"As vampires, we have never had all that much experience with werewolves," she said as she continued to tap her fingernails. "You being here, straddling both worlds as you are, you could prove to be a valuable asset to us. A lot of people think that any kind of an alliance between our kinds is simply for show to appease the humans that they aren't in any real danger from a major war breaking out. And most of the time, those people would be right. However, the council would like to change that. I'm not expecting you to work miracles, but if you were able to facilitate meetings between us, we would be most appreciative. Pack society is so different to how we live, and especially how the humans live. We often can't even get an appointment to begin speaking to the werewolves around us, but I believe you could."
"In exchange for what?" Vallen spoke for me.
I shot him a look. I wasn't helpless. I could ask my own questions.
"We would pay for Tad's education and employ him after he'd completed a degree in anything he wanted. We would give him four years of school, he would give us four additional years of work, as well as facilitating meetings between the council and the werewolf packs before then, of course."
I was staring at her. I'd heard her, and I understood what she was saying. I just didn't believe it. "Huh?"
She reached across and took my hands in hers. "Tad, we don't have another decade to find another werewolf who may want to consider working with us. We may not even have another year. We've been trying to broach peace talks with the various packs around us but none will listen. Most don't even take our calls. If they do, they can't speak for their packs, only themselves, but at this point in our history that simply isn't good enough. While things appear to be calm on the surface, they are anything but. Vampires are being held in control but we need the werewolves to come out of the shadows as it were as well so that we can have peace. The problem with having a very long life is that we've seen history repeat itself too many times. The humans do enough killing, we, both of our kinds, should be above such things. We don't want to govern the werewolves. Given what I now know of how you were raised I wish we could give every person in the pack a choice of whether they wanted to stay or not, but that's not feasible right now and would likely lead to backlash. So our next best hope is to try to bridge that gap between our kinds. Will you consider helping us?"
I wanted what she did. Instantly and absolutely. But I was an outsider to the werewolves now too and I didn't think that I could do much good, if any. "What if I can't get any of them to talk to me? What then?"
She pulled back, dragging her fingers over my palm as she took her touch away from mine. It was strange to miss someone's touch so instantly, but I wanted her hands again. Instead I offered Vallen my hand and he slid his fingers into mine.
"Consider our offer," she urged me. "If you find that this isn't a good fit for you in the future, we can talk about that then, but our society isn't about putting people in positions where they're likely to fail. We have a need and we believe that you are in the perfect, unique place to fill it. But, while you're thinking about that, we should focus on the matter of why you two have come to us tonight. Vallen, Tad, you two wish to be married under vampire law. Is this correct?"
"Yes," Vallen spoke up.
I nodded. I was too wrapped up in thinking about everything they were offering me to even begin to form words right then.
"And Tad, you are over the age of maturity, are capable of making this decision on your own, and you have not been pressured or forced into it at all, have you?" she continued.
I nodded, but she cleared her throat, telling me that she needed a verbal response for this part of our wedding. "Yes, and no, I haven't been pressured at all. I want this."
She smiled at me and that same comforting warmth welled up inside of me. She reminded me of the mothers. They were calm and collected like she was, but with a fierceness that told me that I wanted her on my side should I ever find myself in a fight.
Then she turned on Vallen. "You do realize that you can't bite him once he's pregnant, don't you?"
"I wasn't planning on biting him anyway, but no, I haven't forgotten the rules about biting pregnant people." He sounded annoyed that she would even bring it up.
I was surprised, and a little annoyed too, that that had been his only question. Didn't anyone care if he'd been pressured into marrying me? Apparently not because the next thing was signing a piece of paper that declared us legally married in front of the vampire council. The younger of the women made us a copy and the original was filed away for their records. Then, it seemed, we were done.
"Doesn't anyone care if you were being forced into marriage?" I asked Vallen once we were alone in the car again.
He laughed. "No, they aren't. You would have no reason to pressure me into marrying you. You wouldn't get anything out of it, where as I could easily pressure you. Perhaps I did kidnap you for my own werewolf husband and I'm forcing you to have my child. To rule that possibility out, they asked you for the truth. Asking me wouldn't have done any good."
I rolled my eyes. "That was intense." He offered me his hand again and I took it. The rain had started and I watched the drops trail down the windows and form into wide streaks as I thought. "They were offering me an education, and a job."
"In exchange for eight years of your life. Remember, nothing in this life is free. Everything comes with a price."
I knew that. I was making a trade with him after all. "But this could be a future for me. One that I help make. Are you doing something like this for them?"
I didn't expect him to nod, but he did anyway. "I'm the financial advisor to most of the vampires in Seattle. There's another vampire I split the load with, but yes, I made a deal as well."
"Do you regret it?"
He shook his head. "I already had my own firm before I made the deal with the council. I already had Ainsley as my assistant as well. What I gained from that deal was a whole lot of money, enough not to worry about anything for the next five hundred years if I didn't want to. They have plenty of money, and you saw how they live. It's well below what they could afford. They use what they have to advance the vampires around them, whether through better housing, or an education in your case. Every vampire who wants to go to college is given the opportunity to, but they have to give something in exchange. They are put into the positions the council tells them to be in and many of them report back to the council from those places of power in the human world. Vampires aren't barred from working in human government and businesses, but they are rarely hired. So when the council pulls the strings to put someone in a position, they want to make sure that that person is serving their best interests at all times."
I sat back and quietly absorbed what he was saying. It made sense. And it made me want to know more about the council, about how this society worked, about everything. I had a sudden, aching need to have everything outside of my life in the pack explained to me. "Why aren't you allowed to bite pregnant people?"
"Our saliva is a toxin that not only keeps the blood from clotting, but it also has a mild hallucinogenic agent. Some people experience nothing other than bright lights. Other people run themselves into walls trying to get spiders out of their brains. It's one of the big reasons why biting people at all is discouraged, but not outlawed entirely. However, being as infertile as our population is, we value the ability to create new life. We don't risk people who are able to have children."
I nodded along, that made sense to me too. He was very careful though, without really ever needing to be. I appreciated it, but I didn't want him stumbling over his words if he was struggling at times. "You can say women, you know. Right? You won't hurt my feelings. I'm really glad you don't just say women all the time when you mean people who can get pregnant, but I don't want you second guessing yourself all the time either."
He smirked and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm not second guessing myself at all and I don't say women because you're not one, yet you'll be having our child
." He pulled up in front of his house and, after turning the car off, he gave his full attention to me. "Tad, your gender isn't something I struggle with. At all. Most vampires won't. I can't actually think of a single one who would. It's less that we're so enlightened, and more that, at our age, the outside of a person has begun to mean less and less. I understand that it factors in a great deal to you and I'll never discourage you from doing anything you want to to your body to change it to how you want it to be, after our child is born of course, but for vampires, details like breasts or a penis don't matter much. They are parts of our anatomy that are there, and they are used, but when we connect with another person, or a group of people as the case sometimes is, we connect because of shared interests and the things we like about each other. That isn't to say that I don't want to have sex with you, and that I won't enjoy it when we're both ready, but I'm not over thinking about what you have under your clothes and wondering what the best words to use are."
I leaned over and kissed his cheek, then I laid my forehead against his neck. "You may not consider yourselves all that enlightened, but from where I sit, you really are. I have a future here, Vallen. A real one. Not one where I'll have babies that I'll never get to raise and eventually be regulated to just taking care of babies when I'm too old to make them. Not a future where my worth is determined by what my uterus is able to pop out each year. I can go to school, I can get a degree. I can make money and have a house and drive a car and it can all be mine and for me and our child."
I meant to kiss his cheek again, but he'd been turned toward me, and I kissed his lips. We were frozen for a moment, but then he kissed me, sliding his hand to my shoulder, and then to my neck. He ran his fingers along my jaw and I slowly opened my mouth for him. My hands seemed to catch up with my brain then, reminding me that I wanted to touch him too as I laid my fingers over his chest. I'd held his hand but I'd barely touched him otherwise except for when we'd had sex. Now I was left wondering why I hadn't wanted to try to touch him sooner. I hadn't been scared of him, or of this, but I hadn't had this thrum of energy and warmth going through me before either.
He pulled away first. "We should get inside. Ainsley's here and I want to make sure he's okay after going hunting tonight."
I nodded and sat back in my seat, suddenly at a loss for what I was supposed to do now. Things had changed, and were changing, and I was struggling to catch up. "Vallen?"
He was halfway out of the car. "Yes?"
"Do you think I should take the council up on their offer?"
He gave me a soft smile. "Sleep on it, and then decide. It's a good opportunity, but you would be left owing them. They aren't bad people, but I never get into business decisions lightly. Are you going to stay out here for a while or are you planning to come in with me?"
I looked at the house. I could almost see Ainsley there behind the tinted windows. As much as I wanted to go in, I thought it would be better if I gave them a few minutes alone first. "I'll be in soon. I'm going to go take a walk on the beach. Lots to think about, you know?"
"Absolutely. I'll see you soon." I watched him go inside, then I slowly got out of the car. I walked around the house, then carefully took off Ainsley's nice clothes, before I shifted and went to the water's edge. Being a wolf gave me peace, but it did nothing to calm my swirling thoughts.
Chapter Eleven
Vallen
"How did it go?" Ainsley asked me as soon as I came inside.
"I was going to ask you the same thing." He'd showered. His hair was wet and his natural color again instead out of the bleached out look he'd had earlier. He'd changed as well. Back to a pair of slacks and a button down shirt.
Ainsley shrugged and offered me a bottle of blood. I took it, and sipped, while I waited for him to tell me how his night had gone. "I wasn't expecting there to be two of them," he said as he leaned against the island across from me. "I handled it well enough but Vallen, these guys weren't first timers. I did my act, I tested them like I do with every asshole I do this dance with. I said no and asked to be dropped off and the one guy laughed and grabbed my arm while he called his friend to come join him on his 'fun'. I wanted them dead. I'm normally in better control than that."
I understood what he had done and I didn't fault him for it at all. He saw it as doing the world a favor. I saw it as revenge for something he'd barely touched on, but had told me more than enough for me to guess at what dark secrets he was hiding. "I want to go with you next time. You should have to face these monsters alone."
Ainsley snorted. "And most people would consider me the monster. No, Vallen. I'm okay. Just surprised at how much I let it get to me. I like being detached. I like it when I can think and when killing them is almost a game. That wasn't how it was today. At all. I'll be better in a bit, after I get some distance from tonight. A bottle of blood might help though, if you're feeling generous."
I got him one, because I would always share with him, but he should have been full after killing two grown men. "Didn't you drink from them?"
"No. I wanted to. But I couldn't make myself touch them for as long as it would take to drain them. I ended up just breaking their necks. Total waste of blood." He looked disgusted by it, by the waste and by the men themselves, if I had to take a guess.
I nodded. I wouldn't have wasted their blood, but then again, I didn't have the need to hunt men like them either. "The council offered Tad a job before we were married," I said. The change of subject helped. I didn't want to think about the danger Ainsley put himself in and Ainsley, apparently, was ready to be done with the topic as well because he became visibly more relaxed with my news.
"Doing what? I've never known the council to have any use for werewolves. Vampires usually don't either."
He had a good point, but still, even though I'd only had Tad in my life for a few days now, I couldn't begin to imagine it without him in it. "They want him to be the werewolf liaison."
Ainsley looked surprised. "Not sure how much traction he'll get with them considering how his father treated him but hey, maybe it is time we found some common ground with them." He finished his bottle of blood then tossed it in the trash. "If you don't need me for anything, I'm going to head home."
"I'll see you tomorrow."
He quietly left, and I went to the deck. I found Tad there at the edge of the water. He'd shifted and his paws were silent as he paced over the stones. He did have a lot to think about and I couldn't help him make the decision at all. I could have paid for his education myself, but I couldn't provide him with a job like the council could. I could give him a life here, but not one that he'd earned on his own. As much as I wanted to provide for the father of my future child, I couldn't give him the future that the council had promised him.
I sat there, with my back resting against the weathered gray wall of my house, as I watched Tad walk along the beach. I had lounge chairs out there that I could have sat in, but I wanted to sit on the deck for a few moments. Tad deserved a future he'd made for himself, one that he could be proud of. I didn't know what that future would look like for him, or if the council's offer was even something he was really considering, but if I could help him get there, I wanted to.
Eventually he turned and looked at me. A few moments later he'd shifted, and then he was gathering his clothing and pulling the pieces on over his naked body. I looked, openly and unashamed, at the body he'd hid from me. I'd known that his hips were slim and that his legs were long. His stomach curved out a little and I sat there, thinking about how his belly would grow with our child. I wanted that so much. Tad joined me on the deck and sat down beside me.
"No one has ever watched me like that, like they were really studying me. Did you like what you saw?"
"Yes." I wasn't going to pretend that I didn't, or that I hadn't been looking at him too. "What are your thoughts on the council's offer?"
He shrugged and leaned against my shoulder. "I don't want to feel like I'm in debt to anyone, but I don't know how to get wh
at I want without their help. At least at first. After the eight years, I'll do something else. I'll figure out what I want to do with my life and really do that. But for right now, their offer is a good place to start. How would I ever begin though? Who would I try to talk to? Definitely not my dad, but he speaks for the pack. If someone wanted to leave, like I did, one person wouldn't break the pack but if a lot wanted to? I don't know if I could do that to them. What if all the mothers wanted to leave, then who would raise the children?"
I didn't have all the answers for him, but I did know of one place he might have wanted to start. "Have you ever talked to Ronald?"
"He's a higher ranking wolf than even my dad is. Of course I haven't talked to him."
Tad made it sound like he thought my question was completely ridiculous. Like I'd asked him if he'd spoken to the president lately. Only, Ronald wasn't nearly as hard to get a hold of as Tad might have thought. "I have his number, if you ever want to call him. I talked to him before coming to get you. I wanted to make sure that I had his blessing, and could send Novak to him if I needed to go over your father's head. Ronald isn't as off limits as you might have thought growing up."
Tad pursed his lips, but I didn't want to hear his arguments about pack structure or anything else. If he wanted to talk to Ronald, then Ronald would answer his call. It would be that simple. Tad was a vampire now. While we didn't have the extreme structure of the pack that Tad had grown up with, we did have enough of a society that we were able to get things done.
"I guess, since I'm a man, he'll have to talk to me."
"You're also a vampire now," I reminded him. "For the sake of peace, Ronald doesn't get to ignore our calls. There are far fewer vampires than there are werewolves and so when we do end up reaching out to him, it isn't to talk about the weather."
Defying His Fate Page 8
