Blossom Manor {Open} , A Little Get Together

[*Dahlia Adonis]

Dahlia was fairly new to the vampire community, and it was so unlike her to be without a large circle of friends. Of course she couldn't regularly fraternize with the human friends she'd had in high school and college, but she did try to keep in touch.

Dahlia yearned for friends of her own kind. She loved being around people, and especially people who were having fun. What better way to make that happen than to open up her home, Blossom Manor, for a party to end all parties? And not just any party...a costume party. Dahlia loved dressing up, and she would use any excuse to do so.She had issued invitations all over the country, and prayed that surely someone would show up.

She ran around the house, making sure everything was ready. Since her last run-through, the sound system was working properly but some of the decorative fabric she had draped around the ballroom was coming down.She had decorated it in a harem theme, but with a twist. The fabric was deep crimson, black, and rich gold. She tried to straighten and adjust some of the hangings, and stepped back to view the effect. Dahlia glanced at the clock on the wall and silently cursed to herself. She would have just enough time to get ready.

She pulled on her costume and ran a brush through her thick hair. It was slightly tamer than usual, cascading down her back in dark, lustrous waves. She swiped a thick line of kohl over each eye, extending upwards and out. She darkened her lashes and applied to some clear lip balm. After spritzing herself with perfume, she hooked in a fake nose ring. She smiled in the mirror; a bonafide harem girl.

Dahlia went back downstairs to the ballroom and was about to switch on the sound system when she heard the doorbell chime. She clapped her hands in delight and smiled to herself. Guests already! She rushed to see who it could be, pulling the door open with the friendliest smile she could manage.

"Please, come in!"

[*Phoenix McKenzie]

Phoenix was all dressed up for the party. She had wanted Sevanni to come with her, but he refused. He had already submitted himself to one costume party for her, and he adamantly refused to do so again. She was dressed as Selene from Underworld. She had borrowed the outfit from her best friend Katra Maguire when she brought Aura to see her just the week before. Aura… Phoenix still finds it hard to believe that Sevanni had actually went to Paris, right into the heart of Kat’s packs territory, just so he could arrange it so Nix could see her daughter. That meant a lot to her.

Phoenix had at one time belonged to Kat’s pack, before Kat had even been alphess, even. She grew up in a family of lycans, and had been one herself since she was 13 years old. She had found her mate when she was in Kat’s pack, and brought him into Kat’s pack, since he himself had no pack to call his own. They had a child together. Aura. A beautiful baby girl with her father’s expressive eyes, changing colors with her mood; and blond hair like her mother. Hair color wasn’t the only thing Aura had inherited from her mother, from what Kat says. Apparently, she also has her mother’s attitude, stubbornness, and knack for getting into trouble—even though the child can hardly even crawl yet.

That thought had a smile tugging at pale pink lips. The pack was going to have one hell of a time for the next 18 years. Because the pack didn’t just have Aura to raise, but Kat’s twin pups as well, born barely a week after Aura. And if Kat’s pups are half as bad as their mommy…The pack members will be lucky to come out of the next 18 years without their hair turning prematurely gray.

The only person who had stopped Phoenix from seeing her daughter had been herself. It hadn’t been Sevanni, and it damn sure hadn’t been Kat. After having the child, Phoenix had to make the hardest decision of her life. She took the child to Paris, leaving her there with Kat—the child’s godmother—and Damien—Aura’s father. Phoenix left Aura sitting on Kat’s bed before returning to New York.

She hadn’t wanted her daughter to grow up in a house full of vampires, especially the ones that inhabited that house. Plus, she knew she was going to get the beating of her life when she went back to Sevanni Black. Sevanni had made a deal with Phoenix, he wouldn’t punish her for running away the last time—when she had been his slave—or for anything else she might do until after she had the baby. And Sevanni’s beatings were nothing to laugh at.

However, more awaited her than just a beating. After Sevanni had beaten her, and he’d beaten her hard, he’d then put some kind of serum into her that canceled out the lycanthropsy gene, turning her human. He’d done it while she was knocked out so she had no chance to fight him. And then he turned her into a vampire, a creature that she used to hate with every fiber of her being. A creature that her and the rest of Kat’s pack had hunted down on a nightly basis simply for fun, not because they had to. They had all hated vampires, and it was a sport to them, a game to see who would come back to the pack house with the most kills.

And so, she had adamantly refused to see her daughter. Phoenix was terrified of what would happen if she lost her already feeble self control around her daughter. She would walk into the sun herself if she were to ever hurt her baby girl. The one thing she had always wanted was a child; a family to call her own. She had gotten that, just before Sevanni turned her into a vampire and took it all away from her.

That wasn’t the only thing Sevanni Black had taken from her over the years. She should hate him with a passion… She did, once. At one point in time, she would have given anything in her power to kill him, and she had tried on many occasions. But now, she couldn’t make herself hate him anymore. Because, what she had once thought he had taken away from her, before this whole making-her-into-a-vampire-against-her-will thing, turns out that Sevanni hadn’t killed him like Nix had once thought. But the only vampire she had ever loved, the one that she thought Sevanni had killed, had simply abandoned her. He’d had the chance to come to her, and he chose to leave instead, leaving her alone and with an aching heart and a shredded spirit. It hadn’t went over too well when Nix found out that bit of information. She had gone psychotic and nearly killed everyone in a small little town in Alaska. If it hadn’t been for her friends and the whole thing with Sevanni’s brother, she very well might have. And she wasn’t certain that she would have stopped with just that town.

Phoenix looked up at the house that the black limo pulled up to, smiling slightly to herself. It would be good to meet new people, since she was now part of the vampire community. This was a new vampire, Phoenix knew that. She was trying to make friends, make acquaintances within the Nosferatu community. They were in the same predicament, only this girl was creative about it. She was throwing her own ball. Phoenix smiled as she got out of the limo, closing the door quietly behind her before trekking up the stairs, silent as a ghost. She looked up at the moon, full and round. She felt a pang of sadness deep in her chest, missing her old life as a lycan. It was very strange, not having her life ruled by the moons phases anymore… But she would always and forever miss that alternate conscience inside her mind. Her wolf had been a part of her, and feeling her wolf’s emotions had always made her feel better, calmer. She had relied on her lupine instincts many times, and they had saved her life more often then Phoenix could even count.

She walked up and rang the doorbell, and was greeted by a pretty female vampire and told to come in. Phoenix smiled at the girl, it was obvious that she was excited about this whole thing. It would be nice to interact with another female for awhile, one that wasn’t weird, creepy, or just plain and simply pissed her off. She missed her friends, Rose and Ali, vampires, yes, but they had been her friends even when she had been a lycan and hated all vampires. She called them both her little flukes.

“Hi. My name’s Phoenix McKenzie, but you can just call me Nixie if you want, or Nix, it doesn’t really matter.” She said with a friendly flashing of straight white teeth, making sure to keep her fangs put away. She didn’t want to frighten the girl, she was here to try and make a new friend.

[*Dahlia Adonis]

"Welcome, Nix. I'm Dahlia. Thanks for coming! Can I get you anything?" Dahlia ushered her guest inside, admiring her beauty. It had been awhile since she had seen another vampire, and Nix was lovely. She had such long, thick hair and beautiful pale skin, very opposite in coloring compared to Dahlia.

Dahlia smiled welcomingly at Nix. She was sure that she remembered hearing about this woman. Nix was a vampire with a young child, too. You didn't hear about that very often, and Dahlia and Nix seemed to both be an exception to the rule. Dahlia's two year old, Bronwyn, was already asleep up on the third floor, under the watchful eye of Dahlia's housekeeper, Rachel.

Dahlia closed the door behind them and smiled again at her guest. She wondered what her story was, and how she had come to have her baby. Dahlia was sure her story was very unique, much like her own. Dahlia had conceived when she was human, with her beloved high school sweetheart, Jack. But he had panicked at the thought of loosing his college football career and split--leaving Dahlia to raise a daughter and try to keep her place in the highly competitive Seattle dance company. That is where Elias had found her, when he came to see her dance the lead role in Giselle. Elias, the centuries old vampire who had a penchant for collecting and grooming his carefully chosen victims to be members of his ever-growing vampire "family." If it hadn't been for Elias, Dahlia never would have had the means to own this manor. She never would have been able to care for Bronwyn, or to move to this community. Dahlia was eternally grateful to her new "father," and his affection for her was clearly demonstrated in the lavish decor of Blossom Manor--all gifts from Elias.