by Honor James
Pulling her close to him, he kissed her hard before he moved once more and turned her to look in the mirror. Letting her go so she could examine the mark he’d given her, he set the sonic shower to a low setting and as long as it would allow given her condition. Moving up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his hands over her belly. “Does it meet your approval, my lady?” he asked softly.
She was touching the mark lightly and felt herself finally nod. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, this is perfect.” One hand covered his on her larger-than-normal belly and made her smile brightly as she watched him watching her. “Shower, we need to shower.” She was reminding herself, not him.
Kissing her neck lightly, he gently nudged her toward the stall, not removing his hands or pulling away but walking with her close to him. Pressing the button to start the shower, he stood with her, his arms around her and his head on her shoulder as he just enjoyed the quiet and peaceful moment.
Her arms wrapped around him and held him close for a long time before she said, “Tonight as we are having our meal, will you help remind me if I choose topics or say things I shouldn’t?”
Lifting his head, he looked into her eyes and smiled. “I will, my love, if that is your desire,” he told her softly before he put his head back to her shoulder. “If you offend the ambassador, I shan’t be upset. The man is a pest that will be gone soon enough, and frankly, I do not care what he thinks of us.”
“Neither do I, Andries, but how I speak, how I act, it all reflects on not only you and I, but our crew, too.” And she loved them all like her family. They all held places in her heart. “I refuse to cause our family any undue stress or upset with my poorly chosen topics.”
Nodding against her skin, he pressed a kiss to her pulse. “I will help you guard your choices of topics, my love. For now though, quit worrying so much. You will only make yourself ill from the stress. You and our children do not need the added stress of such concerns,” he murmured softly, hugging her a little tighter.
She grinned and nodded. “I’m going to be two somebodies’ mommy.” She danced about in the shower happily even as he hugged her close. “Tell me that you’re happy?” She wanted, no, needed, to hear the reassurance from him. “That we are having two at once. Are you?”
“Of course I am happy, my love,” he told her softly, lifting his head to look at her so she’d see the truth. “I was happy when you truly became mine. I was extremely pleased to find out you were to have my child and, despite my episode in medical, I am ecstatic about having twins, my love.”
She patted his shoulder as if congratulating a child on a job well done and smiled. “We won’t talk about that little episode.” She smiled up at him. “I don’t think that the men would ever let you live that one down.” Because they were all like brothers, and like brothers, they would tease him unmercifully.
“I would toss the lot of them out the airlock if they even dared to do such a thing,” he told her with a haughty look that, as a High Lord, he could get away with. “Tell them all you will. It will be a good test to see just who needs some reminding of who is in ultimate control here.”
Her laughter came so suddenly and so loudly that she hiccupped from it. “Well then, tonight at dinner I will let you tell them that you passed out at the image of our…” She paused. “Wait, the ambassador will be there.” Her laughter died. “Is it wrong of me to really dislike him for no reason other than he makes me feel uncomfortable?”
Shaking his head, Andries smiled at her. “No, love,” he said softly. “You have different and much stronger instincts now. Learn to listen to them and they will always protect you.”
She nodded and touched her hand to her belly. “Are you going to tell our family that we are having twins?” By “our family” she knew he would understand what she meant, who she meant. She loved the crew as if they were her blood relatives. She had taken to them all and it seemed they all had taken to her as well.
Ah, now there was a question. Sighing softly, he shrugged one shoulder. “I do not know if I should,” he murmured, only thinking about keeping her and the children safe. He would tell his second. The man needed to be aware so that he, too, could protect Andries’s wife, but the others…“I will think on it, but I have concerns that some may react as the doctor did,” he told her so she’d understand his thinking behind waiting. He was extremely concerned with the doctor’s attitude and knew the man had sent word to the Alliance, which just pissed him off.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” She never would believe that any of their crew, any of their family would ever turn against them like that, but it was their people. “I will trust your choice in the matter, Andries.” She sighed and ran a hand over her belly. “Although they will realize something is up because the Vampires have far better senses than a human would, and the further along in the pregnancy I get…” She trailed off. The further into her pregnancy, the louder their heartbeats would be, and it wouldn’t take a scientist to figure out there were two children, not one, inside of her.
“I know, love,” he said, softly stroking his knuckles over her cheek. “I will think on it and perhaps later, after a small time of the gossip mill working on board, I will have a better idea where everyone’s thoughts may lie. I will tell a few, those that will need to know like my second and a few others,” he told her quietly. “But other than that, I want to keep it quiet for a little longer.”
“We will hold our secret close to us for as long as we can,” she agreed with a smile. “I love you, husband. You know how important to me that you are, right?”
“I think I do, Xandra,” he murmured as the shower shut off the cycle. Glancing up, he sighed. “We should get dressed, my love. We have a dinner to survive.” He smiled faintly at his own words.
“The bright side to all of this.” She stepped from the sonic shower and moved toward the closet where she had her clothes hanging. “Since I’m pregnant, we can easily use that as an excuse to escape the hell of dinner with the ambassador.”
Snorting at that, he eyed her. “Let’s not use that as an excuse unless absolutely necessary, my love. We do not need to give the ambassador any reason to get too close to you and thereby ‘creep’ you out,” he said, using her word to emphasize his own dislike of the man that he, too, couldn’t completely describe or understand.
“Right, I won’t use our children as an excuse to get out of dinner with the odious man.” She was being unfair to the man and she knew it, but it was what it was. She pulled on one of the gowns that had been prepared for her before they left the planet and turned her back to him. “Will you do me up please, love?”
Moving up behind her, he began to tighten the laces, adjust the material so it wouldn’t chafe her as he did so. As he finished, he pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck and then moved to dress in his uniform, ensuring everything was in place so that the ambassador had no reason to criticize anything about his trip.
She moved to bend over and let out a gasp. “Okay, they need to be let out just a hair. It’s too tight around my belly. Will you loosen it a bit, please?”
Moving back to her, he adjusted the ties slightly and had her bend again before he let them out just a little more and finally she was comfortable. “See, it’s fine now, love,” he told her as she bent and bent again. At her look, he smiled slightly and told her, “All of your clothing will last until the last month and then you will more than likely invade my wardrobe.” He recalled several of his crew commenting on the fact that their wives would only wear their shirts during the last months of their pregnancy. “I would not worry overly much, Xandra. If we need to get you some pieces to better accommodate the twins, we will.”
“I would like that, being able to get away with just wearing your shirts for the end of our pregnancy.” The dress felt much better now and she was more able to breathe, which was good. “I’m ready now though if you are?”
Holding out his arm to her, he smiled softly. “As long as yo
u are there, I will always be ready for anything, Xandra,” he told her honestly. Touching her hand as she slid it through his arm, he led her from the room and down a level to the commander’s dining hall.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Her head held high, she walked along at his side and smiled to the men as she passed them. She watched two of the men look at her belly in stunned silence, which made her step even closer to Andries. Not because she was afraid of them—they were two of his highest ranking officers. No, it was because of the way they looked at her, as if they knew.
Andries noted the men and then Xandra’s reaction and frowned slightly. “Are you all right, love?” he asked her softly as he continued walking but slowed their pace just a little so that they could talk.
“Yes, it’s just…” She frowned. “It was as if they looked at me and knew, that they knew that there was more than one, Andries.” She whispered in the darkness of the hall, “They can’t know, do they?”
Pulling her to a stop, he looked over his shoulder to the men and his frown deepened. “The ship is a tight-knit unit, Xandra. Anything that is said at one end eventually makes it to the other. It is possible that one of the medical unit spoke of what we discovered there and they now know.”
“Only the doctor knows though, Andries. He had cleared out the whole unit when we came in.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I won’t worry about it though.” She nodded. “They are our family. They are your men yes, but they are family and they will keep the secret. I will trust them.”
Watching her, he nodded slowly. “If that is your wish, I will honor it,” he said quietly. Touching her cheek with his free hand, he looked into her eyes. “For you I would do anything, Xandra,” he murmured, trying to make her understand just how deep his feelings for her went.
“We have to trust them, Andries. They will eventually learn of it. We will neither confirm nor deny, however, until we are sure what our game plan will be.” She leaned into his touch. “I love you, Andries, but we need to go and have dinner with the ambassador.”
Growling softly at her, he nodded and, once more, led her down the corridors. As they passed a few other crew members, he noted the look she’d commented on earlier being passed her direction. The more he saw it, the more he knew that the doctor had spread the word to someone and that it was making its way through the ship. Pressing the release for the doors to the commander’s dining hall, Andries knew he’d have to have words with the crew and find out just what the hell they all knew.
Uncertainty shone clearly in her eyes when she asked, “Could it be because you marked me now?” Her fingers touched the lines of his house resting on her long, delicate neck. “Is it common to do that?” When the doors released and opened, however, she stood once more at his side, a mask of indifference on her face. Head high and shoulders back, she looked every inch the lady born to be with a Vampire warlord.
Andries didn’t get a chance to answer her. Some things were never discussed in front of others. Walking into the room with her, his face also a mask of indifference and pure High Lord reserve, he tipped his head to the ambassador and then led Xandra around the table to where she would sit at his right side while the ambassador would sit to his left.
The meal began as any other. Xan was still nervous about eating any food that Andries didn’t give to her. She was more than happy to sit back and let him choose the pieces for her. She knew eventually she would get over nearly being poisoned on her wedding day, eventually. When she saw the doctor shoot them a glance and then get up to leave, she frowned. “Andries?” It was as if the doctor was racing from the hall to almost hide from them, which just wasn’t right.
Touching her hand lightly, he nodded and got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said to the ambassador and then left before the man could say anything. The doctor was well ahead of him and Andries had to rush to catch up, but when he did, the grip he placed just over the man’s elbow was anything but a suggestion. “We need to talk, Doctor,” he said in a low and very dangerous tone before leading the man to an empty meeting room before releasing him. “What the hell did you do?” he growled out, his beast too close to the surface to allow the man to survive this meeting.
“I did what I had to, my lord.” His lower jaw quivered in fear. “You have to see what a miracle they are. The Alliance had to know because if she somehow carries the key to solving our birth rate, she needs to be studied.” His hands were held up at his sides in surrender. “Please, my lord, they swore nothing would happen to her, but she needs to be tested. We need to know why it is that she is pregnant with twins.”
Andries lost it then and, picking the doctor up by his throat, Andries shoved him to the wall. “You asshole!” he growled, the beast in his voice, his eyes fully predator. “They will dissect her and then they will force every woman of the age to bear children to take shots to ensure that they never, ever have children. The so-called Alliance”—and he was referring to the non-Vampire half—“has been trying to kill my people off for centuries. Do you think they will let my wife or my children live with the possibility of my species actually having more than one child every century?” he snarled at him. “You are the world’s biggest idiot, and if so much as a hair is touched on her head, I will personally gut you while you lie there watching.”
The doctor was choking as Andries squeezed his throat and his legs kicked. “They swore they wouldn’t.” His eyes bulged as he spoke. “I did it for our people, my lord. It was the Vampire side of the Council I contacted.”
Squeezing even tighter until the man was gasping and his color started to turn blue, Andries let him drop suddenly. “And they will drain her of her life’s blood to pump into every female in the nation. They will want their armies to explode with men so that the non-Vampires are under their thumbs once more. Either way, my wife fucking dies!” He was in full anger, his eyes that of the mythical and feared Vampire High Lord in the grips of a rage so full that the beast actually melded with the host.
“Andries.” Her hand lay on his arm. She was shaking and the upset was clear in her eyes. “Andries, my lord, please look at me,” she whispered softly. Xandra had just had the worst experience and had come to find Andries. However, what she found was frightening, if she had been anyone other than who she was. “Please, Andries, everyone is watching.” And the cat was seriously out of the bag. It seemed as if all of his crew was there and listening to every word, listening to the anger, and waiting for Andries to tear him apart. Well, most of the crew at least. Three men had taken the ambassador to his rooms, escorted him there, to keep him under lock and key for touching her.
Letting out a growl that had no humanity to it, Andries stepped back. “Lock him up,” he ordered his crew as he forced the beast back into its place. Turning to Xandra, he pulled her into his arms and just held her close. The need to wrap around her was so intense that he didn’t resist. Looking to the doctor over her head, Andries let the beast rise for a moment. “You and I will be talking again soon, Doctor,” he promised. The underlying threat was that the doctor would not ever be leaving the brig…alive.
The doctor visibly gulped and was led away by two officers. Xandra looked up at Andries and touched his chin. “I love you, husband.” Now was not the time to tell him of the trouble she had with the ambassador. With the mood he was in currently, he would likely go to the man and rip his throat out.
Lifting a brow at her words, he leaned his head down to hers and rested their foreheads together. Then a thought occurred to him and he leaned back. “Why are you here instead of finishing your meal, my love?” he asked. The sudden shift of her eyes away told him that something had happened. “You might as well tell me, Xandra. Otherwise, I’ll just have to ask a guard, and they won’t sugarcoat it nearly as nicely as I’m sure you will,” he murmured softly to her.
“It would make me very upset if you killed him, Andries.” She grumbled, “Please keep in mind that he’s not Vampire, and he really
doesn’t know how to hold his liquor, all right?” She watched the way his eyes shifted and the low, grumbled sound of “get on with it” in his voice. “He reached over and touched me, pulled me to your seat where he leaned in and decided to tell me in vivid detail just how nice I would look smashed between the two of you.”
The growl wasn’t something he could have stopped had he actually wanted to and had all the crew bolting for distant parts of the vessel as fast as they could move. “I will fillet the man slowly,” Andries said in a very soft, extremely and deceptively calm voice. He was beyond angry, beyond homicidal. He was in the last grips of the anger of the beast.
“You will not,” Xandra said as she shook her head. “I love you, Andries, and I am keeping you with me for a very long time, and I can’t do that if you kill someone like him and destroy your career and have the Council take your life.” She made him look at her. “I’m okay. He’s had too much to drink and said things he shouldn’t have. As much as I would enjoy letting you kill him, you can’t, my love. You know you can’t.”
He snorted at that as he forced his anger back. He could get away with a lot of things, after all…accidents happened. Looking to her, he knew that he couldn’t hurt her though, and if he was ever found out, it would hurt her. “Fine,” he muttered in a growl. “But only this time. The next one that does anything to you, gets it.”
“Thank you, Andries.” She shifted slightly closer to him and wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him close. “Now, come and finish your meal, Andries.” There was a pause followed by, “He has given up our secret, hasn’t he?” She didn’t want to ask, but a slight fear had her doing just that.
Nodding, he took her hand in his and walked with her slowly. He needed the time to get himself under full control. “Yes, love, he’s already reported it to the Alliance as well,” he told her quietly, not sure where she’d walked into his emotional fit. “I would like to apologize.” He looked to her. “I shouldn’t have let myself get that worked up about it. If I’d remained in control, I might have learned more, but once I knew what he was doing and what he’d done, I just…” He’d lost it, was what he’d done.
