by Rena Marks
But she stood, as proud as ever.
“What is this? You cannot. She is not able,” Marcus sputtered, as he jumped to his feet.
“She is perfectly able, and now perfectly healed. Her status reigns over even yours. Furthermore, she is owed this. She suffered needlessly to Nico’s whims. While I cannot undo that, I can make her existence a little easier by putting her in charge.”
Verity approached Julian from the back of the room. “Master.”
“Verity. Marcus is yours to command. Take his blood.”
I saw the brief savagery on her face, before she turned toward Marcus. She leaned to his neck, paused, and the mask of unemotion was dropped from Marcus, showing his true terror before she bit. She suckled deeply, until Julian commanded her to stop.
She stepped away suddenly, and Marcus fell heavily to one knee, the white blond hair swinging over his dazed face.
Verity had Julian’s blood coursing through her veins, while Marcus just had Nico’s, who was now long gone. And Nico’s power was steadily fading with each passing day.
“Oh, yeah, baby. Who’s your master?” I asked sarcastically.
“Verity,” Marcus answered, his voice neutral and dazed.
It was quite ironic, the one that sired her was now mastered by Verity.
* * * * *
When we arrived in the States, we avoided as many humans as possible. The darkened limo arrived, taking us straight to Bang's back entrance. We slipped into Bang’s to the popping corks of champagne bottles.
“Welcome back,” echoed the chorus of melodious vampiric voices.
Johnny stepped in front of me, dropped to one knee, and kissed my belly. I’d missed the silly fool, and rubbed his bald head affectionately.
But I shouldn’t have.
The Saturday night bouncer came and formed a line behind Johnny, waiting for the chance to kiss my stomach also. Next was the stage manager, and Merrick stood behind him.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Merrick when his turn arrived and a new batch stood behind him.
“It’s good luck,” he whispered back.
I rolled my eyes at Julian, who stood beside me with lights dancing in his eyes.
“And they’ve been reading up. A pregnant woman needs compliments to raise her self esteem. Those are what the books say.” Merrick added.
“You are big and beautiful,” the vampire behind Merrick called out, obviously quite proud of the doozy he’d thought up all on his own.
“We haven’t been gone that long,” I protested, to no avail. “A formal greeting is not necessary.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, another called out, “You will have the maternal instinct.”
Not to be outdone, another vampire called out. “You have the maternal glow.”
“Pregnancy becomes you!”
I sighed, and ground my teeth to endure more of the crazy belly kisses.
But the trip was too much. I couldn't seem to recover. For the next couple days, my patience wore thin and I exhausted easily. Huge and crabby, the child I carried sucked my energy like a parasite. I tired of being pregnant, and if one more vampire tried to kiss my stomach, I swore I’d stake him. I couldn’t imagine enduring nine months of this hell. Of course, it would have progressed slower if I had nine months instead of half that time, so maybe I would have had more patience had I been eased into it, so to speak.
But I was restless this morning, and the bar seemed dark and depressing. I moped and fidgeted all day, well into the evening. I even tried to pick a fight with Julian, which didn’t go well, because he doesn’t fight back.
“I want to go home,” I snapped, meaning the mansion.
“Would you like me to go with you?” he asked calmly, which made me burst into tears.
Oh, the sacrifice. The master vampire, willing to live among the wolves. For me.
Vampire speed brought him to my side instantly, where he cradled me to him. For once I didn’t mind the surprising speed.
“I want you to quit being so nice,” I sobbed.
“Why would I not be nice to you?”
“Because I’m a witch.”
“You’re a witch because of me, remember?”
“Not that kind of witch.”
The first pain hit my midsection, making me gasp. “Oooh. That was weird. Do you suppose—”
“Hmm. I think it is time to summon your wolf-doctor, don’t you?”
“You don’t seem very surprised.”
“I suspected with your mood, my sweet.”
He swung me into his arms, gave a look to Johnny that had him scrambling for the phone, and carried me downstairs.
We entered the inner conference area of Bang’s, and saw it was set up like a labor and delivery room.
“What is this?” I asked, horrified.
Julian was calm. “Leo and I set it up a couple of days ago. A precaution, in case you went into labor here.”
Another pain ripped through me. “I should get to a real hospital now. I’m human. It’s a human baby. Maybe in another town?”
“Mmm. You have some time. Let’s wait for Leo.”
Leo didn’t take long to arrive. His face appeared worried at first, the way an expectant father would seem. Then the doctor in him took over, and his face smoothed over.
“How are you doing, love?”
“Hurts,” I gasped. “I need a hospital now.”
“You’re fine. I know it hurts, but you have lots of time.”
He looked across at Julian as he spoke. “Why don’t you sit behind her, she can lean against your chest, and I’ll check things out?”
Another gripping pain hit me, and I doubled over. “Are you sure?” I gasped. “Are you sure there’s time?”
He smoothed my bangs over my damp forehead as Julian maneuvered behind me, getting into a comfortable position.
“Let me check and see,” he consoled.
I bore down against the pain as Leo massaged my swollen stomach.
I was starting to get a little panicked. It felt like the pains were shooting quickly throughout me, and yet they continued to put me off the hundreds of times I’d asked when we were leaving for the hospital. Maybe hundreds was exaggerating, but it felt like it.
“I’m going to check your cervix again. It may be a little uncomfortable.”
“I need to get to a hospital,” I cried.
“Deep breath,” Leo said calmly. “You won’t be able to deliver in a hospital, Anjelia.”
The lightning pain split through my midsection, wrenching another scream from me. “What,” I gasped, “do you mean, no hospital?”
“Your DNA is wolf. This is how our mates birth their young,” he said patiently. “Comfortably. At home.”
Another rip sliced through my swollen abdomen. I barely had time to breathe. “Dammit to hell! Are you crazy?” I screamed as loud as I could. “You waited until now to tell me? You know this pregnancy is different from that of a standard werewolf.”
Julian, still sitting behind me on the table, pulled me back against his chest, his supernatural strength holding me still.
“I know, love. I’m sorry. But you’ll be fine. We didn’t want you to worry needlessly by knowing you wouldn’t get to a hospital,” Leo said.
“Besides,” Julian said, his voice near my ear. “You have the best doctor here.”
Leo’s gloved fingers entered me again, checking my cervix. “She’s ready,” he said to Julian over my shoulder. “Fully dilated. You can push, Anjelia.”
I bore down, but it was a weak attempt.
“More than that, my sweet. You can do so much more,” Julian murmured.
“I’m so tired,” I muttered. “Hungry. Thirsty.” Just plain crabby, if truth be told.
“I know,” Leo answered. “But we have to get this little one out. Push harder. Harder than that still, go.”
I gritted my teeth and bore down when another pain hit.
“That’s better,” Leo encouraged. “Give
me another one like that when another pain hits.”
He’d barely finished speaking when another birthing pain hit. My heart rate jumped, knocking against my chest, and my back arched. Julian held me still through it all. It was the mother of all pains, wrenching from my inner core, feeling as though it pulled every sensitive nerve ending inside me. I felt the scream tear from my throat, built from deep inside. It echoed from the cavernous walls of Bang’s, and before the echo was over, I felt relief expelled from between my legs.
A tiny cry sounded, and Leo was busy while Julian crooned in my ear and stroked my damp forehead. Rapture filled my soul when I heard the cry. It wasn’t an animalistic sound, but that of a human infant. A real baby.
Leo wiped him dry, cut the cord and wrapped him in a blanket. When finished, he brought my son to me. He was pink and plump, and cried with the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
His bow-mouth opened with his howls, and I remembered the dream I’d once had, in which my baby bared fangs. Just to be sure, I ran my finger along his gum line, upper and lower. Leo raised an eyebrow.
“Just checking,” I assured him, and then cuddled my son.
Julian’s pale hand caressed the top of our son’s head, not minding the body fluids that still drenched his hair. Surprisingly, the baby had black hair. Leo and I both had brown.
I laughed. “He's got your hair color, Julian.”
Leo smiled. “Usually the dark hair will fall out. New hair will replace it. It probably will be brown.”
The baby's eyes opened finally, settling on my face. The same eye color, not quite the hazel of human, but the amber color of wolf that matched all three of us.
Wolf eyes. Definitely Leo’s son.
“He’s beautiful,” Julian murmured, and kissed the nape of my neck. “You are beautiful.”
“You did amazing, Anjelia,” Leo added and then bent to kiss the downy soft forehead of little Lucius. “Welcome to the world, son. No one else will be as loved as you.”
* * * * *
Leo spent the remainder of the night at Bang’s, in case Luc or I needed him. His quarters connected to the nursery now, and I slept with Julian.
Leo was exhausted from birthing our son, and slept until noon the next morning. He wasn’t used to being underground where there was absolutely no sun to rouse you. Julian was already upstairs tending the bar.
I had a ton of energy now that I wasn’t carting around an extra twenty pounds. I showered while I waited for Leo to awaken, but he still slept. He never even budged when I opened the connecting door to the nursery and fed Luc.
Then I dressed my baby like a doll, wrapped him in a blue blanket, and headed up to the bar.
As I entered Bang’s, I was approached immediately by Chen. He led me to a table with a hand to the small of my back. “Sit,” he commanded. “We can’t have you on your feet.”
“Why not?”
“You had a lot of...pain,” he answered, with a grimace.
“Every woman has it,” I assured him. “I expelled a newborn from my womb.”
“Yes, but it sounded like a torture session.”
“Ahh,” I nodded. “Superhearing. You guys heard the labor?”
He grimaced again, shaking his head affirmatively. “Hold on. I’ll get you a pillow to sit on.”
He cut his way through the crowd that had suddenly formed around me.
“Come on, Leah, let’s have a peek,” Johnny said.
Cradling Luc in my lap, I pulled the blanket from his sweet little face. He stared straight up at the sea of bodies standing around him, and a tiny arm freed itself from the blanket. His fist reached for the nearest vampire he could find, and jerked clumsily as he miscalculated the distance.
The vampire voyeurs stared at the baby and I remembered this was the closest they’d ever been to a tiny infant.
“He’s so cute,” Johnny cooed. “Can I touch him?”
“Of course.” I laughed.
Johnny reached out slowly with his huge hand and poked the baby on the forehead. Lucius grasped a finger with his tiny fist. “Wow. Should he be this little? Maybe something’s wrong.”
“He didn’t feel little during labor,” I said dryly.
A few more of the vampires winced.
“Oh, yeah. Here, Anjelia,” Chen said, thrusting a pillow at me.
I rose slightly and someone slipped it onto the hard seat beneath me.
The back door banged open. Anna strode into the room, elbowing her way through the crowd of vampires who refused to budge.
“Leah. How sweet. You brought a snack. Baby nugget.”
Johnny tensed beside me as everyone wondered how I’d react.
I sighed. Anna was Anna.
“Keep your dirty fangs off my son,” I chided lightly.
She kissed the top of my head, and then bent and kissed the baby’s head. Luc dropped Johnny’s finger and reached for Anna’s hair.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sorry, little nugget. No can do,” she said, pulling her hair from his grasp as he tried to suck it.
“He does look little. You should feed him, water him, make him grow,” one of the vampires said.
“I just nursed him.”
“Do it again. Go ahead. We want to watch.”
I rolled my eyes in exasperation, but was saved from answering when Julian rounded a corner. “Anjelia. What are you doing up?”
The previously curious vampires scattered in every direction, leaving me alone to face his wrath.
I grinned. “Back in your day, women were bedridden for weeks after birth. These, however, are modern times.”
“Still, you’ve been up long enough. Time to get back to bed,” he said, taking Luc from me. “Come along, my son,” he whispered, as he positioned the infant against his shoulder. Luc blinked up at the lights, his golden eyes remarkably like Julian’s. Especially with the crown of black hair. In fact, he could easily have passed for his son.
I’d heard whispers in the last days of my pregnancy. Many of the vampires believed that a miracle occurred, and that the baby was actually Julian’s instead of Leo’s. Wishful thinking. I don’t know where that idea came from, it was a known fact that vampires have no viable sperm. Just like they can’t produce their own blood.
I rose slowly from the hard chair, wincing slightly when I felt the swollen tenderness. I was glad Chen thought of that pillow. Maybe Julian was right and I shouldn’t have been up.
Julian and I entered the quarters to find Leo had moved from his room and was asleep in our bed, where he’d wandered after looking for me.
Julian looked at the sleeping figure wryly. “I guess I’ll be smelling wolf tonight. Take a nap with Leo, my sweet. I’ll be down in a couple of hours for you.”
I undressed and threw on a nightgown that buttoned up the front. Then I joined Leo in bed and cradled Luc in the crook of my arm.
His tiny little eyes widened as he smelled my breast so near his face. He turned, mouth open, and rooted instinctively for my nipple.
“Hold on, little man,” I whispered, as I loosened one breast for him.
He sucked greedily as if he were starved.
“Mmm,” Leo mumbled. “You’re back.”
“I just went upstairs to introduce Luc to everyone. Until Julian brought us back down here to nap with you.”
He yawned. “I’m sorry. I should have gotten up when you did.”
“I know how hard it is the first night at the vampire quarters. Too dark and silent.”
I broke Luc’s suction with my finger inserted into his tiny mouth and turned over before he could howl. Carefully I wiped off his little mouth and now, facing Leo, I let him re-attach to my other breast.
Luc sniffed around frantically, wanting to find my breast on his own. He clenched his tiny fist and then released it, pressing his palm against the side of my breast to pet it.
Leo and I laughed at his sniffing antics, and I inserted my nipple into his mouth.
I glanced
at the nursing towel I’d brought into the bed with me.
“What’s got you worried?” Leo asked.
“My milk. It’s not white.”
“What color is it?”
“Pink. It dribbles from his mouth like it’s bloody.”
“Is it the color of blood?”
“Not really. It’s like the color of blood mixed with the milk.”
“It must be your vampire half. He’s healthy, Anjelia, and he’s happy. I wouldn’t worry about it unless your breasts are painful and we think there’s an infection.”
“They’re fine.”
“Then quit worrying.” He kissed my shoulder, watching while his son nursed. Maybe he was right.
Chapter Nine
Leo wasn’t right. During the next month, Luc fell deathly ill.
I was beside myself with worry. We couldn’t take my baby to a hospital, his DNA was too different. Besides, his father was a doctor and I trusted Leo’s skill implicitly.
The wolf howl was tomorrow night, but you’d never know it. Leo and I had been up for days, trying everything we could think of for Luc. Finally, Leo said all we could do was make him as comfortable as possible. I refused to accept death as an option for my son.
Julian had been over but left shortly before dawn for the sanctuary of Bang’s underground quarters. As soon as he woke in a few hours, he would be arriving again in the tinted window limo.
Maybe in time to witness Luc’s death.
I cradled my son, who screwed up his tiny face but was too sick to cry. I kissed the tiny bow lips, tears streaming down my cheeks as I rocked him comfortingly. My heart was broken, and I could hardly speak or even breathe with the huge knot of pain lodged in my throat.
I’d tried to nurse him. My breasts, swollen and cement-hard, ached for the release. The pink milk he lapped at for just a couple of seconds the day before was too much of an effort now.
“How is he?” Julian asked as he strode into the room.
I shook my head.
Leo’s breathing was ragged, and he curled his fists in helpless frustration. “I’ve done everything.”
“Can I try something?” Julian asked.
Leo shrugged. “What? There’s nothing left we can do. We’ve fed him intravenously, to no avail. Nothing nourishes him. He grows weaker and weaker.”
