Blood Infernal

AND THEN…

Peace, at last…

As the sun rested low on the horizon, Erin stepped into the redwood gazebo and breathed in the delicate scent of the cottage roses that climbed the surrounding trellises. She sat on a bench and leaned back.

Nearby, children’s laughter drifted across the lawn. They were playing a complicated game of tag in their rented tuxedos and fancy dresses, and more than one of them sported grass stains and scraped knees. Adults stood behind them in their own formal dress, sipping champagne and making small talk.

She liked them all, even loved some of them, but mingling among them was overwhelming. She only wanted to mingle with one person right now.

As if he had read her thoughts, a familiar figure slipped through the gazebo’s entrance. He had followed her, as she had hoped he would.

“Room for one more?” Jordan asked.

“Always,” she answered.

His wheat-blond hair had grown out in the past months from its military buzz. The longer locks gave him a more relaxed, less militaristic air, especially in his current uniform of a charcoal-gray tuxedo. His eyes hadn’t changed — still bright blue with a darker ring around the iris. He leaned against the post at the threshold and smiled at her. Love and contentment shone from him.

She answered with a smile of her own.

“You are looking mighty fine, Mrs. Granger-Stone,” he said.

“You, too, Mr. Granger-Stone,” she told him.

Only an hour ago, she had taken on his name, and he hers, in front of his family and her friends, making vows under the blue sky.

Till death do us part.

After everything that had happened to them, those words held extra meaning. Jordan had proposed to her after they returned to Rome, and she had accepted instantly.

Time was too precious to lose even another second.

She touched the healing wound on her neck. She’d chosen a high-necked wedding dress to cover the pink scar, but it still peeked out the top. Her wound barely hurt now, but every day when she looked in the mirror she saw it, and remembered that she had died and come back to life, knowing how close she had come to losing her future with Jordan.

Jordan gently took her hand away from her neck and held it between his palms. His skin felt warm and natural. Even his tattoo had shrunk back to its original size. He was every bit the handsome and kind man she had met in the desert of Masada, before the Sanguinists had taken over their lives.

They had their own lives now.

Together.

Jordan took a deep breath and sat down next to her. “Big changes coming up. You and me working in the jungle — you digging up artifacts, me in glasses studying to be a forensic anthropologist. No battles, no monsters. Think you’ll be happy with that?”

“More than happy. Ecstatic.”

Through contacts at the Vatican, she had landed a plum job leading a dig in South America, where she would fight to reclaim history from the jungle, to tease out its secrets, and preserve it for future generations. It would be tough work, but one that had nothing to do with saints and angels. Her life was her own now — her own to share with her new husband.

Jordan had received an honorable discharge from the military and had applied for a program to study forensic anthropology alongside her. He was ready to investigate ancient crimes instead of modern ones. He wanted to come in after the blood was long gone, when mysteries were intellectual puzzles and not emotional ones.

Such a life offered them a future together.

And not just for the two of them.

Jordan kissed her palm, his lips lingering there, sending a warm tingle up her arm. She buried her hands in his blond hair and pulled his lips up to hers, wanting to kiss him, to taste him, to lose herself in him. His hands slid down her back to settle on her silk-clad hips. One palm shifted to her belly.

She stared down, wondering if she was showing yet.

“Do you think your mother knows?” Erin asked.

“How could she? We didn’t even know until after we got back to the States. It’s just our secret for now.” He gently rubbed her stomach. “But I think my mom is going to figure it out in about seven months. Especially with twins.”

Erin placed her hand next to his on her belly.

Twins… a boy and a girl.

Erin relaxed in his arms, imagining a little blond boy with Jordan’s blue eyes and daredevil attitude… and an amber-eyed girl who would read everything she could get her hands on.

“I was thinking,” Jordan said. “How about the name Sophia for the girl?”

She smiled up at Jordan and kissed his lips softly. “That’s perfect.”

She happily rested in his arms, but a worry still rose in her.

Once back in the States, she had a battery of tests performed. Everything had come back normal. She had conceived when Jordan was carrying angelic blood, which raised a concern about what he might have passed on to the babies.

Or what I might have?

While pregnant, she had briefly died and carried strigoi blood.

Jordan sensed her fears and kissed her again. “Everything will be fine.”

Erin drew strength from the certainty of his voice, trusting him.

A small, insistent voice shouted from across the lawn. “It’s time to cut the cake!” That would be Olivia, Jordan’s niece, whose sweet tooth was notorious. “Hurry up, guys!”

Jordan grinned, his lips lingering over hers. “And for the boy—”

“Let me guess. You were thinking of naming him Christian.”

“No, I was actually thinking Thor. It’s very manly.”

“Thor?” Erin pushed him back and stood. “Let’s get some cake in you. See if sugar will bring you back to your senses.”

She took his hand and led him out onto the sunlight grass. They passed through the scent of spring roses and toward the sweet promise of cake — and a life together.