We came back down the stairs just as the final rays of sunlight were calling it quits for the evening. Teren led me to the kitchen, where all the women were talking around the table. They all stopped and looked over at us the second our feet entered the room.
Halina smiled at me eerily. “Good evening, Emma. Did you enjoy the…sunshine today?”
I swallowed and made myself smile at her. “Yes, very much.” I turned my head to Alanna. “Your home is very beautiful.”
She smiled warmly and took my hand from Teren’s. Her much cooler hand led me to the chair I’d used last night. “Have a seat. Everything is ready.” She pulled out the chair, plopped me into it, and tucked me under the table effortlessly. Teren sat beside me and rested his hand on my thigh. Jack entered from the kitchen, licking his fingers, and Alanna smacked him on the shoulder, making an affronted noise.
“Jacob Nathaniel Adams! You better not have been sampling that cake. That is dessert.” She smacked him again on the shoulder, as he grinned and kissed her cheek. I tried to make the mental image of a vampire baking a cake, but I just couldn’t quite get there.
“I would never…” He gave her a wounded look and then grinned again, “…but if I had, it was wonderful, dear.”
She shook her head with a soft smile on her lips and Teren chuckled beside me. Jack kissed her again on the cheek and she flitted into the kitchen. He took his seat at the head of the table and Imogen and Halina sat in their respective seats. Halina and Imogen talked in whispers while Imogen kept flicking glances at me. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Teren beside me was frowning and staring at the table in front of him…and I swear he was blushing slightly. Curious, I tried to listen harder. Focusing more on listening to their quiet conversation than being courteous, I was staring blatantly at them. I stopped the moment Halina met my gaze. She looked very displeased. I thought I heard a low growl escape her throat…but maybe I was just hearing things.
Alanna broke the tension in the room as she flitted in with the fresh fish the boys had caught earlier. She brought in large bowls of a cold pasta dish and a veggie-filled green salad. Everything looked cool and refreshing and wonderful. She set a glass of red wine in front of Jack and me and gave us glasses of water as well. She heaped up plates for the humans and then brought out the obligatory carafe of blood for the vamps in the room. I immediately dug into my food and ignored what Teren and the women were doing. In my head I kept repeating – ‘it’s just wine, really thick, red wine’. It was a little easier to stomach that way.
When Teren finished his…thick wine, I looked over at him. I watched him smile, retract his fangs and dig into his fish. And just like that, he was a normal, human guy, enjoying food he himself had caught, quite possibly with his own hands. I smiled at him and noticing me watching, he smiled back and squeezed the hand still on my thigh.
His grandmother sighed and I looked over to her. Her fangs were out and her glass was still half-full, but she was looking at Teren and me so wistfully, that I didn’t turn away from the sight of her. “The two of you remind me of my husband.” She sighed again. “He was the sweetest man.” I smiled at her recollection, until she continued. “And dumber than a box of rocks.”
I sputtered a bit on the sip of wine I’d just taken and Gran smiled warmly at my reaction and laughed - a beautiful, rhythmic sound. “He never figured out what I was, and he never asked for an explanation. He thought I never showed my age because I had good genes, and I never ate because I watched my girlish figure.” She sighed again, as her wistful look returned. “He never asked about the teeth. He never asked about the blood. Maybe he was smarter than I give him credit for. Maybe he just loved me for me, and it just never mattered to him.”
"What happened to him?” I asked hesitantly.
Imogen smiled sadly and Halina, in a show of affection that I had yet to see, placed her hand around her daughter’s shoulders. “He got real sick, not long before Teren was born. He didn’t make it…”
Imogen dabbed at her eyes with a napkin and my heart squeezed painfully for her. Suddenly, I wasn’t seeing a vampire with a red tongue and sharp fangs. I was seeing a human woman still in mourning over the loss of the man she had loved deeply. It was a heartbreaking realisation, that she would mourn him much longer than the average human would mourn their spouse…quite possibly forever, I wasn’t sure.
”I’m so sorry, Imogen… Gran.”
Collecting herself, she patted Alanna’s knee. “Well, he gave me my daughter…before it was too late.” She said the last part oddly, and gave Teren a look that definitely meant something. He shifted in his seat and it seemed like he was stifling a sigh.
“Teren…” she said in a nearly pleading voice.
Teren’s face got tense and he said something to her in a language I didn’t recognise. Whatever he was saying, sounded a little heated, and I could only gape at him, both for his tone to the sweet woman across from us, and for the fact that he was clearly fluent in another language.
She spoke back in the same language, her tone nearly matching his. Halina twisted her lips and nodded at whatever Imogen had said. Teren looked about to stand and shout something at the two of them, when Alanna silenced the room.
"Enough!” She looked at Imogen and Halina and then over to Teren. Jack continued to eat his fish, ignoring what was most definitely an argument. “Emma is a guest and you are all being rude.” She looked across the table at her husband. “Jack, how is the fish, dear?”
He smiled at his wife. “It’s perfect as always, love.”
They gazed at each other adoringly and feeling the tension slipping from the room (and wanting to change whatever the subject of the fight had been, which, I was getting the feeling was me), I asked Jack, “How long have the two of you been married?”
He tilted his graying head and looked up at the ceiling. “Well, it’s got to be over 26 years?” He looked back down at his wife quizzically.
She smiled. “27 years, 3 months, 22 days and 42 minutes.”
He laughed and shook his head before turning to me. “As you can see, they retain things a bit better than us humans…especially as we age.” He tapped his head and the entire table laughed, like this was really funny. I found myself laughing as well.