Promises to Keep - By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page 0,66
was beautiful.
Jay barely managed not to laugh out loud as Brina’s idle thought reached him: So provincial, so traditional. Nothing original. Beautiful dress, but portraits of brides in their beautiful dresses are a dime a dozen.
Her mind went back to wandering more interesting paths. In the last days, Brina had not regained her vampirism. Jay knew she had considered contacting Kaleo, the one who had changed her nearly four hundred years ago, though she had not spoken of it out loud. She hadn’t decided what she planned to do. At Jay’s prompting, she had called Nikolas and officially given him permission to take charge of all her “property,” to do with as he saw fit. SingleEarth had accepted several of the slaves into their psychiatric rehabilitation program.
She was getting used to taking care of herself, and being independent, just as she was getting used to her heartbeat, and her breath.
Jay was getting used to her primal, childlike joy. They had taken a break from painting once when Brina had needed fresh air, and she had followed him, running through the forest, delighted by the falling dust of snow. With Lynx by their side, they had leapt, tumbled into snowbanks, and reveled in the crispness of nature.
Jay fervently hoped she didn’t choose to become a vampire again.
Especially since he was pretty sure she had the makings of a powerful witch.
It had taken Jay’s kind many millennia to develop their powers into what they were these days—the Vidas with their ability to manipulate raw power, the Smoke line’s ability to heal, and all the other specialties Jay knew only a little of. Now they were all back at the beginning again. None of them knew what they were or who they might be in coming generations.
Jeremy and Caryn—would they be the parents of a new line of witches? Or of something else entirely? For that matter, what might Jay’s children be, if he chose to have children?
At that moment, all that mattered was the way the crystals on Caryn’s gown sparkled in the light, wreathing her in rainbows. It wasn’t a strange new power that gave her such a glow—no, it was love, and hope, and relief, and joy.
She smiled up at her husband-to-be with absolutely no concern about what Jeremy might be or might become. It didn’t matter to her. She knew who he was. Who cared what he was?
His parents cared, more than a little. A few people in the audience were simmering with resentment and built-up anger that Jay suspected might lead to a fistfight in the lobby during the reception.
Jay tried to come up with a plan to defuse the potential mayhem. After all, Jeremy had given him this job because he had unique talents that were supposed to help him avoid bloodshed over the wedding cake.
“Do you have the rings?”
Oh—and that!
Jay did have the rings. He passed them to Jeremy, and then there wasn’t much more for Jay to do except stand there and look interested while letting his mind wander across the thoughts of all those assembled.
It was amazing how few of them were thinking about the recent illness, or all the loss, or their fears of the future. All their thoughts were on this day, this moment, as Jeremy and Caryn leaned toward each other to kiss.…
Meanwhile, in a small but elite penthouse bar in New York City …
Kaleo and Theron leaned back and watched fireworks from the balcony. No disaster could keep humans down long, it seemed.
“I knew a Malinalxochitl witch once, but I never had the magic myself,” Theron commented. “The Azteka were mostly after my time. So why do I suddenly find myself doing things like this?”
He glanced at the candle flickering at the center of the table. Theron held up a hand, and the tiny ball of flame came to his palm like an obedient puppy. With a flick of his wrist he juggled it to the other hand, and then sent it back to the candle, where it flared at least three feet high before settling back to its normal and natural state.
Kaleo watched the display and shook his head. “I’m sure you will make good use of this new talent. It is more useful than some of the aberrations that have come to my attention.”
“I’ve heard the rumors, of course,” Theron said. “I’m looking into them, and trying to determine which of the wild speculations is most correct. So far, most of what I’ve heard has been barely credible,