A Gift of Three (A Shade of Vampire #42)(7)

He was back a month later. He wouldn’t speak a word to us about what had happened, and refused to even talk to Hazel or Rose about whether or not he’d found her. It was two months after his return that Yelena called Corrine’s phone and arrived at Benedict’s door, bags in hand. The couple hadn’t parted since, and were now both vampires—and married, with a twelve-year-old daughter. I never found out what happened when he went looking for Yelena, and perhaps I’d never know… but as long as they remained happy together, I was thrilled.

The Hawk boys had also seen change, or the absence of it. At around twenty years old (it was difficult to determine their exact age), their half-blood vampire genes had kicked in. They had stopped visibly aging and appeared frozen like regular vampires, which came as a surprise to all of us. We’d thought they would continue to age like regular humans, but years had passed now, and Field and his brothers had remained unchanged. Field and Maura had had a lot of ups and downs in their relationship in the time that had gone by—a lot of breaking up and getting back together again, and they still weren’t married. At this point, I wasn’t sure what the eventual outcome would be—I just hoped that soon enough they’d figure out what they both wanted for themselves, and settle down… with or without each other.

Maura’s brother Orlando, on the other hand, had married seventeen years ago. He tied the knot with his love Regan, the half-human, half-dragon twenty-year-old daughter of Azaiah. It had taken Azaiah a long time to come to terms with Orlando and Regan’s coupling (and a lot of heated discussions), since he’d always hoped she would marry a fire dragon. Regan was one of the few dragon hybrids on the island who was able to shift into a beastly form, in spite of her mixed blood, and would have been invaluable to the fire dragon race as a whole in helping to populate The Hearthlands. Azaiah had no choice but to give his blessing in the end, considering his daughter’s happiness was on the line, and now Orlando and Regan had two beautiful daughters—seventeen-year-old Saskia, and sixteen-year-old Opal.

Jeramiah Novak and his wife Pippa Hendry-Novak, also had a daughter—eighteen-year-old Scarlett. There was a period after she was born when Derek had found no end of fun in calling Lucas “Gramps” every time they saw each other around the island. I supposed my husband had been waiting a long time to get his own back, since Lucas hadn’t exactly been sparing with the term when our first grandchild, Grace, was born. There were times when you could tell from the dazed look on Lucas’s face that he couldn’t quite believe the situation he’d ended up in, a family man—a family that would only keep expanding—but I had to admit, my brother-in-law had stepped up to the role admirably well… He was almost behaving like an adult. His adopted daughter Avril was also grown up now, which made him a fatherly figure to two young women.

On the whole, we had experienced an incredible amount of peace over the past eighteen years. The last big supernatural warfare was Nevertide, and since then only a few, minor incidents had occurred. The most memorable was the strange swamp monsters in the Bayou which we had eventually managed to remove. Taking them back to The Shade had not been an option, but eventually we’d found them a home in a nature reserve, where they spent their days munching on litter. According to the local Parks and Recreation team, their services were invaluable. We’d also had to deal with a newly formed clan of rogue vampires causing trouble in Kansas, but a GASP team, headed by Derek, Ben and Tejus, had managed to deal with that problem quickly and effectively.

Each day of peace made me more and more proud of what we’d managed to accomplish with GASP—we were now living in a time where supernaturals and humans could co-exist almost in harmony.

I started to make my way back toward the training ground. Derek would be finished there soon, and we could wander home together. These times of peace were blissful, not just because it meant that GASP’s ambitions were being fulfilled, but also because it meant that my husband and I could actually spend more time together—a calm, tranquil existence that we’d always dreamed of. A true sanctuary.

In two days’ time, we’d be making a trip to the In-Between. Queen Nuriya and Sherus had given birth to a baby boy, or more correctly, a baby fae-jinn—the first of its kind, as far as I knew. We would be traveling to the fire faes’ abode for a child ‘welcoming’ ritual, popular with the fae. Everyone from The Shade who wanted to come had been invited, and the children and young adults had talked of little else in the past few weeks.

The jinni queen and the fae king had been wed for a while now. After Nevertide the two of them had spent more and more time together—Sherus had determinedly set out to woo Nuriya with his sister’s help. I laughed to myself. To onlookers, the queen had appeared impervious to his charms, but he had eventually worn her down, and not a soul now doubted that the jinni queen was just as much in love with her husband as he was with her. As I walked along, I wondered what a child of two such powerful species would be like—it would be gifted with so many abilities, so much inherent potential…

“Sofia?” Derek called my name, and I turned to see him jogging up the path to meet me, his dark hair scattered over his forehead. I waited for him to arrive, grinning as he took my hand in his and clasped it firmly at his side.

“How was your day?” I asked, brushing hair away from his brilliant blue eyes.

“Much improved now.” He smiled boyishly down at me. I didn’t know how his gaze could still set me on fire the way it did. After so many years, one would have thought that my all-consuming love of Derek would have died a little, but if anything, it was the opposite—it just grew deeper, stronger, and so filled with respect and honesty that it felt like he had become the other half of my physical being, that I just wouldn’t make sense without him. “Yours?” he asked.