Chapter 3
“THIS GUY IS THE BIGGEST stick in the mud, I swear.” Mother sighs, swiping her lips with her usual deep scarlet lipstick once we’ve pulled up to Cassius’s house.
“If you could not offend him, that would be fantastic,” I say, shutting the car door and looking at Cassius’s Creole cottage.
The sky is dark and full of stars, the air embracing me, like this is something I should be doing.
I think back to waving at the camera at Bastian’s, and I wonder if he saw. If that’s why I’m here.
Once Cassius opens the door, a flash of annoyance crosses his face at the sight of my mom, but he quickly shoves it down.
Deep brown eyes grow cloaked with intrigue as we enter, surveying me, taking every inch in.
I find my arms wrapped around my belly, a trait I loathed in other expectant mothers, yet a habit I find myself acting out time and time again.
A sort of protection, I suppose. I stiffen my spine and let my hands fall to my side.
Cassius won’t hurt me. Yet Mother keeps me paranoid, and I urge myself to stop allowing those feelings to win.
Cassius’s house is everything I expect a vampire’s lair to be.
Dark, gothic, the glow of candles shaping shadows along the deep burgundy walls.
Antique couches in deep greens and black with accents of gold spiraling up the armrests.
We follow to his office where he points to two high-back velvet chairs of royal blue, fit for a king’s castle, but seating two witches instead.
“Please, sit.” He unbuttons his jacket as he takes a seat behind his desk.
He remains unchanged, as vampires tend to do.
Long, luscious locks spill over his shoulders, striking brown eyes, his movements graceful yet masculine.
His hands form a temple in front of his face, rings adorning every finger but one lone pinky.
Mother loudly pulls her gargantuan seat closer to mine, her hand resting on my armrest, her body ready to fight at any given moment. I roll my eyes and find Cassius looking at her, an amused smirk on his face.
“You’ve had my word that I won’t hurt her and certainly not my…” his eyes drop to the child in my womb.
I lick my lips and clear my throat. “I think Bastian would want you to call her your niece,” I say with a quiver in my tone.
“My niece,” he confirms, a satisfied smile turning up his lips with those two words, his thoughts seeming to be lost somewhere for a moment. When his eyes return to mine, he’s all business.
“Will she need blood to survive?”
“We don’t know,” Mother states. “This is new territory for us.”
“Of course.” He nods. “Well, that’s why I’ve called for this meeting with you, Aster.” He crooks an eyebrow toward Mother, and I smile. “Quite the mama bear these days, right Delta?”
“God, I hate that term,” Mother moans. “But don’t ever forget that your niece is my granddaughter. And I will kill for her. Right now. Tomorrow. Forever.”
“Then we have something in common, Delta. I can promise my devotion to this child. She will be the most protected child in New Orleans.”
There’s a tug on my hormonal heartstrings, and I audibly gasp, tears springing to my eyes because there’s so much to protect.
My daughter may be a target for other witches and vampires.
People can often hate what they don’t understand, and there’s not much about my daughter that even I understand, except she may be seen as a threat, an abomination, as wrong.
“My brother’s blood will be pumping through her veins. She may be part of our kind, and you may need help with that. And I must be the one to help.”
“What is this?” Mother jumps in. “An attempt to stake a claim on my daughter’s baby? Where have you been all these months, Mr. Delacroix? We don’t even know if the child will be half vampire as she was conceived while he had the potion in his system.”
“Mom,” I whisper because we’re having two very different reactions to what Cassius is saying.
“Delta,” Cassius says, a sigh on his lips. “Your daughter did a favor for me. One I can never properly repay.” His eyes meet mine. “Not only did she save my Marlowe, but she’s saved me in ways she fails to understand. That’s why I invited her here to this meeting.”
I look down, my toes tapping against his desk.
Cassius didn’t ask my mother to be here, and now I wish I had forced her to stay home too.
Yet her claws clench around my armrest. Protective of me, of her grandchild, and it’s a new feeling.
I can’t say I hate it, but it’s also not convenient at the moment.
Cassius slides his hands upon a folder, stacked with papers, gently tapping it with his fingertips.
“As executor of my brother’s estate, I am in charge of his assets.
” He picks up the papers and plops them before me, his fingers returning to a temple.
“I know what my brother would have wanted for you, for his child.”
I pick up the papers, flipping through them, unable to comprehend what I’m reading. The confusion makes the legal jargon appear forged in another language.
“The Garden District house is yours. Along with the house in California.”
“Whoa,” I say, shaking my head. “No, I don’t think—” but Bastian’s voice rings in my ears. Always saying no first. Let go.
Mother’s fingers slide up my arm along with a deep inhalation. “Now that…is more like it. Aster,” she says, forcing our eyes to meet, and in an instant, she has completely changed course. I can tell by the glimmer in her eyes, in the hitch of her breath.
“What will every witch and vampire think when they find out? How would I explain living in a vampire’s house? A dead vampire’s house?” It feels harsh coming out, the words dead and Bastian in the same sentence, still so hard to say.
I’ll do everything in my power to bring him back, but there’s always that worry, that fear that it might not work.
That I can’t actually do it, and then what?
I can’t count on Bastian coming back and all my prayers being answered.
Something could go wrong, something might not work, and then I would really need support.
But I can see myself, bare feet padding down the hall stairs, our daughter blanketed in my arms. A little girl growing up in the Garden District.
I could teach her to swim in the pool. Take her on walks under the enormous oak trees, the cicadas lulling her to sleep.
It’s almost too beautiful a vision; I must suppress it to keep my mind from wandering.
“It’s a home that is equipped and safe for our kind. Do you know if she will need darkness? Do you know if she will be protected? I can protect her there. I can’t in a French Quarter apartment that is easily set ablaze on an overpopulated street.”
Mother laughs, her hand smoothing her black bob. “She won’t need your protection.” Lord, her pride can really get the best of her. Seconds ago, she was ready to jump at the offer until he made her feel inferior.
“Always so cocky. But I seem to remember you crawling on the floor at the hand of Franklin Maltese.” He cocks his head as if reliving the moment, eyes flashing with contempt.
Electricity flicks between Mother’s fingers, but I grab them in mine, extinguishing the volts. “He’s right.”
Cassius looks at me.
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.
What she’ll need. We can use all the help we can get.
” I bite my lip, the pain searing inside.
If only Bastian were here to help me navigate this.
A witch child, I can handle. A possible half-witch, half-vampire child leaves me inept.
“What if she needs blood, how will I even know?” I ask, hoping he has answers.
“I’ll be able to feel it. If she’s craving it, needing it, I’ll be able to sense it in my bones. And I’ll be there when she’s born to be able to tell you that.”
My blood settles in relief—at least one thing checked off my list of worries.
“I will take this, and I’ll think about it.” I pull the folder of papers into my arms.
“It’s what Bastian would have wanted. For you. For his child. You know that, Aster.”
The folder feels heavy in my hands, the contents granting me ownership of not one but two of Bastian’s properties. I know it’s what he would have wanted, there’s no doubt in my mind.
“You’re right. But I still have to weigh if it’s worth the backlash I may receive. We’ll need your help to get through this, I’m sure. I just don’t know what that looks like yet.”
“Very well.” He nods then looks to Mother. “I had hoped this child could be an olive branch of sorts between our families. Do you see that in our future?”
Cassius was the first to know I was pregnant.
And when he saw I was in danger that night at Nightwalkers, there was visible fear in his eyes.
Was the little heartbeat inside me still beating?
Was his niece okay? The relief in his eyes that night told me he cared much more than he let on.
Yet that feels like an eternity ago. Where has he been?
“Why now? I’ve been pregnant a long time, Cassius. And I even saved your girlfriend’s life. Why now?”
He stares at me, eyes two pools of unspoken words, mouth turned down as if he can’t answer, or worse, he doesn’t have one. He looks back and forth from Mother and me, hesitant to answer, so he lies instead. “I don’t know.”
Mother, never one to commit to anything vampire-related, rolls her eyes and stands, straightening out her pencil skirt. “We’ll see how it plays out.”
His eyes darken, not one to enjoy being strung along. But Cassius is so much more patient than Bastian was, and there’s a hope that maybe he could be on my side.
“If he ever calls a meeting again, you definitely are not invited,” I say once we get in Mother’s car.
“He just ticks me off, he really does. But you need those houses.” She points at me, eyebrows almost to her hairline.
I run a finger along the folder in my hands. The Estate of Bastian Delacroix. I don’t want to fight with her, I’m too exhausted.
“Go ahead and think about it, and then decide that you need the houses so we can move on. You don’t even have to live there. It’s just an option to go to if you need it. Shit, you’re there every day as it is.”
I scoff, and she rolls her eyes. “You smell like chlorine daily, and Chantal let it slip.”
“Well, I’m hot. Okay?” My body floods with heat. “It’s like there’s an internal fire scorching my organs, and lying in a pool is the only thing that soothes it. That elixir you made did nothing, by the way.” I fight with the seat belt, angrily clicking it on.
“Ew. Hormones are gross on you.”
“Can you just be quiet?” I yell, filling my nostrils with air. “Get me home.”
She pulls her thumb and index finger along her lips as if zipping them and turns up the music.