Chapter 2
A scream ripped through the predawn hours as the coven in attendance awaited the impending birth. Some of the sisters assisted Marceline, as she did everything in her power to save her beloved granddaughter from the curse that had been rained down upon her.
Adrienne had always been a quiet child, an unassuming child, who preferred to commune with the animals, the ill, and those who could not do for themselves, rather than embrace the magics racing through her veins. She’d always shied away from tapping into the magics, that had she cared to open herself to them, would have made her one of the strongest in the LaCelle line. She preferred instead to live a life of what some would call service. After years of prodding, and encouraging, Marceline had given up and allowed Adrienne’s sweet spirit to wander free, helping others as her nature pulled her to do. Adrienne never used her magic for anything more than an extra boost of healing energy, or to speak to the wild creatures she encountered. Yet, here she was, fighting for her survival, lying in a bed struggling to give birth to a babe, the nature of whom no one could venture a guess.
The babe’s father was the most virulent of the cursed. He was the most violent, the most merciless, the most feared. He’d resented Marceline for almost 70 years, and his vengeance had finally taken hold. He’d inflicted his hatred on the kindest among them. He’d targeted Adrienne.
Another scream and desperate panting filled the subdued silence of the ornate mansion on St. Charles Avenue. The women gathered outside the bedroom door, holding hands and closing their eyes as they lifted their faces to heaven, calling on healing energies, hoping the peace they called for would surround Adrienne and calm her during her labor.
Marceline grasped Adrienne’s hand, calling her name forcefully. “Adrienne! Adrienne!! Look at me!”
Adrienne, drenched in sweat, her body writhing in pain, struggling to take every breath she was able to feebly gasp, slowly turned her head toward Marceline. Her eyes glowed red, the small tips of fangs pressed into her lips where she’d bitten down so hard, tiny twin trails of blood spilled over her bottom lip and ran down her chin.
Marceline reached out with her other hand, smoothing away the dampened hair still sticking to Adrienne’s forehead. “Focus, my darling. Focus. This morning your child will be born. He will be born to love. We will raise him in love. No matter how he presents, he will always adore his mother. You have given him life. He will know you. He will love you. Breathe deep, try to relax and let nature take its course. You are not alone.”
Adrienne seemed to comprehend the words Marceline spoke to her. She took a deep, but shaky breath. Then her eyes moved to wander over the windows in the room, the dawn just beginning to break, a faint hint of deep pink and purple hues outlining the never-ending, relentless rain clouds. “Alastair,” she whispered.
“No! There will be no demon welcomed among us. He will not return. He will not meet your babe. He will not poison what is left of your life.”
A tiny hunger, a need Adrienne couldn’t quite put a name to, began to gnaw at her soul. As the rain thankfully began to slack, a lighter hue of deep pink could be seen on the far horizon mixed between the swirling, circling bands of storm clouds. A sliver of fear at the lightening skies tingled in the back of her mind. But it was nothing compared to the growing hunger deep within, and the knowledge that without Alastair, her mate — her nightmare, she would have to feed herself or die.
A sudden bunching of all her muscles clamped down, stealing her breath, stealing her heartbeat. She squeezed her grandmama’s hand to the point of stopping circulation. The pressure was immeasurable. The pain surely a foretelling of death following on its heels, and all the while Marceline screamed at her to push. “Push, Adrienne! Push harder!”
Adrienne pushed, trying to expel the pain right out of her body. Finally with a tearing of flesh and final scream of resignation on the air, the babe was brought into the world without a sound of her own. Her eyes wide, her lips pressed tightly together as she looked around the room and at all the women who took her one after the other and looked down into her tiny, heart-shaped face. Each whispered a few words of protection over her before handing her to the next coven-sister, until finally she was handed to Marceline.
Marceline looked down into the infant’s face. Relief showed on her own face as she took a deep breath, swaddling the infant in a soft, warm blanket. She offered the child to Adrienne, who looked at the baby girl, then turned her head away disinterestedly.
“Her eyes are blue, Adrienne. She is not like him,” Marceline said softly, trying to hand the baby to its mother.
Adrienne continued to stare out of the window, looking away from the baby she’d just given life to. Praying for the dawn to come take her away.
Marceline brought the child closer to her chest and followed Adrienne’s line of sight. The dawn would be here soon. “Marguerite, be sure that the windows are completely covered. Not a sliver of sunlight can enter this room.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand,” Marguerite answered, leaving the room to get the things she needed to block out the windows and prevent the sun from possibly burning Adrienne, or worse.
Marceline looked down on the baby once more. She softly brushed her forefinger against the newborn’s cheek. “What shall we call you, little one?” Marceline asked, looking down at the baby that looked back at her, so extremely alert, but had yet to utter a cry. She was too alert, too quiet to be completely human, yet, there was a familiarity about her. She was very much like Adrienne’s mother, Marceline’s daughter, Callista, who’d been lost many years before.
Callista too had come into the world wide-eyed and solemn.
“Adrienne, what shall we call your daughter?” Marceline asked.
Adrienne didn’t answer. She was still staring out of the window, praying for the sun to take her before Marguerite even made it back with whatever she planned to blacken the window with.
Marceline walked around her bed to stand directly in her view, turning the baby so that Adrienne would have to see her.
For a moment Adrienne’s eyes fell on the tiny, helpless, beautiful child staring back at her. The tiny hunger inside her gnawed at her gut again, and she closed her eyes just as a single blood red tear fell from her lashes and ran down her face. What remained of her heart shattered in her chest, and she turned away from the child as she shook her head. She could not be trusted with her own daughter. The evil inside her whispered she’d be an easy target to satisfy the hunger clawing at her insides. She knew her grandmother would care for the child, just as she knew if the child was left with her, she’d drain her of all the blood in her tiny, brand-new body.
Marceline brought the baby into her chest once more, cradling the tiny girl and patting her back as she snuggled into her. “It’s alright, Adrienne. Sometimes these things take time. Rest, my darling. You will feel more like yourself after you’ve rested and had some time to make sense of things.”
Marceline walked back around to the opposite side of the bed to make room for Marguerite and the other sisters she’d enlisted to help her blacken the windows. She took a seat at Adrienne’s bedside as she watched the girls working. She looked down at Adrienne again and saw that she’d turned over, to face away from them and toward the window. “Do not forget, Adrienne, blessings are born even out of tragedy and suffering. We may not always know the whys of it, but after the darkest days the sun will shine again.”