by Seth Eden
“Thank God,” Tess said, chuckling. “I did not want to run everything. Just… some things. Phew.”
“Phew,” Kal murmured. He was relieved too. This was a big step and not one that he had thought would happen so soon. It would be hard going, he knew. This was just one region, though the leadership had called the shots for all the outlying areas from east to west. But there would be pockets of Vampyren fighters who wouldn’t just agree to a government run alongside humans so easily. It was going to be a tough road, and that wasn’t even counting the Lucian. That threat was only getting stronger. He found himself glad that he had a partner to stand beside him.
Urbana, they discovered, was a little worse for wear too but not demolished. The dorms looked untouched as they drove up. Their booby traps had all gone off but that scheme only took out some parking lots and portions of the quad and the front of the cafeteria. But for the most part, they were okay. Everyone on Kal’s bus breathed a sigh of relief and then proceeded to high five Mara who had a bandaged leg and a scraped up face but was still smiling somehow.
The staircase felt endless as Kal and Tess made their way up to the girls’ dorms behind Mark and Crystal. Kal felt as if the day had lasted a year. At least, it didn’t feel like he’d been there just that morning. Now it was dark and nearing two in the morning. Tess pushed open the door, and they both looked longingly at the bed but Tess pulled on his hand, yanking him in the direction of the shower.
They took a shower together, washing all the blood off and scrubbing each other’s hair. It wasn’t a very sexy shower yet there was comfort in it, Kal thought. For a while, they just stood under the hot spray and kissed and held each other and murmured about their undying love. When they got out, they were quiet. But Kal tossed a towel onto Tess’s head and made her laugh softly as he dried her wet hair. They brushed their teeth and put on underwear and pajamas and then climbed silently into bed.
He should make Tess eat, he thought. She was pregnant, and she needed her nourishment. He should have some blood. He could feel that edgy kind of thirst making his veins hum. But he had never been more tired in his life and Tess was yawning for the fourth time in two minutes. So instead he let her spoon up in front of him like they had become used to doing. He kissed the back of her neck which had also become routine and she took his hand and pulled it across her body to hold her tight. He rested his palm at her stomach and closed his eyes, feeling more comfortable than he ever had even as exhausted as he was. He imagined he could feel the heartbeat of his child inside her but he knew that was probably his mind playing tricks on him.
Still, as he fell into dreams, he could almost hear it; thump… thump… thump…
The tiny thumps of their future, now just a little seed of life inside his mate
“I love you,” Tess murmured.
“I love you too,” he said before they both dropped off to sleep.
Epilogue
1
Tess
Tess and Crystal stood in the back of the classroom and for a moment, it felt like old times. She felt as if she were a parent just visiting her kid’s school as if there had never been an invasion and this wasn’t a home for orphans and unwanted half-Vampyren children. But that’s what it was, alright. Still, the place had a homey feel to it now. The caretakers she’d put in charge were doing a good job. It was nothing like any creche she’d ever seen, that was for sure.
The children in the classroom that afternoon all lived in the school. It was a little crowded, but they all had warm, reasonably comfortable beds and clothes and all their essentials. They were divvied up by age and slept on cots in the gymnasium and a few of the classrooms. They had classes during the day, which creches hadn’t even bothered with before. Tess and Crystal were visiting to check up on things and look at inventory usage. But they’d become distracted by a first through third-grade class. The kids were studying earth science and they’d been demonstrating how tadpoles become frogs. Now they were dressed up as tadpoles and frogs, wearing little green construction paper tails and hopping around the classroom, giggling, as the teacher tried to explain about the ecosystem.
“They’re so cute!” Crystal said, practically melting.
“I could watch this all day,” Tess said, playing with a lock of her hair. Her little pixie cut had grown long. She had kept it short for so long as a matter of convenience but she’d taken to putting it in little pigtails now or tying a bandana around it.
“I guess we should go,” Tess said, sighing. Reluctantly, they left the classroom full of kids. They’d already checked out the inventory and talked to the teachers and caretakers about their concerns and needs. It was not an unpleasant place to hang out. Some of the older kids could be troublesome, especially the ones who weren’t used to not going to school anymore. But most were just drinking up the care they were given like they had been starving. Tess could see it on all their faces and it always made her choke up. It didn’t help that she was six months pregnant now. It seemed like everything lately made her burst into tears. She tried to hide it sometimes, but Kal always knew when she was especially emotional and so did Crystal.
Crystal had recently moved her baby as well her two best friends who had been taking care of her out to Urbana. They were all one big ragtag family now, living in the dorms. Tess thought maybe someday they’d look into finding abandoned houses to take over. But for now, they were happy where they were. Tess rather liked feeling part of such a close-knit community and the campus had been so pretty in spring and now summer. It wasn’t as blazing hot in Urbana as it was in Chicago either.
“Do the half-Vamp infants breastfeed?” Tess blurted out. It was something she kept thinking about. There were still some unknowns about half-Vampyren children. All the creches she had ever seen fed them with formula and later, blood on top of it when they got a taste for it (which she wasn’t ready to think about).
“Yeah. They do. I didn’t have that problem,” Crystal mused. “But that was because Deedee was living with Nina and Jet so I just… dried up. I guess.” She looked a little melancholy about it but just as quickly she brightened. “But now I got my girl back. She’s on formula. She just started taking blood.”
“What is that like?” Tess said.
“It’s weird,” Crystal said, taking the turn off the highway that would take them back to the sprawling campus. “I think I can get used to it. But it feels so wrong.” She burst out laughing suddenly and Tess joined her. “Feeding blood to a baby. Yeah. It’s weird. At first, I had to make Mark do it.”
Crystal parked the SUV in the bombed-out parking lot near the dorms. They got out and made their way up to the cafeteria since it was lunchtime. But there were a lot of people outside still, not going into lunch yet, and enjoying the green grass and the sun. Danton and Cassie were lying on towels in the grass as if they were at the beach, and they waved hello as Crystal and Tess passed.
The campus had felt like home for a while, but before the human-Vampyren government had taken over, there had been assumed to be temporary and the place was like a barracks, the ground zero of war, it seemed. But there had not been violence in a while and the new Council had taken the time to lay out a combined government with humans put some things into practice. There were still plenty of problems and plenty of long, loud Council meetings with shouting matches where nothing was resolved. But that was a far cry from how things had functioned a year ago. There was a lot of room for hope now.
In the cafeteria, Tess and Crystal found their men, Kal and Mark. The brothers were sitting at the end of one of the long tables with several already drained blood packs in front of them. Mark was now nibbling on homemade tortilla chips and drinking lemonade and Kal had his niece in his lap. Deedee was laughing and looking fascinated by whatever Kal and Mark were talking about as Kal bounce Deedee on his knee. There was a half-full baby bottle of blood on the table too and Tess fought the urge to wrinkle her nose.
She shook off the eerie feeling. She’d cross that br
idge when they came to it. Now she rubbed her stomach and smiled widely as the guys looked up and noticed them coming.
“No lunch for us?” Crystal said loftily, just before leaning down to peck Mark on the lips. She set her bag on the table and leaned on her hand. Tess’s stomach rumbled. She felt like the baby inside her was demanding food.
“We didn’t know when you’d be back,” Mark protested. “I know how you get when you visit the kids’ home. Sometimes you stay there all day.”
“Here, take her,” Kal said quickly, handing Deedee over to Crystal, who took her baby gladly. “I’ll get you something, Tess. What do you want? They have some different sandwiches…”
“Chicken salad if they’ve got it,” Tess said. “Lemonade. Chips…”
Mark obediently followed, to get Crystal some food. Tess grinned at Deedee. She was a beautiful baby and somehow looked just like both Crystal and Mark. She had the bright gold flecks in her eyes that most half-Vampyren children had and she already looked like she was going to be quite tall. Her hair was much lighter than Mark’s though and grew out in little curls.
“How are you feeling?” Crystal said, nodding at Tess.
“Hungry mainly,” Tess said. “I really need to start carrying snacks around. I was prepared to feel hungry but geez. It’s more extreme than I thought. I mean I had a huge breakfast this morning.”
“I had the same thing,” Crystal said. “Those little vamps want to eat all day. Just be glad we don’t have to drink blood.”
“Oh,” Tess muttered. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“I asked about it when I was pregnant,” Crystals said. “I’m not sure there might not be some benefit to it but I haven’t seen any half-vamp kids messed up because the moms weren’t drinking blood. I think the blood of the mother nourishes them well enough in utero or something.”
Tess felt vaguely nauseated just thinking about it, but soon enough the guys were back with plates full of food and her hunger returned ten-fold. She felt like she’d never been so hungry in her life and she saw Kal’s thick, dark eyebrows shoot up as she tore into her chicken salad sandwich.
“The kid is hungry,” Mark said knowingly. “Crystal was just the same way.”
Crystal was holding little Deedee close and the baby laughed as her mother kissed her curly head. “Are you implying there’s something wrong with women having an intense appetite?”
“No?” Mark said, seeming almost confused by the question. “It’s nothing compared to Vampyren women. They can get so hungry they attack their mate. I mean… you’ve heard about what can happen during Vampyren mating…” He and his brother exchanged an uncomfortable expression.
“Yeah,” Crystal muttered. “I really don’t know how you all survived this long. I think it’s a really messed up relationship dynamics myself, but what do I know.”
“Well, we took the easy way out,” Kal said, shrugging. “Human women. Problem solved.”
“You know, I’ve heard that’s catching on,” Tess said. “Human women are seeking out Vampyren mates all over the place now? They see them as strong protectors. I guess some women figure if you can’t beat em’, join em’?”
“I’ll bet the pheromones don’t hurt,” Crystal said. “Get a whiff of that magic stuff and it’s game over. That’s for sure.”
“I’ve… heard something about that,” Kal said. He was nibbling on a tortilla chip and looking very sneaky as if he had a secret. Tess felt like her relationship antennae were going haywire and her ears perked up.
“What does that mean?” She said.
“Nothing,” Kal said, looking very innocent. “Just that, it does seem as if some human women are um… on the prowl.” He grinned slyly then and Tess narrowed her eyes.
“Has someone been hitting on you?” Tess said, gritting her teeth. She was overwhelmed suddenly by an intense territorial feeling. The idea that anyone would dare come near her man with sexual or romantic intentions made her want to rip someone's throat out. “Who is she? I want names.”
“Watch out,” Mark said, looking slightly pale. “Women pregnant with Vampyren children get… dangerously jealous. Don’t egg her on, Kal.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, Mark,” Tess growled.
“Okay, okay!” Crystal waved her warms, and Tess felt the slightest pang of regret. It was the pregnancy and she knew better. She got riled up on occasion and her mouth started talking before she could control it. “Everybody chill.”
But she was still irritated.
“Sorry,” Tess mumbled. She had already scarfed down her sandwich and her chips and now she was still hungry, but she felt like a bit of a pig and it wasn’t a pretty feeling. At least Kal never looked at her like that. He only ever looked at her like she was beautiful.
As if psychic, Kal said, “I’ll get you another sandwich.”
Crystal was shooting Mark an expectant look over Deedee’s head and Mark sheepishly said, “Tess, I apologize if that was patronizing or anything. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Thank you,” Tess said. She took a deep breath and didn’t speak again until she felt like she meant it. It would have helped if Kal was back with the second sandwich. “I appreciate that. You’re also not exactly offbase. But I’ll try not to murder anyone.”
“I came pretty close,” Crystal said under her breath.
Tess laughed at that and felt a little more relaxed. It helped that Deedee was in Crystal’s lap, looking over at Tess with her giant, gold-flecked eyes. She looked so genuinely happy about everything and it lightened Tess’s heart. It was a dangerous world to have a baby in these days but she couldn’t help but feel a sense of responsibility. They had to go on. They had to keep the world turning. And now, they had to find a way to make that world better, marrying humans to Vampyrens, so that these helpless little babies had a better place to live in someday. It wasn’t going to be easy but it was necessary.
Lucian…
That enemy was something Tess could almost forget about sometimes. Then it would come back to her all at once and even now as Kal sat down, placing another plate full of food in front of Tess, she felt a thrill of fear course through her. There had been skirmishes throughout the Midwest recently. Both human and Vampyren were coming up against Lucian who had still not attacked en masse but were definitely using a strategy of attacking sporadically and regionally in small groups. The eeriest part was that wherever the Lucian won, you never heard much about it. Tess presumed that was because they killed everyone and no one was ever left to tell the tale. There were only known pockets here and there of Lucian living almost invisibly. And even that was the stuff of myth and rumor. No one quite knew what to believe or had any idea how many Lucian might be on earth. But things were beginning to come to a head. Loren, as the de facto leader of the Council, believed they couldn’t properly take on the Lucian threat unless the humans and Vampyren united nationwide. He kept talking about traveling around speaking to the different regional governments about that. In New York, at least, which had been absolutely ravaged by Vampyren, they managed to create a system similar to Chicago’s. In fact, that city had two leaders, one human, and one Vampyren just to even things out. New York was a solid ally in this new world.
“Here you go, baby,” Kal said, setting another plate down in front of Tess. Tess, now a little bit sated, was able to eat slower without looking like she was taking part in some eating contest. But she hated how self-consciousness she felt about it, until Crystal, who could clearly read her like a book leaned over and whispered that she should eat as much as she wanted.
“I think they think it’s sexy anyway,” Crystal whispered.
“We do,” Mark said, having overheard. He had Deedee back in his lap and Deedee nodded as if in agreement. “Watching women eat is hot.”
Tess raised an eyebrow at Kal who nodded and said, “Yes. It’s very hot.”
Now the hormones that made her jealous also made her horny and Tess took a deep brea
th as she looked deeply into Kal’s eyes. She was more attracted to Kal than she’d ever been to anyone but beyond that, the pregnancy hormones had turned that urge up to its max. It didn’t take much for her to get turned on and now Kal was giving her a heated look and she had a strong desire to sweep everything off the table and climb right on top of him.
But she’d hold off until they were alone.
“So the Council in Los Angeles is ready to talk apparently,” Mark was saying. “According to Loren. But they may need help. I think he wants a kind of diplomatic meeting, but he hasn’t organized it yet or maybe they haven’t agreed. I’m not certain which. For now, the Vampyren leadership there and the humans have called a truce. Which is probably wise because apparently there’s a heavy Lucian presence there…”
Tess was snapped out of her reverie and she gasped a little at the mere mention of Lucian. She took a deep breath, rubbing her belly, before eating the rest of her sandwich. She hated to give away how terrified she was by the thought of Lucian. She liked to think of herself as strong. But the more she’d heard about them, the more anxiety they provoked, especially with a baby on the way.
Kal seemed to sense this too and he reached over and squeezed her hand. “Let’s go up, huh?”
Tess blushed, embarrassed that he could read her so easily, even if it worked in her favor. Kal had always been rather sensitive to her needs. But that was especially helpful while she was pregnant.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Let’s go home.”
“You alright?” Kal said in her ear as they made their way back to the dorms. He wrapped n arm around her waist and she leaned heavily against him.
