Her Brother, Her Mate

Simone POV

“Look at my little nephew,” I commanded Vincent in a ridiculous baby voice. Calum is in my arms and I’m squeezing the snot out of him and all his adorableness. Courtney managed to find a #TeamEdward shirt in his size and he walked into the pack house hyped up to meet his new vampire uncle.

Vincent was very amused when Calum told him in his broken toddler talk that he wouldn’t kill him because Vincent was a good vampire like Edward Cullen. Casey was not so amused.

After he got over the initial surprise of his wife and son being there, he threw Courtney over his shoulder, ordering me to watch the kid so they could talk about what she’d been teaching their son in his absence.

They’re going to screw. Who is he kidding? He was pitching a tent before he even made it halfway up the first flight of stairs. Courtney was all too willing, groping his butt as she hung over his shoulder. Gross.

“Aunt Simmy, I need tha baff-oom. Need a pee,” he tells me as I squeeze him again.

“You’re squeezing the pee right out of him,” Carli laughs at me.

I sighed, setting him down. I haven’t had my fill of him yet, but I guess I’ll let him go relieve himself before he does it on me.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

“I’ll take him, love. We will meet you both in the party hall,” Vincent said, kissing my cheek and taking Calum’s hand.

“Do bampires pee?” Calum asks curiously.

Vincent throws his head back and laughs. “Did they not show that in the movie?” his voice fades as he leads Calum down the hall.

“Courtney on a Twilight kick?” Carli asks me.

“Seems so,” I shrugged. I have a feeling Casey is pounding #TeamJacob ideas into her right now. Courtney was a little too excited to meet Vincent too. Casey is the possessive, jealous type. She’s going to pay for teasing him so much. Not that she minds. She’s the one antagonizing him.

Carli has been taking it easy, but Rosie’s party is tonight. She came down this morning to supervise the party planning since she really wasn’t involved before. I think she is feeling guilty again, but the medicine is helping to control her mood swings.

Her mom went all out. Mary is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to parties. When Alpha Jared and Parker demanded she stop trying to interfere in Luna affairs since Lilly had it covered, she threw herself fully into the party. She even hired actors to dress as the Encanto characters, and a live band is performing the music from the movie, along with some of her other favorites all night. I seriously don’t think anything could be as grand as Rosie’s birthday party.

If I didn’t dislike her so much, I’d ask Mary to plan my wedding. She has a gift.

Carli settles herself into one of the recliners Parker had put in the corner for her and she watches as her mom floats around the room, barking orders at everyone who isn’t doing their job to her standards.

“It looks like a scene from the movie in here,” Carli mutters, looking around the room.

It does. The colorful banners and flowers everywhere, combined with the fiesta ware decorating the walls and the deep aroma of espresso gives the room a Colombian vibe.

Mary keeps peaking over at Carli. Longing is in her eyes, but her pride is still too great for her to take the first step to apologize to her. I know she wants to. Alpha Jared and I talked about this at length the other day when he was in our apartment visiting Rosie. Mary didn’t come up with him and I was curious why.

She feels guilty. She should feel guilty. She is just too stubborn to admit it. That is a trait Carli definitely got from her mom.

Carli reclines back in the chair, her hand resting gently on her belly. They still haven’t told anyone about her pregnancy. Vincent and I know, as well as Simon, because he could hear the baby’s heartbeat when he and Laura went to see her. Vampire hearing is much better than wolves and, since he wasn’t told directly, he knows how to keep it a secret. It comes with the job of being Vincent’s head of security.

Vincent and Calum walk hand-in-hand into the room, with Parker walking in behind them. Parker smiles in satisfaction when he sees Carli resting and not moving about with everyone else who is working.

Rosie is with Elena and Tommy, the party being a surprise for her as Mary requested. She was turning 1, and I thought that was ridiculous, since she wouldn’t remember the surprise anyway, but no one argued the issue. Luna Grace and Alpha Cedric are at the Childes, staying for the weekend and they appreciated the extra time with their great-granddaughter.

“Aunt Simmy, did ew know bampires pee?” Calum asks me, making all of us laugh.

“I did know that, my little cutie patootie,” I picked him up, setting him in my lap and started munching on his chubby cheeks with my lips shielding my teeth.

“I had to show him, he didn’t believe me. He thought I peed glitter because that’s what his mother told him,” Vincent huffs.

“It’s the Childes genes,” Parker pats him on the shoulder, “The crudeness is strong in them.”

“Hey,” Carli glares up at him.

“I love it when you’re crude to me,” Parker sends her a heated look, making her blush.

I leave Carli with her mate, and Calum with Vincent, so I can help with the last minute things. Mary put me in charge of the final decorations as she fought with the head chef over the mismatched flatware. It’s like old times hearing them bicker in the kitchen over all the other noises. The two women never got along.

Parker convinces Carli to rest in his office with him as he finishes some work, and after a few hours, Casey and Courtney emerge from the foyer, both with a satisfied sheen in their eyes.

“Come on, kid. We need to change your shirt so we can burn it,” Casey tells Calum, lifting him up off the floor where he was playing with mega legos Mary had set up for the little kids.

Vincent is helping more than I am after that. He has Stephan hanging lights from the ceiling and Simon moving tables and chairs around to where Mary wants them. I know he has work to do himself, but ever since the mess with Carlos’s sister he has been sticking to me much more than normal.

Carlos has been relieved from his duty, at least until Aiden is found. He has grown close to the pack, and I know this is hard for him. Trevor had been going to visit him, along with a couple of warriors he grew close to to try and lift his spirits. His sister, thanks to Mitch Meyers, will not be facing death, but she is still being held in Lady Delilah’s court for the time being.

*

The party is nearing and I’m standing outside with Mary, waiting for the caterers to pull up.

“You did a fantastic job, Luna Mary,” I told her, looking back at the outdoor decorations she had littered tastefully all over the yard. There is a giant banner reading ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSIE’ above the entrance and the opening song to the movie playing on speakers set up on the porch.

“I hope I did. Rosie deserves the best, the little angel. I hope,” she bites her l*p nervously, “I hope this helps relieve some of the stress on Carli too.”

I smiled sadly at her, “I know it does.”

“I should have done this for her. She should have experienced lavish parties for all of her birthdays. I hope this in some way makes things up to her.”

I reached out, setting my hand on her shoulder, “Have you tried talking to her yet?”

She shakes her head, wiping moisture from her eyes, “I have no right. She is better off without me. I can just support her from afar from now on. I’ll be happy with that.”

“Will she be happy with that, though?” I asked her.

She knaws on her bottom l*p, “I don’t know.”

“I would ask her, Mary. Talk to her. Don’t make assumptions because you could be hurting her more by doing so.”

She looks at me, tears not the only thing filling her eyes. Hope is starting to bloom there as well. “You’re right. I’ll try to talk with her tonight.”

The catering van pulls into the parking lot, rounding the circular frontway and stopping right in front of us.

Miguel’s Catering is written on the side of the black van. The name rings a bell for some reason. Have we used them in the past?

“Who’s Miguel?” I asked Mary as two men exited the front of the van and made their way towards the back.

“Oh, it’s a man I met coming out of counseling the other day. He just started his business not too long ago and offered me his business card. He’s a vampire, so I thought hiring him might be good for relations, you know,” she smiles at me proudly, wiping the last of her tears from her eyes as she prepares to slip back into boss mode.

We walked to the back of the van to speak with the caterers, but stopped when we noticed the back of the van was completely empty, just the two men standing there holding the doors wide open.

“Where’s the-?” I started to ask, then I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head as darkness overtook me and I crumbled to my feet.