by Tessa Dawn
Arielle felt her face grow pale. It was as if all the blood had rushed out of her body as she thought about Keitaro’s words: soon to be four.
“Arielle?”
“Where will you live, then?” she asked, quickly changing the subject before he could delve any deeper.
He measured her warily, scanned her eyes like a hawk—no doubt, seeing entirely too much—and then he released her hand and sat back on the stool. “For now, I will take turns staying at Nathaniel’s estate, Marquis’s farmhouse, and Nachari’s brownstone. Jocelyn, Ciopori, and Deanna have made it abundantly clear that they expect me to spend all my waking hours recovering, and visiting with my grandchildren.”
Arielle’s eyes widened in alarm. “Recovering? Are you still ill? Is there still any danger—”
“No, Rielle,” Keitaro reassured her. “I’m fine, but my kids seem to think I should hobble along, taking slow, measured steps for the next century or so.”
Arielle laughed and tilted her head to the side. “Well, you can’t really blame them, us. We just want you here for a very, very long time.”
Keitaro smiled. “Indeed.” He grew quiet again, and Arielle let the moment linger.
“So,” she finally said, “that still doesn’t answer the question: What will you do?”
Keitaro patted her softly on the knee. “Not sure. At first, I think I will take the kids up on their offer—spend every waking moment getting reacquainted with my family—learn all there is to know about my sons’ lives and their mates…my grandsons. But, I don’t make any pretense that it will be enough to sustain me: I will speak with Napolean about taking a role in the valley’s protection, in the security of our people. Doubtless, I will want to help with matters pertaining to the lycan: their capture, our defense, their eventual extermination.”
Arielle held her tongue. There was really nothing to add to that statement—the world, every world, would be better off without the Lycanthrope.
“Now then,” Keitaro said, interrupting her thoughts. “Enough with the small talk. As I understand it, you still have twenty-three days left in Kagen’s Blood Moon: How are you handling all of this? What is happening with you and my son?”
Arielle winced. She loved Keitaro dearly—and that was truly the understatement of the decade—but she didn’t know if she could discuss something so personal, so intimate and vulnerable, with the father of her heart. She thought back to her days in Mhier, to all the many hours she had spent in the slave encampment, looking up to the vampire, clinging to their bond like a lifeline. She remembered all the nights she had snuck into his tent, after escaping her own enslavement, in order to treat his wounds…in order to tend his soul. “Do you remember when I was still a child, maybe ten or eleven, and I worked in the slave camp? When I carried all that water and food?”
Keitaro snarled in a knee-jerk reaction, flashing his fangs unwittingly, and then he quickly reined it in. “Of course.”
Arielle ignored the flash of temper. “Do you remember the song the kids would sing, sometimes at the campfire at night?”
Keitaro frowned, trying to recall... “Something about an omen,” he said. “Ancient superstition, Mhieridian mysticism…the white owl.”
Arielle leaned forward. “Exactly.” She softened her voice and began to speak in a lyrical, singsong tone. “When the white owl soars in a midnight sky; friends and foes alike will die. When the white owl dips his snow-tipped wing, hearts will weep, and tongues will sing: a song of grief, lives lost too soon, a song of blood…beneath the moon.”
Keitaro listened carefully, but he didn’t respond.
Arielle sighed. “The night before I met your sons in Mhier, a white owl dipped low out of the sky and nearly clipped my cheek with his wing while I was crossing a river, and I remembered the Omen. I just knew somewhere deep inside that it was coming…for me.” She held out her arm, showing Keitaro the enigmatic etchings, the mystical dots and lines that replicated Auriga, the Charioteer, in her flesh. It was the first time she had openly, eagerly, showed someone the markings. “Echo, Ryder, Walker…King Thane, Cain, and Teague…friends and foes alike will die.” She shivered. “I learned that my father, that Ryder, actually perished while trying to save me; and you learned that Shelby…that he is now living in the spirit world. Yet, we were delivered from Mhier: You still have your family, and we still have each other. Hearts will weep and tongues will sing.” She pressed on. “A song of grief, lives lost too soon; a song of blood…beneath the moon.”
She pointed at her wrist, sat back in her chair, and crossed her arms. Hugging herself, as if to provide internal, moral support, she shut her eyes. “So I tell you this, as the one I name as my father”—her eyes filled up with tears, and she didn’t hold them back—“as the best friend I have ever known. I am terrified, Keitaro. I feel like a fish out of water, a drifter with no home. I don’t know how to be a mother or a mate or a member of a tight-knit family; hell, I don’t even know how to love. And I’m a wimp…” She nodded her head to emphasize the confession. “Because I want to go through the conversion like a rebel wants to sit down and have tea with a lycan. I know the pregnancy will be uncomfortable but tolerable, yet I still flinch every time Kagen reaches out to touch me, even though we’ve obviously made inroads.” She opened her eyes and sighed. “I just want to run deep into the forest and keep on running, until my legs will no longer carry me. And I know that it’s crazy, it’s wrong, it’s insane; but I swear, that’s how I feel.”
Keitaro sat in silence, clearly weighing her words. After several tense moments had passed, he rose from his seat, knelt before her on the floor, and leaned into her sheltered body. He cupped her face in his hands with exquisite gentleness and held her gaze with a compassion that could only be described as fatherly love.
“Oh, Rielle,” he breathed out. “You would be less than human if you felt any other way, and my heart goes out to you.” He stroked the inside of her wrist in a paternal gesture and smiled. “But daughter, you must know, you are the bravest, the kindest, the purest soul I have ever known.”
Arielle warmed at his words.
“And you will get through this. You will come out on the other side, better, stronger, wiser.” He punctuated his words with a nod. “Look at me, Rielle. Look at me and trust my words.”
Arielle forced herself to meet his gaze and hold it—his eyes were so full of benevolence and wisdom, just like a father’s should be.
“As a male who sees you as my own child, the daughter of my heart, you must know that I would do anything—everything—to protect you, that I would guide you, shelter you, and provide for you like no other…except for one.” He raised his eyebrows. “Kagen. My son.” His voice grew hoarse with conviction. “He loves you, Arielle, from a place much deeper than you can imagine. It’s written all over his face. Nay,”—he waved his hand through the air—“este scris in stele: It’s written in the stars. You knew it from an omen in Mhier, and he knew it, without the omen he needed from Dark Moon Vale. And I know it as surely as I know my own name.” He kissed the back of her hand tenderly, a father’s kind caress.
“Daughter, I am asking you to trust me, to be brave, to put one foot in front of the other and follow Kagen’s lead. You don’t have to feel everything right now; you don’t have to understand it all in a day. All you have to do is trust your heart…trust your father…and trust my son.”
Arielle nodded slowly. She knew Keitaro was right.
“And Rielle,” he added solemnly. “Kagen needs you. Our people need you. I need you.”
“You think so?” Arielle asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
Keitaro smiled. “Nathaniel shared something very transformational and important with me; and in time, it is something Kagen will share with you also. The night I was taken from Dark Moon Vale, Kagen encountered the Lycanthrope. He saw them take me into Mhier and tried to stop them, but he was too late to save me. They tortured him, Rielle. Ultimately, they killed him, yet he returned from the g
rave through tenacity alone to avenge his mother’s honor, to try and rescue me, but his memory was impaired—it was just gone. And all these years—all these long, painful years—he has lived with this secret inside him, an unbearable darkness, an indefinable impulse to heal, to save, and to destroy, all at the same time. He is freer than he has ever been, or at least he will be, now that this demon no longer haunts him from the shadows, but it will take time for him to heal, to integrate, to become all that he was meant to be, without this dueling energy. And there is no one who can help him more profoundly than you.”
She took a deep breath, trying to wrap her mind around Keitaro’s words, what they meant for Kagen and what they meant for her. “He did mention something, back when we were in Mhier: something about unvanquished demons and darkness, something that didn’t belong in a healer…something he feared.”
“Yes,” Keitaro said. “And I know that he has plans for you, for the two of you, with regard to your healing arts: You are both such a gift to the people, but I also think you may be a gift to each other, two healers who need to be healed. Perhaps, in time, you can help heal each other.” He let his words settle before moving on. “And as for me? I, too, feel overwhelmed, a bit afraid, and more than just a little confused.” He laughed, but it was a distinctly hollow sound. “But the thing that anchors me here, the thing that compels me to get up, to go on, and to learn to live again—without Serena, without Shelby—is the knowledge that while I was away, while I was yet a slave, the gods saw fit to give me the most precious gift in the world to a vampire, to one such as myself, bound by an ancient curse that makes siring female children impossible: They chose to give me a daughter. You, Rielle. And it is the knowledge that I will teach you all that I taught my sons, that I will hold your babe in my arms at his naming ceremony, my own flesh and blood, that we will walk through the forest together as free souls that inspires me to go on, to rebuild…to continue. Do not deny me this gift, daughter of my heart. I need you as much as my son does, just in a different way.”
Arielle could hardly believe her ears.
It was as if something in her heart, something buried, missing, and frozen in time, finally stirred and came back to life. Yes, Kagen was showing her what it meant to love. Slowly, gently, ever so tenderly, he was teaching her the ways of passion, commitment, and union; but Keitaro was showing her a different hope entirely, a chance to be reborn. They had survived Mhier together, and they would thrive in Dark Moon Vale, if she could only have faith.
Scooting forward to the edge of her chair, she pressed her thumbs to the corners of her eyes to hold back her tears and nestled her head against Keitaro’s chest. “Father,” she whispered softly. “Will you hold me?”
As his strong arms enfolded her, as he gathered her to his heart, she knew that she was truly home at last. When he sighed and uttered a familiar phrase—“Yes, Arielle. The answer will always be yes”—she couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
By all that was sacred, Keitaro and Kagen were cut from the same cloth: They were two males of honor and strength and compassion…
And they both loved her dearly.
She would get through the conversion and the pregnancy.
She would get through the Curse.
And for the first time in her tumultuous life, she would have a lover who adored her, and a father who would never turn away from her again.
twenty-nine
Two weeks later
Kagen Silivasi stood on the arched stone bridge that led to his property, the clinic, and his private residence, and he closed his eyes in order to take in the moment. As he listened to the soothing sounds of rushing water winding its way through the wide creek beneath his feet, he couldn’t help but think that his life was a lot like that winding river: rushing, flowing, ever-turning in unpredictable ways in reaction to the hidden elements below the surface…
Yet always remaining true to its predestined course.
He sighed and opened his eyes, and then he drew in a deep, approving breath at the sight of his destiny, Arielle Nightsong, standing before him in a beautiful yet simplistic gown of pale green linen and ivory lace.
She was magnificent.
Breathtaking.
The most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
He smiled as she fidgeted restlessly from nerves and bunched the front of her gown in her fists, rolling the delicate fabric in the palms of her hands. Truly, the female was a rare, hidden treasure. She had come to him the afternoon after her visit with Keitaro, bravely announcing that she was ready to undergo the conversion, that she didn’t want to wait, and she had approached the entire process with uncommon courage and strength. And, while there was no such thing as a painless conversion, Arielle had been unusually lucky in that regard. As an Ancient Master Healer, Kagen possessed the rare ability to enhance biological processes within the human body; to manipulate energy at a cellular level, acting as an active catalyst; and to speed up the process of change, transformation, and healing with his mind. Arielle’s entire conversion had taken no more than forty-five minutes from start to finish, and the beautiful free-spirited female had come through it without incident.
While he had insisted upon slowing things down, taking the next week or so to get to know his mate, to explore Dark Moon Vale as a couple, and to help acclimate Arielle to her newfound powers and abilities, eventually, they had both agreed it was time to move forward with the forty-eight-hour pregnancy. Once again, Arielle had met the challenge head-on with both courage and staunch determination. He laughed inwardly, remembering how she had insisted that they listen to several audiobooks together: What to Expect the First Year, Helping Your Child Sleep Through the Night, and Raising a Happy and Healthy Child from Birth to Adolescence. Even now, he had to admit the process had been extremely beneficial to both of them. Not only had they learned a lot about child development—which had then given Kagen the opportunity to explain all the ways in which it would not apply to a vampire infant, all the ways in which a vampire developed far more quickly than a human—it had given them an opportunity to discuss their hopes and dreams as a family, as parents, to clearly define their values and expectations. It had given them a chance to come together as a team, to draw even closer as a couple.
When the baby was born, Arielle had been positively amazed, not just by the mystical, painless process, but by the sudden appearance of an undeniable angel, the precious little gift from the gods that Kagen had placed in her arms. And she had been nervous at best, stoic at the least, as he fulfilled the demands of the Blood Curse, returning the unnamed one—the dark, soulless twin who would surely grow up to murder, maim, and destroy—to the icy Chamber of Sacrifice and Atonement in the required ritual that always ensued. While the concept of the sacrifice was both foreign and abhorrent to her sensibilities, Arielle had grown up in Mhier, in the land of the lycans, and she had seen evil in all of its various forms, firsthand. While she had been appalled by the cruelty of the Curse, disgusted by the evil, misguided vengeance wrought by the Blood—the original females who had spawned the Vampyr race—she had also understood that it could not be altered: The soul was the seat of all potential; and pure, unadulterated evil could only grow up to wreak pure, unadulterated havoc on the world.
She had understood that the Vampyr had not chosen this blight; they were helpless to remove it from their lives; and raising a demon-like being to become like King Thane was not the answer to their plight.
Now, as she stood on the sturdy, archaic bridge before him, looking more like a goddess than a woman, Kagen could only stare in bewilderment…and love.
“Are you ready, sweeting?” he asked, reaching down to pry her fingers loose from her dress before it became an unsalvageable, wrinkled mess.
Arielle shook out her hands. “I am,” she whispered.
As if on cue, Marquis, Nathaniel, and Nachari stepped closer to the couple, taking preordained places at their sides, their beautiful mates forming a loose outer circle behind the pair
, even as Braden Bratianu and Kristina Riley-Silivasi joined them at the back of the throng.
Napolean Mondragon shimmered into view, standing all at once before the newly mated couple, and all the air in the valley seemed to coalesce around him, to settle upon his broad, muscular shoulders as it hummed with electric energy. The bridge grew instantly quiet as all the attendees shifted their gaze to the powerful lord, watching as his long black hair rustled in a preternatural wind, the translucent silver highlights framing his face like a halo.
The king smiled warmly at Kagen and Arielle, and then he gently nodded his head. “And where is the precious babe?” His voice was like a warm summer’s breeze.
“He’s here.” The deep, husky burr sent currents of electricity sizzling through the atmosphere as Keitaro Silivasi strolled languidly toward the center of the half-circle, stood just to the right of Kagen, and nestled the peaceful infant tight against his chest. “He’s sleeping soundly.”
Kagen regarded his father—his father—with a look of utter amazement and gratitude, and then he turned to appraise Marquis. Under normal circumstance—no, under anything but normal circumstances—as the oldest living male of the family, Marquis would have been the one to hold the child, but now that Keitaro was here, now that he was alive, the mantle had returned to him.
Marquis straightened his shoulders and inclined his head in a gesture of solidarity, and then he did something highly unusual for the hardened, ancient warrior: He winked at Kagen with unrestrained delight in his eyes. Clearly, the Ancient Master Warrior was thrilled to be standing in his rightful place as the firstborn son, not the head, of the family; and as he glided noiselessly to the right of Keitaro, Nathaniel and Nachari quickly followed suit, each male taking his honored place, based upon the order of his birth.