Karzac and Grace had come together. I made sure a comfortable seat was brought for Grace. She wasn't showing yet, but she was pregnant. Conner had arrived with Lynx, Russell and Will. Griffin and Amara had also squeezed in and sat next to Erland and Wylend. This was going to be the multicultural venture to end all multicultural ventures and I still had my doubts over the whole thing.
"I am wiped." I let my head fall onto the tabletop when the room cleared out. Everybody had an assignment. Karzac, Joey, Franklin, Shane and Jeff had all volunteered to get the health facilities completed and coordinated—there would have to be some on the light side, too, if the plans went through. The usual application had to be sent to the Reth Alliance, just to get their approval on all of it.
"Lissa, we came to stay for a few days; I hope you don't mind." Frank sat on the chair next to mine.
"Frankie, didn't your dad pass my message along?" I sat up and looked at him.
"He said something about your naming a suite after me or something." He winked at me.
"You lunatic," I swatted at him. "I'll have your name on the door, spelled out in Tiralian crystal if you'll stay as much as you can."
"Then we will. I hear the food's decent, even for a vampire planet."
"Oh, crap—we forgot about that," I slapped my forehead. "Gamblers like to eat almost as much as they like to gamble. We have to import chefs."
"Don't worry about it—we can put out the word when the time comes. I think you'll have more applications than you can possibly imagine." Frank put an arm around me.
"Thanks, Frank," I sighed.
"Lissa?" I was getting dressed when I heard his voice. Well, it was time, I guess.
"What, hon?" I walked out of my bathroom and found Karzac and Grace inside my suite. "Are you all right, Grace?" I asked, first thing. "That meeting was long—do you need to lie down or anything?" She looked fine, her honey-blonde hair was swept back from her face and she was dressed in jeans and a silk print blouse. As I'd never been pregnant, I had no point of reference as to how tired she might be.
"No, I'm not even two months, yet. Don't you start, too."
"Who's starting?" I forced a smile. Grace didn't answer; she just pointed a thumb at Karzac.
"Well, that's his baby." I was trying to get earrings into my ears and that was always a problem if I wasn't standing in front of a mirror while I did it.
"Let me help," Karzac came over and took the earrings from my hand. He had a wire slipped into my right ear in no time and then did the other ear for me.
"Thanks," I looked up at him. His mouth quirked into a crooked grin.
"We know this is hard for you," Grace said, coming forward. "More than a little, according to Dragon."
"I'm dealing," I said. "Karzac deserves a child, if anybody does. Amara's pregnant, too, did you know?"
"What?" Grace had just gotten juicy news.
"Yep. I smelled it this morning. Griffin is about to dance on the roof, I think."
"Oh, my gosh—two at the same time. Maybe we can school them together." Grace was already thinking about all this.
"Talk to Amara—I think she's in heaven, right now."
"Lissa," Karzac's hand cupped my cheek.
"Don't." I pulled away. "You guys go on—I'm sure they're waiting dinner on me." I made a shooing motion. They walked out the door of my suite, closing it softly behind them. The tears that hadn't come before came now; I dropped to the floor and sobbed.
"Someone else needs to go," Karzac's face looked haggard when he and Grace made their way into the dining room.
"What's wrong?" Shadow and Tony were both standing at the same time.
"She's crying," Grace said. "We didn't want to upset her. It didn't work."
"I will go." Roff was out of his seat quickly.
"I will do this." Connegar appeared in a brief flash of light and just as rapidly disappeared again.
"Little Rose, come here." Those were Connegar's first words to me as he lifted me off the floor. Giff had dressed me in expensive blue silk for dinner, since so many people had stayed to eat with us. I probably wasn't doing it any good by lying in the floor and crying all over it.
"I'll get over this," I wiped my face with the heel of a hand.
"My love, I will not say you should not weep. This is difficult for you, I know."
"Amara is pregnant because of you, Lissa." Kifirin appeared in my room; I caught his scent before I heard his voice.
"What did I do?" I sniffled. Connegar caused a handkerchief to appear in his hand and he offered it to me so I could dry things up a little.
"You told her she deserved a child. There was Power in your words. Perhaps you did not realize it at the time; nevertheless, it is so. She became pregnant right away."
"Great." I leaned my head against Connegar's chest. He'd settled on the bed and was holding me against him. Kifirin strode into my field of vision but his face was enigmatic as he studied me.
"Avilepha, do not upset yourself further. Come to dinner with me. I will take my seat and we will entertain our guests." Kifirin held his hand out to me.
"But I look like crap," I said, sliding out of Connegar's lap, still wiping my face with the handkerchief he'd given me.
"It does not matter. Hold your head up, as the Queen that you are. We will do this, you and I."
Kifirin is the most beautiful male I have ever seen. His angel's face now looked worried, though, as I took his hand. He tucked my fingers into the crook of his elbow and folded me to dinner.
Conversation hushed as we walked into the dining room and the servants—vampire and comesuli, rushed away to bring out the first course.
Dinner conversation dealt mostly with casinos, the Reth Alliance, Campiaa and the current conditions there. "I want this so bad I can taste it," Erland said. "We've been dealing with San Gerxon scum for a long time. I'm hoping that if we leave the planet and take at least half the gamblers with us, they'll feel the bite after a while."
"Well, it's a cinch the San Gerxons aren't coming here," I grumped.
"I thought we had the head off the snake when we took Divil San Gerxon down a while back," Adam said. "Unfortunately, it was a hydra and not a snake. His brother Arvil has taken over and he's just as bad as Divil was." Adam was angry over this, I could tell. I also got the idea that Adam weighed everything carefully before he made important decisions, and this was an important decision.
"Then we'll do our best on this," I gave him the biggest smile I could, attempting to hide my concerns for Le-Ath Veronis.
"I'm just worried about what they'll do if things don't work out for them. I know we'll cut into their profits, if not take the business away from them. They could get nasty over this." Adam was still frowning.
"Well, we can always send my newly formed Enforcer Squad out after them," I said.
"What newly formed Enforcer Squad?" Drake lifted an eyebrow at me.
"The one I'll form if I need it," I said, wrinkling my nose at him.
"Just so you go through channels," Tony teased. "I think Gavin and I would have to approve the recruits."
"I have some out of work Enforcers, now," Flavio offered. "And an Assassin who's about to go stir crazy. Trevor asks every day if there's anything he can do."
"We'll work this out," I sighed. "In the meantime, do they like to play baseball or football or anything?"
"Get Brock, bubby loves baseball," Grace said.
"Bubby?"
"Grace and Brock knew each other before he was turned," Merrill coughed into his hand. "They worked together and are like brother and sister. She's the reason I had to chain him up for two months after I turned him."
"Of course," I nodded, although most of it defied my understanding. "I hope he had a shower within easy reach." Both times, my prison cells had been decidedly lacking in the area of personal comforts.
"And a fridge full of blood," Adam agreed.
"Lissa, we can issue a formal apology for locking you up. Twice." Flavio smiled.
"Too late, dude. That boat left the dock long ago. How would Trevor feel about being Sheriff?" I asked. "I mean, we have to have a lock-up—you can't expect everybody to behave one hundred percent of the time."
"Yeah, sending in the palace guards or the army might be a bit much," Tony agreed.
Flavio whipped out a communicator and had Trevor on the line in no time. "How does the position of Sheriff sound to you?" Flavio didn't waste any time.
"That sounds perfect," Trevor replied. Yeah, we all listened in.
"Have him check in with Gavin," I said.
"Tomorrow," Gavin nodded. "In my office." Gavin and Tony shared a good-size office, Drake and Drew did the same. Kyler had her own, as did Roff, and he was very pleased with it. He was already complaining that he needed artwork for the walls.
"Do we have vampires with artistic talent, architectural experience or anything like that?" I asked. "The palace needs decorating and I'd be happy to share any plans they might come up with on the whole casino city thing—both light and dark side."
"I wouldn't mind looking at a few ideas," Adam said.
"Good, you're in charge of that. Is Griffin still here?" We'd moved to the drawing room, for lack of a better title, and coffee and dessert were passed around.
"I'm still here, baby." Griffin came forward.
"Your brother that Narissa mentioned is here, with the Belipharan vampires," I said. "Davan is his name and he's being instructed by an older vampire. I just thought you should know."