Chapter 12 With the Monster #2
I was a vampire forged in war, policy, and power.
King Isaac’s right-hand, his Reaper, the one he sent in when all else failed, and not much had changed in the intervening years.
But Mahina was different. She’d touched the man I’d once been, long before I was Turned.
She’d made the darkness not brighter, but softer.
“Your braid still holds, little moon,” I whispered to the plastic-protected keepsake. “You wove it so tightly, nothing could ever break it. Not even me.”
I slipped the bookmark into my breast pocket. Tomorrow, I’d have it professionally mounted and framed.
I’ll put it on my desk, I decided, next to the photo of Kaori and Sebastian.
Sheets rustled as Seri shifted in her sleep, a faint furrow between her brows. I reached out, smoothing it away with my thumb.
“She should see someone she knows,” I’d told the boys.
What I hadn’t said was that I needed to see her, too. Not only as my precious daughter-in-law, but as the echo of a woman I’d failed. In watching over Serafina, perhaps I could still protect something of Mahina.
Even if it was only the heart of the sons she’d left behind.
#
Seri
I woke up starving, sweaty, and tangled in a mountain of blankets, my mouth tasting like an old boot. When I sat up, the room spun. When it stopped, I realized a few things at once.
Someone had dressed me in a huge gray t-shirt. Koa, since it was rich with his evening primrose scent.
Someone had drawn two eyes and a mustache on my hand where my thumb made a mouth against my index finger. Definitely Zane.
Someone had braided my hair. The perfection of the tight rope lying over my shoulder said Casimir’s handiwork.
The door creaked open.
“Told you she’d be up today!” Zane crowed. “Pay up, losers!”
“Don’t listen to him, sweet girl,” Koa murmured, appearing behind him with a tray of food. “He’s been saying that every day since you went under.”
“Because I believed in her!” Zane said indignantly. “You can’t punish me for optimism.”
“Optimism and harassment are not the same thing,” Cas added dryly as he followed Koa.
“Oh, my Goddess,” I groaned. “Did I die and go to boy jail?”
“Better.” Zane winked. “You live in it now.”
“Eat slowly.” Cas plucked the tray from Koa’s hands and set it in my lap. “Your system’s still balancing.”
“Also don’t be mad about the hand face.” Zane’s gingerbread eyes glinted. “It was Koko’s idea.”
“It was not—”
“I love it.” I held up my hand and made the mouth move, dropping my voice to imitate Koa’s baritone. “My name is Gerald.”
That earned a rare, surprised laugh from Casimir, and Zane pumped a fist with a roar of victory. Koa covered his face with one hand.
“Um.” I knew the answer just from the taste, but hope sprang eternal. “Please tell me someone brushed my teeth while I was unconscious.”
Awkward seconds passed as none of them made eye contact with me.
“You guys are horrible.”
#
As I ate, I found out three days had passed.
“Wait!” I paused, the spoon halfway to my mouth. “Did it work? Nuking the portal?”
“Closed. Sealed.” Zane flopped across the end of the bed like he was dying of relief. “Shadow-proofed, per Cas’ aggressive overkill.”
“There’s no such thing as overkill when the enemy is literal and figurative darkness,” Casimir muttered, arms crossed.
“It’s been handled, beloved.” Koa leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “You just focus on recovering.”
“You trusted me to stay here with only Brummy?”
A beat of silence.
“You’ve got a moon appointment, sweet cheeks,” Zane deflected. “Eat up so you can blind us with your glow.”
Papa.
They’d called Papa-in-Law to stay with me while they fought the baddies.
They’d swallowed their fears, sunk their pride, and called their father. Asked him for a favor. For me.
I finished my soup without another word, then held up my arms to Koa, making grabby hands.
Forget about brushing my teeth; my Koko needed comforting.
Yes, that phone call had cost each of them something; Mahina was mother to all of them, after all. But Koa carried things more heavily, like a mountain with a volcano smoldering deep inside.
He picked me up and cuddled me like a baby as he carried me outside and laid me out on the grass under the moon. Zane took great pleasure in stripping me out of my t-shirt, citing “maximum surface area for full moon efficiency,” but the tent growing in his shorts made him a liar.
“You literally pulled us through shadows,” he said with his usual smirk. “Do you have any idea how badass that was? I vote we add it to our official playbook. Shadow Extraction, patent pending, by Serafina Not-Actually-Helpless Cimmerian.”
“So does that mean I passed the test?” I picked a blade of grass and twirled it. “I’ll go on more missions now?”
All three brothers turned to stare at me with identical expressions of disbelief.
“Beloved, we almost got eaten by Dark-infused shadows.” Koa rubbed his temples with his fingers. “You drained yourself to the point of passing out. And Cas added about fifty new rules to the book. What part of that strikes you as a resounding success?”
“We’re all alive. And I proved I can help by thinking outside the box.”
“You proved you’re unpredictable,” Casimir corrected, but there was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before, a note of consideration rather than outright dismissal.
“So is Zane,” I pointed out with a shrug. “He’s the guerrilla warfare expert. I’ll be the guerrilla magic expert.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, Casimir studied me for a moment, then picked up the rulebook where it lay beside him on the grass.
“Rule Number Ninety,” he said as he wrote. “No celebrating near-death experiences as victories.”
“Rule Number Ninety-One.” Zane snatched the pen from Casimir’s hand. “All lunar witches must moon-bathe for at least an hour following magical exertion.”
Koa took the pen next, his handwriting neater than Zane’s atrocious scrawl, but not as elegant as Casimir’s.
“Rule Number Ninety-Two: No one teases Seri about saving Zane’s life for at least twenty-four hours afterwards.”
“Rule Number Ninety-Three.” I held out my hand for the pen, and Koa placed it in my palm. I wrote, Thank your lunar witch when she saves your fang-rotted asses. ??
Zane leaned over to read it, then clutched his chest in mock offense.
“I was getting to that part! Thank you, Serafina Rose Cimmerian, for your heroic, rule-breaking, completely unauthorized rescue of my devastatingly attractive self.”
“You’re welcome,” I said primly.
“Mahalo, lunar witch,” Koa leaned down to kiss my forehead, “for saving our fang-rotted asses.”
“I will always save you, Koko,” I promised him with a smile and rolled onto my side to face Casimir lying next to me.
He didn’t budge. Didn’t blink. Didn’t squirm. I watched the way his jaw worked as he struggled between pride and fear, anger and relief. He’d been so certain his rules would keep me safe, then chaos had erupted and it had been me breaking rules that saved us.
“I’m not sorry, you know. I can’t be sorry for keeping you safe. Any of you. I did what I had to do. And I’d do it again. Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
Something flickered in his green eyes, maybe recognizing the irony. How often had they justified their overprotectiveness with those exact sentiments?
“Next time,” he said at last, his arm going around my waist and pulling me closer, “just don’t give me a heart attack.”
It wasn’t quite approval. It wasn’t quite acceptance of my abilities. But it was acknowledgment that there would be a next time, that I was part of this now, rules and all.
“Thank you, Seri.” He didn’t smile, but the tension around his eyes eased a bit. “For everything.”
On my other side, Zane was recounting our near-death experience to Brummy with increasing embellishment.
“And then, from the shadows themselves, like some kind of glittery avenging angel—”
“Rule Number Ninety-Four,” Casimir called over his shoulder. “No dramatic retellings of events we all experienced.”
“Rule Number Ninety-Five,” Zane called back. “Seri gets to break the rules when she’s right.”
“I second that motion,” Koa rumbled.
“Overruled,” Cas replied, but I saw the smile he tried to hide.
“You know, Simmy, I think I can sum up all these rules in three simple ones.” I cupped his face in my hands and smiled at him.
“Oh, really? And what would they be, my love?”
“Rule One. Breathe. Rule Two. Protect ‘ohana forever. Rule Infinity. No quitting.”
“No quitting ever,” he whispered against my lips.
“No quitting ever,” Zane and Koa echoed, the words an unbreakable vow.