Immortal Rapture: Immortal Heart (10 page)

Makyle crossed his arms over his broad chest. “It’s been a couple of hours.”

She looked pissed as her gaze lifted back to him. “He’s a newborn… you need to feed him every
couple
of hours. So, again I will ask—where is his mother?”

Marie remembered Eppie with both her little ones
. They weren’t out of her sight for the first couple of months. She may have been a little overboard, not even leaving them with their father, but this baby was so new. Maybe a couple of weeks or so. She couldn’t make sense of him having been away from his mother for more than a half hour—let alone a couple of hours.

“Would you like to field this one?” Makyle asked, looking to Uriah, who was rocking the baby in an effort to calm the crying.

Uriah sighed. “She—she’s…”

“Dead, that’s the word he
’s looking for,” Makyle interjected.

Marie studied the crying baby. His rosy little cheeks and his big eyes; one jade and one silver. Her gaze lifted back to Uriah. “He’s yours, isn’t he? You lied to me.”

Uriah shook his head. “No Marie, I can explain this.”

Makyle smiled, causing Uriah to growl. Marie flinched and reached for her purse, hurrying out the door. Uriah’s head fell back as everything seemed to crash down on him.

“Not much like Izzy, is she?”

“Shut
up,” Uriah muttered. He wanted to follow her, but he couldn’t leave his son, not when the Dark Fae were after him. Uriah spun at the sound of the front door opening and closing again. Marie pushed past him and into the kitchen, a brown bag with blue polka dots splattered all over it in hand. She dropped the bag on the counter and pulled out a bottle and some formula. Moving to the fridge, she filled the bottle with warm water from the dispenser and added the formula before shaking the bottle and gesturing for Uriah to hand the crying baby over.

“Don’t think for one second that I am not furious enough to want to hurt your family jewels. But whatever is going on here doesn’t matter because that baby is hungry.”

Uriah handed Makiah over, lost for words and dumbfounded by hers. Marie cooed as she cradled him against her chest. Once Makiah had stopped crying, he took the bottle, greedily suckling away the formula. Uriah found his words. “Why do you have a diaper bag?”

Marie glared as she looked up at him. “I watched Marko’s niece last week. Janet forgot Robby’s diaper bag. Luckily for
you, there is enough in here to take care of this little guy for a couple of feedings. There are even diapers and clothes that might fit him… We’ll be able to make it work at least.”

“
We
?” Uriah asked cautiously.

Her laugh was sarcastic. “Oh yeah, ‘we’… I am very much looking forward to the explanation you are concocting. I’m curious where the baby—”

“Makiah,” Uriah interrupted her. She looked down at the feeding child in her arms and smiled softly at him.

“Okay,
Makiah
. I am curious about Makiah’s mother, why he brought him here,” she said gesturing to Makyle, “with nothing needed to take care of him, and what the hell you two crazy asses were talking about when I walked in here. I may be irritated, but not enough to walk away before making sure he is at least fed and you give me some answers. Because at this point, I am trying to figure out why Izzy believes you are such a good guy.”

Makyle chuckled and shook his head. “I take it back.
She definitely has some of Isabelle’s fire in her.”

Uriah sighed. He couldn’t agree more at this moment.

Makiah’s eyes began to blink slowly as he ate. Marie set the empty bottle on the counter and shifted his little body to pat his back, earning a small burp, a little gurgle, and soon after, a full and sleeping baby. Moving to the living room, she wrapped Makiah up in a blanket, but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to hand him over or lay him down to sleep. She wanted to keep him snuggled in her arms, instantly finding herself pulled to the beautiful and unique child. Folding her legs under her, she sat on the couch and kept him cuddled in her arms.

Uriah stood in the living room entrance, watching Marie as she held his son. Her eyes locked on him, she rocked the sleeping child softly and ran her palm over his
soft, silky black hair.

Makyle studied Izzy’s sister as she rocked Jelena’s child. He felt the pang of loss for his sister. Emotions were starting to cloud everything he thought he knew. The strange ache in his chest made him feel other things he didn’t understand. What he did know was that Makiah would never see his mother again, and there was a very great chance that Marie had just stepped into Jelena’s place. If anything, he tried to settle the feelings with the knowledge that Makiah might end up with a semi-normal family if Uriah could explain himself to Marie.

“You better go talk to her. We need to decide what we’re going to do.”

Uriah nodded. “Stay here and deal with Dark Fae or return to the Middle World and deal with your brothers.”

“Exactly, and if it’s the Middle World, you have a lot of convincing to do. We can’t leave her here to be found by the vampires tracking me… and she did already ask about the Middle World. Somehow I doubt she’s forgotten that part of the conversation she walked in on.”

“I’m sure she hasn’t forgotten a single thing. She has a sharp tongue and mind.”

Makyle chuckled. “Yes, that much is clear. She also seems to be bonding rather quickly with Makiah.”

Uriah’s head tilted as he continued to watch the two of them. Makiah was content and sleeping soundly as she seemed to
study every inch of his face. What she saw as she gazed down at the sleeping child created a breathtaking smile to spread over her face.

Uriah took a deep breath before entering the living room
. He took a seat next to her, letting his gaze fall on his son briefly before lifting back to her beautiful face.

“He’s a good baby,” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t really know. I didn’t even know about him until Makyle showed up here.”

Marie refused to look at Uriah. She wasn’t sure her heart could handle seeing his handsome face while her mind tried to understand what he was about to tell her. Everything inside of her screamed that he had lied to her
. And if she looked at him as he spoke, she was fairly certain that she would fall victim to whatever he spouted, solely because, somehow, in this brief amount of time they’d spent together, he’d stolen a crucial part of her heart and it would beg for her to believe anything and everything he had to say.

“You’re not going to look at me
, are you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I can’t, because I desperately want to believe that everything you are about to tell me is the absolute, no
-detail-held-back truth. And I know if I look at you while you try to convince me that you didn’t lie to me, I will end up believing you just because you have a trustworthy and sincere face. However, it is pretty clear in my mind that there is no way a single word of what you told me fits with the appearance of this little guy.”

Uriah sighed and sat back as he mulled over the words he needed to speak.

“Have you ever been to Bain’s home?”

Her brows furrowed as she answered. “No, what does that have to do with this?”

“Do you not find it odd that Izzy has never invited you to where she now lives?”

Marie shrugged, but in
truth, she’d often wondered why the invitation had never been extended. “Well it’s because Izzy now lives in the Middle World with Bain, myself, and our brothers.”

Marie lifted her gaze to him, irritation playing within her pretty blue eyes. “When you say Middle World
, I think
Lord of the Rings
.”

Uriah smiled. “Well, we have trolls, elves
, and dwarfs, but no orcs on our side of the world. The truth is that the Middle World is where I come from. It’s the land of the Fae. Kale, Lothar, Bain, Cree, and I are Light Fae warriors, who keep track of the Dark Fae activity in the Human World. Rowan, Bain’s sister, was our leader. The Dark Fae attacked us roughly nine months ago. We were unable to defend ourselves without loss. Rowan was lost, along with Jelena.” He paused, looking back to Makiah. “Jelena is Makiah’s mother. She was an Immortal Ruler from the Light side of the Underworld, where she and her two sisters rule, while her four brothers, Makyle being one of them, are the Immortal rulers of the Dark part of the Underworld. I didn’t know at the time, but she must have been pregnant with Makiah when the battle broke out… She intervened, saving my life by giving her own. That was the last time I saw her or any of the Immortal Rulers. Until Makyle showed up… that’s all I know.”

Marie’s brow was arched as she stared at him. “Bain’s sister died?”

Uriah tilted his head. Of all the information he’d laid out, that was what caught her attention? “Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

Was she in shock from the information? Was she playing with him?

“Marie, did you hear the rest of what I just told you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but I’m guessing while weaving that bullshit story that you wouldn’t have killed off Bain’s sister for shits and giggles. Or, so I hope. I would like to believe I haven’t misjudged you that much.”

Uriah sighed and looked to Makyle.

“Perhaps this is the moment we should call Isabelle or Bain to see how he convinced her sister he was more than a mere human.”

Uriah huffed. “I was there when they met
. We showed instead of telling.”

Makyle grinned. “Ah, this could be interesting.”

Marie’s eyes were lazered on Makyle. Uriah took a breath and flung a pillow from the couch at Makyle’s face. Marie looked back at him. She hadn’t seen him move. He smiled and lifted the remote from the table to hover in front of her, then placed it back on the table. Then he picked up the chair, lifting it off the ground to tumble end over end in the middle of the room. Next he lifted the table and a lamp to juggle them in the center of the living room.

She sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s some poltergeist shit…
Are you really doing that?”

Uriah nodded and set the furniture down. “It’s not meant to scare you
. I’m telekinetic, Kale is pyrokinetic, Bain’s a healer, and Lothar is empathic, while Cree is omniscient. The powers are just what we use to protect the Humans from the Dark Fae.”

“That’s not all you use,” Makyle interjected.

“What else?” she whispered.

“This one you might actually like.” Uriah stood up and closed his eyes as he called on the magic that protected his wings
. He let them free from the magical cocoon that kept them safe and hidden. The feathers fluttered as his wings shook and then stretched out behind him, nearly spanning the entire width of the room before he folded them against his back. Uriah’s eyes opened to see Marie, now standing from the couch with Makiah still protected in her arms. She stared at him with wide eyes that spoke more of awe than anger.

“No fucking way.”

“She sure speaks like a lady, doesn’t she?” Makyle muttered.

“Shut the hell up,” she said, barely finding the need to respond to Makyle and his snarky interjections.

With one arm holding the baby and the other free, she reached out and slid her fingers through the
shiny, brown feathers with their golden highlights and weaves of red. They were soft like silk, but she could feel the muscle beneath the beautiful feathers. Uriah shivered as she caressed the newly healed down and feathers. Her finger slid deep to graze the skin that lay below the mass of brown. She did a full circle around him before stopping to stand before him, her head tilted back and her gaze locked on his. “You’re gorgeous, unique and perfect.”

He smiled down at her. “You’re taking this rather well.”

“Of course I am… I’m more jealous than anything. And honestly, you having wings, powers, and talking about this other world and all, makes it all a little more believable.”

Uriah chuckled. “This is more believable?”

She smiled. “Yes, you having wings and powers is much more likely than you being a lying asshole… I like this version better than the one my mind was creating. But how did she die and still have this little guy?”

Uriah looked to Makyle
, who was leaning against the entrance arch into the living room. He shrugged. “She’s beyond death; she was with me and our brothers. Once Makiah was born, my brothers wanted to keep him as a child of the Underworld. She wanted something better for him. We were caught before she could get him into the sanctuary of her domain—”

“She was going to keep him from me?” Uriah interrupted.

Makyle shrugged. “There was no future that allowed him to be with both his parents. When she realized she couldn’t keep him, she told me to find you.”

His head tilted and his gaze fell to the large front window. “They’re here.”

“Who’s here?” Marie asked, trying to follow Makyle’s line of sight.

Makyle growled. “Vampires
—they’re after the baby.”