Of Blood & Consequence (Book 2 of The Blood Bond Series)

32. Breaking The Seal

Grandma Caroline, as Cassie started calling her, was enjoying herself immensely. Even with the pain and sometimes tired gaze she gave them all when trying to dredge up some energy, even when she was almost too tired to move, she always had a smile for everyone.

Especially the babies.

She was a favorite of Charlotte's, and they often napped together on the recliner in the living room while Cassie worked on her latest script on the sofa. You could sometimes find them two of them snoring softly, Charlie with a thumb tucked away in her mouth, breathing evenly against the old woman's chest as old reruns of Family Feud played in the background. It was too sweet, and Cassie often found herself taking photos of the two of them, snuggled up together.

At first, both Cassie and Eli were weary of having Adam sit with her since he was so boisterous a baby, but even he seemed to latch onto the knowledge that something was wrong with the older woman. He tended to be gentler as a result of whatever ingrained instinct told him to handle with care.

After all, vampire babies aged differently than humans. They may have grown physically at the same pace as their human counterparts, but their minds worked faster, adapted more easily, and this was only proof of that.

A couple of weeks passed, and Michael did a little overtime for Eli's company, but he always had a smile when he came back and saw one of the babies settled on Nena's lap as they watched cartoons and bonded over the loud sounds and brilliant lights of game shows. They clapped when a contestant won a prize, booed when they were unsuccessful. It might have been his imagination, but Charlotte and Caroline even seemed to blink in tandem with each other as they watched the TV.

They ate maybe every other day together, and Nena enjoyed chatting as they all sat around in the living room, a dinner tray settled over her lap.

"You made this, Eli? It's wonderful," she stated as she mopped up a small amount of steak sauce that dribbled from her lips. "There's a special place in heaven for people like you, you know. Generous, good-looking, and an excellent chef? My, my."

Yes. Nena got to enjoy her red meat and pretty much anything else she had a hankering for. If she so much as mentioned something looked good on the cooking channel she sometimes flipped past on her search for The Price Is Right, he went out and got the ingredients needed to make her latest craving.

And even as she scolded him for being too good to her, she smiled at him when he only grinned back and shrugged his shoulders at her.

"What's the point of having money if you can't spend it on good friends and family?" He always shut her down with that query, and she nearly licked her plate clean every time, even if she gave him some seriously unsettling side-eye.

After dinner one night, Cassie and Delia decided to break out the karaoke machine after the babies had gone to sleep. Since they were pretty deep sleepers and there was enough space between them and the living room, they weren't all too concerned about waking them up.

"What are we up to this evening?" Caroline asked as Eli rolled out the cart with the huge machine on top of it. As he hooked it up to the huge television screen, he explained.

"Cass and Delia here like to torture us by singing karaoke."

"It's karaoke night, Gran! Best night ever!" Delia quipped lightly as she and Cass moved the coffee table out of the way and pushed it up against the wall near the foyer so no on tripped over it.

"They insist I sing with them at least once each time," Eli claimed. "So, if your ears bleed afterwards, you can blame it on those two women over there." He pointed toward Cassie and Delia, who were standing up from setting the table gently on the rug.