by Folsom, Tina
She allowed herself to be guided to the medical suite, where she sat down on a bench and took a few deep breaths.
Maya took a seat next to her and put her hand over Enya’s.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I cried just now. It’s really nothing,” Enya lied. “Just stress, I guess.”
Maya looked at her with the expression of a woman who had all the answers. “Don’t worry. I was a bit of a watering pot myself when I was pregnant.”
Enya shot up. “What?”
Maya slowly rose. “Yes, in the first few months, I was very emotional. I’m sure that’s all it is. But just to make sure, why don’t I quickly check you out?”
Enya stood there, frozen. “Check me out? But I’m fine. And I can’t be pregnant. I’m not bonded.” Stealth Guardians were only fertile when bonded.
Maya raised an eyebrow. “Honey, I sense two heartbeats coming from you. So unless you have a heart condition, which I doubt, or a second heart, which I also doubt, then the heartbeat belongs to another being.”
“But… It’s not possible…” Enya stopped herself, remembering the queasy feeling she had every time she traveled in a portal. Or the time she’d puked after finding out that Zoltan was a demon.
She felt Maya’s hand on her arm. “Do you mind if I lay my hands on your stomach?” Maya asked.
“Don’t you use a stethoscope for that?”
“Vampire senses, you know.” She smiled.
Enya nodded, and Maya put one hand on her stomach, moving it up and down, then side to side, then resting it again. A warm smile appeared on her lips. “I can feel your baby’s heartbeat. It’s strong. You’re definitely pregnant. And if you’re not bonded, then I’m not sure how it happened, but trust me, it happened. Who’s the father?”
Enya stared at Maya. There was only one man who could be the father, even though she couldn’t explain how it had happened. Well, they’d had sex, of course, and without protection. But no Stealth Guardian female had ever gotten pregnant unless she was bonded to a man.
“Enya?” Maya’s voice called Enya back to reality. “You looked like you were going to faint.”
And why not? Wasn’t the fact that she’d gotten knocked up by a demon enough reason for anybody to faint?
“I need to tell him.”
To tell Zoltan, the ruler of the Underworld, that she was carrying his child.
~ ~ ~
Less than half an hour after leaving San Francisco via the portal located in a BART tunnel in the Mission neighborhood, Enya was back in her private quarters in the Baltimore compound. She’d made sure that nobody had seen her return, because she wasn’t in the mood for twenty questions. She had too many questions herself. How it was possible at all. How Zoltan would react. But most of all, one question loomed over all others. Would the child be a demon?
After pacing for a good hour, she finally decided that there was no use in delaying any longer. Zoltan had a right to know. She called his burner phone and let it ring. Once, twice, then a click in the line.
“Hey, Enya.”
Her heart stopped. The voice wasn’t Zoltan’s.
“Logan? What the fuck?” she said. “Why do you have his phone? Where is he?”
“Come to the command center, and we’ll talk.”
She disconnected and shoved the phone into her pants pocket, already charging out of the room and heading for the compound’s command center. If her brethren had hurt Zoltan, they would pay for it.
Enya stormed into the room without bothering to open the door. Apparently, Logan hadn’t expected her so quickly, because he was talking to Hamish, whose arm was in a sling. Pearce and Ryder were sitting in front of the computers, and Aiden was hovering over a desk.
“Fucking bastard!” She charged at Logan and catapulted him against the wall. “What did you do with him?”
When she lunged after Logan, who was already getting up and dusting himself off, Pearce and Aiden pounced and held her, pulling her back. She struggled against their grip and glared at them.
“Don’t worry, you two will get a beating too when I’m done with him.” She tipped her chin at Logan.
“You’re not gonna beat anybody up, you hothead,” Logan said calmly. “And we didn’t harm your fucking demon boyfriend, so pipe down.”
“Where is he?” She let her gaze roam and noticed the absence of Manus and Grayson. “What are Manus and Grayson doing with him?”
“Just watching him,” Logan said.
Enya scoffed.
“He’s telling the truth,” Aiden said, still holding her in a tight grip.
She whipped her head to him. “Then where is Zoltan? Where is he?” She kicked Aiden in the shin, and he let go of her.
“Damn it, Enya!” Aiden said. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Yeah, but it felt good.” She snapped her head to Pearce as a warning. He heeded it and let go of her too.
When her eyes fell on Hamish, who’d been watching patiently with Ryder by his side, Hamish lifted his injured arm. “Your boyfriend already hurt me, so you can lay off me.”
“So where are Manus and Grayson? Did they take Zoltan to the council?”
Logan rolled his eyes. “You think we’re stupid? If we bring Zoltan to the council, they’ll find out that you’re sleeping with him. And you know what that means. You’ll be marked as a traitor.”
The word cut deep into her. Yes, she was a traitor to her race in more ways than her colleagues could even imagine.
“Give us some credit, Enya,” Logan continued. “We’re not gonna betray you just because Zoltan managed to trick you into trusting him. We’ll sort this out our way, without the involvement of the council.”
“Yeah,” Hamish added. “Nobody will ever need to know that you made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” she growled. “I made no fucking mistake. You are the ones who made a mistake.”
“Be reasonable, Enya,” Logan said. “In a few days, when you’ve calmed down, you’ll understand that there is only one solution to this problem. You’ll come to the same conclusion: even though Zoltan is Cinead’s son, he can’t be saved. He’s locked up downstairs.”
A ray of hope rose in her. Even Logan seemed to notice it.
“Manus and Grayson are watching him, so don’t even think of trying to free him. None of your tricks will work. If you think of approaching them invisibly, don’t. Grayson will smell you the moment you enter the corridor.”
“Bastards!” she cursed. “I want to see him. I want to talk to him.”
“No!” Aiden replied. “You won’t get to see him until we are convinced that you’re ready to kill him.”
She glared at her colleagues. How dare they decide her life for her? Kill Zoltan? She hadn’t been able to do it when she’d first discovered that he was a demon. How could she kill him now that she was carrying his child?
“That’ll never happen!”
With a grunt, Enya turned around and charged out of the command center. She didn’t bother running down to the lead cell to see if Manus and Grayson were really guarding Zoltan. She knew Logan had told her the truth. Instead, she retreated to her private quarters. She had to free Zoltan. He’d done the same for her.
Enya snatched her computer, plopped on the couch, and booted it up.
“Brothers, you’re not the only ones playing dirty,” she said. “I’ve got an ace up my sleeve too.”
26
An alarm blaring outside his cell ripped Zoltan from his dozing. He instantly jumped up and rushed to the door, trying to hear what was going on in the compound.
“Perimeter breach,” a female machine voice repeated over and over again, interlaced with the sound of a high-pitched horn. Then a male voice interrupted, “Demon attack! Everybody to the west entrance. I repeat: demon attack!”
Fuck! The demons had found them. How, Zoltan had no idea. They would attack Enya, and he was sitting in this damn lead cell and couldn’t help her. Frustrated, he hammered against th
e door.
“Let me out! Damn it! Open the fucking door and let me out! I can help you against the demons!”
But nobody answered his cry for help. The two men who’d stood guard in front of his cell were probably already gone, racing to help their brethren. And he stood here, helpless. Again he slammed his fist against the heavy door, and it suddenly opened outward.
Light streamed into the cell, and for a moment he was blinded.
“Quickly, let’s get out of here.”
“Enya?” He blinked.
Enya reached for him, grabbing his arm. “Do exactly as I say.”
He exited the cell. “Give me a weapon, so I can defend us from the demons.” He let his gaze roam, looking for the intruders, but so far the corridors were clear.
“There are no demons,” Enya said, and ushered him along a corridor.
“What?”
“It’s a diversion. I tricked the computer system into thinking that demons are attacking us.” She pointed to a flight of stairs. “Down that way.”
He ran next to her, taking two steps at a time. “To save me?”
She cast him a sideways glance. “They posted Grayson, one of the vampire hybrids, and Manus as your guards. I would have never gotten past them.”
“Smart girl.” He looked down the corridor Enya was leading him to and noticed that it was a dead end. “Where are we going?”
“The portal.” A moment later, she stopped dead in front of a stone wall and looked up.
Zoltan followed her gaze and looked straight into a camera. “Are we invisible?”
“Not yet.” She pressed her palm against the stone, and Zoltan noticed a glow beneath it.
An instant later, the stone was gone. The portal was open. Instead of immediately entering the dark space, Enya looked up at the camera again, then lifted her fist and extended her middle finger. He had to hand it to her: Enya wasn’t somebody who kept her opinions to herself.
“Get inside,” she ordered him, shoved him in, and followed. Inside, she took his arm. “Okay, do exactly as I say. We’re both invisible now, and we’re gonna march back out. Silence from here on out.”
He didn’t ask any questions, but followed her instructions. The moment they were back in the corridor, the portal closed. Enya held his hand, and again they rushed through several corridors, up a different set of stairs. Meanwhile, the alarm still blared, yet Zoltan didn’t talk, didn’t express his gratitude or the pride he felt for Enya. She was fooling her colleagues into thinking that they’d left the compound via the portal. They wouldn’t know where to start looking for them. And she’d done it all for him. His heart swelled with love. Nobody had ever shown him such loyalty, such devotion.
The alarm stopped. He looked at Enya. They were both thinking the same: her brethren had caught on to her diversion and realized that there was no demon attack. Another flight of stairs higher and Enya dragged him to the end of another corridor. There, she stopped and took a breath, then opened the door ahead of her. Finally, an exit.
They walked through the door, and Enya pulled it shut behind them.
Zoltan froze. They weren’t outside; they were still in the compound. He spun around.
“These are my private quarters,” she said. “They’ll never suspect that I’m hiding you here. They’ll be too busy figuring out where we went via the portal.”
He shook his head and pulled her into his arms. He lifted her off her feet, then captured her mouth in a searing kiss. For the moment they were both safe, and that was something to be grateful for.
With a sigh, he released her and looked into her eyes. “You keep saving me. You keep risking everything you’ve ever worked for. Why?”
She took a deep breath, and instinctively he knew that her answer was going to be more than just a casual remark. “Because I want my child to know its father.”
For a few seconds, the words made no sense, as if she’d spoken them in the wrong order, as if they’d gotten jumbled up on the way from her brain to her lips. But then they finally reached his brain, and he made sense of them.
“You’re pregnant? By me?”
“No, I’m joking.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m fucking pregnant. And it’s yours. I haven’t slept with anybody else in months, so unless it was the holy spirit—”
Zoltan pressed his lips to her mouth and kissed away her curses. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace so tight that it left them both breathless. When she shoved her hands into his hair and held him, he knew she understood what this kiss meant. But just to be sure, he took his lips off hers to say what he should have said earlier.
“I love you, Enya, I love you with every fiber of my being. With every ounce of whatever miserable heart I have. And I’m gonna love our baby just as much.”
A sob tore from Enya’s throat, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh my God,” he murmured. “Did I say something wrong? I’m so sorry, my love—tell me what I did wrong. Please.”
She sniffled. “Nothing. You did nothing wrong.” She smiled through the tears that ran down her cheeks in small rivulets. “You said all the right things. I just didn’t expect it. I didn’t dare hope that you…”
He used his thumb and forefinger to tip her chin up. “That I what? Want this baby? That I welcome it?” He ran his hand over her hair, caressing the soft tresses.
“That you love me,” she said.
He moved his head to the left, then the right. “Do you really think I would have risked my life and my kingdom for you if I didn’t love you? You’re more important to me than anything else. For you, and for our child, I’d sacrifice my life. Anything to keep both of you safe.”
Enya pulled his head to her. “I love you, Zoltan. But I don’t want you to die for me. I want you to live for me. For me and our child. Because this child is a miracle.”
Zoltan chuckled. “A miracle? Don’t get me wrong, I welcome this child. But a miracle? Hardly. Babe, we had unprotected sex. And not just once. Sooner or later, it had to happen.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. Stealth Guardians aren’t fertile, not until they’ve bonded. I should have never gotten pregnant.”
Stunned, he stared at her. This was something he hadn’t known about Stealth Guardians. “If that’s true, then I don’t understand. I mean, I’d like to think that I’m… uh, you know, a stud…” He winked at her and got an eye-roll in response. “But maybe you should see a doctor, make sure you’re not mistaken. After all, it’s only been a month since we first had sex. Isn’t that a little early to confirm that you’re pregnant?”
“Normally, I’d say yes, but I already saw a doctor earlier today. A vampire doctor in San Francisco.”
“A vampire? One of your allies?”
Enya nodded. “I went to see her colleagues about some advice and ran into her while I was there. She heard the baby’s heartbeat. That’s how I found out. It’s certain.”
Zoltan pulled her back into his arms. “I’m happy it happened. Now the chance of you dumping me is decreasing.”
“That’s your concern? Me dumping you?”
“Can’t blame me for wondering about that. I’ve got a few strikes against me, you know, being a demon and all.” He motioned to the door. “Your people don’t exactly like me. They were debating when to kill me. Not sure why they didn’t do it right when they captured me. Almost as if they had scruples. As if they were worried how you’d react.”
For a moment, Enya said nothing, but behind her blue eyes, the wheels in her mind were working overtime. “I think we can use that.”
“Use what?”
“They don’t want to piss me off.”
“I hate to point out the obvious,” Zoltan said slowly, “but you breaking me out of the lead cell kinda means you just tossed that card out the window. You betrayed your people—it can’t really get any worse than that.”
“There’s one thing worse I could do…”
He lifted an eyebrow. What was his sexy warrior cooking up now? “Why would you wanna do something even worse?”
“To make it better.”
“I don’t follow. How would doing something worse make it better?”
A smile curved Enya’s lips. “Because it would mean that they can’t touch you. Nobody would dare hurt the mate of a Stealth Guardian.”
For what seemed like an eternity, Zoltan’s heart stood still. Enya was offering him the ultimate proof of love. And what could he give her in exchange? A whole world of unhappiness, because if she was bonded to him, her people would cast her out. They would never accept a demon among their midst. If he accepted her offer, he would be condemning her to a life in exile, a life away from the people she loved. She would never be safe: the moment the demons discovered that she was carrying his child, they would hunt her down, and without friends, without allies, it wouldn’t take long until the demons would kill them both and cut the child from her womb.
“We can’t do that,” he said. When their eyes met, he saw the hurt. The disappointment. But before she could free herself from his arms, he added, “Because it means you’ll lose your people’s protection. They’ll never accept me. They’ll cast you out. All you’ll have is me to protect you. It won’t be enough against the hordes of demons who’ll be on our ass. You can’t possibly want that.” He released her and looked down to her flat stomach. He reached out and touched her there. “I want our child to live, even if I can never see it, never touch it, never feel its life force. This child is innocent. Don’t let us drag it into this war.”
Enya, whose gaze had followed his hand, now looked up at him, a strange expression on her face. “It’s not the heartbeat. That’s the wrong translation.” She appeared as if she was talking to herself. “Charles and Wesley were wrong. It’s not the heartbeat.”
“What are you talking about?” Zoltan said, concern for Enya’s wellbeing crawling up his spine.
She gripped his biceps. “Charles and Wesley, the two witches I consulted in San Francisco to find a way to turn you back into a Stealth Guardian, found something. A story told by the gypsies. A story about a demon who was redeemed.”
