Trained in Blood [Lords of the Expanse 2] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Honor James

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she told him as she turned in his arms and pressed her face to his chest. “I know it’s only been a few days but I can’t lose you.” It was the closest she had came to telling him how she felt, to telling him that her fear wasn’t of the Regency, but of losing him. While the Regency, the ruling party over his people and their galaxy, were all powerful, some things could be gotten around with the right connections. She stood there in his arms and her stomach didn’t quiet. “I’m going to be ill,” she said again and pushed from him, racing for the bathroom where she lost the contents of her lunch.

  Following her he stroked back her hair as he crouched at her side. “There’s no reason to get this upset, Violet,” he told her softly with a frown. “How long have you had this upset in your gut, wife?” he asked her quietly, shifting her a little closer to him as he combed his fingers through the silky strands of her hair.

  She washed her face with a damp cloth and leaned into him. “About twenty-four hours. Not long I know.” She likely just had a small bug. After all she hadn’t been out of a building in two plus years. “I think that I’ve caught a cold, Titan. You might want to stay clear of me for now so that you don’t get what I have.”

  “Vampires do not get the same diseases nons do, Violet.” Unless you counted the massive plague his world had suffered, but with talks of it having been engineered to kill his people while not affecting the non-Vampires, which had not gone well, he kept that silent. “We will stop by medical before we go to the planet, wife, and ensure that you are well enough for the shuttle down. If not we will send our apologies and arrange with the Alliance for a different time to meet them.”

  “No, that will give them something to use against us.” She sighed and pulled back. “I am fine, Titan. I’m tired and hungry but just simply don’t feel well. Food doesn’t appeal.” But as she sat there with her face pressed to his chest she felt the hunger again and simply didn’t understand it. “I need a shower and then I should be right as rain.” She chalked her illness down to nerves and a stomach bug. “I’m also just nervous, Titan. It will be fine though.” After all, she was only walking into the line of her death.

  “I do not care if ‘you will be fine.’ You are not well now, Violet,” he said quietly, stroking her hair. “You are going to medical, you will have a work-up, and then we will decide. I am a Lord of my world, if I say jump half of the Alliance will quite easily. The others, if they are young enough might, but the older ones would likely just kill me for pleasure. We will take care of you first, Violet, for I intend for you to have a very long and happy life with me. Quit trying to kill yourself off please.”

  She smiled up at him and nodded. “All right.” Leaning against him she sighed. “I don’t think I will make it there though.” She felt weak, dizzy, and like she was ready to pass out. She didn’t like the way she was feeling, at all. “If I pass out, make sure I don’t hit my head?” She wished she was only joking, and she was, partially.

  The next wave of dizziness hit and her mouth went dry. Her stomach clenched as she pressed her face against his bare skin. She felt her stomach growl and ache. “I think that medical sounds good now.” She didn’t understand what was happening at all and frankly she was scared.

  Gently he lifted her into his arms, carefully cradling her close to him and making sure not to move too quickly to ensure she did not get ill all over him. Walking slowly he carried her out into the hall and to a lift shaking his head at the guard there. Reaching the medical floor he walked with careful placement of his boots so there was little to no shock up through her body and into the medical bay. “We’re here, wife,” he warned a moment before he settled her on the edge of one of the beds.

  “This is good.” She leaned into him and licked the side of his neck. “So hungry. Don’t leave me, Titan?” she asked even as the doctor moved to her side with a questioning look up at her and then Titan.

  His body reacted violently to that slide of her velvety-soft and very wet tongue, his canines sliding down with enough force he was amazed he didn’t hear ringing in his ears. And he also knew what was going on. “I think you should perform an exam of her mid-region doctor,” he said quietly around his long teeth. Until she stopped nuzzling and basically petting him in her sexual need to get closer he wouldn’t be able to retract them. “I will be right next to you the entire time,” he promised her.

  She nodded and let him pull away from her. When the doctor came over with a small handheld triangle she frowned. “I think I have a stomach virus. Possible a twenty-four-hour bug or something,” she explained simply. “I’m sick, throwing up actually, dizzy, but hungry, too.” She squeezed Titan’s hand and looked over at him, frowning. “What?” she asked at the look on his face. It was a cross between triumphant joy and fear.

  It wasn’t three minutes before the doctor smiled and nodded. “You are correct, my Lord.” He stepped back. “I will allow you the pleasure. I will be just outside should you need me.” Guarding the door, his face all too clearly said.

  “What’s wrong?” Violet had a cold wash of fear run over her body as she watched the doctor leave them. “What’s wrong?” she repeated when neither man would speak and the doctor slid out the doors. “Titan, what’s wrong with me that he doesn’t want to tell me himself?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you, wife.” Well not technically. Shifting he stood between her legs where she sat and gently touched her face. “You are pregnant with my child,” he told her softly. “The hunger you feel is the craving for blood because of the baby, Violet, who will need quite a large amount to grow healthy and strong.”

  She touched a hand to her belly and shook her head. “How can I be pregnant, Titan?” They had only been together a handful of days, well sexually that was. “I don’t understand, Titan.” And as she spoke a warmth spread in her and a slow smile tugged at her lips. “We will have a child? You and I? We made a baby?” She didn’t know how she would get blood because she wasn’t a vampire, but she would worry over that later. For now she had to get over the confusing feelings and emotions slamming through her.

  “Yes, Violet, you are pregnant,” he said softly. “We are going to have a child, you and I,” he told her, stroking her cheek lightly. “It only happens when the female is in season,” he said, “as you obviously are. But, my wife, there is something else that is escaping your attention. This means that the Alliance cannot deny or annul the marriage and they must put their seals to it. They cannot separate us now since you have fulfilled the deal as it was written and that they agreed to.”

  Her eyes went wide as she looked up and felt the tears soaking her cheeks again. She was not a sobbing female, hell she was a trained damn killer, but she couldn’t stop from crying as she realized she was going to have a child, his child. “We’re going to have a baby,” she whispered before wrapping her arms around him and tugging him close.

  Again her stomach clenched as she rubbed her cheek and then face against his neck. “God I’m hungry,” she grumbled but food made her feel sick to her stomach.

  Stroking her back lightly he nuzzled her throat. “You are feeling the need for blood. It happens almost as soon as the child begins. You will need a lot of it in the coming four months, Violet, more toward the end than at the beginning, but what you need now will still be very impressive.”

  “But I’m not a vampire,” she grumbled but licked his neck lightly anyway. “How am I supposed to get blood when I’m not a Vamp? Do I hook up to an IV?” She leaned her head to the side and bit her lip. “Bite me again, Titan?” she whispered softly.

  Pulling back he looked at her. “You won’t be able to take bagged blood. You’ll need blood straight from me.” Stroking back her hair gently he tucked a few strands behind her ear. “We will need the doctor to do a transfusion and then you will need to make another choice. Do you remain human or will you become as I am,” he said softly.

  She looked blankly at him and shook her head. “I can’t be
come like you.” Her hands automatically moved over her belly as if to protect her child. “I can’t hurt our child like that, Titan.” Their child suddenly was the most important thing in the world to her, nothing else mattered.

  “It won’t hurt the child, our child,” he said to her as he stared into her eyes. “I would never have mentioned it if there was even the most remote of possibilities that it would harm what we created, Violet. I may be an animal but I am not heartless. You mentioned the Lord Andries and her ladyship Xandra. She was pregnant before she was turned to as we are. The Lord had to because she was shot, but the child was fine as was she. But if you would rather remain human I will not argue it with you. Transfusions work just as well.”

  She had to know one thing. “How do you feel about me, Titan? Not the normal duty and all that, but how do you as a man feel for me as a woman?” She needed the words. She needed the confirmation of his love, their love. “I need this, Titan. Tell me how you feel?”

  He knew what she wanted and he didn’t know if he could give her that much. He’d bent and broken a lot of his training already but that might be too much. “I care for you, Violet,” he said, keeping the wince of pain from showing on his face as his entire being protested those words. “You are important to me,” he told her, trying for words that would explain without any more pain. “I know that if I woke tomorrow and you were not there I would have no reason to continue.” With that admission he couldn’t fully hide the pain the words caused.

  “Then why does it hurt you to tell me? Why can’t you give me the words?” She whispered softly as she cupped his cheeks, “I love you, Titan, I love you.”

  Breathing in sharply at her proclamation he knew he had to break every bit of training. “I love you, too, Violet,” he whispered and flinched at the absolute agony hitting him in his gut. Pulling her close he kissed her hard drowning in her scent so that his body would ignore the break and just soak up her innate goodness.

  She kissed him back with all she had in her. Pouring everything into that kiss she waited until they were parted. “No tubes, no doctor. What happens between us is private and personal. I need you, Titan. I need forever with you.” She needed him to change her. “Make me like you are?”

  Nodding he stroked her cheek gently. “Not here, in our home,” he said. “We need to meet the Alliance first. This will put you out for about three days and they will not wait that long for anything. There is a shuttle going down in a few minutes. We should be on it and get there as quickly as we can, get it down and then we can have our private and personal moments.”

  “And you’re certain they won’t try to pull us apart?” She whispered her fear. “I can’t lose you, Titan. I can’t lose us.” She placed his hand over her belly and covered it with hers. “We need you in our life. She or he will need a father and I need someone who will always know that I am his love, the one created for him.”

  “They would not dare.” He breathed out softly as he spread his fingers over her belly. “We will be together and see our child brought into this world, watch her or him grow and become the person they are meant to be,” he promised. “No one is ever going to tear us apart,” he told her with steel in his voice.

  She nodded as she looked up and into his eyes. “Then we need to go and meet with them, give them the best reason for them not to kill me, and go home, Titan. I want to go home so that you can bring me over to be like you are so that I can spend the rest of my life telling you I love you.”

  “I wholeheartedly approve of your plan,” he murmured softly to her. Stroking her cheek lightly he kissed her. “Come on,” he encouraged softly, taking her hands and helping her down from the table. “How is the hunger?” he asked softly as he watched her wanting to get an idea of where she was in the need.

  “Bad, but controllable,” she said with a smile. “I won’t attack you quite yet, love.” She straightened her back before they made the door and nodded. “All right, I’m ready.” There was a coolness about her now. Her very demeanor matched that of a Vampire. The only thing she did that a vampire wouldn’t was hold on to Titan’s hand tightly.

  Lacing his fingers through hers Titan gave her hand a squeeze as he led her from the medical bay and nodded to the doctor as they passed. Relaying to the command deck that he was heading for the shuttle with her, Titan gave a few last orders for the day before they would clear the ship for the decompression and then the refitting. Standing with her in the lift he watched her knuckles, not her face, since they were all that was showing her upset. Lifting her hand to his lips he kissed her fingers lightly. “Be calm, wife, we will be just fine.” He breathed against her skin.

  She breathed in and then out before turning to him and nodding. “I know we will, Titan. I’m just thinking of how lucky it is that I got pregnant.” She smiled as she looked up at him, the smile in her eyes and on her lips. “I’m very happy, Titan, very happy that we are going to have a baby. Not just because it likely saved my life, but because it brings us closer.”

  “I am glad for anything that saves your life, Violet. I did not intend to let you go but this does help ease the way,” he said, shifting as a couple of the crew entered the lift, moving closer to her in a protective manner. Looking down into her eyes he smiled slightly. “Closer is always a good thing as well,” he murmured softly.

  She smiled and ducked behind him, her hands moving to wrap around his waist and her forehead pressing to his back. With the people in the lift it was the closest she could come to hugging him. Leaning up and on her tiptoes she waited until the lift was once more cleared when she said, “I love you, Titan.”

  Looking to her over his shoulder he smiled ever so slightly. “And I you, Violet,” he murmured softly. Lifting a hand he pressed it to where both of hers lay on his stomach and lightly stroked her fingers. When the lift stopped again he pulled away but captured one of her hands to hold in his as he led her toward the large doors at the end of the corridor.

  As they walked toward the transport it was only the energy, the love that he shared with her through their linked hands that kept her going. Her pride kept her head tall and back straight. The knowledge of their child chased away the shadowy fears that were determined to bring her down, determined to assault her and lay her bare to the world.

  “How long until we are planet side, my Lord?” she asked as they stepped onto the transport. They were surrounded by his soldiers, all heavily armed which made her brow rise as she looked up at him. “Are we expecting trouble, my Lord?”

  Lifting a brow he shrugged. “One learns to expect the unexpected, my Lady,” he said, leading her to a seat. Once she was buckled in he gave a nod to the pilot and took hold of an overhead rail that the others were also holding onto for the ride. “I want them to understand my position and remember who they are talking to,” he told her before waving a hand to his men. “This is my way.”

  She looked at each man who was looking at her in return. “I would feel comfortable with a weapon as well.” She knew that she would be told no, and while they were all Warriors, she understood but what they didn’t know, none save for Titan, was that she, too, was a warrior and she didn’t need a weapon because she was one. “I like your way, Titan. It never hurts to remind people of just what you are capable of.”

  Turning to one of the soldiers Titan held out a hand and took the sidearm he was handed. Checking the weapon he passed it over to her and smiled faintly when she just stared at him in shock. “You have the right to protect yourself, my Lady, and I fully believe you know how. But you shoot any of my men and we’ll be having severe words,” he said with a small frown of warning.

  She smiled sweetly and with just enough volume in her voice to carry to his men said, “Why would I shoot them when I can shoot you instead?” Even though she said the words, the laughter dancing at the curve of her lips said another thing. Leaning in, however, she handed him the weapon back and whispered in his ear, “I love you, Titan. I thank you for the gesture but we both kno
w they won’t allow me to have a weapon. Besides, truth be told I am a weapon, and so, too, are you, my Lord husband.”

  “Not amusing, wife,” he muttered with a glare pointed her way as he slid the weapon into the waist of his uniform pants at the small of his back before letting his jacket settle over it. Pulling her closer to him he pressed his lips to her ear. “Later, when we are alone.” He breathed the words soft enough no other but her could hear. “I will show you just what I can do with my weapon.”

  “I certainly hope that you will, Titan.” Their teasing, their moments were enough to keep her distracted. However, when there was the physical thump of their landing she felt icy cold washing down her back and pulled back. “I love you, husband.” She gave him the words, there before his men. She gave him something she never thought she could give publicly. She gave her love.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a weapon, wife?” Titan asked with a trace of amusement in his eyes even though his face was that of a Vampire Lord, still, watchful and settled in icy perfection. “I won’t let them scare you, my Lady. Anyone annoys you, let me know and we will shoot them,” he said gently, not joking now. Pressing his lips to her ear he murmured, “Breathe, nice and slow and easy.” With that he kissed the thundering pulse at her throat and straightened, turning to the open door in full military alert.

  She calmed her breathing, not a small feat, and walked at his side. Her very demeanor would have made any Vampire Warlord proud. Her back rigidly straight, head held high, and eyes taking in everything and everyone. She looked like a Queen, and the people around her the lowly subjects. She took in everything and if one didn’t know better you would swear that she owned all that she saw, heard, and smelled. “I am ready to meet with the Regency Council, my Lord husband. We will be done with this so that we may retire to our home.” Her voice was cool, efficient, and held the air of one bored with the proceedings.