Chapter Nine #3
She sighed and checked the house. “They are in the kitchen. A bunch of ladies and the baby.”
Her grandmother said, “Do you think she will let me hold him?”
“I will ask.”
“So, that gentleman. Is he courting you?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“What is he?”
“Ask Grandpa.”
Her hand got squeezed. “Fine. He’s an orc mage. Apparently, the dark green means he’s a shaman. He’s also a doctor.”
Eleanor was suddenly distracted. “Oh, my goodness. The kitchen garden.”
“Oh, Grandma, don’t go in there without me.”
“Why?”
“It’s been watered with my blood twice. It protects me if I can get to it.” They approached the kitchen door. “Makes amazing tea, though.”
They walked into the kitchen, and the party and shower planning was underway. Mell looked relieved. “Rowan, we need you. Please.”
Rowan nodded and walked around the table toward Mell. “This is my grandmother Eleanor. I can’t remember if you met before she died or not.”
“No. We didn’t meet, but you and I went out for dinner after the funeral.”
Eleanor smiled. “I am grateful she had friends.”
Mell said, “I was less the friend than I want to be now.”
Rowan said, “May my grandmother borrow the baby? She won’t leave the room.”
Mell grinned. “Sure.”
Eleanor reached with greedy hands that Rowan washed with some mage fire. Her grandmother snorted and held the little one. “Oh, what a precious little one. His father’s ears?”
“Yeah. It was the goblin part of the split that got me pregnant, and the ears are the giveaway. Well, that and the fact that he’s greeny blue.”
“Oh, Grandma Eleanor, this is the queen of the dark elite, Regis. Avor is her husband.”
“Oh, the one talking with Vas? The fellow with the wings?”
Regis grinned. “That’s the one.”
Eleanor looked at Rowan. “Where is Aspen?”
“In the gym.”
“Where is that?”
“The basement.”
“We don’t have a basement.”
Rowan smiled. “We do now.” Rowan sent Aspen a silent message, and then she counted down.
At the eleven-second mark, Aspen burst into the room and grinned at her mother.
Rowan winced and used mage fire to clear up the pheromones.
Rowan took holding the baby over as mother and daughter were reunited. She turned toward the party planners. “So how far have we gotten?”
Regis smiled. “I have desserts.”
“Excellent. I have everything else. Meat is being delivered today; tomorrow, I start the bread after I make breakfast. Vegetables will be prepped tomorrow, and Friday, I am ready to get the smoker up and running.” She paused. “I think we need salads.”
Regis laughed. “I can do salads.”
Lucia said, “I wouldn’t normally say this, but I can do dumplings.”
Aspen grinned. “Can you teach me?”
Lucia nodded. “I can.”
A new person came in, and Rowan greeted her. “Hi, Mira. This is what Aspen looks like when she’s walking around. I have set up a new recording studio in the basement if you still want to warble with her.”
Mira smiled. “That sounds like fun. I love a creepy basement with enclosed space.”
Aspen chuckled and said, “Then we have all the fun you could want. Now I can do more than back up music.”
Mira nodded. “Lead the way.”
Aspen and Mira left, chattering about music as they headed downstairs. Eleanor looked toward the door. “Do you think they will...”
Rowan shook her head. “Nope. Mira doesn’t bend that way, and Aspen knows it. They are friends with common interests.”
Ted chuckled. “You are way gentler with folks than our families. If Lucia weren’t already tucked in with Yorwell, it would have been a few meetings with the aunts and a long line of alphas.”
Lucia smiled. “Which is why Ted is able to hold Ormyet between our grandmother and any matchmakers.”
Ted smiled. “We are taking it slow. Ish.”
Lucia chuckled.
Eleanor asked, “How do you know my daughter or granddaughter?”
Rowan made some more tea and got some pastries out of a pie safe while she held little Rowan in one arm. She set the tea down with the cups, and Regis’s eyes lit up at the pastry. “Do you make your own puff?”
“Of course. Grandma taught me.”
Eleanor eased the baby back into her arms. “He’s so sweet.”
Mell nodded. “I am really glad that they got me back to myself before Rowan let him start growing.”
Rowan winced.
Eleanor said. “What?”
“She can bend time a little or freeze a person while the rest of the world moves on.”
Rowan said, “I remove the effect of time. Time still moves on.”
Eleanor asked, “How?”
“I had to figure it out. I just do it.” She shrugged.
Her grandmother had a soft opal glow as she took Rowan’s hand. “You always knew how to do what was needed. So who are these ladies?”
Rowan explained Ted and Lucia as victims of the same kind of curse that affected Mell and Aspen. From there, the ladies gave details as to their own situations.
Rowan passed her aunt a cup of tea and just listened. She lifted her head and sought out the guys. They were sitting and talking near the carriage house. She prepared a tray and sent it over, watching it disappear from the counter and reappear across the yard on the table.
Regis blinked. “You can do that?”
“I have had so many couples here in the last two days that I have been able to collect a lot of the magic that makes it possible.”
“How is it that you remembered both Mell and Aspen?”
Everyone was looking at her.
“They were both attacked on my property, and that is something I cannot forget. So I kept them in areas that I controlled and that let me keep them safe and together.”
Eleanor looked at her. “You joined the property?”
“Yes. It’s way bigger but still the registered historical building, Grandma.”
“We would like to stay in the main house for a night, near you.”
“Ask Grandpa. If you both agree, I am making a room for you.”
Eleanor blinked. “Making a room?”
“Yes. You and Grandpa require special shielding.”
Her grandmother looked at her and pink became one of the brightest colours under her skin. “You know about that?”
“I do. It’s how I got good at protective wards to begin with.”
“Can I see where you are building the room?”
Rowan blinked. “Um, Regis, you are going to get desserts and hamburger buns?”
Regis nodded. “Yes, but I will be here when you get back. Avor is a bit of a gossipy bitch with his old friends. There is a surprising amount of them around. I had always thought that the guys in the Stronghold were the only ones, but there are a few hundred of the others running around loose for the last eight hundred years. Some got married and passed along their genetics, and others remained single as long as possible.”
Rowan got up, and Eleanor took her hand. Rowan looked at it and waited for the pain, but it didn’t manifest. Mell held the baby up and waved a little hand at her. “Bye-bye, Auntie. Come back soon.”
Rowan snorted. She walked into the dining room and then led her grandmother up the stairs.
“Rowan, how did you do this?”
“I felt a need, and I added space. I felt lonely and imagined people all around me, and then I made a place for them to go with their own family. I asked the house and the land, and it gave me what I needed.”
“What happened in the garden?”
Rowan inhaled and explained the first attack as they walked, her running to the garden before they could catch her again, and the garden tearing apart the shadow mages while she bled into the dirt. Then she mentioned Alora, and the woman picking her up and taking her to the emergency room.
“How did she get past the plants?”