The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  Kristina thought, with some unhappiness, of Benecia, who had wanted to do that, too. “And Gideon?”

  “An angel is, and must always be, an angel. He tried to follow her, but he could not, and he is inconsolable.”

  “He loved Dimity very much,” said Kristina, who had heard the stories as a child. Too, she knew what it was to care so deeply for someone forbidden.

  “It is denied to angels, that sort of love,” Maeve said firmly. “Don’t worry. Gideon will be fine in time, and Dimity is happy where she is.”

  “And Nemesis? What is his state of mind?”

  Maeve looked grim for a moment. “He is furious, but since all the blame cannot be laid at Dimity’s feet, and thus put upon all vampires, he has withdrawn his armies.”

  “He had assembled armies?” Kristina whispered. “Are you saying that we—that all of us—were on the brink of Armageddon?”

  “Yes,” Maeve answered without hesitation. “But that danger—though it will inevitably come again—is past. You will become Dathan’s mate, now that he has lived up to his part of the agreement?”

  Kristina nodded. “I have no choice. And I am grateful for what he did.”

  “Gratitude is a poor basis for such a union,” Maeve said. “Yes,” Kristina agreed. “But I don’t have any alternatives.”

  Maeve took Kristina’s hand. “No,” she answered. “Neither do I, under the circumstances. Still, I have learned some things that I feel you need to know—from Nemesis, as a matter of fact. It was he who told me I would bear a mortal child, before I knew you were growing in my womb.”

  “What did he say?” Kristina asked, hardly able to breathe.

  “You are carrying Max’s babe,” Maeve said.

  Kristina fell back against the pillows, stunned. Full of sorrow and of exultation, in equal measure. She could not speak, though tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “There is more,” Maeve went on very gently, her hand tightening on Kristina’s. “On some level, you were waiting for Max to come back into your life. You’ve probably already guessed that he was Gilbert Bradford. In any case, that is the reason you didn’t begin aging until recently. You wanted to be in step, so to speak, with Mr. Kilcarragh.” Kristina let out a long, broken sigh. She’d come so close to complete happiness, so close to living all her dreams. “Perhaps Dathan will change his mind, once he knows I’ll bear another man’s child.”

  Maeve’s expression was gently skeptical. “I know this warlock. While he has certain redeeming qualities, he is not above claiming Max’s babe as his own. Dathan wants you very badly, Kristina.”

  “Can’t you help me?”

  The queen’s beautiful, ink-colored eyes glittered with vampire tears. “A pact was made and kept. I cannot interfere.”

  Kristina nodded and leaned forward to kiss her mother’s cheek. “You won’t abandon me, will you? Like when I married Michael?”

  “I have often regretted that,” Maeve confessed. “No, darling. I shall be available to help you in any way I can. Mayhap you will come to love the warlock one day—it could be, you know, that he is your destiny, after all, rather than Max.”

  Although Kristina did not want that to be so, she had already considered the possibility. No doubt Max would find Sandy again, in another lifetime, and anyone he married now could only be an interim love. “Yes,” she said. “It could be that Dathan and I were meant to be together, at least for a while. But I shall never love him.”

  Maeve embraced her tenderly. “No,” she said, understanding. “But there are other joys. And you will surely cherish the child.”

  “Do you know about this babe—whether it’s a boy or a girl? Mortal or immortal?”

  Maeve smoothed Kristina’s tears away with palms as smooth as polished marble. “Nemesis offered no other information than the fact that you and Max had conceived. And I did not ask him to tell me more.” The great queen kissed her daughter’s forehead. “And now I must hunt. Dream sweet dreams, my darling.”

  As surely as if Maeve had cast a spell, Kristina fell immediately back into a deep sleep. When she awakened the next morning to another light snowfall, she wondered if she truly had been dreaming.

  Until she descended into the kitchen and found Dathan standing there, dressed for a wedding, that is. Kristina felt nothing but despair, but some quirk caused her to look down at her long flannel nightie and then at her future groom, her expression rueful.

  “I’m afraid my wedding gown leaves something to be desired,” she said.

  Dathan raised his right hand high, palm up, and as he lowered it, a wondrous dress formed itself to Kristina’s body. It was made of the finest ivory silk, the skirts embroidered with hundreds of appliqued doves, outlined in tiny pearls. The bodice was lacy and sprinkled liberally with diamonds.

  “There has never been a more beautiful bride in all of time,” Dathan said.

  Kristina swallowed hard. Dathan conjured a small hand mirror, and she saw that her veil, a trail of gossamer white netting, tumbled from a circlet of small white orchids on the crown of her head.

  “Okay,” she said, resigned. “So where’s the preacher?” Dathan arched an eyebrow. “It isn’t done in exactly that way,” he said.

  “Then how is it done?”

  “We will simply clasp hands and make a promise to each other.”

  “Here?” Kristina asked. “In the kitchen?”

  Dathan sighed. “Wherever you wish, my darling. Just name the place, and we’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Beside the point,” observed a third voice.

  Both Dathan and Kristina turned in surprise to see Valerian standing just a few feet away. Given the fact that it was broad daylight, that was amazing.

  “How—?” Kristina croaked.

  “Call it astral projection,” Valerian said with an impatient wave of one hand. “I’m a magician, remember?” His gaze was fixed on Dathan, and the vampire looked as solid as he ever had. “There is a point in human wedding ceremonies that I rather like,” he told the warlock. “The clergy member always says, ‘Is there anyone here who can give just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony?’”

  Dathan flushed. “I am not human,” he pointed out in a dangerously even voice.

  “But Kristina is,” Valerian offered reasonably. “Furthermore, I can show just cause. She loves one Max Kilcarragh—has waited a hundred years to be his wife. Even now, his child is curled beneath her heart—a heart in which Max, not you, will always live.”

  Dathan looked down at Kristina. “Is this true? The part about the child, I mean?”

  Kristina nodded. She guessed she hadn’t dreamed her mother’s late-night visit after all.

  “Can you never learn to love me?” the warlock asked. A great sadness welled up within Kristina. “No,” she said.

  “If you care for Kristina,” Valerian put in, very gently and very carefully, “you will set her free.”

  “We had a bargain!”

  “And only you have the power to break it,” Valerian reasoned quietly.

  “Damn you,” Dathan spat, glaring at the vampire. “How dare you speak of bargains? You once promised me a bride, and instead you set Roxanne Havermail on me like a mad dog!”

  Valerian tried his very best to look contrite, but there was, Kristina thought, a certain merry twinkle in his eyes. “A nasty trick, I confess. Allow me to rectify the matter.”

  Dathan narrowed his gaze upon the fiend, while Kristina just stood there, resplendent in her conjured wedding dress, apparently forgotten. She did not want to remind the warlock of her presence before Valerian had made his point.

  “Why should I trust you?” Dathan demanded.

  “Kristina’s happiness is at stake,” Valerian replied. “She is like my own child, and only Daisy and Esteban matter more. I would not play you false in such a case as this.”

  Dathan turned and looked down into Kristina’s upraised face. “So beautiful,” he whispered, almost regretfully.
/>
  “But so mortal,” Valerian said. “There is a female vampire—I have trained her myself—by the name of Shaleen. Meet me this night on the north entrance to All Soul’s Cathedral in London, and I will prove myself truthful.”

  “If you lie—” Dathan murmured.

  Kristina held her breath. She wasn’t even sure her heart was beating.

  “If I lie, you have only to come and take Kristina back.”

  Dathan considered, while Kristina flashed her “guardian vampire” a scathing look. She hadn’t wanted that last option to be part of the deal.

  “Well?” Valerian finally prompted.

  Dathan gave a great sigh. “All right,” he said. He kissed Kristina, first on the forehead, then on each eyelid. When she looked again, he was gone, and so was Valerian. The magical wedding dress had turned back into a chenille bathrobe.

  “Cinderella, eat your heart out,” Kristina muttered.

  She waited three full days before she called Max, just in case Dathan’s blind date with the vampire, Shaleen, had gone wrong. During that time, Kristina busied herself by sorting through old papers and other things she no longer needed or wanted. She read the last of her letters to Phillie and burned all of them.

  The past was truly gone.

  “Hello?” Max answered when Kristina finally called him. It was 6:05 and she could tell by the background sounds that he was cooking dinner.

  “Hi,” Kristina said with a smile in her voice. “This is a mysterious woman from your recent past.”

  He laughed. “The meter maid who gave me a parking ticket this morning?”

  “No,” Kristina replied in a naughty undertone. “The one you spent the weekend in bed with.”

  “Oh, that one.” There was hope in Max’s voice now, as well as humor.

  “I was wondering if you could come over. There are some things we need to talk about.”

  “Just give me half an hour to round up a babysitter,” he replied.

  He arrived in twenty minutes flat.

  Kristina pulled him inside, wrapped both arms around his neck, and kissed him soundly. It was a greeting, that kiss, but it was an invitation, too. If she had her way, they would be upstairs, in her bed, very soon.

  “Did you mean it when you said you wanted to marry me?” she asked when it was over, and Max was standing there, still in his coat, with snow in his hair. His mien was one of pure, dazed confusion.

  “I did indeed,” he said. “But you had other plans, if I remember correctly.”

  “They’ve changed.”

  “You’re not going to marry the warlock?”

  “I’m going to marry you, if you’ll have me. But there’s something you have to know first—something that might make you feel trapped. And I only want a willing husband, Max Kilcarragh.”

  “What?” he asked in a voice so tender that it brought a lump to Kristina’s throat and tears to her eyes.

  “I’m pregnant. With your baby.”

  For a moment Max looked as though she’d struck him with a blunt object. She was just beginning to worry when a grin flicked up one comer of his mouth and then slowly spread until it seemed to cover his whole face.

  “That’s the second best news I’ve heard all day,” he said, and despite his smile, there were tears shining in his eyes.

  “What’s the first best?” Kristina asked, unzipping his jacket, slipping her arms inside to embrace and warm him.

  “That you’re going to marry me. Oh, God, Kristina—I love you.”

  She took his hand. “Upstairs,” she said, pulling him in that direction. “If we don’t start now, we may end up making love right here in the entry hall, or on the stairs—”

  They made it as far as Kristina’s bed, but just barely.

  In the attempt to undress each other, they became entangled in each other’s clothes and finally landed on the mattress in a laughing, twisted knot of flesh and fabric.

  Soon enough they’d sorted that out, and Kristina lay on her back with Max poised over her, gazing down into her eyes.

  “Hurry, Max,” she whispered.

  He smiled. “No way,” he answered, and bent his head to her breast, teasing the nipple unmercifully with the tip of his tongue.

  Kristina began to writhe and moan. “Max,” she said with a gasp, “we don’t need foreplay—I’ve been thinking of nothing but this for three days!”

  He moved to the other breast, subjected a second nipple to slow, sweet torment. “Good,” he said. “That ought to make it all the better.”

  With that, he suckled in earnest. There were long interludes where he teased her with his fingers and with his tongue. He whispered shameless, wicked things in her ear and nibbled at her lobes.

  Kristina was out of her mind with need, her body drenched in perspiration, when Max finally parted her legs and gave her just the tip of his shaft. When she begged—and he made her do it prettily—he finally entered her in a slow, deep thrust.

  She pleaded some more, and the thrust quickened, deepened, but only slightly.

  Finally she shouted out what she wanted, not caring who might hear, and with a sound that was part chuckle and part animal need, Max took her in earnest. Placing his strong hands under her buttocks, he raised her high to receive him, and she undulated against him, her hands moving restlessly, feverishly, up and down his muscle-knotted back.

  They reached a simultaneous climax, their bodies arched high off the bed and slick with sweat, and hung there, suspended, flexing spasmodically, for what seemed like forever. Finally, replete, exhausted, they tumbled to the mattress and lay entwined in each other’s arms and legs, struggling to breathe, transported.

  “Tell me what changed your mind,” Max said sometime later, when shadows filled the room. “About marrying me, I mean.”

  She explained about Valerian’s intercession, but left out the near-miss with Benecia and Canaan. There was no need for Max to suffer over that—the incident of Bree and Eliette’s disappearance had been erased from his mind, and that was for the best.

  “Did you know I’ve been waiting for you? That that’s why I finally became completely mortal?”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Was I worth it?”

  She smiled. “So far, so good,” she replied, and pulled his head down so that his mouth found hers.

  Epilogue

  SEATTLE

  10 MONTHS LATER…

  The question of whether or not Jaime Maxwell Kilcarragh had been blessed—or cursed—with magical powers was as yet unresolved. He was a healthy, strapping boy, however, greatly loved by his parents, two elder sisters, and a weird but devoted extended family.

  Downstairs in the large family room of the house Max and Kristina had bought together shortly before their marriage, Valerian heard happy laughter. Daisy, Esteban, Maeve, and Calder were all there, along with Max and Kristina, of course, and their daughters, Eliette and Bree.

  The great vampire closed his eyes for a moment, listening, nearly rapt, for the sound was like music. It courted the ear, then went deeper to swamp the soul, causing a sweet ache there.

  As he watched, the babe awakened. The room was dark, except for a small night-light near the crib itself, and the flow of autumn moonlight through the window. Valerian knew this child was safe, and yet he felt compelled to look out for him, just as he had for Kristina and, once, a long time ago, for Aidan Tremayne.

  He closed his eyes briefly, for the thought of Aidan was still poignant, if not actually hurtful.

  When Valerian looked again, he was no longer alone in the room. Esteban stood beside him, a sturdy, solemn-eyed lad, ready for school.

  “Papa?” he asked softly, taking Valerian’s hand. He’d come so far, this beautiful little one, in a short time. He spoke clearly, worked his lessons, no longer slept on the floor or hid stashes of food all around the house.

  Valerian lifted Esteban into his arms, sensing his uncertainty. “Shhh,” he said against the boy’s small temple, where dark, gossamer h
air grew, fine as fairy-floss, and a warm heartbeat pulsed. “We mustn’t wake the baby.”

  “We are going to have cake,” Esteban confided in an accommodating whisper, his brown eyes very wide. Daisy seldom allowed such treats; she was into health food.

  There were times when Valerian was more than grateful that he wasn’t required to eat the way mortals did.

  “Don’t you want some?” the child prodded, glancing back once, at the babe.

  “What’s the real question?” Valerian prompted. They understood each other more than passing well, this father and son.

  Esteban sighed. “Do you like him better than me?”

  Valerian shook his head. “No.”

  Reassured, Esteban began to squirm. He was probably thinking of the cake, perhaps fearing that the others would consume it all before he had his share.

  With a chuckle, Valerian set the boy on his feet, and Esteban ran off again.

  Valerian went to the crib side and looked down at the handsome babe, who returned his gaze directly. Then, with the slightest smile, Jaime Kilcarragh shifted his gaze to the teddy bear at the foot of his small bed, and raised one tiny hand, wriggling his fingers. The toy had been summoned, and it came obediently to lie beside Jaime, who snuggled close and went back to sleep.

  Smiling slightly, Valerian turned and walked out of the nursery.

  The adventure wasn’t over, he thought.

  No, indeed—it had only begun.

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  Linda Lael Miller

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