by Keary Taylor
“It was Charles,” I tell him, bending and picking up a box of herbs lying on the floor, the contents dried and brittle. “He raided the shop just before he took me. He had all of my toxins. That’s how he kept Michael under control the whole time.”
“Figured it had to be something strong,” he says, bending down and helping me clean up the mess.
The locked cabinet I kept all of my finished deadly products in is broken beyond repair. As expected, every last vial of toxin is gone. All of the acid orbs are missing. All of my stakes, my UV light, my gun.
And all of the cupboards are open. Everything is misplaced, evidence that they went through everything, looking for anything that looked useful.
Thankfully, all of my supplies still look to be intact and still usable. Only two broken beakers and one box of vials.
It takes the two of us all day, but slowly, we get everything cleaned up, and by the time I’m too tired to continue any more that evening, it’s ready for my return in the morning.
I have to remind myself that this is what it’s going to take, picking up the broken pieces of my life, one shard at a time.
“Are you sure you want to come?” I breathe again as we step off the subway and head up the stairs. “I mean…this, this is probably going to make it very real, and I just-”
“I’m sure,” Lexington reiterates for the third time as he takes my hand in his. He pulls me close to his side as we step back out on street level and presses a kiss to my temple. “And I think making it real will be a good thing. I’m here for you.”
I nod, despite the way my face feels kind of numb. Despite the fact that my stomach is a tempest of emotions, roiling and thrashing.
We walk the two blocks to the office and step inside, escaping the humid, warm day.
Nervously, I wait in the waiting room, Lexington rubbing soothing circles into my back, and finally, a nurse calls us back.
“Go ahead and change into the gown,” she says once she’s done getting my weight and taking my blood pressure. “The doctor will be with you in just a few minutes.”
Lexington turns his back while I slip out of my clothes and pull on the gown, sitting on the uncomfortable exam table, waiting.
“It’s okay,” Lexington assures me as he presses his lips to the top of my head, hugging me tight to him. “It will all be okay.”
The door suddenly opens, and Lexington stands up straight to shake the woman’s hand.
“I’m Dr. Dahl,” she says with a warm smile. “Elle?” she says with a smile before glancing down at my chart. “And you must be the father.”
“Uh,” Lexington stumbles, a slight moment of panic and uncertainty of how to answer blanching his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m the father. Lexington. It’s nice to meet you.”
Her expression falters at his unexpected reaction, but she smiles pleasantly all the same. “Well, I’m glad you came in.” She looks down at my file—all one page of it. “It’s too bad your previous physician lost all those records in the fire. Pretty much everyone these days keeps a digital record.”
“He was really, really old school,” Lexington easily lies, smoothing over the awkward and tense situation. “Guess that’s what finally tipped the decision that we needed to find someone new.”
Dr. Dahl smiles again and launches into her interview of a million questions, asking about the ease of conception, how I’ve been feeling since then, how much weight I’ve gained.
I have to lie for most of the questions, because I either don’t know, or I can’t answer them with the horrifying truth.
“I’m going to bring in the ultrasound technician now and we’ll double check the size and age of the baby.” And she ducks out, saying she’ll be back in a few minutes.
I take a deep breath in through my nose, breathing out slowly through my mouth. My fingers tighten around the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white.
“What’s wrong?” Lexington asks me quietly. “You’ve been lost in that head of yours all day.”
I shake my head. He calls me out so accurately, sees everything when I try so hard to be a blank slate.
“I’m pregnant against my will,” I say quietly as I stare at a fixed place on the door. “This child was conceived with the threat of my death. This thing…”
I shake my head, my throat closing up too tight to say anything else.
Lexington reaches over, grabbing one of my hands, and draws breath to say something, when the door once more opens, and Dr. Dahl comes back inside, helping another woman guide in a piece of equipment.
Grateful that I don’t have to try and find words to explain how I’m feeling for a few more minutes, I lie back on the table, and they press the probe to my stomach.
“Heart looks great,” Dr. Dahl says as she studies the hazy black and green images. “Measurements put you at just short of twenty weeks. Which gives you a calculated due date of November eleventh.”
My heart jumps a little. November seems far too soon.
I’m not ready.
Not even close.
“Would you like to know the gender of the baby?” the technician asks with a smile.
“No,” I say, a little too fast, a little too terrified. I clear my throat, force myself to calm down. “No, thank you.”
“Uh,” Lexington says, scrambling to smooth things out once more. “We decided we want to keep it a surprise.”
“Alright,” Dr. Dahl says. “I’m going to make a note of it here in your chart though, so if you change your mind, all you have to do is call in and ask.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Lexington says with a smile. The technician seems to have gotten everything she needs. She taps a button and three pictures spit out, which she hands to me.
“Your baby looks perfectly healthy,” Dr. Dahl says as the machine gets rolled out of the room. “I don’t see anything concerning. I will see you next month.”
She smiles and Lexington tells her goodbye as she leaves the room.
And he obviously knows something’s wrong, because he doesn’t ask me to speak anymore once I get dressed again and we leave the office.
“Any luck?”
“Not today,” Ian says from the other line. “It’s like searching for one rock in a gigantic quarry.”
“I guess that means he isn’t leaving a trail of bodies in his wake,” I say as I cross to the window, looking out into the street. I keep expecting to see a flash of red hair, but in the three weeks since I’ve been home, there’s been no sign of him.
I have, however, seen Smith. Just brief glances here and there, before he disappears into the shadows again.
He’s been watching the immediate vicinity, keeping an eye out for Charles. He’s going to want to check in on me sometime.
“No,” Ian pulls me back to the conversation. “He’s being careful. But Danny is hot on the trail of his remaining House members. He’s got them cornered somewhere in Pennsylvania.”
“Hopefully they provide some information,” I say distractedly as I lean my forehead against the glass.
“We’ll see,” Ian says. “You okay?”
I don’t reply for a moment. The seconds tick by, filled with emptiness.
“Elle?” my brother asks from the other end.
“I’m fine,” I reply readily. I blink three times fast, trying to bring my gaze back into focus, but I can’t.
Ian takes his time in responding now and I can feel his presence through the phone. Solid, determined, worried.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll call again tomorrow. Can I talk to Lexington?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. I pull away from the window and head down the stairs. Lexington sits in a chair by the fireplace, reading another one of those baby books. “Ian wants to talk to you. I’m going out to get some fresh air.”
Lexington sets his book aside, a concerned look in his eyes as he takes my cell phone. “Okay.”
I open the door and head down the stairs and walk out the main door. I head south,
cutting through streets of beautiful brownstones until businesses crop up, nestled along the bottoms of tall buildings.
Funny, I live just blocks from the Boston Public Library, but I almost never come this direction.
The night is dark, the hour creeping toward eleven, but it’s lit brilliantly by the many streetlights and flashing signs around me.
Aimlessly, I wander past the Old South Church, crossing the busy Boylston Street and aiming toward Copley Square.
I cross the park and finally settle onto a bench, which points me at the old Episcopal Trinity Church. In the dark, it looks like a gothic castle, dark and sinister. The Romanesque building, with its arches and tall spires and stained glass windows, is impressive but intimidating.
I let my eyes slide closed, and tilt my head back, breathing in the cool night air.
Suddenly, there’s a very distinctive feeling of movement in my stomach. My hands fly to it, holding tightly, feeling for the sensation again.
There’s a faint thrust from inside, and then everything is still once more.
I thought I felt movement two days ago, but wasn’t sure if it was the baby, or an upset stomach.
That was without a doubt the baby.
“Everyone is sure putting a lot of trust in this curse.”
I jump hard, twisting in my seat and sending a lightning bolt of pain shooting through my side.
Aleah walks up from behind, her hands in the pockets of her black jacket. She settles next to me on the bench, stretching her legs out in front of her.
“Gotta be a relief for you though,” she continues. “At least everyone doesn’t have to hover over you at all hours.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I reply quietly.
“It’s good everyone is being careful, though,” she says. There’s something different in her voice. Something hollow and distant. “We have to watch our every step.”
“What happened?”
She looks up at me, almost as if she’s a little surprised that I knew so quickly that something has changed. But it’s so obvious, the darkness in her eyes. The newfound fear. The humility I didn’t see in her before.
“I’d heard about a possible Bitten in Salem this morning,” she says. She leans forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. She picks at a cuticle, her shoulders tight. “Thought I’d better go check it out, see if it was someone worth sending a certain person’s way.”
Kai. So he could cure them.
“But when I got there, I found the Hunter and two of his soldiers.” Her voice turns cold, quiet. “It was the middle of the damn day and they all had sunshades, but they dragged that man out of this house, down by the water. The guy was screaming in agony, nothing to protect his eyes from the sun.”
Tightness creeps up my toes, climbing up my legs. Wrapping around my chest.
“I stayed out of sight,” Aleah continues her story. “But they dragged him down to the water. And they had these pliers.”
The breath catches in her throat and she turns her face away from me. She’s quiet for a minute, and I don’t want her to continue.
“They pulled his fangs out,” she says around a tight throat. “And then his eyes. He finally stopped screaming in pain, but then he was just whimpering. Said how what he was wasn’t his fault, that he promised not to hurt anyone.”
“But the Hunter didn’t care.” I know how the rest goes.
Aleah nods, looking back down at the ground between her feet. “He tortured the man before killing him and throwing his body out into the ocean. He didn’t care about who that man was as a person, how he would have lived his life. He only cared about the King’s order.”
I shake my head as my eyes slide closed. My hands come to my arms, touching all the scars there. Representing those who just needed help. To be released back into a life of freedom and choice.
“We have to protect Kai and Michael,” Aleah says. And I look back at her. The protective notes in her voice are ones I’ve never heard before. “We can’t let this Hunter ever find them. No matter what.”
“Thank you.” The words slip from my mouth without thought. “I…I’m glad you’ve come to see them as worth protecting.”
Her eyes flick up to mine for just a second, and the expression on her face tells me I won’t see such sincerity again soon.
“I just… I thought you should know,” she says. “You’re going through enough. You shouldn’t have to deal with losing two of your best friends, as well.”
“I appreciate that,” I say. My hands come up to my stomach when I feel another movement.
“Has anyone really asked you how much you hate that thing inside of you?” She asks it quietly, but without her normal bite and sarcasm.
Her words shock me enough that a little laugh huffs from my lungs. I shake my head. “Everyone is walking around the situation on egg shells. And I can’t say I blame them. I honestly don’t know how I feel towards it.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Aleah says as she leans back on the bench. “It’s okay to have a mix of them. Hate, love, confusion. For me, that’s just another daily walk in the park.”
Poor Aleah. She’s always fighting some kind of demons. Guess that’s what happens when you’re entire, very large family is slaughtered by your uncle.
Growing up, I had always wanted younger siblings. Someone to keep me company, because even though Ian was always around, he was never very present or actually involved. There was an eight-year age gap between us, after all.
And as I got older, I thought of having my own family, children to fill the house, and laughter and love. Not that I really expected it to ever really come to pass, because first I had to find someone I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.
But now… I have someone I love very much. I have my own home. I have a life. And now there’s a child on the way. But everything just feels wrong.
It’s all wrong.
And I don’t think I can fix it.
So I pretend that everything is okay. I pretend that the past five months haven’t happened. I pretend that Charles was never a factor in my life.
“I’m so glad you reopened,” Teresa Beck says as she takes the bag with her Love Me from the counter. “I was so worried about you.”
“It’s good to be back,” I say with a little smile. “My poor aunt was just so ill and there was no one else to take care of her.”
“Well, you’re a good woman, Penny,” she says. “I hope Illinois treated you well.”
“It did,” I lie, and lie, and lie some more. “Have a nice day.”
As soon as she leaves, I turn and head back into the lab.
The castor beans have finished soaking by this point so I crack them open, dunking them back in the water and returning the water to boil. I pull the white snakeroot from the zipped bag I harvested this morning and set to crushing it in the mortar with my pestle.
All the while Lexington hangs back, watching me the entire day without a word.
Same as he did yesterday. And the day before. And the one before that.
He doesn’t believe my fake bullshit for one second. But he’s not calling me out. He’s actually said almost nothing at all for the past four days, not since he talked to Ian on the phone.
He’s simply been watching me.
I’ve just pulled out the nightshade when the bell suddenly rings above the door. The two of us duck back into the shop, and to my surprise, it’s Duncan there, his eyes wide and wild with fear.
“He’ll be here any second,” he says in panic, looking around the shop for something. “He’s going to go looking for-”
But he’s suddenly cut off by a figure stepping into view of the windows, and turning to open the door.
He’s tall, probably six foot three. A lean body and broad, muscular shoulders mark him as intimidating. But it’s his eyes that send a shiver down my spine. Slightly sunken, brooding and hidden beneath dark brows, they scan the shop with intensity.
Thick dark hai
r and a short beard hug his chin. He wears heavy boots, a black shirt, and a black jacket—despite the heat—with the collar pulled up high.
The man commands attention.
“You must be Elle Ward,” he says.
His accent immediately marks him as Austrian.
And my blood runs cold.
“I am,” I say, forcing myself to stand straight. “And who might you be?”
He crooks a slight smile, stepping forward slowly, pulling his gloves off. He reaches to shake my hand, and I make myself not hesitate when I take it. “My name is Killian Diamant and I am an ambassador to King Cyrus.”
That part was easy to assume.
“Welcome to Boston,” I say smoothly. “I hope you’ve been enjoying your time in my beautiful city.”
He gives a small, low laugh. “It’s quite pleasant, though I don’t think you can really say that it holds a candle to Roter Himmel, can you?”
“I don’t know,” I counter, holding still in my place. “I find the company here in Boston far more pleasant.”
Killian cracks a smile again, and it’s quite intimidating. “You certainly have changed since I last saw you as a tiny, child judge for that silly little Conrath woman. This world has transformed you.”
His eyes dip down, taking note of the slight bulge of my belly through my loose shirt.
“She’s certainly changed me,” Lexington suddenly pipes up. He steps forward, placing a hand under my belly, caressing it. “Never considered myself a family man, but then she came along, and it was all I could think about. Aren’t we lucky?”
Duncan’s eyes widen in fear as he looks at me, knowing the lie Lexington is spinning. Knowing the weight of a Court member, one who is here directly on the King’s business.
“Congratulations,” Killian says in a bored, annoyed tone. He even gives a slight eye roll. “I came here because I wanted to ask if Miss Ward here knew of any Bitten or any Born who might have control issues.”
And it’s certainly a good thing that vampires don’t have the ability to read minds, because instantly an image of Michael and Kai flashes into my brain.