Then, although evening had not yet arrived, I headed to the Port with my mother. We sat on the edge of the jetty, gazing out at the ocean as we waited for our loved ones to return. Hazel and Benedict joined us, seating themselves and dangling their legs over the edge beside us.
My mother glanced at me and smiled. She squeezed my hand.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
I blew out softly. “Lighter than I’ve felt in a long time,” I told her. “I just can’t believe we’ve managed to come this far, when so many odds were against us. It feels surreal.”
My mother’s eyes twinkled. “It does feel surreal. But justice has a habit of finding a way… And by the way”—her smile broadened—“I don’t blame you for falling for Lawrence. I think you’ve really found yourself a catch in that young man.”
I smirked, my cheeks warming. After Lawrence’s recent transformation, he was an undisputed hottie. It wouldn’t be difficult for any girl to fall for him. But I had fallen for him before that, when he’d still been a sickly boy bound to a wheelchair, barely even able to shave himself. I’d fallen for him deeper than I’d even known at the time. When he’d been taken away from us by his father, his absence had created a void in me. And it was that void that had spurred me to follow Georgina’s trail and discover her secrets.
Lawrence had gotten a chance to test how deeply he felt for me, too. I hadn’t noticed any difference in his eyes when he looked at me while I was a sickly, frail thing than when I had been normal and healthy. I felt that he loved me without condition, as I loved him.
“Lawrence is awesome,” Hazel commented, giving me a wink. And at this point, I knew Benedict wouldn’t be able to help himself from weighing in, too.
Seated on the other side of his sister, the kid dipped his face forward to look at me. He raised his brows warningly. “I hope you’ve made the right choice.”
I raised my own brows. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, once you get with Lawrence, Heath will be off the table.”
I snorted. “Oh, I see. Well, leaving aside the fact that Heath has been off the table for a while, warning noted… But don’t you approve of Lawrence?”
Benedict pursed his lips. He leaned back on his hands and stared out at the ocean, giving it a moment’s thought. “Yeah, I guess so,” he muttered eventually. “He is kind of badass.”
Hazel and my mom giggled, while I let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear, Benedict. I’m not sure what I’d do without your approval.”
After that, the four of us fell into mostly silence, waiting in electric anticipation. We watched the sun beyond the boundary sink lower and lower in the sky, until evening decidedly set in.
About half an hour later, finally, they returned.
The large group of our closest friends and family manifested on the beach, about thirty feet away from us. The four of us shot to our feet and dashed across the sand toward them. My father, standing near the front of the crowd, was the first to reach my mother and me, while Hazel and Benedict darted toward Rose and Caleb.
My father was practically strangled by my mother’s and my dual embrace. He held us tight, wrapping one arm around our waists and kissing our cheeks. Next, I was scooped up in a bear hug by my grandfather Derek. He kissed my forehead before allowing my grandmother Sofia to embrace me. Next I greeted Uncle Jamil, Aunty Rose and Uncle Caleb. Then came my great-aunt and uncle, Vivienne and Xavier, and then my great-grandfather Aiden and Kailyn.
As I milled through the sea of faces, greeting the rest, my eyes were wide on the lookout for Lawrence. I still hadn’t spotted him. It was only once I’d reached the back of the crowd that I found him in conversation with Ibrahim. A conversation that stopped short the second Lawrence laid eyes on me.
He looked exhausted, hair disheveled, stubble overgrown, and yet more handsome to me than I’d ever seen him. His tawny brown eyes lit up, his lips breaking out into a smile.
Ibrahim took his cue to leave. He moved passed me, squeezing my shoulder and expressing his relief that I was all right, before following the rest of the crowd who were making their way to the mainland.
It was just Lawrence and I left behind.
I launched into his arms. My arms locking around his neck, I pulled myself up against him while his hands clutched my waist. I buried my face against his shoulder, warmth rolling through me as his lips found the bare skin at the base of my neck. My chest tight with emotion, I breathed, “I missed you so much.”
His hands moved up my back as he drew us apart enough to take in my face. His eyes had gone glassy. They roamed my face, taking in every detail of me, before settling on my hair. Or rather, my wig. A slight frown twitched his brows.
“Your hair didn’t grow back that fast, did it?”
I shook my head.
His fingers reached into the base of my scalp. He’d found the base of the wig.
“I hope you didn’t put that on for me?” he asked, still frowning.
I bit my lip. It would have been a lie to say that I hadn’t. He read my expression.
Tugging at the wig’s base, he gently removed it. He studied me again, even as I felt bare.
He leaned down and closed his lips around mine in a slow, tender kiss. Then his lips trailed across my cheek, moving to my right ear while his arms resumed their hold around me, pulling me flush against him. “Don’t try to change for me, Grace. I want you as you are.”
As he kissed me again, I melted into him, all inhibitions falling away. I forgot time and place. The sand beneath our feet. The wind in our hair. The calm lapping of waves against the shore. As our embrace intensified, passion coursing through our veins, I could just about manage to whisper, “You’re my hero, Lawrence.”
Sofia
As soon as we left the beach, Derek and I headed to our treehouse. With the thought of our soft, warm bed, my eyelids were practically drooping as we ran. We entered the apartment and plodded to the bathroom like zombies, where we stripped and took a quick shower before arriving in our bedroom and falling into bed. I cuddled up next to Derek, my head against the crook of his neck, and within a few minutes, sleep claimed us both.
I ended up sleeping for eighteen hours straight. That was a bizarre thing for a vampire. But we both needed it. It would take us a few days of extra sleep before we felt our normal selves again after so much sleep deprivation. We could have slept in the residential quarters of the various former IBSI bases, but while we were away neither of us could bring ourselves to get any real sleep, even though we tried. There was simply too much to be done in that crucial takeover period, and Derek and I needed to be hands on every step of the way.
As I woke up at a few minutes past one PM the following day, Derek was still asleep. I managed to extricate myself from his hold without waking him and headed to the bathroom. After brushing my teeth and taking a shower, I was about to head to the kitchen when my phone buzzed on the coffee table in the living room. I checked it to see a text message from Vivienne.
“You two awake yet?”
I phoned her back. She picked up after two rings. “One of us is awake,” I informed her throatily.
“Hope I didn’t disturb you.”
“Nah. What’s going on?”
“Xavier and I are in the process of arranging a proper wedding for Vicky and Bastien. I know that’s probably the last thing you want to hear,” she added, “but it won’t be a big affair. Just something low-key and uncomplicated. Neither of them want anything fancy.”
“On the contrary,” I said, beaming at the thought of my niece in a wedding dress. “A wedding sounds like the perfect way for all of us to unwind.”
We only planned to rest here for three days, and we needed to make those days count by relaxing as much as possible and distracting our minds with anything other than work. If we didn’t unwind fully, we wouldn’t be rejuvenated when we returned to our duties.
“When will it be? Do you need help with anything???
?
“We’re planning it for this evening, at five,” she said. “And no, we don’t need help. Corrine’s already sorted the dress with us. Just turn up at the Port. It’ll be a beach wedding.”
“Sounds good,” I said, smiling against the phone. “I’ll make sure your brother is up by then.”
I hung up and padded to the bedroom. When I peered inside, Derek appeared to be stirring, or at least not sleeping as heavily as when I’d left. I approached his side of the bed. Kneeling down, I gazed at his peaceful sleeping face. Derek looked cute when he was asleep. When no frown was marring his forehead, no intense blue eyes to contend with. He looked innocent… almost.
I leaned closer and kissed his forehead. As I was about to move away and leave the bedroom to allow him to continue to rest, his arms shot out abruptly and wrapped around me. The next thing I knew, he was pulling me down on top of him.
“Derek!” I laughed as he pulled me beneath the sheets with him and slipped them over our heads. His eyes opened with a mischievous gleam.
Not so innocent…
“You were on the phone to Vivienne?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Yes. We’ve got a wedding to attend at five. Your niece’s.”
Derek rolled over on his back, still keeping one arm wrapped around me like a snake. He ran his other hand down his face. “Wow. I feel old.”
“All of five hundred and… fifty-something years?” I asked. “Yeah, even I’ve lost track.”
He sighed.
“Promise me you’ll force yourself to relax for the next two days,” I told him, brushing my fingers through his hair.
“Yeah. I will.”
I pulled him out of bed, into the bathroom, where I ran a bubble bath. After Derek had shaved his stubble, we slipped into the bath tub together. Sitting behind Derek, his back against my front, I had fun piling handfuls of stiff foam onto his head and fashioning a new, comically square hairstyle. When he’d had enough of me doing that (with the complaint that I was dripping bubbles into his eyes), he brushed away the foam with one hand and switched positions with me. Then things got a little more… heated. It had been more than a month since we’d had quality time together, and we hungered for each other.
Next we dried off and retreated to our bedroom to get dressed. After blow-drying my hair—and Derek’s—I slipped into a light lilac gown, while Derek pulled on a tuxedo. I loved it when he wore a tux. He looked like such a gentleman. It was nice to have a change from the bloodstained, torn-clothed warrior once in a while. Derek in a tux reminded me of our wedding day, and even as he stood before me now, his back turned to me as he adjusted his bow tie in front of the mirror, I felt my heartbeat quicken.
I grinned at his reflection. He caught my eye, my smile spreading to his face. “What are you looking at?” he asked.
“What does it look like?” I countered, slipping behind him and wrapping my arms around his waist. “My slick husband.”
He smirked and finished adjusting his tie before turning to face me. His eyes roamed my own outfit briefly before he planted a kiss against the side of my neck. “You could wear your nightgown and I’d hardly notice.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, sliding my arms around his midriff. I narrowed my eyes teasingly. “Because you’re too lost in my eyes, right? Not because you’re a typical guy.”
Derek pulled a deadpan expression. “You’d call me cheesy if I admitted the former.”
“Oh, come on, Derek. You’re already a cheeseball.” I pulled his head down and closed my lips around his. As his hands slid down to my waist, I smiled through our kiss. “A cheeseball if ever there was one.”
Derek groaned contentedly as our lips kneaded. Then he broke away, his blue eyes fixed on me in a serious expression. “We’d better stop now, or I might need to readjust my tie…”
I let him step away. I suspected he’d have to do a bit more than readjust his tie if he let me have him again.
I moved to the mirror and did my hair before applying my perfume and a touch of makeup, while Derek returned to the bathroom to spray his cologne.
We still had a few hours before the wedding, but there was no harm in Derek and me arriving early to help set up. Weddings were always a public affair in The Shade, because we were all one big extended family. Although Vivienne had said they were planning to keep it low-key, there really was no such thing as a ‘low-key’ wedding in The Shade. Everyone was welcome to attend. That was one reason why we almost always held weddings outside, so there was enough room to accommodate as many people as wanted to show up.
Derek and I left our treehouse and took a leisurely stroll through the forest to the Port. On reaching the jetty, we glanced to our right along the beach to see some early arrivals. Xavier and Vivienne were setting up chairs and tables along with Corrine, Shayla and Arwen, who wore a light pink dress (which I suspected meant she was to be one of Vicky’s bridesmaids).
My father and Kailyn were here too. They stood near the water, their feet submerged in the waves. My father was holding their newly adopted wolf baby—my new brother (that was an odd thought)—in his arms, while Kailyn cooed over the baby. As they sensed our approach and turned to face us, my father’s and Kailyn’s eyes shone with happiness. I was witnessing the baby in his humanoid form for the first time. His features made my heart melt. A perfect button nose; large, sparkling brown eyes. He was more hairy than a human baby—the mop of brown hair on his head was thick and lush, and his eyebrows were already pretty distinct.
I knew that my father would never want to have another biological child—he was past that stage of his life—and Kailyn had accepted that. Though as I saw how joyful she looked now with this baby, I sensed that she’d still harbored a desire for a baby. It was a good thing that we had visited that orphanage. Kailyn would make a wonderful mother, and I knew that my father would make a wonderful dad.
“Have you named him yet?” I asked.
“Uh, we’re still mulling it over,” my father replied, exchanging a grin with Kailyn.
“Yeah,” Kailyn said. “Naming a baby is a lot harder than I thought.”
I lowered to plant two kisses against the infant’s soft round cheeks. He reached out a small hand as I drew away. I placed my finger in his palm. His fingers closed around it with strength that surprised me… Though I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was a supernatural. I just didn’t have a lot of experience with werewolf cubs.
Derek and I moved away from the trio and headed to where the wedding was being set up. We approached Vivienne and Xavier, who were aligning instruments off in one corner.
They stopped working and looked up at us. I could instantly detect the nervousness in their eyes. Because I had been through all of this before with Derek. We knew what it was like to give a daughter away, even if it was to a man you trusted.
“How’s everything going?” Derek asked, kissing his sister’s cheek.
“Fine,” she said, flashing a quick smile.
“Where’s Vicky? How’s she doing?” I asked.
“She’s prepared already, and is waiting back in our penthouse. She wanted some time alone.”
I caught a gleam of tears in my sister-in-law’s eyes. She averted her attention to the grand piano.
Derek gripped Xavier’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “Now you know how it feels to give your baby girl away,” he said.
“Yeah,” Xavier said hoarsely, gulping.
Derek patted him on the back. “You’ll get used to it. Even though it may seem like you never, ever will… You will.”
Derek’s words brought a smile to my lips. I remembered how cute he had been over that—when it came time to officially give our daughter away to Caleb. How melancholic he had been in the lead-up to the wedding. That had been a hard time for my husband.
On the subject of Rose, I spotted her walking toward us from the direction of the Port. She was with Caleb and my two grandchildren, Benedict and Hazel. Hazel wore the same colored dress as Arwen—b
ridesmaid number two, apparently.
Claudia and Yuri followed closely behind with their eighteen-year-old daughter Ruby, also in a pink bridesmaid dress.
As they approached, I kissed my daughter and son-in-law on the cheek before turning my attention to my beautiful granddaughter. Hazel wore a ring of daisies around her head, which had become slightly askew. I adjusted it and withdrew two pins from my own hair to keep it in place. It was hard to believe that Hazel would be sixteen soon. I still remembered the day she was born.
Then I stroked a hand through Benedict’s brown hair. Benedict was looking rather dashing in a gray tuxedo.
Gratitude washed over me as I reflected on the family I had been gifted, a family that seemed to be growing larger with each year that passed. My heart felt like it was expanding with each new addition. When I was younger all I’d ever wanted was a family. My life now wouldn’t have appeared in my wildest dreams back then. No matter what tough periods we had been through, they had always been surmountable because of my family. They were my support system. My life blood.
“Oh, look who it is,” Derek said, pointing to the jetty.
Lucas was moving toward us with Marion, who was carrying her baby girl. Lucas had one arm around Marion as they walked, and he looked happier than I’d seen him in a long time. So did Marion. Apparently Claudia’s trick to get the two to share an apartment had paid off.
Lucas’s face flushed a little beneath our gaze as they neared. He seemed to be deliberately avoiding making eye contact with any of us. I thought he and Marion were adorable together. She clearly doted on him, and after many years of, ahem, maturing, I felt that Lucas would make a good man for her. The fact that she had a baby would force him to take on an extra responsibility—which I felt was a good thing to help ground Lucas.
This was the first time I was seeing my brother-in-law for quite some time. He hadn’t come with us to America, which I didn’t blame him for. He deserved a timeout after his misadventures in The Dewglades, though I suspected he’d come with us when we returned for our next round of adventures.