I heard myself sigh with relief. “I knew it, Sol. I never doubted your strength and ability to resist for a minute.”
He leaned forward on the couch with his palms on his knees. “I knew you didn’t and I appreciate your faith in me. You had faith in me when I wasn’t sure I had any in myself.”
“You are the victor over the temptation and it’s behind you, so let’s talk about the Jenn and Avery situation. This is a new one for us, so how do we handle this?”
Sol motioned for me to come sit with him on the couch. “I have spoken with Jenn and she doesn’t trust herself with Avery. She refuses to see her sister without me by her side. She trusts herself with me for some reason.”
I sat on the opposite end of the couch and asked, “You have that effect on people whether you know it or not, but how do you feel about that? Are you ready to see Avery?”
He nodded confidently. “I’m over it. I can handle seeing her. In fact, I’m ready to show her how she doesn’t have control over me.”
I reached over and bumped his arm with my fist. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about. You ready for me to bring Avery into the living room?”
“Yeah. Jenn and I will be up in minute after I reiterate protocol to her.”
I stood from the couch. “Okay. We’ll meet you there.”
I climbed the stairs two at a time, ecstatic about Sol’s quick recovery from the effects of Avery’s blood, and found all of the girls already in the living room. “I just spoke with Sol. He is bringing Jenn up to see Avery.”
I heard the sudden acceleration of Avery’s heart. “Avery, it’s alright. No one will let Jenn hurt you.”
She laughed sarcastically as she replied, “It’s not Jenn I’m worried about.”
I tried to reassure her of her safety. “He doesn’t crave you, Avery.”
She appeared shocked by my words. “How can that be? None of the others could resist wanting more.”
“After much thought, I believe Sol is able to show more restraint because he is older than the young vampires you encountered at Vincent’s. He is a master of self-control. It’s his job to teach others how to restrain,” I explained.
“I mean no disrespect, but I think I need to see it to believe it,” she replied.
I looked to the door and saw Sol escorting Jenn through it with a tight grip on her arm. “Here they are now, so I guess you’ll get the proof you need.”
Avery began walking toward Jenn and I reached out to stop her. Her eyes darted to me and I said, “No. You can’t touch her and you must keep your distance for the time being. No closer than this.”
“Jenn wouldn’t hurt me,” she explained.
She moved to take another step toward her sister and I gripped her arm tightly. “Your sister wouldn’t hurt you, but the vampire transitioning inside of her would rip out your throat without hesitation.”
Jenn called out from across the room. “Curry is right. It is for your own protection, so you shouldn’t come closer. I’m unpredictable.”
“Are you being treated well?” Avery called across the room.
Jenn smiled and answered, “I’m being treated very well. They’re helping me sort through this.”
“I’m sorry, Jenn,” Avery apologized. “I shouldn’t have asked it of Vincent, but I couldn’t bear losing you after he killed Mom and Dad. I didn’t want to be alone,”
“It’s okay, Ave. I wouldn’t have chosen this for myself, but I’m not angry with you. I understand why you asked for this.”
I watched the expression on Jenn’s face change and I recognized it well. “It’s time for Jenn to go, Sol,” I called across the room as I acted as the barrier to prevent Jenn from getting to Avery and Chansey behind me.
Jenn struggled to free herself from Sol so she could charge toward Avery and Chansey, but Sol held a firm grip and pulled her down the stairwell to the basement.
Avery stifled her scream with her hand over her mouth as she stared in disbelief. When Sol and Jenn were gone, she turned to me. “What have I done to my sister?”
There was a time when I would have coldly told Avery that she had condemned her sister to a life of misery because of her own selfishness, but being with Chansey had softened me and I restrained. “Don’t worry. We will help her learn to control it.”
Her tearful golden brown eyes stared up at me and I couldn’t help but think about how the golden flecks around her irises reminded me of those in Chansey’s. “Thank you,” she murmured softly.
“No thanks needed. It’s what The Coven of Landra does.”
I could still feel Chansey’s fear and surprise and I was glad she got to see the unpredictability of a transitioning vampire willing to kill her own sister. Maybe it would be enough to halt this ridiculous desire of hers to become a monster.
Sol reappeared at the top of the stairs. As he bolted the heavy metal door behind him, he spoke to Avery with his back to her. “Jenn won’t always be like that. She will be the sister you once knew, but it will take a little time.”
Avery’s heart had calmed after Sol and Jenn went down to the basement, but the sudden sound of his words directed toward her ignited another run of acceleration in her heart rate.
He turned from the door after checking it and casually strolled past Avery. “You can calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. Your blood doesn’t control me.”
She stared at him and stepped behind me as he passed. Sol huffed at her gesture and I saw his sour mood resurface before he sat on the living room couch.
The tension was thick in the room and Chansey took a chance on lightening the mood. “Gia and Lairah will be returning to New Orleans soon. I think we should have dinner together tonight. I think it would be nice and it will give Avery the chance to get to know us better.”
“That’s a great idea,” Gia called out from the back of the house.
“I agree,” Lairah followed.
Chansey turned to Avery. “Will you join us?”
She shrugged and timidly answered, “I...guess so.”
Chansey winked at me and turned to Solomon, “What about you? Think you can get your panties out of a wad long enough to join us?”
I heard Gia and Lairah cackling from the back of the house and one of them yelled out, “Ooh...Burn!”
Sol narrowed his eyes at Chansey as he crossed his arms. “Count me in, dear sister.”
21 Expect The Unexpected
When Chansey and Avery finished cooking dinner, we gathered in the dining room for the first meal to be shared at the Savannah compound. Solomon and I each sat at an end of the table. Gia and Lairah sat together on one side and after Chansey took her place by my side, the only seat remaining was the one between Sol and Chansey.
Avery grimaced and reluctantly took her seat next to Sol, but didn’t dare to make eye contact with him as she looked at everything not in his direction.
“Sebastian always leads the Sacrament,” Lairah said.
Sol cleared his throat. “I am the leader here, so I will lead the Sacrament. Let us all join hands, even those not partaking of the Blood Swan.”
I reached for Chansey’s hand on one side and Lairah’s on the other, noting the difference in temperature between the two. I lowered my head in respect although I would not be partaking from the Blood Swan as Sol said, “We, the Coven of Landra, give our humblest gratitude in recognition of the Blood Swan, Julia, for her selfless gift of sustenance.”
Sol, Gia and Lairah voiced in unison, “Thank you, Julia, for your gift of The Life, which sustains our existence and gives us strength to do the needed tasks before us.”
Avery slowly lifted her face and appeared stunned as she looked at Sol for the first time. He met her eyes, refusing to lose the stare down. She looked down at his hand cupped around hers and abruptly jerked it away as though she had been burned. Sol slowly took his hand from the table where it remained and said, “Miss Ferrand, I easily recognize your fear and anxiety around me, but it’s unnecessary. I’m not go
ing to hurt you.”
She refused to meet his eyes or answer him, so he reached for his goblet as he scooted his chair back across the dining room floor. “I should check on Jenn.”
“Am I sensing a little romance in the air?” Lairah asked when Sol was gone. “Is that what has him acting so strange? I mean...stranger than his usual self.”
Avery squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “Definitely not.”
“Oh, no. I meant romance with Jenn, not you,” Lairah laughed. “That kind of thing doesn’t happen with vampires and humans, except Agápes, so you don’t have to worry about Solomon being interested in you. Count it as a blessing.”
Avery looked down at her plate, embarrassed by her assumption. “Of course, I wasn’t thinking. Is he interested in my sister?”
“Who knows with his brooding ass?”
“Take it easy, Lairah,” I warned. “He’s had a hard couple of days.”
Gia lounged back in her chair with her goblet and changed the subject. “Chansey, have you chosen to follow Jenn’s transition?”
Avery quickly turned to Chansey to hear her explanation.
Chansey looked at me and then laid her fork down on her plate before she turned to Avery. “You understand that Curry and I aren’t...normal, but there is much more to our complicated story. Eventually, I will die and he won’t, but I want to become a vampire because I want to be with my husband forever. This is where we disagree. He wants to keep me human because he doesn’t want me to become like him. He thinks vampires are monsters.”
Avery looked around the table for a reaction from the others and Chansey continued, “I have chosen to follow Jenn’s transition because observing the transformation of a new vampire is a prerequisite for Curry to consider turning me. He thinks he can scare me out of wanting to become a vampire.” She leaned closer to Avery and whispered, “But, he’s wrong.”
I cringed at her words.
“What’s going to happen to my sister during this transition?” Avery asked.
Gia and Lairah looked at me to explain.
I drew a deep breath while I chose my words carefully. “Life is going to be very unpleasant for Jenn over the next several weeks. The transitioning process is painful and frightening, but she must face the difficulty of learning to control her hunger if she wants to live among humans, which makes it twice as bad.”
“She is strong. She can do it,” Avery said.
“I don’t doubt that for a minute. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have made it out of Vincent’s coven,” I replied.
“When does Chansey begin her observation?”
I smiled as I thought about Jenn’s reaction to Avery and Chansey earlier. “Tonight,” I answered and Chansey swung her head around to look at me.
“Tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I assumed you knew we couldn’t wait. The process is happening rapidly. If we wait, you’ll miss it and we’ll have to start over with another fledgeling.” When she didn’t have a response for me, I added, “We’ll go down after dinner. Gia and Lairah can keep Avery company.”
≈ ≈ ≈
Chansey and I descended the stairs into the basement and her heart was racing. “What should I expect?”
I vaguely responded, “The unexpected.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Well, that’s not much to go on.”
“Even being Agápe, I don’t think I can prepare you for what you are about to see.”
She stopped a few steps shy of the bottom of the staircase and grabbed my shoulder. “You’re scaring me.”
I turned and looked at her. “I wouldn’t be doing you a favor by sugar coating it. You should be scared.”
I reached for her hand and she followed me into the basement where Jenn was being kept. We entered the room where Sol sat in a chair watching Jenn from behind a wall of iron bars as he wore a brooding look on his face.
Chansey walked over to the bars and watched Jenn as she lay motionless on the bed behind the bars. “Why is she in a jail cell?”
I pulled her by the arm. “Don’t get so close. I don’t want her to streak over and grab you. The bars are here so we don’t have to open the door to check in on her. That would increase her chance of escape. By having access to see her at all times, we can see what stage of transition she in.”
“What stage is she in now?” Chansey asked.
“It’s still early. Her onset may have been delayed, but something about you and Avery being in her presence at the same time ignited a sudden, ferocious onset.”
“Do you think she will transition well?”
“I don’t know. People handle it in different ways.”
“What does this stage feel like for her right now?”
“Do you remember when I told you I felt like I was free falling and I wasn’t sure if it was for minutes or days? We have found that the duration is different for everyone. Some go through this stage for less than 24 hours. Others may experience it for several days.”
“So, she feels like she’s falling from the top of a super tall building?”
“Yeah, but in the dark.
“That has to be so terrifying.”
“It’s not much fun,” I admitted.
We sat and watched Jenn’s motionless body for hours with no change in her status and then I saw some strands of her hair blow up from the mattress. “Chansey, watch her hair.”
Chansey turned to see what I was talking about and several strands of long blonde hair blew up from the mattress.
Sol slid to the edge of his seat and said, “Her transition is accelerating. She’s beginning to fall faster.”
Chansey looked on as we saw more and more of her hair beginning to blow. “What is happening to her?” Chansey asked anxiously.
“She still has a while to fall, but she will be plunged into darkness when she stops falling. It will be in the loneliest place she has ever experienced with only her thoughts and regrets to keep her company.”
“Is she in pain?” she softly asked.
“Not yet, but she will be.”
“When will the pain begin?”
“I can’t say. That is something that is different for everyone as well”
Chansey looked up at me with glazed eyes. “I don’t want to see her in pain.”
My heart smiled at her words and I found a little hope that Chansey might abandon the idea of becoming a vampire. “She will be in a lot of pain and there’s nothing we can do to help her. You may change your mind about following her, but I won’t change my mind about our agreement. I refuse to turn you until you fully understand the transitioning process.”
A tear rolled down her face and I reached to wipe it away as I said, “I don’t do this to be cruel.”
She was thoughtful for a minute before she replied, “I know and this is something I must do. It doesn’t mean I have to be turned the minute her transition is complete, but I need to be prepared for the future.”
“I need to talk with Sol, so I’ll tell you what. You’re not going to miss a thing with Jenn over the next several hours. Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll come and get you if anything happens? Does that sound okay to you?”
“Okay. I am really tired, so that actually sounds great to me.”
She leaned forward to give me a kiss and we heard Sol’s disgust. “Gah, get a room. Oh, wait...you have a soundproof one right upstairs.”
“Damn, you are an ill ass tonight. What’s eating you?” Chansey asked.
Sol turned his head away as I hugged her tightly in hopes that she might feel my intentions through our bond. She looked up at my eyes and I saw understanding in them, so she realized I planned to get down to the bottom of what was going on with him.
She turned and stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Come and get me if anything happens. I don’t want to miss something and you renege on our deal. Got it?”
“Perfectly, Mrs. Brennan.” She blew me a kiss and then disappeared up the stairs.
I wai
ted until I knew she was gone before I began my interrogation of Sol. “What is wrong with you tonight, my man?”
He ran his hands through his hair as he leaned over. “It’s Avery.”
Whoa! Did not see that one coming. “What about her?”
“She is scared to death of me. Every time I look in her eyes, she reminds me of the monster I used to be and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t get a moment’s peace.”
“It will get better,” I promised.
“Will it? Because right now, I don’t feel like it will.”
“She just needs a little time,” I encouraged.
“Did you see the way she recoiled from me at dinner?” he asked with pain in his voice. “She hates me and I can’t say I blame her.”
“She doesn’t know the Solomon we all know. She only knows you’re the vampire that bit her and drank from her. Give her a little time and once she sees the real Sol, she’ll love you.”
22 A Long Week
We spent the next three days waiting for Jenn to stop free falling and when she did, it wasn’t pleasant. Chansey was beside herself as she watched Jenn’s reaction to being plunged into the lonely darkness. She mournfully watched her cry for two days, but when her screams of pain and agony started, it was almost too much for Chansey and I wondered what kind of man I was to force my wife to watch such a cruel experience.
I pulled her close to me as she cried for Jenn. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked this of you. Your heart is too tender for this. You don’t have to continue to watch this.”
“No, I’m going to finish this out. I can’t stop now,” she argued and I heard in her voice that she wasn’t going to let this deter her from being changed.
I stroked her long hair as I said over Jenn’s screams, “It’s up to you, Love.”
Jenn screamed for two days. She clawed at the skin on her chest the first day of screaming until she shredded it open. It healed almost instantaneously and this gory cycle repeated all day. She tore at her skin and veins all over her body the second day, all while continuing to scream in agony.