Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Pat Cunningham Page B

mommies, and they usually lived together. Again, the thought belonged to Grown-Up Colleen. She’d been out of the commune for over a year before that notion sank in. In the early months of her adoption, she had trouble grasping why George Brenner stayed at the house with Alice Brenner all the time.
    Of course there were daddies, Little Kid Colleen refuted her adult self. The daddies came at night to visit the mommies. Sometimes, if chance allowed, they might even speak to their offspring. Little Kid Colleen didn’t see them too often because she was usually asleep when they came. They had bright eyes and gentle voices and moved with a liquid grace she couldn’t copy no matter how hard she tried.
    One of them approached her now. Her heart leaped. She recognized Jeremy by his height and his bright-as-lightning grin. Only this Jeremy’s eyes were jungle-green, and his grin held a hint of a smirk. His features blurred with Wallace’s, but her feelings for him didn’t waver. She held out her arms to the man before her.
    All at once he changed. His tall frame shortened, broadened. His arms and chest rippled with muscles developed from lifting bales and forking hay. His sable hair was shot with gray, as was his well-trimmed beard. The green eyes that had drawn her in now glinted pale as silver.
    She knew him, or had known him once, before she made herself forget. Neither Little Kid nor Grown-Up Colleen knew his name. She’d never known any of the daddies’ names. She only knew they frightened her, now as well as then.
    The silver-eyed daddy moved in a blur and suddenly stood before her. She tried to run, but found her feet had become stuck to the ground. The daddy’s fingers brushed her cheek. Grown-Up Colleen shrank from his icy touch as Little Kid Colleen never had but always wanted to.
    “So beautiful,” he murmured. “Like a little butterfly. A butterfly with bite, eh? You’re a special one, ma petit . There’s power in your blood. Such plans I have for you.”
    Before he could offer details of those plans, the invaders came. The dream ended as the commune had, in fire, chaos, and death.
    Colleen jerked awake. Panic hit her when she found her legs confined. Just the bed sheets, thank God. She’d tangled her legs in them when she’d tried to run in her sleep. This wasn’t the first time that had happened to her.
    Wait a minute. This bed was too big to be hers. The curtains were heavier and admitted less sunlight. Those boots in the corner weren’t her style or size. A man’s slacks hung over the back of a chair.
    This wasn’t her bed. Or her room. Or her apartment.
    The panic that had begun to abate surged over her again. She’d gone shopping. She’d gone home. She’d been attacked outside her door. By a vampire. Jeremy’s partner, Wallace, had saved her. He claimed to be a vampire, too. This was their house and their bed. She was their guest. Or a prisoner.
    She gripped the sheets while she tried to get a grip on herself. Of course she wasn’t a prisoner. Nut jobs or not, they’d come to her aid twice now. If she wanted to walk out the door, she was fairly certain they’d let her. If they didn’t, well, she still knew where to aim her knee.
    Buoyed by this knowledge, Colleen unknotted her legs from the sheets and slid out of bed. She’d go home, call the police, and file a report on the attacker she had watched crumble to dust.
    All right, maybe Jeremy had a point. The cops would want to know where the body was. The teeth and crimson eyes she could explain with plastics and tinted lenses. Justifying the ash trick wouldn’t be so easy.
    Coffee. Coffee first. Then figure out her next move.
    But not in Jeremy’s shirt. Colleen bit her lip over the sorry state of her poor little blouse and slacks combo, hastily folded last night and set on the bureau. She couldn’t face the world in that, after all she had put it through yesterday. She went to the closet in search of a robe to borrow.
    After some