A Discovery of Witches(203)
There were nods all around the table as Matthew’s motley army fell into line behind him, ready to face an enemy we didn’t know and couldn’t name.
We said our good-nights and went upstairs. Matthew kept his arm around me, guiding me through the doorframe and into the bedroom when I found it impossible to navigate the turn on my own. I slid between the icy sheets, teeth chattering. When his cool body pressed against mine, the chattering ceased.
I slept heavily, waking only once. Matthew’s eyes glittered in the darkness, and he pulled me back so that we lay like spoons.
“Sleep,” he said, kissing me behind the ear. “I’m here.” His cold hand curved over my belly, already protecting children yet to be born.
Chapter 37
Over the next several days, Matthew’s tiny army learned the first requirement of war: allies must not kill each other.
Difficult as it was for my aunts to accept vampires into their house, it was the vampires who had the real trouble adjusting. It wasn’t just the ghosts and the cat. More than nuts would have to be kept in the house if vampires and warmbloods were to live in such close quarters. The very next day Marcus and Miriam had a conversation with Matthew in the driveway, then left in the Range Rover. Several hours later they returned bearing a small refrigerator marked with a red cross and enough blood and medical supplies to outfit an army field hospital. At Matthew’s request, Sarah selected a corner of the stillroom to serve as the blood bank.
“It’s just a precaution,” Matthew assured her.
“In case Miriam gets the munchies?” Sarah picked up a bag of O-negative blood.
“I ate before I left England,” Miriam said primly, her tiny bare feet slipping quietly over the stone floors as she put items away.
The deliveries also included a blister pack of birth-control pills inside a hideous yellow plastic case with a flower molded into the lid. Matthew presented them to me at bedtime.
“You can start them now or wait a few days until your period starts.”
“How do you know when my period is going to start?” I’d finished my last cycle the day before Mabon—the day before I’d met Matthew.
“I know when you’re planning on jumping a paddock fence. You can imagine how easy it is for me to know when you’re about to bleed.”
“Can you be around me while I’m menstruating?” I held the case gingerly as if it might explode.
Matthew looked surprised, then chuckled. “Dieu, Diana. There wouldn’t be a woman alive if I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing.”
I started the pills that night.
As we adjusted to the close quarters, new patterns of activity developed in the house—many of them around me. I was never alone and never more than ten feet away from the nearest vampire. It was perfect pack behavior. The vampires were closing ranks around me.
My day was divided into zones of activity punctuated by meals, which Matthew insisted I needed at regular intervals to fully recover from La Pierre. He joined me in yoga between breakfast and lunch, and after lunch Sarah and Em tried to teach me how to use my magic and perform spells. When I was tearing my hair out with frustration, Matthew would whisk me off for a long walk before dinner. We lingered around the table in the family room after the warmbloods had eaten, talking about current events and old movies. Marcus unearthed a chessboard, and he and his father often played together while Em and I cleaned up.
Sarah, Marcus, and Miriam shared a fondness for film noir, which now dominated the house’s TV-viewing schedule. Sarah had discovered this happy coincidence when, during one of her habitual bouts of insomnia, she went downstairs in the middle of the night and found Miriam and Marcus watching Out of the Past. The three also shared a love of Scrabble and popcorn. By the time the rest of the house awoke, they’d transformed the family room into a cinema and everything had been swept off the coffee table save a game board, a cracked bowl full of lettered tiles, and two battered dictionaries.
Miriam proved to be a genius at remembering archaic seven-letter words.
“‘Smoored’!” Sarah was exclaiming one morning when I came downstairs. “What the hell kind of word is ‘smoored’? If you mean those campfire desserts with marshmallows and graham crackers, you’ve spelled it wrong.”
“It means ‘smothered,’” Miriam explained. “It’s what we did to fires to keep them banked overnight. We smoored them. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”
Sarah grumbled and retreated to the kitchen for coffee.
“Who’s winning?” I inquired.
“You need to ask?” The vampire smiled with satisfaction.
When not playing Scrabble or watching old movies, Miriam held classes covering Vampires 101. In the space of a few afternoons, she managed to teach Em the importance of names, pack behavior, possessive rituals, preternatural senses, and dining habits. Lately talk had turned to more advanced topics, such as how to slay a vampire.
“No, not even slicing our necks open is foolproof, Em,” Miriam told her patiently. The two were sitting in the family room while I made tea in the kitchen. “You want to cause as much blood loss as possible. Go for the groin as well.”
Matthew shook his head at the exchange and took the opportunity (since everyone else was otherwise engaged) to pin me behind the refrigerator door. My shirt was askew and my hair tumbling around my ears when our son came into the room with an armload of wood.