Butterflies and Vampires

CHAPTER 45 THE FINALE

If I was braver I might've told Sabine and Primrose about Cecile and Manon, but I wasn't. But on Manon's fifteenth birthday I decided I would visit. It was going to be Cecile's death anniversary, too, and I wanted to lay some flowers on her grave.

"Hello!"

I bursted into Yves's house with a wide smile. He pretty much lived alone now, but somehow Lark was always there.

"Hello, Margery," she said sweetly when she saw me, she had matured into a young lady. But my eyebrows raised without a doubt at her being so close next to Yves. She was pretty much linking arms with him.

"It's not what you think—and good evening, Margery. It's been what, ten years?" Yves greeted. He also looked at my hair and trousers with curiosity.

"It has. Also, didn't I tell you to not put a finger on Lark? Look at yourself, you could pass as her father!"

Yves had lucky genes, his vampire blood definitely helped with his youthful appearance but he still aged enough. He lost his smirk for a scowl, his face growing thinner, but he had a full head of hair cut short, now the modern trend.

"Please tell her! I can't marry you, Lark," he said.

"No! I want to marry you, Yves! I will never leave you no matter what!" Lark held his arm and pouted. "I knew from the moment I drank your blood!"

"Yves!" I screamed. "Why are you feeding her your blood?"

"She was near death after a strange malady four or so years ago!" Yves denied it, but all the while he stopped pulling away from Lark and patted her head to make her look up at him with shining eyes.

"Lark, find a respectable person of your age," I hissed.

"Age doesn't matter for vampires," she said dismissively without meeting my eyes.

"Yves raised you, he's practically your dad."

"Gregoire raised me, that's rude to him!"

"Ah, yea, Gregoire," I stopped. "Is he doing fine after everything?"

"You saw him," Yves said softly. "He visits both his wives' graves with Manon routinely. He also wants us to go over and celebrate her birthday tomorrow. She'll be fifteen."

I knew. I had nothing to do but count the years since Cecile left us.

"I'll go, too."

"Really? That'll be so much more fun!" Lark said. "Adalyn wrote us she'd come tomorrow night and Bernadette is with her."

"Are they working together?" I asked. "Or traveling together?"

"They seem to be in an affair!" Lark wrapped her arms around herself jokingly. "They've been together without telling us anything or when they would return. Maybe they went to Jardin?"

"That's likely. It's now an island of vampires only."

"I also heard about it," Yves said slowly. "Did you visit?"

"Yes. Six years ago, before they were so well-known in the human world, or even vampire world. I think it suits them, Sabine and Primrose. They no longer call it the Butterfly Clan, but everyone knows that's where they originated."

As we sat down and talked about more serious topics Lark went to make me tea, which surprised me.

"She's matured," I whispered.

Yves nodded. "Which is all the more problem for me. She's young and beautiful, but she's staying here wasting her time with me." Yves rested his cheek against the palm of a hand. I just remembered that habit of his.