Love's Challenge (Pearl Vampire Chronicles #5) (20 page)

‘What’s that?’
I whispered.

‘Tell me when it’s due, Sarah.  Tell me how long I have to
find you before that thing tears you apart.  Tell me that, and I’ll stay with
him, for now.’

I cried out.  I couldn’t help it.  Aquila moved toward me, but I held my
hand up and shook my head.  I pointed to my head to let him know that’s where
my pain was coming from.  I tried to get control of my sobbing. 
‘Damn it,
Carlos.  Why do you have to be so fucking smart?’

‘I think that’s the first time a woman has ever said that to
me.  But, Sarah, why couldn’t you tell me, baby?  You’ve always come to me
whenever something is wrong.  Why didn’t you feel it was okay now?’

‘I knew it was okay to tell you, Carlos.  I just wasn’t ready
to tell you.  I just wasn’t ready for you to know.’

‘Ahhh, baby.  Please don’t.  Let me help you Sarah.  Please. 
When is it due?’

I took a deep breath before I lied to him.  I didn’t want him to panic
while trying to find me.  I knew he hadn’t heard Bahiti tell me before.  And I
knew, in my heart, that he wouldn’t get to me in time.  
‘Bahiti told me
these things have a gestational period of seventy five days.  So that gives me
about sixty one days.’

‘Okay sweetheart.  I’m marking it on my calendar.  I’ll find
you within fifty five, I promise.  I’ll find you and then Cameron can get that
thing out of you.  I promise, Sarah.  Did he, did he hurt you, hun?’

‘Carlos, don’t.  Not now.  Don’t make me do this now.  Look,
I’ll tell you this much.  I wasn’t conscious for it.  At least he spared me
that much.’

‘I’m going to fucking kill him.’

I smiled and let out a little laugh, I couldn’t help it.  
‘I love you
when you get tough.’

‘Oh fuck, Sarah.  I feel so god damn helpless.  How can I
help you from Peru?  What can I fucking do to help you from there?’

‘How can you help me from there?  You can make sure Matt
recovers.  You can make sure you don’t do anything stupid.  And you can make
damn sure that you keep loving me and keep making me laugh, Carlos.  That’s
what you can do from there.’

‘I love you so much, Sarah.  I always have and I always
will.’

‘I love you too, Carlos.  Now, go get some sleep and let me
know when you’ve got him home safe tomorrow, okay?’

‘I’m so sorry, Sarah.’

‘For what?’

‘For not protecting you.  For not keeping you safe.  One of
us is always supposed to be there for you.  We weren’t this time and now you’re
suffering.’

‘Carlos.  We all got hurt in this one.  We’re all suffering. 
You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘Yes I do.  Matt was unconscious.  You were my responsibility
and I blew it.’

‘Carlos.  I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m
about to say.  You’re not helping me right now.  Right now what I need is your
love, your support and your humor.  What I don’t need is your guilt.  So please
figure out a way to give me what I need and don’t talk to me until you do.’

‘You’re right, Sarah.  I’m sorry.  Tomorrow, I promise I’ll
bring my A game.  I love you, kiddo.’

‘I love you too.’ 
As he left, I brought my head up and looked at Aquila.  He
was studying me.  “

We can’t do that,” he said

“What?  Link minds and have conversations in your heads?” I said.

He nodded.  

“Why didn’t you want everyone to know you spoke English?” I asked.

He grinned.  “Because it gave me the upper hand.  My hearing is better
than yours.  I could hear you planning your trip to the old country. 
Unfortunately I didn’t get there soon enough.”  He dropped his eyes.

“Is that why you did this to me, Aquila?  Because we killed your father?”

He surprised me by shaking his head.  “No.  Father wasn’t being helpful
anymore.  His time had come. The things he was doing to your species were too
cruel.  I tried to reason with him.  I told him that I could help some of the
females survive the pregnancies but he wouldn’t let me.  No, I did this because
I refuse to be the last one of my kind.  And I did this because I want to be a
father.  Because I want an offspring to raise and teach.” 

“But why me, Aquila?  I told you how much this would hurt my heart.  Why
did you do this to me?”

“Because you are strong enough to survive.  I decided when I was in your
prison that maybe your kind do have the right to exist, as do mine.  I’m tired
of death.  This won’t kill you, of this I am certain.”

“No, you just don’t understand, Aquila.”

“I understand more than you think.  One of those that you killed in there
was my son.”

“I’m sorry for that.  I didn’t know.  But you have to understand that
those vampires were my friends.  I had to do everything I could to save them.”

“I know that.  You took my son and now you’re giving me a son.  I would
say we’re even.”

“How, how do you know it’s a boy?”

“I’m fairly certain you don’t want me to explain that, but it has to do
with how the sperm is injected into the mate.”

I turned around and started to climb out of the water.  “You’re right, I
don’t want to hear it.  I want to go to sleep now.”  I stopped and turned
around.  “Do I have to be naked all the time?  I’m really not comfortable like
this.”

“Yes.  I have to watch the changes in your body to make sure they’re
happening on time.”

“Well, can I at least get a blanket or something softer to sleep on? 
Please?  The floor of the cave really hurts me.”

“As you wish.  I will find something when I’m getting food tonight.”

Another week or so passed.  My eyes flew open.  Time to feed!  It must be
time to feed!  I frantically glanced around the pitch black cave.  I was
alone.  Aquila must be out gathering more blood.  Blood!  My mind scream.  More
good blood!  Shit, Sarah, calm down.  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and
tried to relax.  I glanced at the tic marks on the wall.  Thirty-three.  I’d
been on this shit for thirty-three fucking days.  Matt was still in a coma and
I was pregnant and strung out, fucking marvelous.  I lay back down on the
blanket to wait for my food.  I closed my eyes, but I knew that sleep was
impossible right now.  Between the need to feed and the creature doing somersaults
in my belly, there wasn’t much room for sleep anymore. 
‘You alone?’
Carlos
thought.

‘Yes’

‘Can you move?  Can you see outside?’
he thought.  He was sounding more and
more desperate by the day.

‘Yeah, I can see outside.  I can fucking see that it’s
fucking dark.’

‘Sarah?  What’s wrong?  You don’t sound like yourself, baby. 
Are you in pain?  Did he hurt you again?  Honey, please talk to me.’

Shit.  I didn’t want him to know that I was acting like this because I
was strung out – I was an addict.  
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.  I’m just tired. 
This pregnancy doesn’t let me sleep very much.  No, I can’t see out of the
mouth of the cave, other than to see a few pine trees, which means we could be
just about anywhere.  I’m sorry.  I’m trying to talk him into letting me walk
around outside a bit to get some exercise, but no luck yet.’

‘Sarah, can I please come and look for you a bit?  Matt’s
vitals are completely stable.  In fact, he’s pretty much healed, he just won’t
wake up.  I think he needs to hear your voice, I mean really hear it, not just
in his head.  He needs to know you’re there.  He needs to feel your presence. 
He needs to smell you.  Which means, he needs me to find you.  So, please, can
I come look for you for a bit?’

‘Where, Carlos?  Where are you going to look?’

‘In Siberia.  The Altai mountain range.’

‘Do you promise to be safe?  Do you promise to not exhaust
yourself?  Do you promise to return home and rest if I ask you to?’

‘Yes, Sarah.  I promise.’

‘Okay then.  If you promise, then you can come.  And Carlos? 
I miss you.  I’m scared and I miss you.’

‘Baby, I miss you so much too.  I’m going to find you Sarah. 
I’m going to find you and get that fucking thing out of you before it hurts
you.  I promise.  I love you, Sarah.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I’ll let you know when I land in Moscow.  Try to get some
sleep,’
he thought
and then he was gone.  I exhaled.  I had been holding my breath for most of
that conversation.  I didn’t want him to hear my lies.  And there had been a
few, in what I had said, and what I hadn’t.  Chances were not good that he was
going to find me.  Aquila had known about the tracking device and sliced it out
of my arm a month ago, so that wasn’t going to help.  I really couldn’t see
outside at all, that wasn’t a lie, so I couldn’t help.  And this thing inside
me wasn’t a fucking thing, and it wasn’t going to hurt me.  I knew that, I felt
that.  Aquila had convinced me of that.  Every time it hurt me when it was
moving, Aquila would place a gentle hand on my bump, and it (he) would stop
moving.  He already loved his father; of that much I was certain. 

I heard his wings beating the air several minutes before he landed
outside the cave.  “Hunger or offspring keeping you awake?” he said as he
walked inside.  As angry as I was at Aquila, I couldn’t help but notice just
how beautiful a creature that he was as his huge wings tucked themselves in at
his back and every muscle in his always naked body flexed as he strode towards
me.

“Both.”

I licked my lips as he walked past me with the blood and went to the hot
spring.  He placed two of the pints in a basket that he kept in the water then
he walked over to me and unlocked my leg iron.  I rubbed my ankle then
struggled to stand up.  My belly was a lot bigger and heavier than I thought. 
Aquila stuck out a hand.  I grabbed it and he easily pulled me to my feet.  “It
really would be nice to walk around and keep a little of my strength.  Any
possibility you could find a way for me to get some exercise?  I’m going to
need my strength when it’s time, right?”

“Yes.  I’ll see what I can do, tomorrow.”

I had to clasp my hands together to keep from lunging for the blood,
something I had learned quickly not to do.  Feeding time was on his terms only:
“You will speed up gestation if you feed too quickly, female,” he would tell
me.  He still adamantly refused to use my name.  To him I was just the “carrier
of the offspring”.  And he still took care of his voracious sex drive whenever
he felt the urge – usually in full view of me.  I had learned to live with it
(sort of) but the longer I went without a release of my own the more I was
tempted to take him up on his offer to help me.  He gestured for me to climb
into the water and he climbed in after me.  He made me wait what felt like an
agonizingly long time.  Finally he glanced toward the mouth of the cave.  I
looked too and saw that it was getting light out.  The sun was coming up.  He
nodded his head and reached into the basket, handing me the two warm pints.  I
tried not to moan when I drank, but a small one escaped anyway.  “Why do you do
that?” he said.

I blushed.  Great, I thought.  I have to explain this?  “Ummm, well, this
type of blood causes a, ummm, sexual response in vampires,” I said then I
glanced down.  I was too embarrassed to look him in the eye. 

“Really?  That’s interesting.  My kind feel nothing different with any
type of blood that we drink, unless it’s from a kill.  Killing arouses us.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said as another shiver rocked my body. 
Drinking this crap and not being able to have sex made it so much worse.  All
the extra energy that this gave me had nowhere to go.  There wasn’t a release
for it.

A week later, I was asleep but pain was filling my dreams which must have
meant that my body was in pain.  In my dream, I was fighting some unseen demon
and it was slicing into my belly.  The hunting knife that it held in its black
claws sliced left to right, then right to left then back again as I tried
unsuccessfully to ward off the blows.  But just as quickly as the painful
nightmare had begun it quickly changed to something amazing – my first time
having sex with Matt in that hotel room in San Diego several years ago.  It
didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like I was reliving the experience all over
again – I felt his mouth crush down onto mine just as it had before, I felt his
tongue darting into my mouth and finding mine just like before, and just like
before I felt his hand sliding down my belly, unfastening my jeans, sliding his
hand inside my panties and his finger swirling around my nub until a fierce
explosion rocked from inside me causing my back to arch.  It was in the middle
of this orgasm in my dream that my sub-conscious realized that it was really
happening and my eyes flew open to find Aquila sitting next to me with his hand
between my legs.  As soon as he saw that I was awake, he pulled his hand back
and moved to the far wall.  My heart was pounding in my chest as I tried to
process what had just happened.  It took me a few moments to realize that I
wasn’t having any pain at all – in fact, I hadn’t felt this good in weeks. 
“What did you do?” I gasped at him.