A Gift of Three (A Shade of Vampire #42)(5)

“I know.” I smiled. “Weirdo.”

“I know, I know.” He shrugged.

“What about when you move in with Maura, what are you going to do then?” I asked. He spent so much of his time there, I often wondered why it hadn’t happened already, but I supposed there was no real rush.

“I don’t know,” he replied, his expression shedding the lightheartedness of a moment ago and becoming pensive.

“Have you settled on any, um, longer-term plans?” I enquired gently.

Field went quiet. I wondered if I’d put my foot in it somehow, but a moment later he began to reply, his voice hesitant.

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Sometimes I don’t know if Maura and I are…forever, you know?”

His comment surprised me. They had been dating for a long time, and I’d hoped that Field had found the same happiness that Ben and I shared. I tried not to let my surprise show, but I was silent for just a second too long.

“I mean, we’re happy together,” he added. “I suppose I just wonder how you know that it’s forever—like how you and Dad knew? Or Grace and Lawrence. I sometimes think that I’m just missing that part of me…that part that can totally trust my instincts. I keep thinking that I should ask Maura to marry me, but then something stops me—I don’t know what. It’s not like I don’t love her, or care for her deeply.”

I looked over at my son—at his aquamarine-colored eyes, dulled by worry, and the frown that marred his brow. After growing up without parents or a home, after the trauma he’d endured in the harpy “orphanage”, once Field arrived in The Shade to live with us, I’d hoped he’d never experience true anxiety again. That, at least so far as his personal life went, it would be smooth and easy from then on. Of course, I knew that was unrealistic, but seeing him troubled always made me ache inside.

“With your father and me,” I said, my speech slowing as I tried to give my reply consideration, “it was easy. I knew in every bone in my body that he was the one for me. I knew that early on in our relationship. But it’s not always like that. Sometimes love grows slowly, it takes longer to assert itself—for both people to realize they’re in love. Either way it’s just as meaningful. And you might not be ready yet to settle down and start a family, but that’s fine. It needs to be in your own time, honey.”

He nodded, digesting my words. A span of silence passed, and then he seemed to shift out of his reverie.

“You’re right,” he said, glancing down at me. “Maybe one day Maura and I will think about marriage. Maybe neither of us are ready yet. I haven’t even asked Maura how she might feel about that… It’s never really come up.”

I nodded. “You need to do what you feel is right for the both of you,” I replied.

We were nearly back at home, and our conversation returned to Grace and their new baby girl. I kept the rest of my thoughts on Field and Maura to myself. I knew that my son loved her, and went out of his way to be there for her. He was kind, loving and considerate. They had a good relationship that had brought both of them happiness, but I wondered how long it would last. I was glad that Field had opened up to me about it—their relationship was a subject that I’d been wondering about for a while now. I just didn’t want Field to have to suffer heartbreak if things didn’t go as they planned…But perhaps I was worrying for nothing. Taking things slowly hadn’t exactly been my experience of love, but I’d meant what I said. I knew it didn’t always happen like that. Field would work it out for himself. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be.

Only time would tell…





Sofia





EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER…




I had thought I was alone in the Sanctuary’s courtyard, but a rustle in the nearby bushes announced the arrival of Lucifer, Tejus and Hazel’s haughty lynx. He purred around my ankles, a far friendlier creature than had arrived here… over eighteen years ago now.

Where has the time gone?

I reached down and petted the feline’s soft fur, jumping slightly as he dashed off again—no doubt to hunt down some poor, helpless prey in the forest… or get himself found by Shadow the dog.

I straightened, my eyes returning to the peaceful scene that surrounded me. I resumed my silent walk among the moon-dappled gravestones, the dewy grass crunching beneath my feet, the gentle breeze carrying the warm scent of the redwoods, until I arrived at my destination—the old stone fountain at the center. I gazed down upon the two gravestones in front of it, where two of the dearest friends I’d ever had were laid to rest. I shifted the two bouquets of white roses I carried in one arm and laid them across each of the stones, careful not to cover their engraved names… Anna and Kyle.

It had been two years since we’d lost Anna, three since we’d lost Kyle, to the one thing no amount of jinni or witch magic could stop: time.

Like me, Anna had been an immune, which meant she couldn’t turn into a vampire like a normal human. Unlike me, she’d never been ‘cured’ of her immunity. It was sobering to think that, if I hadn’t been kidnapped to Cruor all those years ago, I never would have lost my immunity either. I would have lived a mortal life, and probably be lying here with them in this courtyard.