wasn’t her fault, at least for a little bit, and told a few lame jokes to make her smile. She tried, she really did, but it looked more like a grimace.
We played with the dogs for a couple hours, and then some guys came to work on Mother’s garden in the backyard. She was building a massive stone walkway and patio which led to a pool and would have pink rosebushes. She let Sarah help pick out the stone and the flowers that they would use. Later, she planned to build a koi pond. I told her about Pearl, my sort-of-pet koi, and she thought it was hilarious that I would consider a fish to be my best friend.
I reminded her that I had a new best friend, who also happened to be my fiancée and soulmate. She tweaked my chin and said I was silly.
We watched Frogs, Creature From the Swamp Lagoon, Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, and The Fault in our Stars. Sarah was a little freaked out by the creature features, but I reminded her that if any frog tried to eat her, I would protect her. She hated frogs, anyway.
She fell asleep on my lap sometime halfway through The Fault in our Stars, and I carried her up to bed. I called Father to check in with him, and he told me to be safe, as usual.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he reminded me.
“Father, I’ve already done something stupid. It cost Sarah her job and nearly cost our lives.”
“What did you do?” he asked after a long hiss that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I explained about Fowley and Sarah’s job, then what I did.
“Silly girl,” he said, and I could picture him shaking his head. “Fowley is dangerous and unpredictable, even at the best of times. I hope you helped her get home safely.”
“Of course I did! She’s the mother of my baby.”
“Speaking of which, I’d like an update on the child.”
It hit me. If I was having my first child…that would make him a grandfather, unless David somehow had kids and didn’t tell us. I’d seen very little of my brother since I moved into Mother’s house for the chilly season. Father told me he and David got along well, and he and Louis were like brothers, but Uncle Soren was still suspicious, and he frequently gave David reasons to be apprehensive of him.
I visited them at the house from time to time, even staying the night on occasion. Father seemed hurt that I chose to spend more time with Alexander than him. Things were still tense between them.
“He’s not my father, you are,” told him one night as we smoked on the porch and watched David and Louis wrestle in the yard. They adored each other and were more like brothers than David and I were.
“Still, he’s…” My father closed his eye, then opened them, and his pupils were slits. “When I think about him, I want to destroy a small city. Have you forgotten that he nearly killed you, Reese? He even admitted that he wanted to wring Sarah’s neck when he first met her, simply because he hates humans. He took Cirino because he thought that Kieran would never speak to him again. The plan was for him to raise Cirino and eventually turn him into a vampire. The plan was never for her or you to live. He would have killed you, too, if your mother hadn’t interfered.”
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his pupils were round again.
“How do you feel now with him here?” I gestured to David.
“Oh, I’m thrilled he’s here. He keeps me company when you’re not around. He tells me stories about his other siblings and his mother. I knew Ferri years ago, and it was extremely brief. I never thought for one second that anything might have become of our brief relationship.”
He closed his eyes. “It must have happened that night in December. We were both drunk, and neither of us used any protection or cared about possible disease or pregnancy. David told me his birthday’s in August. That would mean….” He paused and counted on his fingers. “He just turned twenty-five.”
“But he told you that, though.”
“I know, but I still can’t believe it. I was sure you were it, Reese. None of us have born much fruit other than what we have. There is a possibility that there may be more, but I doubt it.”
He looked over at the guys wrestling.
“That was a cheap shot!” David shouted.
“One thing you should know about me: I don’t play fair!” Louis responded, jumping on my brother. “You’re doing great, dude! But I can still kick your butt!”
Beyond the edge of the property line, I could see Cholena, still writing in that notebook of hers.
“What’s she still doing here?” I asked Father.
“Cholena? I don’t know. I think Satira sent her to watch us, but I’m not going to make her leave, even though her presence hurts Soren. He still blames himself for Mitra’s death. And no one has seen Katonah in weeks. Soren went to see her human family, but they all yelled at him and tried to shoot him. So they also blame him.”
My heart broke for both my uncle and Cholena. Cholena lost her mother, and my uncle lost his mate. Again. Plus, Mitra wasn’t bad company. She kept up lively conversations, and, even though her attitude sucked most of the time, she kept it real, even when she admitted she was torn between Katonah and my uncle, and even when we weren’t exactly nice to her.

I stepped off the porch and walked all the way over to where Cholena was sitting. She glared at me, and hissed when I got too close for her liking.
“What are you writing?” I asked. She showed me. It was a sketchbook…and it had a picture of Louis on it. It captured his likeness perfectly, even the mischievous glint in his blue eyes and the tangles in his long brown hair.
“It looks like him,” I said.
She said nothing and turned back to her picture.
“What else have you drawn?” I asked. She showed me. The cemetery. The lake. A deer and her fawn. A pack of wolves in the distance. A fox digging. A buck rubbing his antlers on a tree. Even a few humans, which I realized were her family.
She continued to glare at me, even as I complimented each drawing. She was even better than Sarah, and Sarah was good at drawing and loved it. Her glare grew deeper when I casually asked about Satira. She closed her sketchbook and grabbed her messenger bag and walked away, giving me the finger.
“You tried, little buddy,” Louis said, patting my shoulder as I walked by him.
“Did you see the first drawing she showed him?” David asked.
“No, what was it?”
“It was you, Louis.”
“What? Me? Why would she draw me?”
“It’s possible that she’s drawn all of us,” Father told him, stepping on his cigarette. “She just showed the picture of you.”
“Huh,” was my cousin’s response. “Hey, I’m hungry. Who wants make dinner for me?”
“You can get your own,” Father told him.
“You got David his-“
“David is still a guest and therefore deserves a little more…um…”
“Yeah, right. You just want to be a parent again.”
“So what if I do? I haven’t met David before last month and Reese is nearly grown. He claims he doesn’t need me, anymore.”
“I never said that,” I argued.
“You didn’t say it with your words, son, but with your actions.”
“In other words, he’s hurt that you decided to live with your mom for a while,” Louis explained.
“Sarah and the baby need me,” I argued. “She can’t leave the home because she’ll be out of their protection, and there’s less vampires there than here. No one has any reason to attack Mother’s house, but they have plenty reason to attack this house, and this house has had plenty of attacks. I don’t want her caught in the crossfire.”
“I don’t want that any more than you do, Reese, but she’s just as safe here because there are more vampires to protect her. We still have Toby and Sam and Sarah has Chris. She’s perfectly safe.”
“I disagree. I’m