Conversion (Conversion #1)

Conversion (Conversion #1) Page 18

Now, here is the point where I clearly became a touch insane. A bubble of happiness ripped right through my core. Happiness you say? Wasn't I about to be Teren chow? Yes, I was, but the surge of joy I felt was from the fact that my honey had just walked-a clumsy I'm-going-to-topple-over-at-any-second walk, but a walk nonetheless. I was momentarily overjoyed that his shattered legs had indeed completely healed and he really would be fine. Not to mention the fact that he was clearly a reanimated being and I hadn't lost him to the other side. I was over the moon that he was sentient, if not alive.

My happiness instantly evaporated when he took his second step.

Pure prey-filled panic swept through me and I had the overwhelming desire to run. Every fundamental cell in my body was screaming at me to bolt for the stairs, screeching bloody murder the entire way, and plunge myself into the dark, barren landscape where our captor had taken us. I wasn't entirely an idiot though.

The part of my brain that, luckily, had firm control over my motor functions, knew that the surest way to get myself killed would be to act like the quarry I indeed was. Nothing would kick Teren's predatory nature into overdrive quite like me acting like a fleeing dinner. I instantly remembered Halina remarking how much she loved the hunt, and I knew that I couldn't do anything that a typical human would do in this situation. I couldn't run. I had to stand perfectly still and let him approach me. And let me tell you, fighting eons of pure instinct is difficult.

Teren straightened as he stiffly walked towards me; his blood-soaked jeans only emphasized the oddness of watching him walk in my direction. A small smile played at the corners of his wide open mouth and his extended fangs were so long they brushed against his lower lip. I imagined those teeth plunging into my neck. In my fear, I pictured them coming right out the other side.

A shudder passed through me and he paused, notating the movement with clear interest in his pale eyes. A stranger's eyes...not my Teren's. This was a creature of the night. This was hunger incarnate. This was a near-death, thirsty vampire and for the first time ever-I was terrified of him.

He resumed his stiff walk and when he had halved the distance between us, I knew I had to try to appeal to whatever human side was still in him right now, or else he'd kill me for sure.

"Teren...baby. It's me...Emma."

He cocked his head to the side and his brows scrunched, like he was hearing a language he ought to know but didn't currently understand. His shaky steps continued until he came to the unconscious man in front of me. Ignoring our captor lying on the ground, he walked around the still body, to come up to my shaking one.

Thinking my shivers were drawing him straight to me, I tried to control the tremors. But I couldn't control them anymore than I could stop my juicily pulsating heart from racing. I knew he would be able to hear my slushy, elevated beats. He could probably even sense the blood rushing throughout my veins in overdrive. Right now, I was irresistible to him and I couldn't do anything about it.

"Baby...please...it's me. You love me...remember?"

He stepped right beside me, his chest pressing against my arm. A low growl vibrated his ribcage and I felt it all the way up my body. I gritted my teeth to not move, to not scream. A tear rolled down my cheek, as the level of fear and concentration coursing through my body showed itself physically.

"Baby...you love me. Remember, Teren. Please remember."

He pressed harder into my side and a soft sob escaped me. Teren bent down and softly hissed in my ear. A huge shudder, which had nothing to do with how his body felt noticeably cooler, passed through my frame, and a pleased noise rumbled in his chest.

"Oh God, Teren...please. Baby, you promised...you promised. Please...please remember...you love me."

He ran his nose up my throat, inhaling the whole while. I bit my lip and mostly held back the scream. I couldn't stop how heavily I was breathing, though. I couldn't calm my heart. I couldn't ebb the terror in my veins. Teren shivered at my reaction and exhaled a cool breath across my skin. He lowered his head to the crook of my neck and I felt the brush of his rough stubble against my shoulder as he angled himself into position-for the last bite he would ever take from me. His cool lips caressed my skin as he pressed them against me. For a split second, my fear-soaked brain desperately wanted to believe that he was playing with me, teasing me, but I fully understood the situation, and I knew that nothing about this was a joke or an intimacy. He was going to kill me, because he couldn't help it, because the hunger was too strong.

I felt his mouth opening wider, taking my flesh inside. I felt his teeth grazing my skin. "Teren, please. I love you...I love you so much. Please don't do this. Please fight it...please. Ya tebya lyublyu."

I started repeating the Russian phrase over and over, like it was a lifeline and I was drowning. Teren hadn't clamped down on my skin, but his teeth were prickling my flesh like nails, waiting to be driven deep. Tears freely coursed down my cheeks as I mindlessly repeated the phrase. My body couldn't keep up this charade of pretending to not be food. I was losing the battle. I was losing my grip on my sanity. I was about to run. Even still, I knew the minute I moved, it would be my last.

That was when his black hair unexpectedly dropped from the edge of my vision. Confused, I took a stuttered breath and looked down. He was lying in a fetal position at my feet, clutching his stomach like it was an open wound and he needed to hold in his intestines to keep them from spilling out over the ground. He groaned and shifted to look up at me. My breath caught at the look in his pale eyes. I knew that look. That was my Teren returning my gaze.

"Emma..." The ache in his voice ripped me open...he was so hungry.

His eyes blazed with pain, a different kind of pain than before he'd died. His face was still a pale, sunken, unhealthy color and his fangs were still elongated. He closed his eyes and groaned again and I ignored every urge to kneel and comfort him. He'd resisted me once, twice was pretty much asking for it.

Suddenly, our captor moaned and moved. My terror-filled mind suddenly remembered that I wasn't the only meal bag in this room. Sickened by my idea, I whispered, "Teren, drain him." My tone was firm, sure, and showed none of the inner turmoil I felt over what I was asking my sweetheart to do.

Teren's eyes opened and flicked over to the man, who was now starting to rock his head slowly from side to side. Teren's hazy eyes returned to mine and he swallowed with great difficulty, like his throat was so dry he barely could.

"No." He croaked out, sounding like a man who'd been trudging through the desert for days with no water and could hardly still make speech.

I nudged the man's shoulder with my shoe; he groaned in response. "You will die unless you drink...so do it!" Heat entered my tone, as I began to realize that Teren might refuse all blood available to him.

His eyes steadily held mine. "No," he coarsely whispered.

Now I kicked the man, making him start to stir towards consciousness. "Drink, damn you! Don't you give up on me!" A different kind of panic seeped into my voice, giving it strength and volume.

With a resolved look in his pained eyes, Teren lightly shook his head. "No, Emma. I told you I'd never take a life. Not even his..." His eyes drifted back to the man, before returning to mine.

"Not even for me!" I yelled, nearly wanting to kick Teren now.

He gave me a soft, pained smile, and I instantly remembered that we'd had this conversation once before, back when we'd argued about him changing my sister. I knew exactly what his answer would be...what it had always been. "Not even for me, Emma," he whispered.

I shook my head in disbelief, when I realized what he was saying. "Please...I can't lose you."

He closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. A twinge of discomfort passed through his features, and I knew he was hiding how much he was really hurting from me, both emotionally and physically. When he reopened his eyes, it was with a visible effort, like they suddenly weighed a ton each. "I'm sorry, Emma...but no, I won't do it."

His hands loosened their death grip on his stomach, his face relaxed, then his eyes unfocused. They fluttered shut and with a long, shaky breath, his head dropped. Ignoring the maniac starting to revive next to us, and ignoring the instinct to stay away from Teren, I dropped to my knees at his side. He was dying...again, only this time he wouldn't wake back up.

"No! Please, Teren...please."

I shook his shoulders and he groaned. With a struggle, he reopened his eyes. His face was wan and anemic looking, and he couldn't entirely focus on me. The contrast was so different from the ferocious killer that had stalked me only moments before that it made it all the more terrifying. He was slipping so fast...

Smiling around his fangs, Teren repeated the Russian phrase that he'd said the first time he'd died, the phrase I'd used to eventually snap him out of his hunger-induced stupor. The way he said it this time, well, every syllable of it had the finality of goodbye.

I shook his shoulders even harder when his eyes started fluttering closed again. "No! You stupid, stubborn son of a bitch! No!" I started smacking his shoulders into the ground, but his eyes had successfully closed and he was no longer responding to me. "No...vampiric asshole! Don't give up on me now! NO!"

He was silent. He was still. I was more scared than when he'd inhaled me.

Another moan on the other side of me reminded me, yet again, that I wasn't the only human down here. Once the man recovered from my attack, he was going to be pretty pissed. He might not relish killing humans, but I was pretty sure he'd do it anyway, especially with the headache I'd surely given him.

I dropped Teren's shoulders and noted his still, gaunt face. I had no idea if he was dead-dead or just at a point where he could no longer move. I didn't exactly have the typical vital signs to check. Was he breathing...no. Did he have a heartbeat...no. He could be sleeping for all I knew. But he wasn't, he was dying, if not already dead.

Anger shot through me. No...this was not how my fairytale was ending. The Prince did not die and leave the Princess alone to get beaten to death by the villain. Every thought I'd ever had about myself shifted. Every line I thought I'd never cross blurred. What would I do to save someone I loved? Reality started dulling from the crystal-clear black and white world I'd previously known, to the hazy realm of varying shades of gray. What wouldn't I do to save someone I loved?

Nothing. There was nothing I wouldn't do to save him, and I suddenly knew exactly what I had to do.

Standing, I grabbed the iron bar still resting by my feet. I calmly walked over to our kidnapper, the fanatic who'd put us in this horrid mess. He'd regained consciousness enough to open his eyes and he looked up at me with a hazy, unfocused gaze. I could see his mind trying to fill in the gaps of the last few moments of his life. I didn't give him much longer to worry about it.

"You were wrong. I told you he wouldn't kill me." I flicked a glance down his dirty body. "He won't even kill you." My eyes found his again; his seemed more alert and I knew I only had seconds left before he could fight me off. I leaned forward over his body. "He's too good a man to kill you."

I raised the bar, and with one hard push, I shoved it into the soft spot at the hollow of his throat. The man jerked in surprise as the iron ripped through his flesh and hit his spine.

"I'm not so good," I growled.

I pulled the rod out and a fountain of blood followed it. The man sputtered and choked on the hot fluid. I took a step back and tossed the bar down again. The man's frantic eyes found mine as he tried to cover the wound with his hands. "He's better than us both," I whispered to him.

The man's eyes widened as he struggled to breathe, his hands clasped at his throat, but the move was ineffectual; dark, deep-red blood oozed between his fingers. Suddenly, a strong set of hands ripped the man's fingers from his neck and held them at his sides. A dark-haired head attached itself to his throat, and the man dropped his mouth open in what I imagined was a silent scream. I forced myself to watch the terror flash through the man's eyes as Teren stole his life-force from him. I had done this. I wouldn't avert my eyes from my actions. I would watch...and remember.

As I'd hoped, fresh, pooling blood had been too much for Teren's starved body to ignore and he'd instinctually leapt at the chance I'd offered him. I wondered if Teren was even aware of what he was doing right now. A part of me hoped he wasn't. He would eternally hate himself for this if he was making a conscious choice to kill.

I watched the man's face as he relaxed and stopped his futile struggling. His complexion started to pale from the pink, flush look of life, to a faded, dull gray color, as Teren adjusted himself on his throat and made a deeper wound with those sharp teeth of his. I forcefully ignored the happy noises Teren was making deep in his chest, and the audible swallows as he took in liter after liter of the man's blood. I focused instead on the man's eyes, hoping that the life soon faded from them. Even though he'd been actively planning our deaths, I had no desire for the man to suffer. I wasn't cruel, either. Instantly, I was glad we'd never discovered our captor's name. This memory would be bad enough. No need to personalize it even more.

Eventually, and in reality it had been thirty seconds at the most, the man's eyes lost focus and faded into the blank stare of nothingness that Teren had given me not all that long ago. Tears stung my eyes but I immediately forced them back. This man was going to kill me. This man had tortured and injected Teren with something that had killed him. This man had destroyed any hope I had of carrying Teren's child. I refused to feel anymore pity for this man.

A few moments later, Teren sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth off on his shirt. He looked at his fingers, slightly red from the man's bloody hands, and then wiped them on his jeans repeatedly. He seemed steadier, but he still had a sunken, unhealthy look about him. He was still hungry. He sat there with his head down for a long time as he took in the dead man before him. If he hadn't been aware of his actions before, he was now. I knew him well enough to know that he was beating himself up about draining this man...something he'd promised himself he'd never do.

Cautiously, I dropped to his side and put a hand on his arm. He turned to me and I clearly saw the turmoil in his eyes. I inhaled a deep breath and prepared myself to lie...for him. "I did this, Teren. Not you." I gave him a warm smile while he frowned. "You were strong enough. You turned away from me. You turned away from him." I cupped his cheeks, as tears spilled down mine. "You were so strong...you didn't falter." His eyes flicked to the corpse and he tried to turn his head back to the man. I kept his face firmly pointing towards me. Dropping my voice, I repeated, "I did this. He attacked me and I defended myself. I had no choice but to kill him and you had no choice but to survive." I searched his eyes. "Understand?"

He silently regarded me for a few moments while my lie sunk in. So, maybe it wasn't a full-on lie. Surely if I'd given the man enough time, he would have attacked me, and I would have had to defend myself. That wasn't what happened though. He'd still been frozen in confusion when I'd struck. But I knew that if I ever told Teren that, he would blame himself for not killing the man first. In his eyes, he would always think that he'd forced me into killing for him. He hadn't. Teren had made his choice to stay pure. I had made my choice...to save him. I didn't feel like either of us deserved condemnation.

He nodded as he accepted my version of events. I didn't know if he believed me or not, but he was going to let himself accept my scenario and that was almost more important than what he actually believed. He opened his mouth, his fangs tucked safely away, and spoke in a quiet voice that ached with residual pain, "I'm still hungry."

I put my hand on his cool shoulder. "Then let's get you more to eat. I'll take you to the ranch now. I'll take you to your family."

He inclined his head in a brief nod, and with my help, stood. He wobbled a little, and I put a hand on his chest to steady him. We both paused and stared at my hand. I flattened my palm and pressed it harder against his body. Nothing. No faint pulse, no slight thumping rhythm, just...silence.

"I'm sorry, honey..." I looked back up to his light eyes, "but I think you're dead."

I gave him a crooked grin and he finally truly smiled. He laughed as he slung a weak arm around my waist and kissed my head. "Thanks to you, I'll be able to live my death without regret," he murmured. He looked back to the man's dry body and I knew he was adding in his head, too much.

His gaze returned to mine and his hand reached up to stroke my cheek. "I can't believe I almost attacked you." His voice was strained with exhaustion when he spoke again. "I can't believe I almost did it. I wanted to, so much." He looked down at the ground, avoiding any eye contact with me. "I've never wanted anything more...and...and I almost couldn't control it. I think for a moment, I stopped caring about everything...everything but quenching the thirst." He swallowed hard, and I could clearly see that the thirst was still with him.

I placed my hand over his on my cheek and he returned his eyes to me. "But you didn't attack me. You barely even touched me. Don't beat yourself up over things you didn't do." My tone implied that I wasn't just talking about him almost biting me. He seemed to understand that, as he nodded. His face was drawn and tired from his conversion, and I knew he hadn't had nearly enough blood for a full recovery. "Come on...let's go take care of you."

Supporting his weight under my shoulder, I somehow managed to get his shaking body up the stairs, out the damaged front door, and around the missing floorboards of the porch. Once we were outside on the soft dirt near where the man's rustic camper was parked, we both paused and took a deep breath, enjoying our freedom.

Then a tremor ran through Teren's body, so I started moving us forward again. I wasn't sure how far away the ranch was, but I was pretty sure we'd never make it walking. We shuffled up to the camper, the glow from Teren's eyes on this moonless, cloudless starry night leading the way. I helped Teren sit on the ground by one of the tires, and he looked up at me, confused. "I need to get the keys," I explained. He nodded, laid his head back on the vehicle, and shut his eyes, resting. I leaned over and kissed his cool forehead, making him smile. "I'll be right back," I said.

I carefully walked back into the shamble of a home, wondering where a madman might have thrown his car keys. Realizing that the man wouldn't have just casually dropped them somewhere while he had victims tied up below, I made my way back down the wooden steps to reenter the cell that had changed Teren's life. And my own, I suppose.

I cautiously stepped up to the man. As I expected, he was still lying where we'd left him. My stomach lurked at the sight of his pale body, and I swallowed to keep back the bile. His throat was clearly torn open. It kind of looked like an animal attack. And even though I knew he didn't have an ounce of blood left in him, it didn't stop me from thinking that the man was going to spring to life at any moment and finish what he'd started.

Rolling my eyes, I pushed that fear aside, dropped down to a knee, and began rummaging through his pockets. Honestly, I had nothing to worry about. This man was very dead, and that fact wasn't changing. Apparently I had seen too many horror movies. I was switching to romantic comedies from now on.

I found the keys almost instantly. As I sat up, I noticed the bloody bar on the ground. I also watched a lot of cop shows with my sister-she was obsessed-and while his throat might look like an animal attack, the blood on the bar was a dead giveaway. I grabbed it and wiped away any fingerprints with my shirt. Some horrible fate had befallen this man, and even though we'd only defended ourselves, I didn't need Teren examined too closely by a group of curious policemen.

I looked around for anything else Teren and I might have touched, but besides our belts, which I picked up and looped around my hand, there really wasn't anything. I kicked at Teren's blood in the dirt, hoping to mask it, but not sure if I was doing a good job or not. I regarded the blood on the man's jacket, but didn't think I could remove the coat from the large man by myself, and Teren was still too weak to come back down here and help me. There was a lot of the man's own blood on it as well so I hoped it covered Teren's. Disheartened that I couldn't do more, I wiped off every door knob on the way out of the house, and then I turned my back on it and the horrid memories inside of it.

Teren's glow indicated where he was still waiting for me. Letting go of the residual fear of that house and everything that had happened there, I sprinted back to him. He was already looking my way and the glow of his eyes enveloped me. I relaxed into that tranquil gaze, then noticed that he was wiping his mouth on his shirt again. Curious, I glanced at the ground beside him and saw a couple of dead animals, including one that sort of looked like a rabbit.

My lips twitched into a smile as I pointed at them. "Did that help?"

He smiled briefly and then frowned. "No, not really. I feel like I'm being eaten from the inside out."

Now I frowned. I offered him my hand and he let me help him stand. Leaning back on the camper, he took a deep, steadying breath. His eyes closed, plunging us both into darkness. "Emma...you need to put me in the back." He said it so softly, I almost didn't hear him.

"What? No, I want to watch over you..."

His eyes reopened and the predatory look was back...along with his fangs. "I can't be in a small space with you right now." His eyes fluttered and the light shifted in and out. A low growl escaped his throat. "You smell too good. Don't tempt me, please..."

I swallowed and stopped my body from shaking again. "Okay...okay, Teren."

I left him against the side of the camper while I went around to the back. It was unlocked and opened easily. I turned around to go get him but he was right there behind me. I hadn't even heard him approach. He eyed me up and down, his fangs still fully extended, and then he slowly bent forward.

His breath increased as he came closer and I found mine increasing as well. He paused when he was almost within striking distance and with clear strain on his face, he retracted his fangs. Once normal, he finished his descent, moving to my lips instead of my jugular. I gave him a tender kiss while I marveled that we'd made it this far together, marveled that his cool breath and lips seemed to make mine even hotter...

A low growl escaped his lips and he yanked himself away from me. He stopped the noise and, lightly chuckling, said, "You really need to get away from me, Emma." I could see him raise an eyebrow as he studied me. "I'll have you in more ways than one if you stick around."

I flushed and he watched the color fill my skin with a small sigh of longing. Shaking his head, he forced himself to enter the camper. When he was at the top and about to shut the door behind him, I stopped him. "Teren, wait." He paused in shutting the door and his glowing eyes looked down at me with curiosity. I shrugged. "I don't know where I am." Sighing as I admitted that I was clueless, I rolled my eyes and asked, "Where's the ranch from here?"

He crooked a grin and pointed to where he could sense his family. "Find a road that heads that direction. When you find the main highway, you'll know where you are. If you get lost, just come back and ask me again." He frowned then. "Just don't let me get too hungry..."

"Right...no problem. Will you be okay for the trip there?"

What I really wanted to know was, Will you die again on me, if I don't get you there fast enough? but I couldn't quite bring myself to ask him that. He seemed to understand my real question though. "The dangerous part is over, Emma. I'm starving...but it won't end me." He twisted his lips. "I'm pretty sure anyway."

Ignoring that last part, I visibly relaxed and gave him an agreeable nod. With a tiny grin, Teren closed the door. I made my way to the front, unlocked the cab and slid inside, tossing the belts on the seat beside me. I fumbled through the keys on the ring and exhaled with relief when I found the one for the damn cuffs still hanging on my wrist. I popped them open and rubbed the red, irritated skin. Then I tossed the cuffs onto the seat, where they collided with the belts. Starting the camper, I mentally prepared myself for the long journey. Not only did I have to figure out where I was in relation to the world, but I had to find a nest of vampires that I'd never actually driven to. Should be fun.

It turned out to be easier to find the ranch than I'd anticipated. That doesn't mean I didn't get lost...I did. After driving back roads for what felt like an eternity, I'd finally given up and pulled over to ask Teren where his blood sense was directing him. Remembering his last words, I'd brought a peace offering with me.

I'd driven by a small stand that looked like it sold eggs during the day. Figuring they probably had chickens nearby, 'cause...duh, I stopped and darted over a small, wooden fence into a rundown yard that did indeed have a couple of henhouses in it. I reached inside one and felt around for a sleeping bird. Then, when I was pretty sure I was holding feet, I yanked my hand back and stole a chicken. Yep...that was what my life had been reduced to...stealing poultry, so my boyfriend wouldn't attack me.

I ran back to the camper, while the stupid bird flapped and flailed about, like it knew it was about to meet its maker. I stifled an Oh my god, I'm holding a chicken by its feet girly shriek and dashed to the back of the camper where Teren immediately opened the door.

I tossed the bird at him. He caught it, and drained it, all in one swoop. When he was done he tossed the bird's body outside and looked at me with scrunched brows. I studied his still sunken face, but noticed that his skin didn't look quite so ashen anymore. He looked minutely healthier...for a dead man at least.

"I can't believe you just stole a chicken for me." He shook his head in disbelief as his fangs retracted. "I could have gotten it."

I shook my head. "You would have eaten the whole flock and that's someone's livelihood. I just needed to know where to go, without you ripping my throat out."

He frowned as he pointed in the direction that we were already heading. I guess I hadn't been so far off after all. "I'm not gonna-"

Slamming the door in his face, I cut him off. "Okay...thanks."

He cracked the door back open. "Really?" He shook his head while I gave him a playful grin. "I'll bang on the cab if you start going the wrong way...okay?" I bit my lip and nodded and he, more gently than I had, closed the door again.

So, with only that one little pit stop, we finally made it to Teren's parents' massive spread of a home. They were all outside waiting in the parking area when I rolled up. They all had anxious looks on their faces. Alanna looked like she'd been crying and Jack, looking solemn, had his arm around her shoulders.

I wasn't sure why they looked so panicked already, before we'd even had a chance to tell them what had happened, but then I understood. From the blood bond they shared, they knew he was in the camper and from their unbelievably perceptive ears, they also knew he didn't have a heartbeat. What they didn't know was if I was bringing them a hungry vampire...or a corpse.

I immediately put the car in park, shut off the engine, and opened my door. "He's fine," I reassured them. My words didn't seem to ease their minds one bit; all three black-haired beauties flew to the back of the camper and ripped the door off its hinges to get at their son.

By the time I walked back there, they had already picked up his limp body and were herding him away from the vehicle. He weakly looked up at me as Halina and Imogen easily supported his weight. He seemed very tired. After his chicken snack, I'd found the highway, and we'd driven a couple more hours at least before making it to the ranch. He'd been silent in the camper the entire time. I'd carelessly assumed that that was because I'd been going the right way. He'd said before starting out, that he was pretty sure he would be okay for the trip, but as I studied his worn face, it was obvious to me that while the long drive hadn't killed him, it had definitely taken its toll on him. Silently, I berated myself for not finding him something else along the way.

"Thank you," he whispered, and then Halina and Imogen blurred him from sight. I had no idea which direction they went.

Alanna put a cool hand on my shoulder. I regarded her youthful face and thought she looked ten years older now, in her worry. New pink tears rolled down her cheeks as she pulled me in for a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you. Oh God, thank you."

She turned to flee to her son and I grabbed her arm. "Take me with you. I want to be with him."

Alanna looked back at Jack, who nodded to her after glancing once at me. Alanna scooped me up like I was no more trouble than a toddler and without another word, she blurred me to the pastures, where Teren was laying waste to their cattle.

The next thing I knew, she was setting me on top of one of the tall, white fences that separated the different fields. I could hear the sounds of low growling and distressed animals, and a shiver went up my spine.

"Stay here, dear," she said while patting my thigh. Her tone was kind, but very firm.

I nodded and watched her flit away to where the sounds were coming from in the tall grass. I couldn't see much in the dark, but their eyes marked where they were in the night, gorging themselves on clueless cattle.

I watched their eyes in a near trance for a seemingly long time. I startled when a hand brushed my back. Turning, I saw Jack standing behind me with his foot propped on the bottom slat of the fence. His eyes were moist as he looked up at me. "Thank you for bringing back my son," he choked out.

I nodded and swallowed back the tears that wanted to fall. Jack looked out over the field, at the glowing eyes dancing in the night like fireflies. "I don't know what happened tonight...and I'm pretty sure I never want to know..." He looked back up at me, as I suddenly felt very self-conscious about my bloodstained clothes and beat-up face. "But we owe you everything. You're always welcome here...daughter."

Okay...that undid me, and the tears flowed down my cheeks. It had been a long time since a man had called me daughter. My father's own passing had left a void in my life that, until this very instant, I hadn't even realized was there. Warmth filled my body that this loving man before me could be a part of my life in ways I hadn't anticipated. He could be a father for me, as well as for Teren. I suddenly wanted Ashley to meet him...to meet the entire family. I wanted this ache that I'd just felt start to heal, to heal for her too.

Seeming unsure how to deal with my reaction, Jack awkwardly rubbed my back. Then he climbed over the fence and jumped down to the other side. Alarmed I spouted, "Where are you going?" I was pretty sure he was walking into the lion's den in the middle of a feeding frenzy.

He gave me a crooked smile that was so much like Teren's, I had to swallow back tears again. "I thought I'd lost my son tonight. I'm going to go watch him be reborn." He held out his hand to me. "Want to come?"

Steeling myself, I nodded and jumped down to land beside him. I clutched his warm, dry hand and followed him into the night, to watch my honey live in the only way he could now.