so why'd you have to rain on my parade?

       

I'm shaking my head. I'm locking the gates.

Despite being reassured about eight hundred times that this would all be okay, there remained a tension in Samantha's shoulders as she prepared for the dinner party they were attending this evening. It had very little to do with Troy or even his fiancé and everything to do with the fact that she had never, not once, had a good experience with a vampire. Her experience with Sebastian had been... less than stellar the first time around, and had not been exactly great the second time. And with that memory existed a nervous apprehension around vampires, one that only intensified now that she was pregnant. She was sure that Troy's fiancé... Amelia, it was Amelia, right? would not harm her or her unborn child, and yet the more rare she learned her pregnancy was, the more she wanted to hide away in the safety of her bedroom until her child was safely in her arms. Still, this was family. Kit's family, and he'd missed out on far too many years with his brother for her to ruin things like dinner parties and drinks with her anxiety.

The dress Samantha chose was simple, though mostly because she had very few dresses that fit her properly over her growing stomach. It was a deep blue that brought out the cerulean hue of her eyes, making her feel stronger and more confident than she really felt in this moment. She left her hair down, even if it was curled slightly and looked presentable. And where the young woman might have once preferred heels, she'd settled for flats. After all, it seemed like the more pregnant she became, the more of a tendency she had to walk into walls or trip over her own two feet. As much as some people claimed that they loved pregnancy, Samantha was quickly finding that she couldn't wait for it to be over if only so her body, her balance, and her powers would return to normal.

Sitting next to Kit within the car, the young fae was silent as they drove towards the northern district of the city, that anxiety taking all of her focus to keep it at bay. After all, she'd cried over burning pancakes only the morning before and had made bubbles appear throughout the kitchen. Which, luckily, she'd been able to get rid of before Kit had noticed. Still, the young woman felt entirely... chaotic. As they pulled up that manor house, Samantha's gaze fell upon her boyfriend, a nervous smile on her features. "I don't always do well around groups of people," Samantha murmured, reaching over to slip her hand into his grasp. "Too many emotions, too much to focus on. Sometimes I get headaches. I just... wanted you to know. I'm trying." How she wanted this night to go perfectly for her Kit, and yet how scared she was by the flurry of people, the heightened emotions, and the child within her that was quickly showing off how much she could control those empathic powers her mother possessed. "Are you ready to go in?"

this is why we can't have nice things

       

Samantha Cassidy