“This may be the child of Charles Allaway, forced on me under ugly circumstances, but it is still an innocent baby.” I shake my head, feeling my insides quake. “I can’t be selfish, because I don’t know that I will ever be able to look at it and not think of Charles and everything that surrounded its conception. It deserves someone who will love it unconditionally, and someone who can raise it to one day rule with grace and fairness.”
There’s still so much conflict on my brother’s face. “Elle, are you sure?”
And I hesitate for just a moment. The words sound good, the plan is solid. But am I so sure?
I nod. “I think it’s best. And maybe I will want children someday. Even though the thought that someday I will grow old and die, and Lexington will keep on living, looking exactly as he does now, kills me, a family is possible for us, Ian. But when we’re ready.”
He lets out a little breathy sound that isn’t quite a laugh. His eyes fall down to his lap and he pulls my hands into his. “You really love him that much, huh? Ready to make a family with him someday and everything?”
I chuckle at my brother. Poor guy. He’s agonized over me for so long, always looked out for me, and now I’m moving on to someone else.
“I haven’t told him in as many words as I should,” I say seriously. “And I haven’t made this very easy on him since I got back. But yeah, Ian. This is serious. The real deal. He’s my forever, however mortal it is.”
“It’s kind of sickeningly sweet,” he says with a sad smile. “But also too damn tragic when you put it that way.”
“We can’t all be immortal,” I say to try and lighten the mood.
“I know you, Elle,” he says, looking up at me. “You wouldn’t want this life any more than I did in the beginning.”
I shake my head, because he’s right. Not after everything I’ve been through. Not after all the hurt I’ve seen the life of vampires cause.
“For what it’s worth,” Ian says, “the way Lexington looks at you, I don’t think he’s going to care one bit when you’re old and gray and he’s still the same. I might act like an asshole when he puts his lips on you, but I can’t deny it. He loves you. And how can I not be grateful for that?”
I look at my brother, and my heart suddenly swells with gratitude. I lean forward, wrapping my arms around him.
Things might be really twisted and wrong right now. But I’m surrounded by people who love me, and I couldn’t ask for more than that.
My breath hitches in my throat. My fingers curl around the sheets. A sheen of sweat breaks out onto my upper lip. The pounding in my chest becomes painful.
He cries out and there’s a flash of red eyes.
A scream rips from my chest.
My body reacts on instinct and I dart forward to end a life.
Only I jerk hard, my right leg rising to run, but I startle in my bed, jerking upright, looking around in confusion.
My bedroom is still dark. The clock on my nightstand reads 4:28.
The thumping in my chest is painful. The anxiety climbing up my throat is suffocating.
The next instant I’m on my feet, scrambling through the dark to find my dresser. I pull open the top drawer, fishing around to the bottom. My hand clamps around a stake and not a moment later, I’m out my bedroom door and flying down the stairs. Through the dark, I scratch at the front door, looking for the handle.
Yanking it open, I rush down the stairs without closing the door, and fly out the main door into the dark pre-dawn morning.
The speed of my heart doesn’t slow. If anything, the urgency in my blood rises.
I still on the sidewalk, looking left and right, desperation climbing up my throat.
My feet dart to the left.
Straight. Left again. Sprinting down the sidewalk wearing nothing but some red pajama shorts with white polka dots and an oversized black t-shirt of Lexington’s, and a stake in my hand.
I dart through the silent city like a madwoman, with an urgency in my veins that is eating me alive.
I halt at the crossing at Boylston, the Boston Public Library rising into view.
And a flash of red. A blur of blonde.
Charles steps around the corner of the library. A crossbow is gripped tightly between his hands, malice in his eyes.
Lexington doesn’t see him.
And before the warning breath can gather in my lungs, the arrow fires. I’m frozen for a moment, in utter denial.
But it buries itself into Lexington’s back, and a cry of pain rips from his chest. Not a moment later, Charles is on top of him.
Pain shoots up my bare feet, splintering my legs. Something pulls in my stomach, but I keep running. Darting across the street without looking. Across Copley Square and the park I came to for solace just a week ago.
Charles lets out a grunt, and his head rises. His eyes search the space around him, anger and confusion twisting his face. I see him lose his strength, nearly falling on top of Lexington, his body quaking in pain.
But I am rocketing across the intersection, my feet barreling up the stairs, and with a screaming war cry of my own, I barrel into Charles, knocking him off of Lexington, and sending the both of us careening across the steps of the library.
“Get away from him!” I bellow, swinging my arms as we tumble.
A scream of agony, an unholy sound that sounds very little like a human or vampire, explodes from Charles lips. I watch as black death streaks down his veins like ink, choking the life out of him. Tripping backward, he scrambles back from me.
“What deals with the devil have you made woman?” Charles half screams, half chokes as he spider crawls away from me, his eyes glowing in the night.
A gurgled groan from behind me pulls my eyes away, and instantly I forget about Charles.
“Lexington,” I breathe, rushing to his side. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Charles scramble back, tripping, falling as he runs, his red eyes turning back to me. He knows he’s going to have to run.
“No,” I whimper, kneeling over Lexington. There’s a stake embedded into his back, and I can’t tell if it’s quite high enough to pierce his heart. He lies on his side slightly and when he coughs, a stream of blood dribbles from his lips.
The past few minutes have gone by in a hazy blur, pure instinct. But as I reach up, my thumb brushing away the blood that leaks from Lexington’s mouth, I realize this is not a dream. This is happening, and this is the love of my life. “No.”
“Elle,” he hisses. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Shh,” I hiss, my hands hovering, unsure of what to do. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. I…I can fix this.”
“Elle,” he breathes, but he sounds like he’s drowning.
I climb over him, and curling my hands around the stake, I yank it free from his back. He lets out a gut-wrenching cry and suddenly it cuts off.
When he rolls over, I see he’s drowning in his own blood.
“No!” I cry, rolling him back onto his side so it can run from his mouth. “No, no, no.”
Think, I internally scream at myself. You can figure this out.
He’s not dead yet. If the stake pierced his heart, he’d already be dead. But the blood in his mouth…
It’s pierced his lung.
“You have to drink,” I command in desperation. I press my forearm to his lips, his blood leaking down all over my skin. “It will help heal you. Drink, please.”
He coughs, but it comes out more as a bubbling gurgle. He tries to shake his head no.
“Damn it, Lexington!” I yell. “I won’t forgive you if you die on me. Now drink!”
I shove my arm against his teeth hard enough to cut my flesh, and with the first drop of my blood, his fangs instantly lengthen. They sink into my arm, and weakly, his hands come up, clamping my arm in place.
Numbness creeps into my brain and I freeze.
The familiar feeling of being bitten by a vampire settles into my muscles and I begin drifting
away.
No, I internally scream at myself. You can’t disappear. He needs you.
“That…” I struggle to speak through the haze. “Is…is that enough?”
He bites down on my arm harder for a moment, and I squeeze my eyes closed as a sharp pain shoots from my arm into my chest, up to my brain. I feel him take one more long pull.
And suddenly he collapses back to the ground, releasing me.
I blink ten times, fast, clearing the fog from my mind. My hands reach for Lexington, finally my fingers settle into the side of his neck. I find a pulse, despite his eyes being closed, his body entirely limp.
He’s going to need some time to recover. But he’ll be okay.
I look up, searching the still dark area.
There isn’t a soul around. But I swear I can feel eyes on me.
“You can hide as much as you like, Charles,” I say through clenched teeth. My hands tremble. “But we will find you. You can come after my family. But we are stronger. We have more bodies. We have loyalty. And we will kill you, and I swear to you, you will never see this baby.”
A cold shiver works its way up my spine, and suddenly I feel the eyes on me disappear.
I kneel down on the concrete next to Lexington, placing my hand on his cheek.
He’s perfectly still, his chest shallowly rising and falling.
He’ll live.
But if I hadn’t had that nightmare, if I hadn’t instinctually known where to run, Charles would have killed him.
I would have lost him tonight.
“Elle?” I hear someone yell through the night a few blocks away.
“O…” my voice quivers. My hands shake, realizing what nearly happened. “Over here!”
A second later, Ian appears in the middle of Boylston, his eyes searching for me. The moment he sees us, he disappears into a blur and the next he’s at my side, stooping down and picking Lexington up.
“It was Charles,” I say as I run behind Ian and we head back for my apartment. “He shot him with a stake. But the curse is still working. As soon as I got close, he was obviously in pain. The closer I got—it looked like he was dying.”
“How…” Ian says in confusion as he looks down at Lexington. “How did you know?”
Tears spring into my eyes. I shake my head, holding my stomach as I run. “I don’t know. I just had this nightmare and woke up in a panic. I didn’t even think. I just started running.”
Ian’s concerned eyes turn to me, so much confusion in them, but he doesn’t say another word as he keeps running.
We break into my apartment and Ian lies Lexington on the couch and immediately pulls his phone from his pocket. “He’s in the area,” Ian barks and I faintly hear Danny’s voice on the other end, and Smith in the background. “He attacked Lexington just now. Watch your back. He’s apparently feeling up to a little game of cat and mouse.”
He hangs up but immediately places another call. “Duncan, get over to Elle’s right now. Bring whoever you can with you.”
All the while he’s on the phone, I’m rushing around the house, gathering supplies. A wet cloth to clean the wound. Herbs that I’m immediately smashing to form a poultice.
I roll Lexington onto his stomach and Ian helps me as he hangs up. I tear at his shirt, and Ian finishes the job for me.
“Charles must be feeling more desperate,” Ian says as he paces the living room, watching as I clean the wound. “He must be figuring out we aren’t going to let up. If he takes out a few key players, this will start to shake apart.”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that he went after Lexington first,” I say as I finish wiping away the blood from his back. The skin is already starting to knit itself back together. “He’s trying to punish me.”
I stir the poultice once more and scoop it out onto his back, spreading it around, just to the side of his tattoos, the ones of his sibling’s birth years. And I take it as a good sign when he winces.
“This is insane,” Ian says. “How the hell have we not hunted him down yet?”
I hear him smack something, but I don’t look up to see the damage caused.
I place my hand on Lexington’s cheek, studying his face. The scrape on his forehead from when he fell is completely closed. His brows are furrowed and I’m sure he’s in pain. His entire body is tensed even though he’s not conscious.
“Make him suffer,” I say quietly. The anger in me gathers. All the injustice Charles has dealt me in the past six months. All the twisted and satisfied smiles he granted me, come rushing in. “When you finally catch him, make him suffer as you kill him.”
Ian doesn’t say anything right away and his silence is a weighted thing. I look over my shoulder at him, and he stares at me with a darkness. His eyes reflect the vengeful snake being birthed in my stomach.
The line of my brother’s lips changes. His shoulders tighten and his fingers curl into fists. His chin drops and red embers ignite in his eyes. “I swear I will.”
“If we finally kill Charles today, what are we going to do about the King aspect?” Duncan asks as he sinks his teeth into a blood bag. “Killian is going to find out pretty quick.”
“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” Ian says as he gathers his supplies. My house has turned into a war locker room. It’s stuffed to the brim with stakes, guns, toxins, I’m pretty sure there’s even a few grenades lying around. “I’ve got to get back out there. Charles can’t be far. I want the two of you monitoring the block. But watch your backs. If he’s attacked Lexington, anything can happen.”
“He’s not going to get away with this,” Eva says through clenched teeth as she looks up at the stairs.
“You’re sure that curse is still working?” Ian asks, stepping forward, placing his hands on my shoulders, looking me in the eye.
“I promise,” I say, nodding. “He can’t come near me.”
My brother nods his head. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s get out there and hunt this Royal down.”
I watch as they file out the door, armed to their fanged teeth.
Look at all the drama I’ve created.
I’m no longer the girl on the sidelines, watching everything happen to my brother or Alivia.
This hunt is because of me.
I place my hands on my stomach, looking down at it.
This child has only had a heartbeat for sixteen weeks. But already it’s the center of so much turmoil. She will be born into a destiny that will be so heavy to bear. Have so much expectation upon her shoulders.
And as the acceptance that this is indeed going to be a girl settles into my chest, a dreadful realization comes into my blood.
This child is a female descendant of Royal blood.
And King Cyrus keeps tabs on all of his descendants, but especially the females. Because he’s been searching for his queen, waiting for her to Resurrect for over 279 years.
What if…
What if the heir of Charles Allaway, this girl who his half me, is the Queen? Wife of King Cyrus, Sevan?
I swallow hard, thinking of everything Alivia went through when Cyrus came to wait and see if she started to remember everything. She only had to deal with him for a month.
Cyrus will know for this child’s entire life that she’s a possibility. Cyrus will have to patiently wait until she’s an acceptable age to Resurrect, and then he’ll kill her, or force her hand, just like he did to Alivia.
She’ll never really get a choice in when she will want to die.
I squeeze my eyes closed, swallowing hard.
Like Ian said, we’ll deal with that when we get to it.
For the time being, there’s nothing I can do about it.
I turn back to the stairs and climb them. Lexington is still out cold when I get into the bedroom, Shada lying on the pillow beside his head, so I head for the bathroom, turning on the water in the shower.
When I’m clean and dried, I pull on underwear, my bra, only my boobs have gotten so big, it barely f
its anymore. I turn to look at myself in the mirror, marveling over the changes my body has gone through.
My hips have certainly widened. My chest is obviously bigger. Little red stretch marks are barely visible on my sides, just above my hips.
And my stomach. Being twenty-two weeks means it’s nice and round. My belly button is stretched wide. My skin already feels tight.
I’m to the point now where I can’t just be mistaken for having gained weight. I look pregnant.
Over halfway there.
A groan pulls my attention back to the door and I dart back into the bedroom instantly as my cat darts out of the room.
Lexington groans again as he rolls from his stomach onto his side. His eyes squeezed closed, he runs his fingers into his hair, wincing.
“Are you in pain?” I ask, kneeling on the bed beside him, my hands hovering, looking for anything to fix.
“My back is stiff,” he says, his eyes still squeezed closed. “What… What the hell happened?”
“Charles shot you,” I give a quick explanation. “I found you just in time and he ran. Ian brought you back home.”
He winces again, but a little smile cracks his lips. “So you saved my life?”
I smile. “Pretty much.”
He rubs his eyes, and finally opens them.
Instantly his eyes slide from my face, down.
And I realize I ran out here wearing nothing but my underclothes.
But I don’t shy away. I let his eyes wander, sliding from my chest, over my collarbones. Down to my stomach. Over my hips. All the way down to my toes.
Suddenly I’m self-conscious. Baring everything for him to see. All the evidence of how I’ve changed in the past few months.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Elle,” he says, reaching forward. He grabs my wrist and tugs me toward him. A little smile curls on my lips as I swing a knee over him, straddling and bracing myself over him. My wet hair cascades down around us, closing the two of us in this little cave. “I think you’re just getting more beautiful every day.”