Filed to story: Court of the Vampire Queen Novel???
He frowns harder. “Mina.”
Wolf and Rylan stalk back through the door. They’re moving better now, quickly, less humanlike. It’s almost enough to convince myself the last week didn’t happen. I know better, though. I step away from Malachi and sink onto the couch. There’s not so much as a blood stain on the floor. Waste not, want not. I swallow down a hysterical feeling giggle. Shock. It’s just shock.
“Don’t feel guilty, love.” Wolf drops down next to me and throws his arm across the couch at my back. “Humans live so few years. We cut their lives a bit short, but they were always going to be short.”
“I don’t feel guilty.” Not for their deaths. I would wager a small fortune that those three have harmed more people than I care to think about. Now they won’t harm anyone ever again. That said, I’m not overly keen on Wolf’s blasé attitude. “I might live one of those short mortal lifespans. Should we just kill me right now and get it over with?”
“You won’t.” Rylan perches on the coffee table across from me, close enough that his knees press against mine.
Malachi takes the spot on my other side. For the first time, bracketed in by my men, I can finally breathe again. My chest voice goes wobbly. “I was so worried about you.”
“You got us out,” Rylan says, gray eyes direct. “Now tell us exactly how and everything that happened in the meantime.”
It takes longer than it should. My ridiculous urge to cry only gets stronger with each point I relay, but their presence gets me through it. By the time I finish, Rylan hasn’t so much as moved, Malachi is cursing quietly under his breath, and Wolf’s eyes are flickering crimson.
I clear my throat. “Stop it. All of you. You look like you want to comfort me and I’m not the one who spent the last week starved and tortured.” The starved point is blatant, but I know my father well enough to know the latter is true as well. With three new toys to play with and break, he wouldn’t have been able to resist.
“Sound like you’ve been plenty starved,” Malachi rumbles. “We fucked up, Mina. I’m sorry. You never should have been left alone.”
Rylan looks away, something akin to guilt shifting over his handsome features. “I shouldn’t have left. My overconfidence meant you weren’t protected. I—”
My chest goes hot and tight. “No. We’re not doing this. We’re not going to play self-recrimination and passing the blame around. If it wasn’t my fault, then it wasn’t your fault, either. My father outplayed us. Now we have to make sure he doesn’t get a chance to do it again.” I drag in a breath. “We can’t keep running. He’ll just catch us again and then we’ll be right back where we started.” Without Grace to act as convenient willing victim and pay my debts for me. I straighten a bit, feeling grounded for the first time since, well, everything. “We have to strike before he has a chance to regroup.”“We’ll talk about our next steps tomorrow.” Malachi doesn’t give me a chance to respond before he sweeps me up and turns a slow circle. “Where are the bedrooms?”
Maybe I should argue, but the truth is I’m crashing fast and I just want to spend some time just existing with them. Azazel promised we’d be safe here, and while I’m not naive enough to expect that to be true indefinitely, it should be true tonight at least. I don’t even think we’re in the same state.
I point at the stairs. “Up.”
It’s not until Malachi sets me on the bed that I realize Wolf and Rylan aren’t with us. Where did they—
“Ensuring the bodies are never found.”
I startle. “I forgot about the mind reading thing.” It was still so new before my father showed up, I’d barely come to terms with the fact the men could glean my thoughts since I never learned how to shield. Speaking of… I press my hand to my stomach. “Azazel said my lack of shields were why the pregnancy was draining me so much. He did something, and I feel better, but it’s hard to trust him. He said it was a supplemental shield, but I don’t know enough to verify it.”
Malachi poked his head into the door leading into what I assume is a bathroom and then comes back to the bed. He takes my hand and tugs me to my feet. “Let’s shower.”
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to conserve water.” My joke falls flat as he leads me into the bathroom.
“No.” He turns on the shower and faces me. “You haven’t talked about the pregnancy. Everything else, but not that.”
My hand drifts to my stomach but I drop it before it makes contact. “I don’t know what to think. It feels like I’ve been barreling toward this goal, but now that we’ve accomplished it—or started to, or whatever—it feels unreal. I don’t know how I feel.” I should feel something, shouldn’t I? The people on the compound who’d become pregnant treated it as a rapturous experience that was both deeply emotional and spiritual, right from the moment they realized they’d conceived.
I don’t feel anything at all.
“Mina.” Malachi cups my chin gently and lifts my face until I meet his gaze. His handsome face is oh so serious, dark eyes intense. “I know we thought this was the only way, but if you don’t want this, we’ll find a different option.”
“Just like that?” The question catches in my throat and comes out jagged. “You told me you couldn’t wait to knock me up.”
“I know.” He shrugs, though his intensity doesn’t waver. “But I care about you more than anything else, little dhampir. If you don’t want children, then we won’t have children.”
That’s the thing. I don’t know what I want. I can barely think about a future without the threat of my father hanging over our heads. His taking Malachi and Wolf and Rylan has only heightened that fear. If I have this baby…If we don’t remove my father before it happens…
He could take the baby, too.
I shudder. “I don’t have a convenient answer for you, Malachi. I wish I did. I’m not ready to end this pregnancy, no matter how complicated my feelings are about it. It’s our only chance.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the plan,” he says quietly. “Do you want it?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? I pushed back when Grace offered me the same option Malachi is right now, claiming I couldn’t make that decision without the men being involved. In hindsight, it feels like an excuse. Not a single one of them would hold making that call against me. I have no doubts about that. “Since Azazel did his magic, I haven’t felt so drained and exhausted.”
“Mina, that’s not an answer.”
I know, but I don’t have an answer right now. I sigh. “I do want it, I think. I haven’t really had time to process, and I—” Right here, right now, I can tell him the truth. The awful feeling in my throat gets worse. “I’m afraid to want it. Wanting something is a good excuse for the world to take it away. To have my father take it away.” I press my hand to Malachi’s broad chest. “I dared to want you and look what happened. You spent a week being tortured by him.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” I suck in a harsh breath. “I won’t ask you to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I’m here if you do.” They’ve listened to my story, but they haven’t shared a single thing that happened to them in the time they were captive. I don’t have a right to ask them to share if they’re not ready, but the big black hole of information makes me uneasy. It’s like we’re walking on eggshells with each other.