Page 58 of The Child of Rue Royale
“I’m worried about that too. And I’m just…I’m scared to go back there. To be so close to them. My aunt Violetta has been hounding me to have a child, and since she heard I gave birth, she hasn’t called me once. She only gets updates from my mother. She doesn’t care about me.”
I grip his hand in mine as a manic thought bubbles up and races through my mind. “What if we just ran? Like we were supposed to before Franklin killed you? What if we just took off? Disappeared?”
Bastian lets go of my hand, his finger grazing Aven’s leg, looking at his son fondly. He looks back at me and shakes his head.
“No. No more running.” His eyes are stern, his hard chest slowly moving with calm breaths. “Look where running got us. If we had just come forward, if we had faced everything head on, we could have been accepted, or fought and I could’ve lived, and we wouldn’t be in this situation. We aren’t running anymore.”
“We could have been killed if we came forward,” I say, but he only shakes his head.
“No more running, Aster. I want a life with you without looking behind my back and worrying all the time. I want a full, beautiful life, and now that I’m not a vampire, I know it’s precious—so precious, and I want to collect those precious moments with you and Aven.”
His eyes are wet, glistening like crystals in the sun, and I bite my lip. I wipe a tear from the corner of his eye and think about everything he signifies in my life. I had once reconciled to a life without love, a life where I had to have a baby and sell secret potions that I hated, and slog through every day, surviving. Bastian showed me I could have so much more in this one, precious life, and that I would have to be brave, so I would be brave. For him. For Aven. For Chantal and my mother. I would be brave.
“Fine, we’ll go home,” I say, and surprisingly, it feels good to say it. I miss my home, my city, and even my mother.
Aven fusses, so I stand, patting his back and gently bouncing in his favorite way. Bastian’s warm arms surround me, bouncing with me. “This ceremony is concerning,” he whispers. “But I think going back to Pirate’s Alley is a good idea. Do you really think your grandma said something life-changing? What if it was a joke?”
“It wasn’t. I know she said something important. Because she said you would change everything. And so far, it’s absolutely true.” I look up to him, his impressive height cocooning Aven and me like he’s a hawk protecting its nest. I reach up to kiss his jaw, down his neck, nuzzling my cheek against his shoulder as we rock back and forth together.
Chantal stumbles down the hall, face weary from a fun night out, with a cynical look.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I smile with my mouth closed. “We’re going home.”
The widest grin grows across her face, and she drops to her knees. “Thank God! It’s too damn cold here, and I need my southern food back.”
I laugh, surprised she had kept that in this whole time.
“Get over here, Cousin,” Bastian says, and for a moment, it’s like the old him is back. The mischievous grin, the squint of his eye. “Come on, group hug.”
“I don’t do group hugs,” Chantal says as she stands, bewildered.
“But I do. I love group hugs,” Bastian smirks, and she can’t help but laugh. I walk over, grab her hand, and pull her into our circle. We rock together, her eyes assessing. “We’re doing the blessing ceremony?”
I only nod, and she nods back, her face serious.
“See, isn’t this nice?” Bastian says through a grin, and Chantal sways back and forth with us, trying not to smile, but I can see it under there, under that vampire-hating exterior—she’s starting to like him.
“Aven, they have us trapped,” she whispers in the baby’s ear, and Bastian winks at me, the first time he’s done that since I brought him back, and it takes my breath away. Is my sunshine boy coming back?
“Okay, Chantal,” Bastian says. “On the count of three, say, Go Team!”
Chantal breaks out of the circle, shaking her head while Bastian and I laugh.
“What kind of white picket fence nonsense…” she mutters as she takes off down the hall, but before disappearing into her room, she makes eye contact with me and says, “Ya’ll are cute.”
And that’s when I’m certain my chest has burst into sparks because we may not be the usual team, two witches and an ex-vampire, but we are all we got, and that’s plenty.
BASTIAN MAKES ARRANGEMENTS WITH CASSIUSfor us to travel in a week, giving us time to pack and ship the items we want to go back to New Orleans. We decide to keep most of the baby furniture in California so we can return if necessary. I busy myself with planning, trying to push away the reality we are all about to face. The truth will come out eventually—Aven is a boy, Bastian is back—but Mother feels like we’ll leave the blessing ceremony with important answers, and I will do as she asks, since she’s been keeping the coven happy while we’ve been gone.
Over the next week, Bastian adjusts more to life as a human, waking up in the afternoon instead of the evenings, happily taking over the night shift with Aven once I’ve fed him. I’ve woken to more of his nightmares, but he refuses to talk about them. I have also woken up to them sleeping together in the rocking chair, Aven on Bastian’s bare chest, Bastian’s head tilted in the most uncomfortable position. I think about how witches have been mostly deprived of witnessing this kind of love. The kind between a father and his child. And how wrong it is, because watching this kind of devotion is absolutely breathtaking.
I find myself turned on by everything Bastian does, the pull I have to him, constant and beating. I yearn to make up for all the time we’ve lost; I crave that treasured intimacy when I feel the closest to him.
How he puts on his T-shirt, buckles his belt, the way he brushes his teeth—for God’s sake—ignites every particle in my flesh. I’m certain that if he hadn’t been dead, I wouldn’t be feeling this way soquickly after having a baby, but good God, all I want is him on top of me, inside of me, undressing me, over and over.
I try not to think about it because the beach house is not conducive to the kind of sex I want to have—Chantal’s room is too close, and Aven sleeps in the same room as us. I tell myself that once we get back home, we can carve out time for intimacy, but I can’t get the morning on the beach out of my head. I’m not the only one that feels this way.
