"I knew Harriet was pregnant when I left her; there was only the once with her before Thorsten found out and hid her from me," Griffin grumbled.
"Your old war with Thorsten has not gone unnoticed," Merrill tapped his wineglass, encouraging Griffin to drink. Griffin lifted his glass and toasted his friend.
"Amara wants to come for a visit, and I understand your two new employees are adept at making wine. Might you be interested in a guest house a few yards away, where additional visitors might stay and where Roff and Giff might ply their trade as time allows?"
"I have no problem with that," Merrill smiled. Rolfe came in then; it was nearing dawn and Wlodek poured out a glass of wine for his bodyguard.
"You are the little Queen's sire?" Rolfe studied Griffin.
"How do you know this?" Griffin looked up at the tall vampire.
"The shape of her face is yours," Rolfe said. "And I overhear many things. It cannot be helped."
"My daughter looks a little like me?" Griffin seemed very happy with that information. "She has her mother's beauty," he added.
"Her willfulness has not gone unnoticed, either," Merrill observed dryly. "I believe she comes by that through you."
"You call it willfulness," Griffin took another swallow of his wine. "Do you know how much courage it takes for her to do that? It would be so much easier for her to sit and do as she's told—and so much worse for those around her. One of your misters would be dead without her. I have Looked, my friend. Without her help in New Mexico, five more vampires would have died, along with eleven werewolves and four humans. Is that what you wanted?"
Wlodek moved uncomfortably on his seat; he'd wondered about it but it hadn't changed the Council's decision or Lissa's punishment afterward. Flavio had been avoiding her; he felt responsible for Lissa's attempted suicide.
"When will the guest house go up?" Merrill asked.
"This morning," Griffin grinned. Rolfe was the only one whose eyebrows rose.
Chapter 3
I was dreaming, and that was impossible; I hadn't dreamed since becoming vampire. My mother was standing in our old kitchen, wearing her favorite apron over old jeans and a T-shirt I'd given her for Mother's Day. Afternoon light was shining through the kitchen window, just as it always did when I got home from school. "Hi, baby," my mother said, giving me a smile.
"Mom?" I stared at her—she looked so young.
"Lissy, I always meant to tell you some things, but we never had any time," she said. The light pouring through the window bathed her in a glow as we talked—she truly was beautiful—that's why Howard Graham wanted her in the beginning and why he was never willing to let her go. Other men envied what he had; he'd just never appreciated it properly.
"What things, mom?" I was holding back from going to her—was she prepared to tell me about her affair, now? She turned away from me to swipe the kitchen counter with a cloth in her hand. It made me think of the times she did that before—to hide the bruises made by Howard Graham's fists.
"I was adopted, honey," she admitted, scrubbing at a spot on the counter. "Your Uncle Cecil wasn't, and my mother always wanted a girl. Somebody abandoned me when I was a baby, and my parents adopted me."
"Why didn't you say that before?" I wasn't sure how to take this information, and somewhere in my mind, I reminded myself it was only a dream.
"Don't be angry with your father, Lissy." She turned back to me, squeezing the cleaning rag in her hands. Mom always called me Lissy, just as Tony did. I never told him that—it would have made my heart seize up if it still worked.
"He killed you. I'll be mad at him if I want," I retorted. I was acting fourteen again for some reason, talking back to my mother.
"Not the one who killed me," mom said. She reached out a hand to me, but couldn't touch, for some reason. "Your real father. He couldn't help it, hon." Sky-blue eyes pleaded with me to understand. I didn't.
"Couldn't help what, mom?" I was reaching out to her, but she was sliding away from me as the kitchen disappeared. "Mom!" I was shouting and running after her, but I never got any closer. "Mom!" I yelled again, when a blinding light pushed me back, making me wake with a start.
I was sitting up in bed, whimpering and breathing hard, failing to notice for several seconds that darkness hadn't fallen—it was daylight outside. The muted light in the bedroom was strange and hazy to my eyes as I stared in shock at the clock on my bedside table. It was three in the afternoon. What was I doing awake? Vampires didn't wake during the day. Did they? The dream unsettled me, and that shouldn't be, either. I had no idea what was going on and my feet slid over the side of the bed automatically. I truly was awake during the day. I glanced back over the bed; Gavin was still asleep and not breathing (as was the norm), locked in the rejuvenating slumber that we all went through. I was just out of it, somehow.
Curious now, in addition to still being shaken (I hadn't dreamed of my mother in years), I walked out of my bedroom and then down the stairs leading to the first floor. My destination was Franklin's kitchen, but the light streaming through the windows there caused a bit of disorientation. Franklin was putting a grocery list together and Greg was standing next to him, his arms around his mate.
"Frank?" My one-word sentence caused Franklin and Greg to turn and gasp.
"Lissa, darling, what are you doing out of bed?" Greg was at my side as quickly as he could get there.
I rubbed my forehead with shaking fingers, "I had a terrible dream," I said. "I dreamed about my mother and that hasn't happened for years. I think it was because they were asking questions about my family last night."
"Come on, sit down," Greg steered me toward a barstool.
"Can I have some water?" I asked. I felt extremely thirsty. Franklin was worried, I could tell, but went to get a glass of water anyway, handing it off to me.
"Are you sure you don't want blood instead, little girl?" he asked. I was slurping water as if I did it every day and it wasn't coming back up—at least not yet.
"No, this is good," I said. "Is that sunlight?" I pointed to the window that usually showed darkness beyond. I rose and walked unsteadily toward it, so I could take a look. My eyes were mere slits and I shaded them with a hand when I made it to the window, but I gazed at a lawn that had been mowed recently, and flowerbeds neatly planted and tended. I wiped tears away as I saw a color of green that never came through at night.