One Hundred Twenty-Five

Rolling over, Bram found his face buried in Izabella’s chest. Smiling to himself, he pulled her closer so that her entire body was pressed against his. “Mmm.” She moaned gently. Bram sighed, snuggling closer. It was quite a distraction to have her pressed so firmly against his body, but it felt so damn good. Breathing her in, he closed his eyes, enjoying her warmth. Honestly, he was just glad to be alive.

As he’d dropped into the shadow room, he and Gabe had been wrestling. As they tumbled over the floor, Gabe had gotten the upper-hand as Bram tumbled over himself trying to get away from his bite. Usually, a vampire couldn’t drink too much other vampire blood, and that instinct from others was usually what saved him. But during the turning, the young blood could drain a grown vampire with no repercussions, not that Bram’s blood worked like other vampires anyway. And Gabe already knew that too.

The teenager had been a wild card. Bram had never turned anyone before, but he’d been witness to it plenty of times. This was nothing like most. Gabe had gone crazy comparatively. The rage and anger in his eyes were insane. Bram had taken hit after hit, trying to reason with him. Trying to calm him in any way he could, but it was no use. When they’d smashed open a chest while fighting, Gabe had grabbed the first thing he could find. Bram had been able to fend him off for a bit, but he should have known better. Trying to stop the boy while an ancient magic weapon that needed to be hidden there, in that room of all rooms, was a bad idea.

Once he was struck, the fight was over. The wound had started to drain Bram immediately, and he’d lost every memory about what happened after leaving the shadow room.

Here he was though. Izabella sleeping beside him. Her head against his was a good sign he hoped. This would be worse if she wasn’t rested. Bram assumed she had help, but he wasn’t sure from whom she’d received it. Probably Scarlet or Eudom. He felt sick to his stomach. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep. 12 hours? A day? Maybe two?

“Are you awake?” She asked quietly.

“Your voice is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” He hugged her closer. “I thought I was a goner. All I could think about were you, Devon, and the children. How are Gabe and Jen doing?” His question was muffled, and Izabella couldn’t help but hold him closer.

Kissing his head gently, she rubbed his back, shoulders, and hair. “We’ve waited so long for you to wake up. I’m so sorry. All the kids are fine. Rose… she um…”

“No,” He shook his head against her bosom, “you don’t need to tell me. I already know.” He curled deeper into her arms. He wasn’t sure when it happened, but it did. He started crying. His emotions were overwhelming. He blamed it on the fight and the healing he underwent. Sometimes it made him extra emotional. He knew she was theirs. When Eudom had told them that Devon was his and Izabella’s, their eyes had flicked to the side.

At least it all made sense now. A gentle knock at the door pulled their attention away from each other. “Yes?” Bram called out and the door burst open. Gavin scowled as Tyler broke through, tears in his eyes.

“You’re okay!” He called, wrapping his arms around Bram’s shoulders, straddling them both.

Bram chuckled, clapping Tyler on the shoulder. “I am. It’s good to see you too.”

As a grim looking Gavin stepped in the room, it hit Bram that he was going to be the barer of bad news. “We were able to get Gabe out of the shadow room and help you. That’s our win right now. However, we put him in the bar. It’s been nearly a week and a half in total since you’ sleeping. When I went to check on Jen and Gabe tonight, they’d escaped.”

“How?” Bram looked over Tyler’s shoulder in horror.

“They burned the building down. I’m assuming Jen ran when she realized what was happening and is now following Gabe. I do have them on radar. He’s definitely on the run and she’s absolutely following him.” Gabe stopped inside the room. “Don’t worry about it though. We’re going to follow them. Hopefully be able to make sure everything else is okay. We can’t promise we won’t need to call. But I can promise to try not to. Not that you should have to worry about it, but the insurance is already being handled as well, in case anyone calls or asks. I will, of course, send you any paperwork that may need your specific handling.”

“What am I going to do without you?” Bram frowned.

“What are you talking about? I don’t plan on shirking my job. It’ll change, as I will only be able to oversee that which I do remotely, but we never really saw each other face to face before a few weeks ago.” Gavin laughed. It hadn’t taken long for the two of them to grow on each other. “I also changed all of your flight information. You guys can still go to Bran castle. Everything was placed on hold until next week. If you decide you don’t want to, I can always just call and cancel.”

Leaning against the wall, Tyler was finally wiping his cheeks free of tears. “I’m not that worried about it right now.” Bram sighed. His entire body still hurt. He struggled to sit up, and Izabella tried to help him. “I’m more worried about Gabe and Jen. Can Eudom help us with them?”

“No.” Gavin shook his head. “All we can do right now is follow them. I know Eudom started calling him a monster, and I’m sure there’s a reason for it, but as of right now, he’s not acting like more than a new blood. Jen has been able to restrain herself, so between the two of them, they aren’t anything we haven’t had to deal with. I just spent the last hour packing up everything for Tyler and I. We’ll be leaving soon to start following them. For now, I think we’re going to keep our distance and try to contact Jen first to get information from her if we can. But I’d rather keep a close eye on them for a while. I don’t want to take the chance that anything bad could happen.”

Bram sighed, and nodded. “And there’s nothing you need me to do?” Bram looked up at him, eyeing Tyler a moment. It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t nervous for the two of them to leave. They’d been together for so long, this was going to be a huge change.

“I’m just hoping I can chase them far enough out into the country that we’ll be able to stay under the radar longer. What we don’t want is for others to realize that he’s yours. Were you unable to command him?” Gavin asked. Tyler removed himself from the bed, sitting in the little red chair in the corner. Gavin sunk onto his lap once he settled down.

Shaking his head, Bram winced as he went to run his hand through his hair, a pain in his side pinched. “That’s right. No matter what I said, it didn’t matter. He was uncontrollable. Maybe a few days to cool off was enough?”

Gavin frowned, shaking his head. “You didn’t see the building. They fought that fire for hours. Even the buildings beside it were destroyed. He used his blue flame to escape. I don’t think he’s just another vampire. I believe Eudom has reason to feel nervous around him. They have always been honest with us, there’s no reason to believe they’re not being now.”

“Yes,” Bram agreed, “That’s not what I meant. Just… I was hopeful that maybe time was enough.”

Gavin made an uncomfortable face, glancing around the room. “He doesn’t know for sure.” This got him a confused look from Bram. “Well, according to Eudom, we’re in a timeline that’s never happened before. We never save you. You usually die. So, Eudom knows we’ve not been here before. This is all new to him. I do have to ask you to keep a close eye on them. They’ve been having a hard time with the change. They’re not used to not knowing. They’ve been off, though. Perhaps just worried about you or Gabe, I’m not sure.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him, I promise.” Izabella nodded, rubbing Bram’s back. As she reached up to the back of his neck, his head fell, eyes closing. “He’s just barely woken up. I think he needs more rest.” She said to the room at large.

Bram shook his head though, “There’s too much going on, I just—”

“No.” She said sternly. “I’m not going to let you out of the bed. You will rest. I’ll have the children attack you, or Eudom can let you rest in the shadow room instead.” Her eyes were set with resolve which made Bram blush. Both the kids and Eudom would listen to her over him.

“Oh? Am I a prisoner now?” One of his thick black eyebrows cock up in question.

As her fingers grazed his jawline, he realized he’d already lost this fight. “If that’s how you want to see it, then fine. You’re my prisoner, at least until you’re healthy. I’ll let you know when you can start involving yourself again. We’re going to go stay with your parents. I think it’s the safest place for us to be once Gavin and Tyler go after Gabe and Jen. I’m not going to risk other vampires coming for us or the church.”

“Are we still in their sights?” He asked, concern crowding his features. “I guess that makes sense though. We did burn down their safe house.” His shoulders lowered, he could feel the weight of the world on them. This was why he’d never wanted to get into the politics between the vampires and church. Everyone became an enemy.

“I also might have, kinda, kidnapped Father Tom.” Izabella blushed, looking away.

“Huh…” Bram paused, looking over at Izabella. “Excuse me?” Worry and fear tightened his features as he looked up at her.

“That sounded worse than it really is.” Izabella coughed. “He agreed to come with me. We wouldn’t have saved you without his help. He’s sleeping in our spare room right now.”

“We have a spare room?” Bram covered his face.

“Well, Gabe’s room.” She shrugged. “He’s not ready to go back to the church. I think he wants to see if Eudom will show him the shadow room. If they do, it’s going to be hard to let him go back to the church with this information. The last thing we need is to put a target on our backs. As more people realize that we have access to that room, more people will come for us. We need to be careful.” She stretched beside him, and even now, despite their heavy conversation, his eyes followed the curve of her body. She was intoxicating. Suddenly, all he could think about was pulling her to him and making sweet love to her.

There was a small knock on the door. Once they were called in, the room filled with excited children all jumping up and down excited to see their mom and dad.