Blessed Curse - Sandra R. Neeley Page 0,4

they all shared.

Adrienne turned her eyes on each of them, looking for her grandmother, and each pulled away as her glowing red eyes focused on them, leaving her weight solely on Marceline.

“She is vampire!” one whispered, a horrified look in her eyes.

“He’s kept her all this time, impregnated her! How could she be anything but?” one of the younger coven-sisters said.

“Do not speak of her as though she isn’t here!” Marceline ordered. “She is our Adrienne. And she is home now. We will solve this.”

As they crossed the threshold into the old, grand mansion that was once a church, Alastair cleared his throat to gain their attention.

Marceline stopped, glanced over her shoulder and saw the master vampire, the antithesis of her life, glaring at her as he levitated just inches above the ground, his arms crossed over his chest, his thin, elegant eyebrows raised as he regarded her.

“I’ve banished you. You cannot enter here! I’ve added my own protections to the hallowed ground beneath your feet. Begone!” she screamed, her voice quaking, her very nature shaken from the condition her granddaughter had been returned in.

Alastair looked down at the ground inches below his feet. “I am not entering. And I am not standing on your ground, oh great Marceline. I am hovering. Should I explain the difference to you?”

“What do you want from us? Just go!” she shrieked, realizing Alastair had grown much stronger than she’d ever anticipated over the decades.

“What I wanted I lost any need for many years ago. Perhaps you should have helped me when you had the chance,” he said, a cruel lilt to his voice. “Enjoy my poor, little mate,” he said, raising an eyebrow before adding, “I did.” As they all watched, he faded away while the thunder rattled the windows and the lightning flashed around him.

Adrienne whimpered as she watched Alastair fade away. The conflict of pain from separating from her bonded mate, as well as the relief of separating from her tormentor, were warring inside her. She despised him. She feared him. Yet she was pulled toward him. She needed him.

She screamed suddenly, as her baby moved further into position, readying itself to be born. She slammed her hand to the bottom of her stomach to support its weight.

“You will be fine, my darling. You will see, trust Grandmama,” Marceline promised as she and her strongest ally, her most powerful coven-sister, Pauline, each slipped a hand behind Adrienne’s waist and hurried her toward the third floor of the mansion and her own room.

~~~

Alastair entered the dark, dank, musty basement he’d used as a home base for the last nine months. It was actually a large storage room, long ago forgotten beneath the condemned remains of a once majestic mansion sitting in the famed Garden District of New Orleans. In it he’d assembled a cluttered mismatch of old furniture and furnishings. The only window in the large room, tiny and painted black, gave no indication of anything or anyone living inside. He perched on the edge of the bed and looked down at the stained, mussed bedsheets before he allowed his body to fall back onto them. He huffed out a low pitched growl as he clenched and unclenched his fists, and curled his toes in his boots. He’d forced himself to endure the pain brought on by Marceline’s magics. He wanted her to believe he was more powerful than he really was. He tried to relax and turned his face to the side, placing his hands palm down on either side of his body on the bed.

His nostrils flared as he inhaled. The bedsheets still smelled of his Mouse. And didn’t that just anger him more than the stinging and buzzing of his body. He rose to his feet in a flurry of activity, snatching the sheets from the stained mattress and shredding them to pieces before screaming his frustration into the now empty space. He didn’t want to think of the little female he’d called Mouse. She wasn’t actually his mate. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to be especially cruel to her, treating her like a caged animal rather than a treasured mate, just to ensure that he didn’t grow attached to the wretched creature.

How one could hold the possibility of so much power, and shy away from even wielding more than a little bit of it, he’d never understand. She was weak, and weakness was something he could never abide. He lifted his hand and rubbed at