Chapter 5

ROSE

Eleanor woke me up crying at eleven o’clock in the morning. Half-dazed and cursing, I rushed to her crib and picked her up, rocking her. She didn’t stop crying.

Demetrius sat up in bed, glaring at her, then at me. I could hear my children protesting in their rooms.

“Ah, crap,” I groaned, recognizing the foul smell coming from Eleanor. Demetrius suddenly looked amused.

“Hmm, this should be interesting. This never happened with our pureblood ~vampire~ children,” he breathed. I glared at him.

“If she keeps crying, she’ll wake up the whole valley.”

“If she hasn’t already done that,” he replied, grinning.

“Elizabeth will kill her!” I cried furiously. He shrugged one shoulder.

“Actually, I think she’s going to die a few deaths.” I glared at him.

“You’re really not helping.”

“I’m not going to either. Remember, I’m just here to comfort you,” he leaned back in bed, resting the back of his head in his hands. ~God, if he wasn’t so handsome.~

I continued glaring at him then turned back to my human daughter. Her face was red and soaked with tears. I moved toward the dressing table and quickly removed her clothes.

I cleaned her up with a damp towel from our bathroom. When she was clean, she stopped crying, whimpered for a little while, then just stared at me.

“What are we going to do about this?” I asked in a small voice.

“Easy, install a toilet.”

“How come I didn’t think of this?”

“Because you’re a vampire, and she’s a human, and our insides don’t work the same way.” I nodded, gulping down his words.

“Install a toilet. Could you do that?”

“I guess that I was a plumber twenty years ago. But you will have to pay me for it.” I glanced at him curiously, and he grinned.

“What?” I asked.

“You dig a room for her and her bathroom. You are a better digger than me. Like that, she doesn’t sleep in this room and drive me crazy with thirst.”

“If I’m not with her, I can’t protect her.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be able to hear if anything approaches her. Just get her out of our room.”

“Demetrius.”

“No room, no toilet. Angus could probably do it, but I don’t expect he will. Your choice.”

“I really don’t want her out of my sight.”

“I remember you saying the same thing about Aric when he was born.” I blinked at him and nodded once.

“Fine, fine. I’ll dig her a room,” Demetrius smiled.

“Good, and when she dies, we can use it for storage or something,” he concluded. I hissed at him.

“Eleanor is not going to die,” I snarled. He shrugged.

“Maybe not now, but she will, and soon. In one hundred years, she’ll be dead,” I stared at him, then turned back to Eleanor.

I wrapped another towel around her waist and between her legs, then wrapped her in another blanket. I walked back to the crib and put her in it.

“Let’s hope she sleeps through the day.”

“We’ll be lucky. She slept all night. She’s going to be up a while.”

“Well then, what am I supposed to do?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. Demetrius moved to sit by my side.

“Sleep. Let her be. You can’t be by her side every second, she’ll turn into a bratty little human, and that would only increase her risk of death,” I nodded in agreement.

I let him drag me back under the covers. He wrapped his arms around me tightly. I felt him fall asleep almost immediately.

I stayed awake listening as my children’s breathing steadied, and they were all sleeping.

Eleanor didn’t quite sleep through the whole day after that. Around one in the afternoon, she was whimpering. It was a small voice that didn’t rouse Demetrius. He was a heavy sleeper.

I didn’t go to her. Demetrius was right; I couldn’t be by her side every second. Considering how much I would have to protect her later, she’d probably get very annoyed with my presence.

At seven at night, she started crying again. My eyes flashed open, I couldn’t remember falling asleep again, but when I woke up, Demetrius wasn’t next to me.

I got up groggily, ignoring Eleanor’s cries. I could tell the twins were still asleep, but Aric wasn’t in his room. I moved around the bed and picked Eleanor up, cuddling her to my chest.

“See, the first day here wasn’t so bad, was it?” I smiled, kissing her red face. As I placed my lips to her forehead, I felt a vein thundering under my touch.

My muscles tensed, and my throat felt raw. It took all my strength to pull back. I stared at her in my arms, still crying, oblivious to the world she was living in.

“Rose! Shut that thing up!” I heard Demetrius shout from upstairs in the cathedral. I retorted with a loud hiss.

“Ignore him,” I told Eleanor, placing her on my bed as she blubbered. I pulled a pair of short black shorts on and a blood-red eighteenth-century tunic. It was the best I had for digging.

I picked Eleanor up, changed her diaper, and gave her a bottle of cow’s milk. She drank without complaint.

I marched upstairs with her in my arms. When I got into the main hall, I discovered Angus and Demetrius leaning over a large cardboard box.

“Seems that thing is more like us than I expected. It drinks instead of eats,” Angus sneered, turning around slowly. Demetrius didn’t even budge to meet me.

“Good evening. Did you sleep well?” I asked Angus pleasantly, walking past him to examine the box.

“This is the new toilet,” Demetrius told me with a hint of humor in his voice.

“My brother told me you had a bit of an emergency yesterday.” Angus looked at me smugly. I glared back. Out of everyone living in the cathedral, Angus was the one who got to me most easily.

“I bought it from the hardware store half an hour ago before they closed. It looks simple. I should get it working soon. But you have to make the bathroom first.”

Demetrius looked up at me. I nodded, remembering our agreement.

“I know. It would be nice if you watched Eleanor for me while I dig, though.”

“No, I have to feed the horses, among other things tonight. Mother left earlier to see Father. She told me you knew.”

“She mentioned it last night,” I confirmed. Demetrius nodded with a small smile.

“You’ll have to watch her and dig. I’m sure you can manage both,” Angus sneered. I whipped around, two steps away from slapping my handsome brother-in-law’s face.

“Angus, don’t you have better things to do?” Demetrius asked calmly. Angus’s eyes flashed to his younger brother. He looked annoyed.

“Better than winding up your wife?” he asked, chuckling. All signs of irritation had disappeared.

“Of course,” he hissed before leaving the room. I saw the cathedral doors slam in his wake.

“Maybe we should stop slamming those doors. Elizabeth would be furious if they shattered one day. They’re older than me,” I murmured before turning to Demetrius. He was watching me with a smile.

“What?” I demanded. His smile widened, and he shook his head.

“Nothing. Listen, I’ll be outside with the horses if you need me.”

“I know,” he leaned toward me and pecked me lightly on the lips. I closed my eyes while our lips touched. When I opened my eyes again, Demetrius was grinning at me.

“See ya.” He disappeared, slamming the door extra loudly. I pursed my lips and carried Eleanor back downstairs.

When I arrived in our family living room, the twins were hovering in front of the fire. Both had laptops on their knees.

“Mother! There are some fine boots in Italy this season,” Venus called to me as I entered.

“I believe we’ll be paying them a small visit,” Phoenix nodded to herself.

“Maybe Eleanor and I will join you,” I replied brightly. I dashed into my room and dragged the crib into the living room.

Phoenix and Venus were staring at me with expressions that clearly signaled that they didn’t want Eleanor coming anywhere near their Italian boots.

Phoenix cleared her throat. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Your father is making me dig a room for Eleanor,” I answered, placing my human daughter into her crib.

“I have to admit, I wasn’t far from ripping her neck out yesterday,” Venus warned me.

“I had to hold her back, or we wouldn’t have been able to share fairly,” Phoenix added.

“And that would have been terrible,” Venus agreed. The twins grinned at each other.

“Oh yes, how terrible,” I murmured, shooting them a disapproving look.

Digging the room was simple, something I’d learned to do when I was still living with my parents.

I chose a place in the dirt wall and cleared the floor in front of it before I stuck in a large shovel and started digging. I carried the unearthed dirt upstairs and dumped it behind the stable.

Every time I passed, I could hear Demetrius inside, cooing to the horses. Like his mother, he had always liked horses. He often visited them when he needed to calm down.

The twins didn’t kill Eleanor while I made my trips, but they didn’t care for her either. She was crying when I came down after dumping one of the last loads of dirt.

“Mother, she’d better stop crying soon,” Phoenix warned as I entered the room.

I rushed to Eleanor and lifted her up in my arms to rock her.

“Your threats are empty, girls. You wouldn’t dare. Anyway, don’t you have shoes to buy?”

The twins grinned and scampered out of the room, taking their laptops with them. I scowled after them, then put Eleanor back in her crib.

I dug a small round room, just big enough for a little girl. I added a tunnel leading up through the frozen earth to make a chimney.

Being human, she was going to need the fire burning during the night, or she’d freeze.

I dug a small space for a wardrobe. It didn’t need to be as big as Demetrius’s and mine. I moved on to the bathroom, making it slightly smaller than the bedroom.

I had always loved bathrooms, mostly because I loved baths, so making them big was a necessity.

I cleared out the dirt in the new room then looked around, my hands on my hips. The room was small, cozy, and pitch black. Demetrius would have to install some electricity.

“Proud of yourself?” I heard a voice purr behind me. I spun around, baring my fangs. I stopped and straightened up. Aleesha stood next to Eleanor’s crib.