Authors: Tessa Dawn
And then, like a candle flickering in a darkened room, the background of the cell
lit up, casting radiant light on the otherwise grisly scene: Flaxen hair; smooth,
delicate skin; and vivid rose-colored eyes filled the frame with light, softening
even the brutality of murder.
Vanya had entered the cell, and she strode proudly forward until she was standing
next to Marquis’s kneeling body. Placing a gentle hand on the Ancient Master Warrior’s
shoulder, she whispered a single command: “
Wait
.”
Her voice was as calm as it was solemn, and the vampire immediately obeyed, even though
his bicep twitched from the effort to withhold the final death blow.
Vanya placed her free hand on her belly, pressed against it in a low, firm gesture,
almost as if to maintain her balance, and then she bent over to meet Saber’s eyes.
Her own eyes were glistening with tears. “Before you die,” she said, without faltering,
“I just want to know one thing.”
Saber blinked several times, trying to bring Vanya’s regal features into focus. He
held her penetrating gaze, fully prepared to answer her question honestly—why the
hell not? Clearly, his goose was already cooked.
“Why?” she asked.
Saber frowned, steeling himself against the pain that racked his body. “Why, what?”
Vanya laughed then, although the sound was hollow and devoid of humor. She rubbed
her hand over her belly, indicating the protruding mound beneath her silken blouse.
“The pregnancy—
why
? Why would you do such a thing?”
Saber stared for a moment in utter astonishment.
To say he was bewildered would have been an understatement. Indeed, the princess was
unmistakably pregnant; and that meant she was carrying his twin sons. He didn’t remember
commanding it, exactly, although he knew he must have; otherwise, the conception could
not have occurred. Still, there was no clear line of delineation in his mind. “I…I
don’t…” His words trailed off as he searched for an answer.
Saber recalled the aftermath of his passion with the princess vividly. He had been
a cauldron of grief, anguish, and desperation when he mated with her, and the entire
act, the way he had sought her
ice
and she, his
fire
,
was as foreign and surprising to him as it had been to her. He remembered lying beside
the princess after they had finished…doing what they had done…feeling lost and out
of place. Confused, and even a little bit resentful.
Like what the hell
had just happened
—
and what in the name of the dark lords
was he supposed to do next?
Males in the house of Jaegar did not lie in repose with human females, not even half-celestial
ones. They did not engage in foreplay or after play, and they didn’t make idle conversation
or show affection…whatever that was. To say Saber had felt like a fish out of water
would’ve been an understatement.
Fire and
i
ce
. He and Vanya had made a fair trade, and that was that.
Still, one thing had stood out in his mind; it had been too stark not to. For the
first time since Damien and Dane had been executed, Saber had not been in pain. It
was hard to explain, but it had felt like he had crawled into the eye of a storm and
found some sort of—what?
Peace?
He didn’t know what to call it. He only knew that one moment, he was floundering
in turbulence, lost to darkness and grief, and the next, he was hovering in a space
of stillness, almost clarity. And while the storm continued to rage all around him—hell,
it continued to rage inside of him—he was apart from the turmoil. Cocooned in the
eye of the storm.
Struggling to speak with a broken jaw, Saber tried to put words to what had happened
next: “I guess…on some unconscious level, I knew…you were my
destiny
.” He groaned from the effort.
Vanya sighed in exasperation, showing her first true hint of emotion. “And that gave
you the right to impregnate me without my consent?”
Saber didn’t know how to answer that. What did she mean?
The Curse gave all males the right—hell, the ability—to impregnate women without their
consent. It was a built-in survival mechanism, and he certainly couldn’t justify or
condemn such an ancient, incredulous fact; nor was he going to try. Besides, that
wasn’t exactly what had happened. He hadn’t consciously chosen it, done it with any
real deliberation. He had just thought it,
remembered
it
, and knew it to be what came next.
She was his
destiny
.
They were bound by the Serpens Blood Moon.
And now she would carry his sons and save him from the ultimate vengeance of the Curse.
The pregnancy had come as much from his DNA as his mind. It had been an
instinct
—not a plot—an ingrained impulse that had a life of its own: Somehow, somewhere, in
a place he didn’t even know how to reach, let alone name, he had acted to sustain
his existence, to seal the cocoon and remain pain-free for just a little while longer.
Saber had sought to remain in the eye of the storm for as long as possible, the only
way he knew how; and in truth, he was absolutely stunned to see Vanya standing before
him now, growing heavy with child. All of this…it was so new to him. He hardly understood
it himself.
“I don’t know,” he finally answered honestly. “I just…did it…somehow.” It was a weak
explanation, but it was the only one he had.
Vanya exhaled so sharply that the air in her lungs rushed out in a whistle. “You just…
did it
?” she repeated.
Saber stared at her blankly. What point was there in hashing this out? As far as she
was concerned—as far as any of them were concerned—he was beyond logical thinking
or basic moral reasoning; and perhaps it was true. Even as they sought to convince
him that he was born into the house of Jadon, as opposed to the house of Jaegar, Saber
was not expected to have the thoughts, instincts, or desires of any other male: He
wasn’t supposed to claim his
destiny
, to desire her conception, to react with the same primordial nature as any other
vampire.
He was simply supposed to wait to die at the end of the Blood Moon, as if his eight
hundred years on earth were
nothing
.
Less than nothing.
So be it.
“I wanted to live,” he said defensively. “And that is all.” When her expression flashed
from confusion to disgust, he knew whatever momentary connection they may have shared
in that rare interlude of passion, however misguided or ill-conceived, was indelibly
gone. As dead as his father and his brother. He had been a fool to think that something
tangible, albeit impossible to name or pin down, may have passed between them in the
desperation of night; and she had been a fool to enter the lair of her enemy, to ever
trust a son of Jaegar.
Fire and ice
: an inevitable conclusion.
And now they would both pay for their stupidity.
Vanya seemed utterly appalled by his words, indeed, wholly repulsed by his existence.
She visibly cringed, curled both dainty hands into unconscious fists, and slowly nodded
her head in antipathy. “Foolish male,” she whispered, almost robotically. “You foolish,
foolish
male.”
Saber didn’t respond. He just lay there silently, awaiting her condemnation, or perhaps
his death, whichever came first.
She ground her teeth together and locked her jaw. “Then it was
survival
?”
Saber tried to shrug, but his shoulders hurt too badly. Not to mention, Marquis was
pinning his arms to the ground.
What did she
expect
him to say?
“Yes.”
“And everything we shared—all that passed between us—that, too, was survival? Never
affection?” Her voice grew soft with resignation. “Never…
love
?” She sounded so weak and pitiable, so unlike the spitfire female he had come to
know over their few, brief encounters—not at all like herself—and the question, frankly,
stunned him.
Love?
What the hell did Saber Alexiares know of love?
He studied her eyes, wishing he could grasp what was happening, what she was getting
at, if only to prolong his survival. He was moments away from his mortal end, consumed
in unspeakable physical pain, which he was trying desperately to conceal, and at a
complete loss for words…
About a subject he could barely comprehend.
“What the hell are you asking me, Princess?” His eyes bored into hers as if there
were no one else in the room. “What do you want me to say?”
Vanya finally lost her composure. Her angst turned to tears, and her searching gave
way to defeat. “Nothing,” she uttered desolately. “
Nothing
. I just…I just want you to understand that I am yet human.”
Saber was positively dumbfounded. “So?”
Now this sparked her anger. “So perhaps in the house of Jaegar, the males rape women
at random, force their seed into their bellies, then wait with glee while the wretched
victims die, but that is not how it is done in the house of Jadon!”
Saber visibly recoiled at the word
rape
, and Marquis bristled from his head to his toes. “You raped her?” the angry warrior
snarled.
Saber kept his attention focused on Vanya.
What are you
saying,
Princess
?
He spoke telepathically.
Marquis reacted instinctively, grasping Saber by the throat and tightening his fist
like an iron vise. His fingers trembled with rage, and Ramsey and Santos took several
steps forward toward the bars. The sentinels had been watching the whole scene play
out from the moment Marquis had entered Saber’s cell, but they had been unable, or
unwilling, to interfere.
Until now.
Perhaps they now wanted to kill him themselves.
“Release his throat, Marquis,” Vanya said, her tone brooking no argument. “He will
die soon enough.” She raised her chin in an unusual show of defiance, as well as a
halfhearted attempt at dignity, and then she regarded all the males in the room as
one. “The monster did not rape me. I was a willing…fool.” She shuffled closer to Saber
and bent over to meet his eyes in an unbroken stare. “In thirty-four hours, I will
die a horrible death.” She made a tent with her fingers around her stomach, as if
framing the pregnancy for effect. “These children—your offspring—would not have ensured
your survival. As it stands, they will claw their way out of my body, break my spine,
rip out my intestines, and kill me as they emerge into the world. Only a vampire can
bear the children of a vampire, Saber!
I am yet human
.”
Despite Marquis’s continued pressure on his larynx, Saber gasped audibly, causing
his collapsed lung to spasm with unearthly pain. He smacked Marquis’s arm away from
his neck in a reflex and almost sat up straight, until the pain brought him up short.
That, and the 200-pound warrior sitting on his broken ribs. Still, he was too stunned
by Vanya’s words to register anything other than what she had just said.
The pregnancy was going to kill her
.
And soon.
He was too flabbergasted to reply.
While it was true, the children of Dark Ones, those conceived in brutality with males
from the house of Jaegar, tormented and destroyed their hosts upon emergence into
this world, nothing could have been further from the truth when it came to the children
in the house of Jadon. The children of the light Vampyr were conceived beneath the
providence of a Blood Moon, protected by the
four mercies
bestowed on Prince Jadon—at least the one born of light was protected.
At any rate, it wasn’t supposed to be this way!
Saber might hate what had befallen him. Hell, he would likely resent it until time
was no more, but he had come to believe it—
he
was the birth-child of Rafael and Lorna Dzuna
—how could
his
offspring destroy their mother?
His mind was spinning—whether from loss of blood, delusion brought on by pain, or
the sudden, inexplicable turn of events, he wasn’t certain. All that he knew was this
was wrong.
Completely.
W
rong!
By all that was dark and unholy, he had not acted in a way to destroy the princess.
Yes, he was a dark soul. Perhaps he was even a scourge in the otherwise noble house
of Jadon, an imposter in a world that revolved around justice and honor, but to do
this? To murder Vanya so heinously? Such a thing went even beyond his purview.
Vanya Demir was the only being in this gods-forsaken valley that he didn’t detest
all the way down to his blackened soul. She was the only person he would actually
hesitate to kill.
“I…I don’t understand.” He struggled to speak beneath a growing influx of fluid pooling
in his lungs.
Vanya glowered at him. “Do not act as if you did not know: Conversion must always
come first!”
The words rang out in Saber’s mind like a tiny metal ball in a pinball machine, the
carbon-steel pinging around from side to side, bouncing from chamber to chamber, as
he fought to process what Vanya had just said. His gut clenched beneath the weight
of her words, as well as Marquis on his broken ribs, and he felt at once like he might
just heave. He had no idea where the sensations were coming from, but the world seemed
to simply drop out from beneath him.
He struggled once again to sit up, only to meet Marquis’s impassive resistance, slamming
him back to the ground. As what little air he had rushed out of him in a whoosh, he
reached for Vanya’s mind.
Then I will still convert you.
He said it telepathically.
Directly.
Sincerely.
“It is too late,” Vanya whispered.
Saber’s eyes shot wildly around the room. Ramsey and Santos were now standing inside
the entrance of the cell, their collective expressions displaying a harsh mixture
of mortification, rage, and unfathomable sorrow. He turned to Marquis, uncaring that
the male was his enemy. “Warrior, is this true?”