“No,” she assured him solemnly. “I’m glad you got a chance to have fun.”
“It was fun,” he said, his smile returning to full wattage. “We built a snowman, and made snow angels, and now we’re going to have hot chocolate . . . if that’s okay?” he added with concern, and then blurted, “Teddy says hot chocolate is the best. I can have some, can’t I?”
“Of course you can.” The words had barely left her lips before Liam was squirming out of her arms and dropping to the floor. Whirling away from her, he rushed back to his new friend, squealing an exuberant, “Yay! We can have hot chocolate.”
Allie smiled faintly, but guilt was niggling at her as she watched his excitement. Liam had never had hot chocolate. It was a luxury, and there wasn’t a lot of money for luxuries in the life they’d been forced to lead.
“Well,” Tricia said with amusement as she bent to pick up the hairspray can and set it on the counter next to them. “A mere kitchen can hardly compete with that kind of greeting. He loves you a great deal.”
“And I love him,” Allie said softly, looking him over one more time before turning her attention to the large white kitchen. And it was large. She would have guessed it was nearly thirty feet long with an island in the middle and cupboards running almost the entire length on both sides except for the last eight feet by her and Tricia. There, it had been left open for a large round table and eight chairs to be set up in front of windows looking out over the yard. There were also two doors where the cupboards ended; one was the doorway they were standing in. But across from it was a solid door that Allie guessed either led to a garage or a pantry or something.
“It’s pretty amazing,” she said finally, her attention returning to Liam and his new friend. Teddy Argeneau Brunswick Jr. was a handsome little guy, with dark hair like her son’s and a smile equally as charming, but while Liam had green eyes with a silver glow to them, Teddy’s were blue and silver. Both boys would grow up to be good-looking men, though, she decided.
“Liam mentioned that you two move a lot.”
Allie tore her gaze from the boys to see that Katricia, or Tricia as she’d said to call her, had moved to the stove to grab a teakettle off one of the burners. She watched her carry it to the sink and then moved to lean against the counter next to the stove as she admitted, “Yes. Unfortunately. But it’s been by necessity,” she added to ensure the woman didn’t think she was just bohemian in nature. “We usually end up moving every month or two.”
“Because of the rogues Magnus and Tybo found attacking you?” Tricia asked, keeping her voice low enough that the boys couldn’t hear. Teddy and Liam had climbed up onto the chairs at the table at the other end of the room and were now running mini racing cars over its surface and making vroom-vroom sounds as they did.
“Yes,” Allie said unhappily.
Tricia nodded and, apparently deciding the kettle now had enough water, turned off the tap and carried the kettle back to the stove. She set it down, turned a knob on the range until flames burst out of the burner, set them to high, and then turned to lean against the counter on the other side of the range top to watch the boys before she asked, “Who are they?”
“I’m not sure,” Allie said slowly, and frowned because that was true. She knew very little about the pack of vampires she’d spent the last four years running from. Just that they were other victims of the same vampire who had turned Stella and her husband, and that they would do whatever their “sire,” as Stella had called him, demanded. Stella had feared nothing more than that man getting his hands on her son. She’d been terrified he would turn Liam into a ravening, bloodsucking fiend like the people he’d turned, and she’d been determined to save her son from that. So much so that Stella had given her life to try to keep Liam safe.
Allie had done her best since then to uphold her promise and keep Liam safe as well. She’d given up her previous life, one that had been successful and stable and safe, for a life on the run. Although she doubted Stella had expected that. She’d probably thought that sacrificing her own life would convince her hunters that both she and Liam were dead, leaving Allie to raise him in relative peace and safety. It was what Allie had expected the night that Stella had died. But things hadn’t worked out that way.
“You really are safe here,” Katricia said suddenly, drawing Allie’s gaze. “Really. We would never harm you or Liam and want only to help.”
“Why?” The question was out before Allie had given it much thought, but it was the question that had been on her mind since she’d woken up here. Why were they here? Why had Tybo and Magnus helped them? What did they want from them? Allie hadn’t had a lot of help over the last four years. Any, really. She and Liam had been on their own.
Katricia was silent for a moment, considering her, and then she shrugged and said simply, “It’s what we do. We are responsible for keeping mortals safe from immortals and immortals safe from discovery.”
“So you saved us from those rogue immortals last night, and now . . .” Her mouth tightened and she got to her main worry. “That man said I was a bad mother. Will they try to take Liam from me?”
“He said what?” Katricia asked with shock.
“I said no such thing.”
Allie and Katricia both turned toward the door at those annoyed words. Lucian was leading the men into the room, a scowl on his face as he approached. “I said he is not your biological child and that you obviously have no idea how to raise him if you’ve been allowing him to feed off of you.”
“Oh, Uncle Lucian,” Katricia said with an exasperated sigh. “It is no wonder Allie pulled the hairspray on you. What were you thinking saying something like that?”
“The truth,” he growled, walking past them to open the fridge. “She needs to be educated in our people, our abilities, and our laws to be an effective mother to Liam or she could unintentionally raise him to be rogue. And no one wants that.”
Allie felt some of the fear unclench from around her heart at those words. He didn’t think Liam should be taken from her, but that she should learn more to raise him properly. She couldn’t disagree with that. There were books on raising mortal children, but nothing out there about special children like Liam. All she’d had to go on were movies and fictional books, none of which had said vampires could eat, and yet Liam ate food. She’d fed him a solid diet of blood as a baby, until the first time he’d grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes off her plate, stuffed it in his mouth, and made happy sounds as he ate it. She’d been terrified he’d just throw it back up, that his system wouldn’t take the food, but when he’d kept it down she’d started offering him baby food in the hopes that he’d need less blood if he ate. She’d also kept him out of the sun for fear he’d burst into flame. What else was she doing wrong?
Allie’s thoughts were replaced by shock when Lucian turned from the refrigerator with a bag of blood in hand that he abruptly swung up and slapped his own face with. At least, that’s what it looked like he was doing, self-flagellation with a blood bag. But he didn’t then lower it or slap himself again. Instead, the bag stayed at his mouth, covering part of his face . . . and then she realized it was starting to shrink like he’d attached it to a vacuum hose.