The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 1918: The Extended Family Arrives

Nyrielle allowed the intense hug to last for several slow heartbeats before pulling back and offering both her mother- and sister-in-law a warm, welcoming smile.

"I don’t know if I should thank Marcel for bringing you so swiftly," Nyrielle said. "Or scold him for arriving on a night that prevents us from spending more time together without attending to the affairs of the Empire."

"What ruler ever gets all the time they want for family?" Maela asked rhetorically.

"I do," Nyrielle responded in a tone that was earnest enough to surprise both Micheline and Maela. "Who in the Vale of Mists would dare to take even a moment of my time with Ashlynn away from me? Only one person comes to mind," she said, giving Ashlynn a playful smile. "Because she fills her days with so many things she considers to be important."

"They are important," Ashlynn insisted, though she didn’t look entirely happy about it. "The time we spend now is an investment, my love," she added, gently cupping Nyrielle’s cheek as she looked up into her lover’s eyes. "The victories we win in these next few years will protect centuries together."

"I know," Nyrielle said. "But just because I accept these sacrifices doesn’t mean I relish them. Tomorrow night, we should have a proper welcoming celebration with your coven and my progeny," she said. "That way, the entire family can come together."

"We’re still missing people," Ashlynn said, looking first at her mother and then at her cousin who had been left to the side. "I’m sure Micheline would prefer it if Uncle Dylan and the rest of her family were here with her too," she said, gesturing for Micheline to join them.

"Of course I miss them," Micheline said as she crossed the room. "But, if I’m honest, this isn’t a bad thing. After spending so many years at the Royal Academy, I’ve been used to a bit more, um, independence than I think Mother and Father are accustomed to giving me. Sometimes, home feels a little stifling."

"I’m not fourteen anymore," Micheline said, drawing herself up to her full height. "But sometimes, I think I need to remind them that I’m an adult now."

"Enjoy these years," Maela chided lightly. "Once you’re married and raising children of your own, you’ll wish for the days when your parents swooped in to meddle and take care of so many things for you. A husband and little ones will change what you think of as ’being an adult’ in so many ways."

"If that’s the path she chooses," Ashlynn said before Micheline could respond. "Whether Micheline marries or not, who she chooses and whether or not they want children are all up to her. She might prefer a wife to a husband," Ashlynn teased, looping an arm around Nyrielle’s waist.

"You say that like it’s a normal thing," Micheline said, her face heating as she found her future spouse the subject of conversation. "I mean, it’s fine for the two of you," she said quickly, belatedly catching her misstep. "And I know several ladies in Gaalen who had such, um, arrangements outside of their marriages. But, erm..."

"It is a perfectly normal thing," Maela said, surprising her niece who stared at her aunt with wide eyes. Of everyone here, she’d expected that her aunt would have had the greatest sense of propriety. But it seems like she’d been sorely mistaken.

"I lived in a convent for months at a time," Maela said, giving her confused niece a gentle smile. "The sisters there swear to take no husband and bear no children, but that doesn’t mean they’re chaste. It only means that, when they find love and comfort, they find it in each other’s arms rather than the arms of a man," she explained.

"I’m told that the Templars are known for similar bonds between men," Maela added. "Something about the bonds forged while facing danger in battle is said to bring passions to the surface, and without women to vent those passions on, they turn to their brothers," she said.

At this point, even Maela blushed slightly, perhaps imagining some of the Templars she’d known over the years, twined in each other’s arms.

"But, but doesn’t the Church forbid such unions?" Maela said, stunned at what she was hearing.

"The Church only forbids those unions among the people the Church wishes to see married and bearing children," a rich, masculine voice said from the doorway as Heila entered on the arm of a dark-haired Inquisitor in archaic-looking robes.

"The Church forces most of their miracle workers to sever their ability to have children," Ignatious explained as he approached the group at the center of the Imperial Box. "It’s part of how the orders of the faithful gain their ability to work miracles. But the Church has long turned a blind eye to those among the clergy who seek out intimacy with each other."

"I, I see..." Micheline said, nodding in acceptance as both her aunt and this newcomer described a tacit acceptance of what the Church had always called heretical relationships. Evidently, it wasn’t only her view of the Eldritch that would be challenged while she visited her cousin’s empire.

"Mother, Micheline, this is Ignatious," Ashlynn said. "He was a High Inquisitor until the Brothers’ War, when Nyri took him as one of her progeny."

"I’m still an Inquisitor," Ignatious said, smiling warmly at Ashlynn’s family. "The search for truth is never-ending. Whether the Church would agree with me is another matter entirely."

"The Brothers’ War?" Maela said, looking at the young man walking arm in arm with Ashlynn’s lady-in-waiting in mild disbelief. "But that was more than eighty years ago..."

"It was," another masculine voice said from the doorway as a dashing young man wearing an old-fashioned sleeveless tunic over a puffy-sleeved undershirt entered the room. "And of everyone I faced in that war, no one terrified me more than Ignatious," he said with a chuckle, as if he was greeting a comrade in arms rather than a bitter enemy.

"We’re fortunate he never became an Exemplar," Thane added. "Or I might not have been able to escape his Holy Flames."

"I doubt that," Ignatious said modestly. "I might have managed to resist your voice, but my brothers couldn’t. The only way I’d have had a chance of defeating you would have been to face you alone, without the support of my brothers, but alone, I would have lacked the power. Mistress Nyrielle’s gifts found a perfect home in you, Thane, and I doubt even the Exemplars would be your match."

"And they say women are the ones who preen," a light, feminine voice said as a nondescript woman with striking amethyst eyes entered the room on the arm of a towering, bearish gentleman with pale lavender eyes.

"If you two are going to reminisce about old times and your glory days fighting each other," Zedya said. "Then perhaps Lenny and I should watch tonight’s challenges from outside."

"You just want to snuggle your husband," Thane teased. "We won’t stop you. Newlyweds should get at least a decade or two before anyone expects decorum out of you in public."

"Newlyweds?" Maela said softly, looking from the large, Eldritch figure with dark brown fur and wickedly sharp claws to the refined lady on his arm and back again.

"Zedya and Lennart are old friends," Ashlynn explained. "They only recently married when Zedya took Lennart as one of her progeny," she said as she stepped up next to her mother. "Here, let me introduce you to everyone," she said as she spotted Sybyll and Hugo coming through the door.

"I know it may feel a little strange, but almost everyone coming next is bound to either Nyri or I," Ashlynn told her mother and cousin. "So it’s best if you think of them as our extended family."

"They’re the most important people in our lives," Ashlynn added. "And the ties that bind us are even stronger than the bonds between blood kin because they’re the bonds we chose, even before we sealed those bonds with witchcraft and blood."