Bump bump. Bump bump.
I had no words for what I was feeling. Fear that I’d almost lost both my wife and her unborn child. Relief that both had made it through so far. Sadness because it had taken me nineteen years for her to have my child, and it had taken only one try for Arthur to do the same.
Then I forgot all of that, and focused on the tiny heartbeat. Lisbeth had said she would have a girl. A girl with sandy blonde hair and tanned skin, like Arthur.
“Let’s have that talk, then,” Arthur said when I lifted my head.
“No foreplay, okay.” I drank from my water too and went back to clasping Lisbeth’s limp hand. “You love my wife.” He looked like he was about to say something, but decided not to. “I’ve gotten used to it over the years because I knew you refused to have anything with her, not after dumping her unceremoniously when I came back.”
“It’s better for all three of us this way,” he assured, watching her still face.
“That’s not true.” He looked up at me in confusion. “You saw what she was like when you came back ten years ago. She was lost without you. Whether she knows it or not, she loves you as much as she loves me. She fell in love with you when she thought I was dead, and when you ended it, I know something inside her was hurting for you, even as she was in my arms. I know her. I see her. And she loves you.” As the words came from my mouth, I realized how much I meant them. Something was changing, and it had nothing to do with the chaos that was going on outside.
He was so focused on her sleeping form, like she was a mirage he had to keep watching or she’d fade away. “She belongs with you.”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t.”
He turned his icy glare to me. “Then what the fuck are you suggesting, Knight? I’m not going to play games with you, not about her.”
“I’m not playing,” I told him, running my hands over Lisbeth’s ring.
“Then what? You want me to fuck her, get her out of my system?” He was as angry as I’d ever seen him, but I wasn’t going to back down from this, not anymore. “If I was with her, I’d hurt her again, like I’ve hurt everyone in my life. I shot my mate in the face for breaking the law, Knight. Did she tell you that? And every night I fall asleep hoping that the day doesn’t come where Lisbeth dies because of my mistakes. She’s safe with you. You won’t hurt her, you won’t do anything that causes her harm. I can’t promise the same.”
So this was what he’d been worried about all this time. Dumb ass.
“You’re so stupid, Arthur. How about you ask her if she trusts you to keep her safe? I guarantee you she’ll say she does.” Arthur scoffed, and dared to reach out for Lisbeth’s other hand, given our conversation it was very brave of him to do so. “I need you to promise me something. Two things. That’s all I’m asking for. For her.” I expected resistance or a snide comment, but he just stared at Lisbeth and nodded.
“If it’s for her, I’ll do anything you ask of me.”
Well, here went nothing.
“I want your word that if she ever wants you again, romantically, you’ll stop this, ‘you belong with Knight’ bullshit and be with her. As her lover, as her mate, whatever she wants. I’m still the Alpha mate, so don’t go getting funny ideas, but… there. That’s it.”
Arthur’s crystal eyes flicked to me, studying me so hard I almost felt like blushing. “You realize what that will mean, right? I’m not interested in being her friend, or her side piece. If I get any part of her, I want it all. I want everything you get every day. You get to wake up to her every day, you get to see her smile with love in her eyes every time she looks at you. You get to hold her close like you’re never letting her go again. You get her ups and downs, you see her in a way no one else does, not even me.”
Maybe he did too.
“Sappy, but sure, fine. You get everything I get. No restrictions.”
Before I could react, he launched himself across Lisbeth’s legs and threw himself into my arms, holding me in our first hug ever, and I felt warm all over weirdly, the way I did when I hugged Lisbeth.
I oddly wanted more hugs from him.
He whispered into my ear, making a tingle spread across my skin. “If you’re fucking with me, I’m going to kill you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, patting his back, and trying to ignore how good it felt being in his embrace. “Remember she calls the shots. If she’s not ready for you, you can’t say anything. It’s been a long time since you two were a thing, she might be too hurt.”
“I know, I know.” He pulled away and the tear streaks were back when he returned to his spot at Lisbeth’s side. “What was the other thing?” He pretended to have a spec in his eyes so he could wipe at them.
“She literally almost died just now, and I wished that I could’ve taken her place, that it was me instead, and if our places had been switched, I’m sure I would have died. Things are changing out there so fast, I can’t wrap my head around it. The world isn’t safe anymore. In keeping with what I just said, I need your word that you’ll love my wife if I die, as her mate. That you’ll never leave her, not ever.”
Arthur didn’t respond to what I’d said. We sat next to Lisbeth for a long time, both holding her hands, not speaking, until the sun was slowly fading into the horizon. All the while I could hear her heart beating in her chest, growing stronger with every minute, and the more I focused, the more I could hear the tiny heartbeat coming from her womb.
“I’m cool with it, by the way,” I said after the sun had gone down. Arthur looked up at me, startled by my voice after so many hours of silence. “You and her having this baby, I mean. It means a lot to her. I need your word on that too, that if anything happens to this baby, you’ll give her another if I’m gone. We both know what it means to her, so get it done. And maybe this time you can ditch the turkey baster and fuck her.” I pumped my fist at him and he rolled his eyes.
“I can’t believe you talk about your own wife like that.”
“It’s called relationship trust, buddy. I’ll always be her number one, even if she chooses you too.” He went silent again and I had to ask him an obvious question. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to fuck her?”
“Of course I want to fuck her, don’t be obtuse,” he said. “Fantasizing isn’t even necessary when you two fuck in the open like that.”
“You watched us.” The idea had me equal parts repulsed and intrigued. Did he like watching me fuck her?
He shrugged apathetically, but a hint of a grin came to his face. “I live next door, you twat. You shouldn’t fuck her where I can hear it. She screams loud enough to wake the dead. You do too, by the way.” I couldn’t respond to that as my cheeks flushed and my stomach felt like it had left my body. His icy blue eyes fixed on her face, he held up a fist to me. “I give you my word.”
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped. “Gasp. Our first fist bump.” I put my fist up and he lowered his instantly.
“Too slow.”
“I will fucking murder you.”
Lisbeth slept calmly for several days. I refilled her IV bag as many times as I could, stealing all the snacks Arthur had brought to refuel my blood. Seeing her lying there for so long was making me beside myself with worry, not only for her but also the baby. Arthur calmly explained she’d been hurt so badly that she had slipped into a coma in order for her body to repair itself. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know how close she’d been to death. I’d been there once myself, and my beautiful wife was the cause then. This time, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d caused her injuries. I should’ve gone to her first and kept them off of her.
Blaming myself wouldn’t help, and I knew she’d just tell me I was wrong. I would still carry it with me, a silent reminder of how I’d failed her. Every time she smiled at me, I’d remember that next time I wouldn’t fail her again. She’d never be lying there lifeless again, not with me by her side.
I fell asleep every night listening to the sound of two heartbeats. One strong, one
infinitesimal. Arthur slept outside, by choice, and drank bagged blood he had in a cooler.
We moved campsites a few times over those lifeless days, getting closer and closer to the remote cabin even though it wasn’t a long drive. We weren’t willing to move Lisbeth more than we had to. Once we were at the cabin, we’d make a plan. I wouldn’t think ahead until Lisbeth was awake again. Arthur kept in touch with everyone on his holo-phone until the signal went dead. We didn’t know if that was because of our location, or if cell towers were dropping. Neither of us wanted it to be the latter, and without the holo-phone, we didn’t have any way to communicate with anyone because someone forgot to bring a hand radio. Side note: it was Arthur, and it made getting to the cabin a priority, because in addition to a hand radio, we had everything there to survive on our own. Including twinkies.
Day four rolled over, and after a small amount of driving in the front seat with Lisbeth in my lap, we stopped and set up camp again. Arthur helped me lay Lisbeth down on the tent floor, and he put her IV on the stand. He stopped and picked it up to check the lines of measurement on the bag.
“What’s up?” I asked, picking up her hand and stroking it with my fingers.
“She’s not using much blood now. She can be off the IV. She’ll wake up soon I think.” He pulled the needle out of her arm and watched the little hole close up instantly. “Healing is automatic. She’s doing good.” Checking my face first, he laid his head down to check the baby’s heartbeat, and then he put the supplies away into his bag. “Baby is fine too.”
“You’re really good with medicine. Where’d you learn it?”
He didn’t look up at me while he fussed in his bag. “I was in charge of the vampire division during the World Wars. There were dozens of us fighting on the front lines for the first war. The second, we tried espionage instead. Less bloodshed. No death. It might surprise you to know that we’ve always cared about the humans during wartime. I could’ve served in every war after that instead of the few I chose to be part of, just to ensure the outcome was one we wanted.”
“But instead you chose to police your own kind.” I kissed Lisbeth’s hand again. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you chased us like animals.”
He glowered at me. “It was my job. And I only started doing that because of what happened during World War II. Don’t think for one second that that dictator didn’t have vampires helping him. I couldn’t allow that to happen again.”
I whistled low. “Woww. That’s… actually interesting. Could you read me that as a bedtime story?” He rolled his eyes, grabbed his bag, and left the tent. I laid down next to my wife, and now that she wasn’t hooked up to an IV, I gently pulled her into my arms. Just to be sure, I checked Arthur’s position to see if he could hear me before I started talking to her.
“Remember that time when I almost threw up because you were drinking blood?” I chuckled, staring up at the tent ceiling. “I can barely even remember a time when I thought you were repulsive. Just to be clear, I was lying because I thought you were hot, and it wasn’t kosher for me to like you. Then I did like you, and I was convinced I’d be like Arthur, loving you from a distance forever. But score, you liked me back.” I smelled a rabbit, and then the rabbit’s blood. Arthur was hunting for our dinner. “You have to wake up. I almost lost you, and I can’t…” I sighed and started petting her long beautiful curls. “Fuck, I can’t go on without you. Not for Jason, not for Kitty, not for Merrick. You’re everything.” I kissed her forehead and left a wet, salty spot, only to lean my head against it a moment later.
11. Together
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I woke up to sunlight on the tent top, and I felt someone’s fingers stroking my hair. My immediate first thought was Arthur had come in during the night, so I immediately sprang awake and saw Lisbeth staring up at me with a tired smile.
“You’re awake. You woke up,” I breathed like a prayer. I’d never been so grateful in my entire two hundred and eleven years. Never. She held me tight, and I held her tighter. If I held her tight enough, maybe it would erase the pain and the worry.
“You’re squishing me,” she whispered, and I let her go enough where she could breathe, but no more. “I was in bad shape, huh?”
I cried and laughed at once. “A bit.”
Her lithe fingers flowed through my hair, releasing my built up tension. “Knight.” I knotted my hands through her curls. “I’m not dead. I promise I’m not.”
“I know, I know.” I sniffed and untangled myself from her to wipe my face clean. She wiped her cheeks as well and leaned in to kiss mine before delicately kissing my lips, and I was lost to her, the woman who owned my heart. No kiss could ever convey the depth of my feelings for her. It was like every moment before had been erased, and I needed desperately to show her all over again what she meant to me. Ending our kiss was like cutting off my arm.
“Hey umm, there’s something else,” I mentioned softly. “Remember that thing you did a few weeks ago with Arthur’s spunk?”
“Arthur’s what?” she questioned, eyebrow raised, but then it hit her and she looked down at her stomach. “For real?” Her eyes closed and she focused her senses inward. “I hear the heartbeat. But I was so hurt, how did we both survive?”
“Arthur. And my blood. Mostly my blood. You’re welcome, mini-Arthur.” I tickled at her belly button and she giggled, trying to get away. Safe from my tickling fingers, she pulled her arms around herself, like she was giving her stomach a hug.
“I get to see her. She’ll be in my arms.” She smiled contently and looked up at me. “And after her, our daughter will come.”
“Fuck yeah! More Mini-Me’s.” I crawled over for a kiss on her lush lips. “Happy?” She nodded.
Arthur was outside making noise, and Lisbeth put out a hand for me to help her up. She was still unsteady on her feet so I led her outside holding one hand with the other on her back. Arthur had another rabbit on a spit over a fire covering the forest air with the smell of cooked meat, and he looked up when we came out of the tent. It was his usual blank face, but I saw behind it. He was relieved.
“Hungry?” he asked us, his eyes only on her.
“I love rabbit,” she said with a smile. We sat down on either side of her and started enjoying the juicy meat. Arthur gave her extra and I didn’t complain. “Remember the first day we met?” she asked me after her first bite. “You had a rabbit cooking, and you wouldn’t share it with me.” She elbowed me, grinning.
“Near-death Lisbeth is awfully nostalgic,” I teased. “Remember the day we first met?” I asked Arthur with a smirk. “I totes kicked your ass.”
He gave me an Arthur scowl, but the corners of his mouth were almost teasing. “And then you were naked. I remember.”
“Bet you liked what you saw,” I chided, shaking a finger at him.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He stood up and started stomping out the fire. “Let’s head out. We’ll get to the cabin before lunch.”
“Wow, you guys took four days to drive like seven hours?” she observed, licking her fingers. I kissed her and tasted meat with her normal flavor. So sexy.
“No judging, only kisses,” I ordered, and got as many kisses as I could in the back seat of the jeep until we arrived at our private drive. I punched in the security code at the fence and it retracted back for us to drive through. Fancy, I know. The unpaved drive wound past forests of pine trees and beech trees, dogwoods and red oak. The road went up and twisted around until we were in front of a large lake and our lovely cabin.
We’d fucked all over this place.
Arthur was appraising it with a look I could call impressed. “This is nice. I like it.”
Wait ‘til you hear how much sex happened here.
“We’ll get the radio running and send a message out. Everything runs on a generator, so we’ll still have power.” Lisbeth hopped out of the jeep and picked up her backpack. I was right behind her with my bag and waited for her to unlock the door
before immediately tossing myself onto one of the couches in the living room.
Arthur came in behind her, wrinkling his nose. “Do you two clean this place? I can smell… things.”
“I’ll pretend you never said that,” Lisbeth deflected, and disappeared into one of the bedrooms.
“Remember that time you agreed to never talk about her love life? Good times.”
He dropped his bag and sniffed at a chair before sitting on it. Nope, that one wasn’t safe, but I kept silent. It was probably a good thing he didn’t have a black light. At least I hoped he didn’t. “You weren’t there.”
“I was outside the door, bro. You’d be surprised at the things I overheard in that castle.”
“Oh, so you heard that time when I asked her if my ass looked nice?” The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly.
“I know you’re joking, but bruh. Not cool.”
“Remember that time you almost died wearing a man bun?” Lisbeth shouted from the bedroom. “Classic.” Arthur covered his hand with his mouth, but I could still hear him laughing. I threw a pillow at him, he dodged it, and it sailed to slam into Lisbeth’s face when she came out of the bedroom because she wasn’t paying attention. Unphased, she walked over to us and glanced at where Arthur was sitting. “And for your information, we fucked in that chair.” He immediately jumped up and she held out her hand to me for a high five.
“Love you, babe,” I told her, slapping her hand.
She did a double finger gun snap at Arthur. “That’s for teasing my husband.” Pulling it from her pocket, she handed Arthur the radio. “Here, I don’t know how to use it. We need to find Kitty and Jason.” He took it and walked over to the kitchen to start fiddling with the dials to find the right frequency. Lisbeth sat next to my legs, slowly moving to lean over me. “Well, I haven’t showered in four days. How about you?” Her mouth curved up in that way I liked and I was instantly rocking a boner.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 65
