Unraveling Selena by Marisa Maichel (black female authors TXT) 📕

ask stupid questions. In fact, just don’t be stupid. I know you can’t help it, but you can at least try.”

“That sounds more like the Alexander I know.”

“Shut up, Louis.”

“If one more person tells me to shut up- “

Other Mordecai cried out, clutching his head. He screamed again.

“Oh gods, no! Sweetheart, don’t do it! I can get him myself! Where am I? I’m at the other Mordecai’s house in New Jersey! I know, New Jersey, of all places? Where are you? No, my love, don’t!”

He burst into tears and hid his face in his hands.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting beside him.

“Alexander…my husband…he’s coming! He’s angry, I can feel that. He’s livid beyond belief. He keeps talking about righting wrongs, fixing mistakes…oh god, he’s going to kill Reese! I have to find him!” He got off the couch.

“Let us find him,” Uncle Soren said, pushing him back down.

“I can sense both my husband and my son. One of us is going to die!”

“He’s not going to kill Reese,” I assured him. “He cares about me too much.”

Alexander grunted, neither denying nor assenting.

“It’s all my fault,” Other Mordecai continued.

“I’ll help,” I said.

“No- “Uncle Soren began.

“Dad, let him help,” Louis pleaded on my behalf.

“Fine, but if you get hurt, Mordecai will have my head. By the way, someone should stay here with him. Not you, Alexander. Don’t even think about it. Damn, are there no good choices?”

“Faolan’s here,” I pointed out.

“He has enemies aplenty himself,” Uncle Soren reminded me. “And someone should keep an eye on the Lenape reservation.”

“You just want to flirt with Mitra,” I said.

“Hey, I was going to say that,” Louis complained.

“The guys are out looking for the traitor Elf. Fine, I suppose Faolan will have to do.”

With that, we set off to find Other Reese, with Other Mordecai in the backseat of an unused camper that Father received as a gift several years ago. Alexander drove the camper, while I stayed beside Other Mordecai, who moaned and groaned in pain. I had tried to convince them that a camper was not the best idea, due to the lack of speed. But Other Mordecai needed to be comfortable, and the camper had several beds.

Uncle Soren and Louis ran, which was much, much, much faster.

I found Other Alexander! Louis thought through the telecommunication link.

“My husband!” Other Mordecai cried out, gasping for air. “My love….”

The door slid open, and in entered another Alexander. His hair was longer, he had a five o’clock shadow, and his eyes were wild.

“Where is he?” he demanded. He saw Other Mordecai on the bed and went to him immediately. “My love, I am so sorry! I should have gone with you!”

“Get off me!” Other Mordecai pushed him off. “You put me through hell!”

“I know, and I-“ He paused when he saw himself in the driver’s seat, then his eyes flickered over to me.

“Amazing,” he said, looking me up and down. “He looks just like him. Except for the chin. Our Reese has my chin.”

“What a development,” Alexander said sarcastically. Other Alexander glared at him.

“Drive!”

“Whatever, losers,” Alexander said, stepping on the pedal.

“We don’t actually know where Other Reese is,” I said. Other Alexander looked at me. “Well, I suppose you just call him Reese.”

“Indeed.”

“Reese has been very busy,” Alexander said, grinning. “At least, your Reese has. He tried to burn my Reese to death. He couldn’t open his eyes for a week.”

Other Mordecai moaned.

“Better keep it to yourself,” I told Alexander.

“No, I want to know exactly what he’s been up to,” Other Alexander cut in. I sighed and explained what had happened with me and Other Reese, including Torrance’s involvement.

“Torrance is an old enemy of mine,” Other Alexander growled. “He tried to steal Mordecai from me!”

“Torrance seemed to harbor some regret,” I said.

“Oh, I guarantee that he did not. Guilt, yes. Regret, no.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There’s a huge difference between guilt and regret,” Other Mordecai said. “Nales is guilty of raping Sawyer, but he didn’t regret it, not even when he died.”

I did a double take. “Nales? Michael Nales?”

“Yes. He also has a brother who has been harassing Sawyer and Reese. I believe his name is Jordan?”

I nearly fainted. I laid down on the bed beside Other Mordecai. He smiled and wrapped an arm around my middle.

“It’s all my fault,” Other Mordecai said again.

“No, it’s my fault,” Other Alexander sighed. All of us looked at him, including my Alexander. “I know that it will be hard to forgive me, if you forgive me at all. I would like another chance to be with you and be a proper father. It was my poor parenting that led to this. First Kieran, now Reese. Am I cursed?”

“And the baby?” Alexander asked.

“The baby is still inside Sawyer. If you mean Cirino, then yes, I consider him a son as well. When Sawyer has this baby, he will need all the care he can get. Lord knows his father is no help.”

“Sawyer is going to die,” Other Mordecai said. “If Reese doesn’t go to him soon, he will die. He’s going to die either way, and he might as well be given a second chance.”

I thought about Sarah, and our life together. Both of us had had several near-death experiences, and her latest one was caused by herself. I loved her deeply, madly, passionately, but who was I to meddle with Fate? No, I couldn’t think like that. Sarah was my world. Like my family. I would destroy Karma herself if she messed with my girlfriend, family, and friends.

We reached the abandoned hotel where I’d been taken when I was kidnapped and nearly burned to death. It still had faint traces of vampire scent, even in the camper.

“It’s him!” Other Mordecai gasped. “My baby!”

Alexander pulled up, and I climbed out of the camper with Other Alexander and Other Mordecai, who seemed to be in pain. He was clutching his belly and moaning.

“Is it starting?” Other Alexander asked him.

“No,” Other Mordecai breathed.

“You’re lying. Stay in the camper.”

“I’ll be fine. Reese is what I’m concerned about.”

“Do you remember what happened when you tried to hold him back after almost ten months? Both of you nearly died.”

“That won’t happen this time. Gods, I’m so bloated.”

“Maybe he should stay back,” I said. “I can stay with him.”

“You’re a sweet boy,” Other Mordecai said. “But I’ll be okay.”

“You’re clearly in labor.”

“I can’t be! It’s only been eight months!”

“My husband gave birth to Kieran after seven months,” Other Alexander said.

“Celine gave birth to my Kieran after only seven weeks,” Alexander said. “My boy still blames me for her death.”

“Oh gods, I’m going to split open,” Other Mordecai complained.

“There’s a bed in here,” I said, pointing out an empty room that still had sheets on the mattress and a frame.

Other Alexander scooped up Other Mordecai and brought him into the room. Seconds later, I heard a loud burp that I thought vampires couldn’t make.

“It’s just air!” Other Alexander exclaimed. “Damn you, Mordecai, you scared me!”

“It feels just like labor!”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Why does my stomach still feel swollen?”

“Could it be because you have a baby inside of it?”

“Don’t be sarcastic. You know, this really is all your fault.”

“It’s your fault, too! Both of us screwed up!”

“Fuck you!”

While they argued, Uncle Soren and Louis finished checking out the room.

“He’s been gone for a while,” Louis reported. “HEY, SHUT UP ALREADY! IT’S BOTH YOUR FAULTS!”

They shut up.

“He’s right,” Other Mordecai said, still holding his huge belly. “Both of us are to blame for this. We both screwed up.”

This new knowledge kept both of them quiet while Other Alexander picked up Other Mordecai and carried him back to the camper. Damn. No bites otherwise.

Other Mordecai was settled on the bed in the camper, looking pale and sallow. I laid next to him, and he pulled me into him and nestled his nose in my hair. I felt wetness on my head, and realized he was crying. Other Alexander settled himself behind his husband, looking upset.

“What a colossal waste of time,” Alexander muttered.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – MOTHER’S INSTINCT

Mother was chopping vegetables when I arrived at her house. Her hair was tied up into an elegant knot, dressed in capris and a t-shirt and wearing an apron.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“Ratatouille and steak,” she replied. “The girls need to eat a filling dinner. They barely ate breakfast or lunch.”

“You like cooking for them?” I asked.

“Yes. I love cooking for them. I love taking care of them. And Cirino. Check on him, will you?”

I listened carefully, heard him snoring. “He’s asleep.”

“Mother knows best,” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing. I am a good mother, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are,” I said, confused.

“She sees all of this as her second chance,” Alexander explained, coming into the room. “My dearest believes that her second chance is her last hope to prove she’s a good mother.”

“I am a good mother!”

“Yes, you are, my love. You adore Kieran. No other woman I’ve courted has liked my son, but you love him. And he accepts you, or at least he has. If he didn’t approve, I’d hear about it. And you destroyed one of the people destroying Sarah and Sabine, their biological mother.”

“Shh! They may hear!”

“They’re human, Marina. Their ears are not as well-honed as ours. Besides, Sarah is out doing her cheerleading thing in the backyard and Sabine is taking a bath. The girls won’t know unless somebody directly tells them.”

“If Mordecai hadn’t killed Michael Nales, I’d have done it myself.”

“And that’s what makes you a good mother. You love Sarah, you see her as an extension of yourself and you want to do everything you can to keep her safe and happy.”

“She feels the need to work.”

“She wants to atone for her past mistakes and take care of the leftover debt, which she feels responsible for, as she’s the elder one. Her mother placed all kinds of responsibility on her, responsibility that she didn’t need or deserve to have. Cleaning up binge drinking, making sure the bills got paid, taking care of her younger sister, dealing with a questionable group of friends. Which, by the way, I still don’t trust. You know that they are out in the back with her?”

“They are?” I asked.

“Indeed, at least the cheerleaders are.”

Mother turned back to the cutting board and kept chopping zucchini.

“I am a good mother,” she repeated. “I protect my children, all of them, with the fierceness of a lioness and the strength of a bear, with the body and mind of a vampire. I am a good mother.”

Selena came downstairs, greeted me, and then turned to Mother. She was thinner, I noted, with dark shadows under her eyes and a rat’s nest of hair.

“You’re a great mom, Mom,” she said. “What happened with Liam Wolfheart was my fault, not yours. You warned me to stay away from him. I should have listened to you.” Her eyes glistened, and I knew she was thinking about the dead baby that she never even named. I would have been an uncle if the baby had lived. That knowledge tore my heart open. I would have been an uncle, had a nephew or a niece.

Sarah and I would marry and have several kids with a cousin. I silently counted out ten and named all of them. Caitlin Juniper, the imaginary daughter that Sarah thought Cirino had been at first, Cirino himself, and several others. He’d be the oldest, followed by Caitlin and Reese Junior and Sarah Junior. I purred as I thought of a bunch of little Reeses and Sarahs running around.

I continued my thoughts, even as the doorbell rang. We looked at each other-no one lived this far out except for myself and Father.

I was surprised when I opened the door, to see an albino. He was covered in a black cape, but I could see his pale features and pink eyes.

“Is this the home of Louis Emerson?” he asked.

“It isn’t, but I know him,” I said. “What do you need with him?”

“He is my father.”

Time seemed to stand still. Louis, a father? And it