by Keary Taylor
“You mean that?” I ask in a whisper as my eyes slide down to his mouth.
“Every word,” he says quietly. His hands rise to my sides, holding me so gently and carefully. With reverence. His head raises and he presses his lips to my collarbone. His warm breath sends a flash of goosebumps rushing over my skin.
“Do you ever think about it,” I ask quietly as I enjoy the feeling of his skin against mine. “That you’re immortal and I’m not?”
His eyes level with mine again and my heart flutters. Everything about him is so beautiful. Inside and out. I want him forever.
“Of course it’s crossed my mind,” he says as his eyes study my lips. He reaches a hand up and cups it behind my neck. “But I think it just makes me appreciate this, us, all the more. I have to take advantage of every single second.”
It should sound so tragic, that one day I will die and he will live on. But he’s right, it just reminds me to love him more. To love him fierce and as deep as I can.
I let my eyes slide closed in happiness for a moment. I appreciate the small miracles that have made up my life, leading up to this one right here.
Lexington rises up and rolls me from my side, to my back. His hand slides away from my hip and over my stomach where it rests. He props himself up on his elbow, only wincing once as he looks down at me.
Holding my eyes, I see something deep and serious settle into them. “I love you, Elle,” he says, leaning marginally closer. “Today. Yesterday. Through next week, and all through the rest of forever. You’re the end-all love of my very long life.”
I reach up, resting my hand on his cheek. “I love you, too, Lexington. Always will, for the rest of my days.”
The emotion that flashes through his eyes tells me he has thought about the day when I won’t be here anymore. But like Ian said, he isn’t phased. And I know how lucky I am to have found a love like this.
He lowers his face to mine, pressing his lips against my own. His hand slides around my stomach to my side, pulling my body against his, molding the two of us together. Always meant to fit together as one.
“We’ve been hunting twenty-four-seven for the last week,” Aleah says with a growl. “There simply aren’t any more Bitten in the area. You have to accept eight.”
Killian’s eyes darken. He folds his hands behind his back. “The deal was for nine Bitten. You didn’t hold up your end of the bargain, why should I be held to mine?”
“My team has killed probably twenty Bitten in the last month while we’ve been looking for Charles,” Ian says as he steps forward, his eyes brightening. “That has to count for something.”
“And it does,” Killian says as he takes a step toward the door. “You’ve helped ensure the safety of your kind. You’ve kept the peace and avoided interference from your King. You already have your reward.”
He takes another step for the door and the panic in every one of us hitches.
“Fine, we won’t count on the King’s financial assistance,” Duncan speaks up. “But can you at least give us clearance to do what we have to, to keep things in order?”
Killian laughs, turning back to us all. “You really don’t understand, do you? There will be no forgiveness from King Cyrus. Your blood is tainted, un-loyal. We give you permission to act as Royals, and there’s no telling the treachery you might resort to.”
“Are you kidding me?” Aleah barks, death in her eyes as she leaps forward. Po-Sun grabs her just in time, dragging her back. “We are carrying on your—his—work and you’re just going to accuse us of anarchy?”
“I’m pointing out the obvious,” Killian says as he pulls the door open. “You’re an unrefined Born. But I suggest you continue in ensuring the secrecy of your kind, for now that you’re educated and on the radar, you will be held to a higher standard.”
He walks out, and pulls the door closed behind him.
“That arrogant, backstabbing, two-faced as-”
“Watch your mouth,” Ian barks, glaring at Aleah. “He won’t be far away yet.”
I sit in a chair in the corner of the living room of the House of Martials, so unneeded and insignificant in this moment that I’m entirely forgotten. Lexington stands beside me, his arms crossed over his chest, watching.
Aleah grabs a vase that sits on the side table and hurtles it across the room where it shatters against the wall. “Why the hell are we doing this?” she hisses, her eyes glowing brighter by the moment. “Why am I wasting my time? Putting myself at risk, all for nothing!”
“This isn’t for nothing,” Duncan says, walking across the room and carefully gathering all the broken pieces of glass. “It’s for our future.”
“Screw the future!” she yells, throwing her hands up. “I say it’s about time for some damn fun and fresh blood. I’m heading to Brazil.”
“And if you think the Monaro family is just going to let you run around their region, causing chaos, you’ll be dead in a day,” Ian says with a glare. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Whatever,” Aleah says, grabbing her jacket. “But I’m not wasting another minute of my time.”
She yanks the door open and steps out into the dark.
“Will she come back?” I ask after a tense minute.
Duncan looks up from the floor, frustration and weight in his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “She’ll be back. But probably not until she’s drunk away her anger.”
Which means a few people are probably going to die first.
“She’s right, though,” Robert says, glaring out into the room darkly, his arms crossed over his chest. “If we can’t get support from Court, how are we supposed to really do this?”
No one answers right away, because no one has a good response.
My hand goes to my stomach. Because the only good one is growing inside of me.
“No,” Lexington says, quietly. Only it’s in a room full of vampires, so every ear turns to him. “Not yet.”
“It’s the only way to get full support from the Court,” I say, even though it’s not an option I want to explore either. “If we kill Charles and Cyrus knows there’s a Royal on the way that can replace him, the King will back us up.”
“Not until after the baby is born,” Ian says, shaking his head.
“You don’t need that kind of stress while you’re pregnant,” Lexington says. “It’s just going to have to wait.”
My eyes rise up to meet Duncan’s. And I feel for him. All this responsibility under terrible circumstances.
“We’ll wait,” he finally says. “It might not be pretty, or easy. But we’ll make it through the next few months.”
“Thanks again,” I say as I walk up the six steps to the main front door. I’ve got a bunch of bags hanging from my hands, each stuffed to the brim.
“Trust me, going shopping is never a burden,” Julie says with a smile. “Though shopping for maternity clothes was a first. I think I enjoyed it, though.”
I smile again, giving a little laugh. “I’ll see you later.”
Julie waves goodbye before heading back to her car. I step through the door just as the last of the daylight begins to fade away.
My feet are tired and swollen as I walk up the stairs to my top floor apartment. It’s been a long day and I just don’t have as much energy as I should. Julie picked me up around eleven this morning and we’ve been running from store to store the entire day.
I was the one who asked her to go with me. The entire day she kept asking me how I was feeling. If I’d thought of names for the baby yet. All these things a mother should be excited over when they’re expecting.
Only I didn’t quite know how to answer. Because I’m blocking out all thoughts of what comes after the birth of the baby.
The whole day I meant to bring up the subject of her raising the baby. But every time my mouth opened, the words would get stuck in my throat and my hand would come to my stomach.
Next week, I tell myself as I unlock the front door. I’ll do it next week.
“Want some help with those?” Ian asks as I walk through the door. I startle a little, surprised to see him here.
“Sure,” I say, handing them off. “What…what are you doing here?”
“Oh,” he says, awkwardly shrugging my question off. “Just had some stuff to talk to Lexington about.”
“What stuff?” I ask, pulling a water bottle from the fridge and opening it as I follow my brother up the stairs and into my bedroom.
“Just stuff,” Ian says as he dumps the bags on my bed. “How you feeling? You were out all day.”
I flop down on the bed, and it feels amazing to get my feet up. “Fine, I guess. I feel kind of broken, like, I’m only twenty-three but I feel like I’m seventy-three right now. I just want to feel normal again.”
“A few more months,” Ian says as he begins massaging my foot, rubbing his thumbs deep into the arch.
“It’s kind of sad how amazing that feels,” I sigh as I let my eyes slide closed.
Ian chuckles. “Well, don’t get too comfortable,” he says, smacking my foot before he drops it back down to the bed. “You’ve got a big night ahead of you.”
“What?” I ask in confusion. “No, Ian. I’m tired. I just want to take a shower and go to bed. Where’s Lexington?”
A little smile pulls in the corner of Ian’s mouth. “I think some of your roses need tending to.”
“What?” I groan, getting annoyed by his weird behavior. “Ian, I’m tired. I’m not in the mood for gardening right at this second.”
“Oh my hell,” he says, exasperated. “Lexington is waiting for you on the rooftop!”
My eyes grow wide and my heart leaps into my throat. “What?” I gasp. I sit up sharply, every muscle suddenly tense and on alert. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Ian says, laughing at how I’m finally catching on. “Go. Maybe put on something nice first.”
My heart is suddenly racing. Sweat prickles onto my palms.
But a smile pulls on my lips. And I can’t calm it down.
I dig through the bags, scrambling for anything that will be appropriate. I pull out a light blue dress and head to my closet.
A maternity dress certainly wasn’t what I pictured myself wearing when this moment came, but as I pull it on and look in the mirror, I’m still glowing with happiness.
I pull my hair back into a low, somewhat messy bun.
“You’d better hurry up,” Ian says from outside my door. “Trust me, the poor guy is about ready to die from nerves up there. Why prolong his torture?”
I step out of the bathroom. “Way to spoil the element of surprise,” I tease him as I step around him and head out into the hall.
“I know you, little sister,” he says as he follows me to the laundry room. “You hate surprises eighty percent of the time. And he knows that, too. Dropping some hints was his idea.”
The smile on my face just grows and the swelling in my chest doubles. “Thank you,” I say as I wrap my arms around Ian.
“Go,” he whispers against my hair, hugging me tight for just another moment.
Without looking back, I let him go, and head up the stairs. My heart races when my hand closes around the doorknob. And I pause for just a moment, closing my eyes.
I picture Lexington on the other side of the door, and everything in me calms.
The air is still warm when I step outside. And my garden, which I love almost more than anything in the world, has been turned into a magical fairytale.
Twinkle lights have been strung up over the entire rooftop, crisscrossing overhead, casting the garden in a soft glow.
And across the rooftop, standing with his back to me, his hands stuffed into his pockets, I find Lexington.
He wears a suit, and I’ve never seen him in a suit, but suddenly I think it might be my favorite thing I’ve ever seen him wear.
When he turns back to look at me, I’m sure of it.
His expression is hopeful, excited, full of light.
Suddenly the distance between us is just painful.
I step forward and my feet can’t move fast enough. I’m not quite running, not quite walking as I dart around the garden boxes, streaking between the rows. And I only slightly slow before I crash into him. My hands come up to Lexington’s cheeks and my entire body feels at home as I rest against him.
“Hi,” he says quietly. I can practically feel the happiness radiating off of him, echoed in perfect reflection by me.
“Hi,” I whisper. My eyes slide down to his lips and it’s everything I can do not to take them.
I love those lips. I love that always-changing beard of his. I love those somewhat crooked ears of his. I love these strong hands. I love this solid chest. And I love these blue eyes, which are almost the same shade as mine.
I love that he lets me be me, my independent self. I love that he has absolute confidence in my ability to choose for myself. I love that he can speak up for me with his loud mouth when I freeze.
I love that he can sit back and observe when there’s a need. How he notices everything and reads me, and every situation, so well.
I love how he knows me.
I love everything about this man.
“There’s about a million words I could say,” he breathes, looking down at me. “I could have put them into some grand speech, but I thought I’d just keep it simple, because in the end, that’s what it’s always been between us, Elle. Simple, easy. Two pieces of a puzzle that just slide into place.”
The smile grows on my face and emotion threatens to explode me into a thousand diamonds. But it’s so good and beautiful.
Lexington reaches down into his pocket and pulls out a little black box. I bite my lower lip as he drops down to one knee and opens the box, looking into my face the entire time.
“Elle, I love you, and I’m going to love you for forever,” he says with a smile and hopeful eyes. “Will you marry me?”
A breathy gasp escapes my chest and I can only nod for a moment. “Yes,” I breathe. “Yes. Yes!”
And the smile that breaks out onto his face could cure all sadness in the world. He raises to his feet, and pulls the ring from its box, sliding it onto my slightly trembling hand.
The ring is a simple gold band set with a round cut diamond. Simple, easy. No frills, but absolutely perfect.
“I love you,” I breathe as my hands once more come to the sides of his neck. His face drops to mine, and for the first time, I kiss my fiancé. And in this moment, it is the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.
“I love you too, Elle,” he whispers against my lips as his hands wrap around my lower back, pulling me close to his body.
I’m alive. Every cell in me alights with happiness and peace.
This is where I was always meant to end up, even if I never could have imagined it for myself.
In love, engaged to marry a Born vampire. Carrying the child of another man. Constantly surrounded by danger and threats.
But this is my life, and I’ve fought for every perfect second of it.
Warm sun is what pulls me from sleep. The soft feeling of its rays. The gentle caress whispering to me that it’s time to meet the day.
And then I notice the soft music coming from one corner of the room. My eyes slide open, and I find Lexington sitting in the chair by the window. He holds the guitar I bought him for Christmas, six months ago, across his lap. One ankle is crossed over his knee, and his head is down, his lips moving just slightly.
The music he strums is quiet, and the words he sings are even quieter.
“Take a breath,
breathe you in,
Just a step,
Almost there.”
He pauses, correcting a chord.
“Did you write that?” I ask quietly.
His head suddenly shoots up and I realize he didn’t know I was awake.
“Uh,” he stumbles. “Yeah.” He gives a little smile, looking back down at the guitar.
“Keep playing,” I ask wh
en his fingers stop.
“I’m not very good anymore,” he says. But he picks the strums back up and softly he sings.
“Through the snakes
and all the thorns,
I found you
Thriving in a garden
full of weeds
and poison roses.
I’ll walk the dark with you,
knowing what you are—
My fearless little lion’s roar.”
I smile, something incredibly prideful and humbled when he finishes playing.
“I don’t know, it just came to my head this morning while I was watching you sleep,” he says, looking somewhat embarrassed as he sets the guitar to the side. He climbs into the bed, lying on his side, facing me.
“I loved it,” I whisper as I face him, too.
He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. He rests his hand on the side of my face, just staring into my eyes.
“You said yes,” he breathes out. A smile pulls on his face, and I’ve never seen any smile more adorable or captivating.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I did.”
I bring my left hand up, holding it up between the two of us. He takes it in his, studying the ring.
“I thought I was going to puke right before I asked Ian’s permission,” he says with a chuckle. “I was about fifty percent sure he was going to just stake me right there.”
I laugh, scooting closer to him. “He wouldn’t do that, he knows you’re too important to me. I mean, you two were friends before you came to Boston. I think he’s starting to like you again.”
“Starting to,” Lexington chuckles, shaking his head. “Well, I’ll take what I can get.”
“Thank you for asking him, though,” I say. “That really means a lot.”
“Of course,” he says. He rolls over, bracing himself above me. He lowers his lips to mine, but he doesn’t leave them there for long. They slide down to my neck. Over my collarbone. My entire body alights into electric flames as he kisses his way down between my breasts.
One of his hands comes to my side, and he becomes slow, his body still. He brushes the tip of his nose over my stomach before resting his forehead gently against it.
