It had been a few hours since I, Mimi Salvatore, alpha female and whatnot of our pack of over 40 creatures, started working, and I was utterly focused on my creation. My playlist of over 800 songs was on, and I had just fetched from the shelves my next batch of flowers. I was aiming for a more pricey arrangement this time, actually, a very pricey one, having already completed some less expensive ones.
Charles and others had developed a comprehensive system for me to log what I used, my time, and the flowers I incorporated into my arrangements. I had to scan barcodes, record the number of stems for each flower type, and note the start and end times of my work.
Each bouquet or arrangement then received a small printed note, allowing Charles or Salvatore to price my creations accordingly. The pricing was no longer my responsibility, and since the system was very reasonable, I saw no need to try to devise a better one.
I was opening a large bunch of long-stemmed roses. As mentioned, this was going to be expensive, but then again, as May had told me a few weeks prior, I had created a huge arrangement that ended up with a price tag of almost $300. That had been the first one sold, bought by a man wanting to propose to his girlfriend.
Because of this success, Charles had advised me to continue creating expensive arrangements; $500 wouldn't be too much. This was especially true given our proximity to Canada, which always brought in visitors. Furthermore, people frequently came to check out our store and farm.
Additionally, many spent time in Warroad, which had acquired some nice cottages. Since it was autumn, people were keen to hunt, enjoy their last moments by the lakeside, and pick berries and mushrooms.
A soft coo brought a smile to my face as Jesse, my son, currently strapped to me with just a simple scarf contraption, tried to taste my dress or grab my hair. He was the loudest and most demanding of my babies, so I had him with me since he had once again been fussy and loud. Being strapped in made him happy, and he truly was a cuddlebug.
"Yeah, see, this one will be a bit like a rainbow, but not all of it. We'll start with white, orange, and pink and red, and then we'll make this kind of a big spiral with lots of green in between," I muttered to myself, or perhaps to my son.
I was cleaning my roses, humming and talking to myself, not paying much attention, so I was surprised when the door opened, and Damon walked in. Frankly, I had been pretty sure he would end up with Mariella, but his expression was a bit frustrated yet sheepish as he walked in, as if seeking something.
Jesse was cooing at me, grabbing my dress and trying to eat it, despite their mealtime being another 90 minutes away, as I glanced at the clock on the wall. But he was awake and curious, so I kept him strapped facing me; otherwise, he would try to eat my flowers and whatnot.
Damon walked near and said softly, "Oh my god, he's grown. Is this..."
"Jesse, my troublemaker. He's a bit like you: impatient, loud, and likes to make a ruckus," I replied.
Damon smiled slightly at my words and said, "We need to talk sometime, but what is it you're wearing? Is that dress one of the designer items, too? I mean, it looks good, but he's trying to devour it."
I nodded and said, "It is, and he wants to taste everything. Their mealtime isn't for another 90 minutes, so not just yet. What are you doing here? I assumed you were in the kitchen."
Damon moved closer, sitting next to me. He stroked Jesse's cheek, causing him to turn and babble at Damon eagerly.
"We had a fight, 'ella and I," Damon explained. "I just came to check on you."
He then shut down my playlist and sat on one of the chairs, looking bewildered. It was indeed ultrarare for him and Mariella to argue.
"What set her off, or you?" I asked.
Damon took a breath, looked at the floor to compose himself, and began. "Well, as you know, that promise doesn't bind me, but I hadn't accounted for Mariella's promise to understand and always be on my side being null and void as well. And since she's in her terrier mood, digging up our past..." His voice trailed off.
Surprised, I interjected, "But I dressed her quite provocatively. You mean the Salvatores didn't...?"
He shook his head. "No lust virus going on. Besides, as we got deeper into checking what works with those dresses and what doesn't, we moved on to others. Mariella didn't wear a single dress for more than two hours, as there were plenty for her to try on. We quickly got an idea of what to look for, so now we can immediately tell if some dresses aren't perfect. The colors aren't determined yet, and with such a huge load of dresses, it takes time. I guess we were in a clinical or analytical mood, and since she was in her savior mode..."
I nodded. Time would tell, but I already had a few more ideas for getting Mariella into a raunchy state.
Damon continued, "Anyway, she had been digging into the Salvatores' past, all sorts of crap, and I was just woken up, you had left me and gone god knows where. Then this whole dress situation, and I was just trying to wrap my head around all of it and log what I was planning to do when she started to pester me about one old case, my experiments. She wanted to hear my motives, as those are her favorite things. So, just beware, motives are kind of her thing nowadays. I was tired and not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed. Well, the case she was pestering me about happened in the 1960s. It involved drugs, magic mushrooms, booze, and a few compounds I made myself. What I was trying to create was a kind of vampire potion, or a blood-spicing drug, meaning it would keep my meals tasty, give me a buzz, and also make blood even more potent."
As I lifted my eyes from the long-stemmed, pale yellow roses I had been preparing for my arrangement, I said, "Well, an interesting study for sure."
Damon continued, "Well, Mariella was starting to pester me about why I needed my meals drugged, why the blood needed to be tastier, what my ultimate goal was. I got tired of all those questions, so I told her, 'I want tasty meals from those who don't whimper or try to escape as I'm killing them. I want their blood, their life, and I want to get high in the process, simple as that.'"
He went on, "Then she called me a selfish monster, which I am. I told her it was high time for her to face reality and accept the facts."
Damon sighed, recalling her response, "She yelled at me, 'You know what, Damon? I'm sick and tired of being the one trying to bend over backwards and find some damn silver lining in every fucking horror story you spew out of your mouth. I'm tired of being the one who's supposed to understand and be on your side, and no more. You hear me? No more!'"
He continued, "She was truly pissed off at me. I told her, 'I don't need you to understand me or validate my actions, but you should really get your head in the game and wake the fuck up. I'm not Prince Charming, and this isn't a Disney story, no matter how much you want it to be. What the fuck has made you think I'm some noble creature, misunderstood, poor thing, and it's your freaking holy mission to try and save me?'"
"And then," Damon concluded, "I walked away, not bothering to listen to her anymore, as Charles came up to her and said something to her."
I was surprised, certainly, but then again, from my point of view, this was the first healthy thing those two had done in a long, long time.
I said calmly, "You know, make-up sex is the best. And Mariella is having difficulties because she's innocent. She truly is, and it's been one thing that has made her the weirdest one of us."
Damon just looked at me and said, "Yeah, make-up sex is the best, but Mariella's innocent? She's killed, you know."
I responded, "I don't even know who my first kill was. I mean, I was human back then, and I was imprisoned in that damn place, and I have no idea where it was. But I fought. I attacked. I bit, scratched, hit, even used IV lines to wrap around something and pull really hard, whether it was an arm or a neck, I have no idea. So there was blood, screams, my rage, and to this day, I have no idea how many I killed before I became supernatural." My voice was calm, cool, as I continued.
"After Adam rescued me, I killed some more as I was captured. My point is that despite Mariella having killed here and there and being part of the fleas, she has only been captive less than five times. Aftermath has been dealt with, and she has been cared for. Me, not so much, and neither have you, Adam, or Charles. Most of our pack has had a much rougher life than Mariella, and yet she is innocent. She still tries to see the good in life; she is a savior and has been a princess."
Damon nodded and said, "You are right, as usual. She is innocent, and it's hard for her to face the reality of what we've done and why. So far, she's had to deal mostly with her emotions and what I've given her, but the truth is that's ugly."
I nodded. Jesse, unaware of what I was actually talking about, was cooing, blowing raspberries, giggling, and grabbing my dress even more eagerly now that he was awake and alert.
Damon said to me, "Give him to me. I can take him upstairs and entertain him. No need for him to eat that beautiful dress. By the way, you too should change your clothes. That one is perfect for you as well as for a few other girls; it's not meant for everyday use."
I just rolled my eyes and said, "Clothes are meant for wearing. This is nice, and besides, I have only panties under this."
Damon smiled heatedly, "Oh, you are seducing me, right? Are you that insatiable, baby? Really, give Jesse to me. And what's with that wrapping thingy? I thought we had carriers to use."
I said, "I like to use scarves from time to time. They're less bulky and more comfortable. It's not hard to learn how to use them."
I remained quiet and didn't engage with his seductive angle.
I almost talked out loud as I said, "You see, with Mariella, she is so unyielding. She has this innocence, and it gives her a certain stubbornness where she thinks about how she wants things to be. When reality clashes with it, she gets messed up, like now. Her expectations of you hit a brick wall."
Damon shook his head and said, "And you, my baby, you see right through how things are. You really get it, much more than she does. I think it's because you see my flaws as well."
I shrugged, and a memory surfaced.
"Maybe," I said. "Or perhaps I've simply seen so much that nothing fazes me anymore. But in the past, there were times – times I've never shared with anyone, not even Jake or Rob – that taught me valuable lessons about humanity and how the mind works. Let me tell you about Agnes. I'm not sure if it's helpful, but she just came to mind."
I placed the roses I was cleaning back on the table and sat down. Stroking Jesse's dark hair as he continued to nibble at me, I offered him a pacifier. He took it eagerly, calming down a bit.
"Agnes was a patient when I was studying to be a doctor," I began. "Of course, we rotated through different specialized wards, trying everything. That's when I met Agnes, in the oncology palliative ward. She had stage four liver cancer with bowel infiltration and all sorts of complications. She was about eighty years old and dying."
My voice grew quiet. I could still recall the first time I saw her, and the last. She had left a mark on me, or perhaps the lesson she gave me was particularly important.
Damon looked at me. "Nasty case," he remarked. "Was she sedated, drugged? She must have been in pain."
I shook my head. "She was, but not drugged. She was nasty with her mouth. She had lived alone for much of her life, done nothing special, just another human milling around, and her story was ending. And she was angry. Usually, everyone assumes the elderly have accepted death, that they almost welcome it. But she showed me that it was just a fabrication the media liked to publish. No one, not the old or the young, truly wants to die. It's a horrible feeling to realize your body is failing. Each time you fall asleep, you wonder if it's the last time, if you'll wake up again. It's scary, awful, and nobody wants it."
Damon nodded. "Well, I don't have much direct experience in oncology wards, as I received my papers long before cancer research really took off. But yes, dying isn't fun."
"In that ward," I continued, "with so many dying patients in pain, most of them were heavily medicated, or wallowing in self-pity. And the nurses, well, they seemed to want those patients to behave in a certain way. So, they pampered them, made sure they were as comfortable as possible, and were exceedingly kind to them – perfect caregivers."
Damon interjected, "But they weren't kind to Agnes, right? She was the anomaly."
I nodded and replied, "She cursed and swore, never lamenting in a weak voice or accepting the nurses' offers of medication. She wasn't the typically weak patient, so the nurses interacted with her minimally, doing only what was necessary and nothing more. The first time I saw her, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, thin, pale, with an angry sneer on her face. She told me, 'Don't bother offering me chemicals; I'm not going to let you mush my brain.' The nurses whispered all sorts of things about her to me, but I dismissed them. As you know, I understand what it's like to be weak and unable to function, so I kind of understood her."
Damon nodded and said to me, "Give me Jesse. I want to hold him. He's grown so much."
I rolled my eyes and gently, slowly extracted my boy from the sling I'd conjured from this scarf, handing him to Damon. He cooed and crooned to him as Jesse, pacifier in his mouth, looked at him with wide, aquamarine blue eyes, unsure whether to wail or laugh.
I told Damon, "I was in that ward for two weeks, Agnes died the very last day I was there, and it was her 45th day. It took Agnes twelve hours to die, and she was awake until her very last breath, still angry as ever, never giving up. Those nurses were actually relieved when she died. She once told me she hated the terms 'cancer warrior' or 'survivor' because, from her perspective, they painted those who got lucky as heroes who overcame an enemy. However, she believed it was purely biology and a lot of luck that determined who survived and who didn't. She had been diagnosed five years earlier; her cancer was only in her liver then. But since she was obese, had poor insurance, and no suitable relatives, she couldn't get a liver transplant. The inevitable was clear as tests showed it was an aggressive, fast-spreading, nasty strain resistant to usual chemo, leading to a slow, agonizing death, which it truly was."
Damon fell silent, and then his voice was almost angry, "You mean she could have survived with a liver transplant or different chemo, but because of money..."
I nodded, and then I said, "It was a bit similar to my sister, though not entirely. By the time her cancer was discovered, it had already spread to her omentum. She underwent chemotherapy, as much as they could administer, and for a few months, it seemed to have disappeared. However, there was no surgery, not at any point. Then it returned, and the chemotherapy was too mild..."
My voice trailed off. It had happened so long ago, yet my memory allowed me to recall every detail. Was it a blessing or a curse? Damon remained silent, having only caught a few glimpses of my life back then, before I had tucked my past away in a place so secure that not even Wulfe could access it. Yet, I could feel him digging, tracing, and refusing to give up. The same persistence came from Damon and several other Salvatores, whose telepathy buzzed in my mind like a swarm of flies.
Damon then said, "Well, perhaps someday you'll show me a bit more about what you were like as a human. Life isn't perfect, and I'm sure it never will be, but then again, that's what makes it worth living."
I nodded, and as another random thought surfaced, I wondered if I was trying to create a distraction. "Do you want to know why I'm so close with the other Salvatores? What the secret is, and how I know them better than Mariella?"
Damon lifted his gaze from Jesse, who had decided his father's t-shirt was a suitable snack. "Yeah, tell me. I suppose they're perfect for you, and I'm not."
I replied, "Don't think like Mariella; this is actually a rather simple, cruel reason. I'm healing and helping them. I give them something Mariella can't."
Damon nodded, attempting to hush Jesse, who was babbling and trying to locate his dropped pacifier.
My voice was calm as I continued, "Do you have any idea what it feels like to spend hours fucking with a woman, giving it your all, as she is quite insatiable, making you into a shuddering mess, and then, as she leaves the room, she declares how jealous she is because someone else was with the man she truly wants? Real-life rendering of Gone with the Wind, where Scarlett can't give up her quest to get Ashley Wilkes, leaving Rhett high and dry. This is precisely how the other Salvatores feel when you're with me, and she gets jealous. She throws it in their faces, and it has inflicted some pretty deep wounds on them. I am healing them, loving them, accepting them, and I will never, ever do anything like that."
Damon took a breath, and to my surprise, a glint appeared in his eyes, indicating that I had just handed him a rather potent weapon against Mariella.
Damon's demeanor shifted, becoming decidedly predatory as he spoke to me. "Thanks, babe," he said, his voice a low purr. "You've just given me a whole new way of seeing things. You see, during this time, as Mariella was analyzing me, she made me dig into my motives. I've been questioning what I'm jealous of: am I jealous of others having you, or am I jealous for you, wanting you to have something I thought belonged to me? Or perhaps, I'm jealous because you have them, and I do not."
He continued, "Just as Mariella has done similar pondering about her motives and her jealousy, she too was trying to clarify in her mind what she truly wanted – those men, you, or something else entirely. But now, I see I have some work to do with the Salvatores. I need to unite them and help them heal. And remember, there are ten ladies in this pack, not just you and Mariella. Those eight minxes are quite sly, and they're using five, not the Salvatores."
With that, Damon turned his attention to a small bundle of energy. "Now, I'm going to take this little gentleman who's trying to eat my shirt and see if he's hungry for anything else. I'll tell you when to come eat, and I'd suggest you come and not say a word soon." His voice was firm, his eyes glinting with determination and cruelty, though his gaze wasn't directed at me, but at Mariella.
As he got up and cooed to Jesse, his six-month-old son, who was as active as ever, Damon left the room. I stood there, uncertain of what this would mean for the pack, but knowing I would soon find out. I turned my playlist back on, returning to my creations, my mind churning with recipes, crafts, and all things good.
I felt my soulmate, my other half, Wulfe, as if he were a hound dog in my mind, sniffing out and digging up anything and everything nasty. As he'd said, he was determined to rid my past of as much shit as possible, and he was even more stubborn than I was. But this, I realized, was love. As Bryan Adams' sweet words of "Heaven" filled the air with the fragrance of roses, my work swept me away.