“But I didn’t do it! Jared did. He wasn’t supposed to kill anyone. And I doubt he would have killed Cyndi. She came to one of our meetings and he talked to her. He knew she was on the right side.”
“The right side? You were begging to be turned just weeks ago! You aren’t anti-vampire, your against not getting your way. You expect your whorish nature and looks to get you everything you want and when it doesn’t, you take it out on everybody you can. That man is going to prison for you!”
“You don’t know anything. Dru used me. He said I was special and he made me feel important and when I wanted something back, he wouldn’t give me anything. Me! I gave him my body and my blood and he wouldn’t give me anything!”
“So what? What do you want now? What will make you disappear from our lives forever?”
“I want him to suffer as I suffered. I want you gone. You don’t deserve to be the mother of his children, and he doesn’t deserve a family if he won’t let other people have one!” Blaine was crying and throwing her hands in the air. Tara rose a brow at the pathetic display.
“You disgust me. I think you need to disappear.”
“But I know too much. I’m not stupid.” Tara couldn’t help but laugh.
“I can protect myself, though, I know how to get rid of you and the babies and not have to worry about anything happening to me. I’ve already made the calls.” Blaine was wiping her face, tossing her shoulders back with a lopsided grin.
“I bet you have. It isn’t protecting yourself if you call in for back-up. So where is the government people? They fixing to bust in here?”
“I’m not that stupid. They’re waiting back at the house. I told them you guys killed Cyndi trying to protect me and that you were unregistered and pregnant and a new vampire. They are going to come back for a bit more of a thorough investigation. And if anything happens to me, you will just be confirming what I told them, that you were trying to hush me up.”
Tara couldn’t help but roll her eyes. The woman needed her head checked. She knew this is why Dru had the medical room hidden, and why there was more than labor and delivery equipment in there. She also knew that they wouldn’t risk the weapon that killed Cyndi from being found. And she wouldn’t have to go back to the house until they left, unless Dru had the paperwork done, which she believed he did. The only paperwork left to do was the marriage papers, and that was a different thing that currently had no legal issues.
“You’re an idiot,” unfortunately, Blaine was right about one thing, Tara couldn’t touch her.
Tara turned away from Blaine and headed back to the house, as she saw Dru and Ardo running towards her. The look on their faces spelled certain death for Blaine.
“Wait!” Tara threw up her arms as if she would be able to stop them, “she’s called the government to the house.”
Both men immediately halted. Dru pulled out his phone, presumably to inform Salvador. Tara walked closer to them.
“Ardo, did you pick up the thing?”
Ardo arched his brow, frowned and then nodded.
“Is all of my registration papers at the house?”
“Yes,” Dru looked up from his texting, “everything but the official marriage license.”
“I figured. Well, let’s go deal with this.”
Tara glanced back to see Blaine gawking at them. She thought she had figured out a way to take them down, and yet she had only succeeded in protecting herself for a short time and to make herself look bad for more false claims. Despite all they would have to deal with, and everything that happened, Tara felt somewhat relieved.
Now they only had to be careful about her pregnancy, and hope that didn’t get out or go the wrong way. She tried not to think about Cyndi, about how much she didn’t know and how far in she was. Did she do it all by herself or was she tricked? Tara wanted to think that Cyndi knew her better than to think badly of her, but she also knew that Cyndi was protective enough to go too far with things. Regardless, it hurt, and it was easier not to think about it.
“I hope they’re not there yet. I’m starving.” Tara put her hand over her stomach, earning a weak smile from Ardo and a one-armed shoulder hug from Dru.
“I’m just glad you were able to refrain from doing what I wanted to do to her. That woman will be very lucky if she lives much longer. Messing with me and mine is just the tip of the iceberg. Calling in the government on vampires? She just screwed up badly. And she got a member of W.A.V.E. arrested and caused murders. There isn’t many places she is going to be welcomed into.”
Tara nodded as they got to the house. They had nearly shut the door behind them when there was a knocking at the front door.
“Salvador, Ardo, make sure the cellar is good to go and bring up something for my lady, please.”
Dru headed down the hall to his office, coming back with a file and handing Tara her new driver’s license. She nodded and went to slide it into her back pocket before stopping to look at it. He already had her last name changed to Kablarian. Her birthdate threw her off a bit. Instead of being June 10, , 1984 it was February 12, 1904. She focused on the date, trying to memorize it, in case the officer asked. Tara had no clue how Dru was able to do all this, but she wasn’t going to complain either.
She wouldn’t have to worry about a maiden name, Dru had told her if she went as an orphan from that time period, it wasn’t unusual for her to be turned as a pretty woman from the streets. It was a lot less prestigious than a college graduate with a phlebotomy and lab technician degree, but it was enough to let her live in peace in her new life. He placed the file on a small table near the entry hall.
Salvador and Ardo returned from the cellar, a bottle of wine and two blood packs in hand. Tara followed them into the kitchen as Dru answered the door. They could hear the conversations and went about mixing and drinking the wine as if it was any other night.
“This is Salvador, Ardo, and Tara. This is Agent James and Agent Valtez from the Federal Vampire Compliance Administration.” Dru motioned to the room.
“Hello Agents. Is this about the incident earlier?” Tara sipped from her wine glass.
“Sort of,” one of the agents stepped forward, his badge labeling him as James, “There was a call that came in saying that the woman was not killed by the perpetrator, which collaborates his story. Supposedly she was killed by one of you because she was going to tell the government about a pregnant vampire. I’m assuming you,” the agent pointed at Tara.
As the agents eyed the vampires suspiciously, they all laughed out loud, trying not to seem too obnoxious but acting as if it was the most absurd thing they had heard. In truth, it normally would be. Vampire births weren’t even common knowledge among most vampires created. Only those who knew natural vampires would even know it was possible.
Even then, there was almost no knowledge at all of made vampires having children. When the vampires had come out to humans, they made sure some things didn’t make to the public. The government was unaware, at least publicly, about their being natural vampires.
Whether they knew about those in some confidential file or secret part of the NVCA, was a different story. Baby vampires were never released, as the information was one of the vampires’ biggest secrets. Vampires never even went into public until they fully changed, so that child vampires were never seen.
Only on rare occasions had one ventured into public, but people who saw them often would say they saw a ghost or a child with an eye deformity. Agent James lifted his brow slightly as he glanced at Agent Valtez. Both had a ghost of a smile on their own faces.
“Do you know why anyone would make these claims?”
“Depends on who is making them. We get people harassing us a lot. Sometimes they want to be turned, sometimes they want our money or just our company. I don’t know why they get so obsessed, honestly.” Dru shrugged as he walked over to pour himself a glass of the wine.
“We were also told there was an illegal vampire here. A newly turned vampire, the same
one who is pregnant?” The Agent seemed much more skeptical about the accusations already but looked to Dru for some kind of answer, following protocol.
“Well, we are the only four here, and there are no pregnant vampires that I have ever heard of and Tara is over 80 years old, but I’m sure she would take your ‘new vampire’ idea as a compliment.” Dru winked at Tara and shook his head as he looked back at the agents, “sirs, I am sorry you wasted your time, but it sounds like someone is giving you the run around.
If by chance the person who called in was a woman by the name of Blaine Connie, I can assure you she is making fraudulent reports. I already have a counter suit and another law suit against her and will be getting a restraining order in the next few days.”
Agent Valtez flipped through his small notebook and nodded at James.
“Well, now it is all starting to come together. Any idea what the incident earlier was about?”
“As a matter of fact, the same woman. Apparently she got some of the shadier men of the anti-vampire group W.A.V.E. to help her attack us. Tara and I are newlyweds, still waiting for the paperwork to go through, and Blaine was a one night stand almost a year ago that was mad that I never turned her or gave her money. So when she found out I was marrying a vampire, she was pretty furious.”
“Ok, sir. Well, just to cover all of our bases, Mrs. Kablarian, do you have your registration handy?” Agent James looked to Tara, enunciating the Mrs.
“Yes, one second.” Tara walked out to the hall and the file Dru had set on the side table. “Here you go.”
Agent James opened up the file and flipped through everything Dru had worked up.
“Honestly, this all seems well and put together. I’m sorry to come back out and bother you guys, and I hope that your problems with this woman soon dissipates. Currently, though, she is wanted for conspiracy to commit murder, hate crimes, trespassing, and police report fraud. If you happen to see her, please give us a call, and by no means touch her. Even though the FVCA is made to keep vampires in check, we are also here to stand up for vampires in unfair treatment. I don’t want any of you in trouble because of this woman.”
They all nodded in agreement and Dru walked the men to the door. Tara decided to heat up one of the steaks that Katia had cooked and put in the fridge. Salvador and Ardo watched her curiously as she ate. She smiled around a large bit and nearly made both of them laugh. Dru came back in and sat down, rubbing his head in frustration.
“I swear I want to kill that woman. I can’t believe all of this crap!” Dru sighed as he drank from his glass.
They stayed up a bit longer going over the stories in case the investigation on Cyndi’s death came back to them, and worked on Tara’s back story a little more. She felt so tired, so frustrated at the whole thing. She just couldn’t understand how someone could be so stupid and so dedicated to ruining other people’s lives.
Tara was actually starting to believe that perhaps Blaine did have feelings for Dru, and that is why she attacked Tara and her friend and not Dru himself. Blaine didn’t want to hurt Dru, she wanted to hurt Tara, and subsequently, her babies.
As they climbed into bed, with only an hour to sunrise, Tara snuggled in Dru’s arms. She felt weary of everything. The pregnancy seemed to be starting to take a toll, the mess with Cyndi still hurt her heart, the roller coaster of emotions and the strength of her vampire reactions to it all was almost too much.
For the first time in a while, she just wanted to lay in Dru’s arms feeling safe and like that world was a better place for a while. She hoped the next few days would be easier, hopefully everything would be easier, but she wasn’t getting her hopes up.
*
Tara sat in the large cushioned swing in the atrium. Dru knew how much she loved being in here and bought one for her. Her stomach was protruding so far in front of her, she often was concerned she would be able to get back up once she was comfy. The whole pregnancy had been creepy. Like a form of cancer she was happy to have.
The aches and pains, nausea (throwing up blood hadn’t been fun), and the weight gain had been something new. She could feel them moving now, her little boys, and their strength was very obvious. It was a good thing vampires could heal quickly, else she would have died from the broken ribs and damaged organs.
Her hands rested on her swollen stomach, her eyes focused on the orchid growing in the ornate pot by one of the fountains. She had planted it to remind her of the friend Cyndi had been, before the corruption had taken hold.
As far as they knew, Blaine hadn’t shown up anywhere. Dru had his law suits dropped in lieu of a restraining order on himself, Tara, and the property. Tara hoped someone had taken care of the woman for good. She sometimes got a twinge of her old self when she had these thoughts, the woman that wouldn’t have wanted that of her.
But remembering the hell that Blaine created, she didn’t care what happened to her as long as she never had to see her again.
Tara tried to stand up, and found herself slumping back into the swing. She pushed with her strength and finally got to her feet, only to have the world tilt around her. She grabbed for her phone on the table next to the swing and swiped the screen. A red icon was set in the center. She tapped it and saw it begin to blink. As she grabbed ahold of the post, everything seemed to start dropping away out from under her.
Panicking, she started stumbling towards the glass hall. As she felt herself begin to tilt downward, two pairs of strong arms were on either side. The world spun as one set suddenly swept her up off her feet and held on as they began moving at a rapid pace. She felt the world blink in and out. Suddenly she was on the hospital bed. Now someone was removing her clothes. The bed felt wet. She tried to move and heard someone whispering in her ear to hold still and hang on.
The world got darker and faded out for Tara as the room seemed to get brighter for Dru. Her head lolled to one side, the pool of watery blood spreading under her. Salvador was putting instruments on a table and Ardo was gathering bedding and making up the two carts for the children. They knew she would go into labor soon, but this was when things got difficult. Because her body was all vampire, it would heal many things too quickly for the infants to both successfully pass through the birth canal.
“I’m going to start cutting, I need one of you ready to grab each baby, one by one, wrap them up, make sure they are breathing and put them in the cart then do the same to the other. I need the other person to help me keep her open. We may have to repeatedly pull to keep the kin far enough apart to get the babies out before it starts to knit together.” Salvador slid the scalpel across Tara’s abdomen.
As he worked through the layers, Dru felt a surge of panic. He was fixing to see his sons, but he hadn’t expected it to be like this. He thought of the human births you saw on movies and nature channels. This seemed the worst possible situation for them, but he didn’t know what it meant for vampires.
“Ok, pulling out the first one,” Dru watched in fascination as the Salvador pulled a miniature human foot and the leg and then whole body out of Tara’s abdomen, “Ardo?”
Dru barely saw more than a flash of the child as Ardo wrapped it in towels and laid it in the first cart, he became distracted for a second until Salvador barked his name.
“Pull the sides while I get the second one out,” Salvador was trying to get the baby before Tara’s stomach resealed, which was something that baffled Dru.
Dru had watched men’s wounds stitch back together after being shot or stabbed, but watching a woman’s stomach close around her babies and the arm of a doctor was surreal. Trying to distance himself from the idea of the body being Tara’s, Dru pulled outwards as Salvador pulled up, bringing another little boy into the light.
Ardo grabbed him as quickly as the first and bundled him before placing him in the other cart. Both were wheeled under a heating apparatus that didn’t use ultraviolet light. Salvador told Dru to pull again as he reached in to scrape the after birth with his hands. He pulled his hands
half way out to make sure the uterus closed before the stomach. He nodded Dru away as the rest of her stomach sealed.
“I am going to clean up and prepare an IV, Dru I need those bags of vampire blood now.”
Dru ran to the stabilizing unit in the back where they had put several bags of blood they had each donated in case Tara needed it and to give her after the birth, as its healing capabilities would help her body heal faster. The babies would be able to suckle and breastfeed for the first month, and then they would need to be on an iron heavy human diet until they started to plateau and turn fully later in life.
Salvador was shaking his wet hands and grabbed one of the bags from Dru. He hung it on an IV pole behind Tara and expertly put in the needle for the IV. After he had that going he turned to the babies, where Dru was already heading.
“They look healthy, Dru. They smell different. Not human but not vampire.” Ardo’s eyes seemed to almost glisten, a smile on his face of awe and humble reservation.
Salvador unwrapped one, checked him over, their mouths were making small cooing noises, their eyes not quite open. When Salvador was happy that everything seemed good with the infants, he returned to Tara, who was beginning to stir. Dru carried one of the babies and motioned Ardo, who suddenly seemed very uncomfortable, to get the other baby. They walked over to Tara. Ardo handed over one of the babies as Dru leaned close with the other.
“Happy birthday boys,” Tara whispered as she kissed the top of their heads.
Dru shook his head in amazement when he looked at Tara and then stared back down at the two creatures he had made. His mind was struggling to wrap around it. He had been working on the nursery himself, decking it out in dragons and ships, wanting his sons to embrace their Viking ancestry. He was baffled that they would be using it so soon, and that they would be here for so many years to come.
He would watch them grow, develop, take on traits of both him and Tara, and become amazing men, natural vampire twins. He kissed Tara as they sat baffled in the moment, Ardo and Salvador stood by, not wanting to intrude, but feeling their own amazement and love at what they had the chance to witness.
Cured By Blood: A Vampire Pregnancy Romance Page 13
