Free Time After Time (Cora's Bond) by V. M. Black Page B

Dorian narrowly. His words were too bland, his face too impossibly still. I could feel the agitation underneath, a fierce kind of surge that I could almost taste, it was so strong. But I didn’t know what any of it meant.
    So I made a mental note of my intention to ask later and simply said, “I’m glad she’s back. I hope she’ll be in my wedding now.”
    Dorian said, “I don’t see why she wouldn’t be. They’re back in the country for the duration, as far as I know.”
    “Can I go talk to them?” I didn’t think about the question before I said it, and it surprised me as the words reached my ears. I actually wanted to leave Dorian’s protection in a room full of vampires.
    He looked down at me, and his brow creased for an instant before going still again. “You needn’t ask my permission.”
    “I didn’t know if it might violate some kind of tradition or convention or something—if we needed to do something together first,” I said.
    Dorian hesitated for a moment before seeming to make up his mind. “No. You may speak to them now.”
    He escorted me across the room to where my friends were and lifted my hand from his arm, bowing over it before stepping away. “Ladies,” he said to all three of us.
    But his eyes glittered only for me.
    Marie and Paquita stood close together at one end of the buffet, and it was only when Dorian left that I registered the three shorter figures around them. Children, I realized with a small shock. Marie’s little girl was obvious, but I could only tell which boy was Hattie’s by the redness of his eyes and the way his gaze kept straying over to the caskets while the slightly younger girl held his hand and patted it reassuringly.
    “I’m so glad you came, Cora,” Paquita said. “I knew you wouldn’t miss it. You might not have known Hattie as long as we have, but she always made an impression.”
    “She did, didn’t she?” I said a little weakly, not sure what I should or shouldn’t be saying in front of the boy.
    “Elise, Paul, Renato, allow me to introduce you to Miss Shaw,” Paquita said.
    “Good to meet you,” I said to each of the solemn children. They each offered a hand in turn, smiling with preternatural poise over mine and murmuring echoes of my greeting. That settled, the little girl reached for Paul’s hand again.
    “You are going to be Paul’s friend, aren’t you?” she asked. “That’s what Mama said this was for. Friends. Allies. And allies help one another when we need it, like Paul does.”
    “I suppose we are,” I said carefully.
    That seemed to satisfy her, because she looked away, back over to where the caskets sat with the priest now praying over them both.
    “There are a lot of kids here,” I said, looking around the room and noting them for the first time. Not as many as there were agnates, of course, but there was one for most of the cognates in attendance.
    Marie nodded, and Paquita said, “There are not very often funerals like this one for them to attend, no? This is something for them to remember. It’s important for them to understand that we really can die.”
    I nodded, not quite following the logic but willing to go along.
    “Why don’t the three of you go to the kitchen now?” Marie asked the children quietly. “I’m sure the cook can find you some treats.”
    “I want to go to my room,” Paul said.
    Marie bit her lip for a second before she nodded. “Of course you may. Just remember that all your toys and clothes and games are at my house now, yes?”
    He nodded, looking solemn, and darted off.
    She sighed. “Children are so peculiar in their grief. Some days, Paul cries at almost anything or bursts into a rage. Others, he seems like any normal, healthy boy, and others still, well, he doesn’t seem to feel anything at all.”
    “I don’t think that’s peculiar,” I said, a trifle defensively. When my grandmother had died, I hadn’t felt all that different. “Anyway, I thought that Jean was in debt