by Amira Rain
After a short while, I broke our kiss and began leading him out to the living room by the hand. "Business first, or else we may never get a chance to talk. If we made love, I can just see us spending the whole night in bed, losing the opportunity to really tell each other what we’re thinking. Not to mention that you could be called away to go back out on patrol at any minute.”
While we sat down on the couch, Nick assured me that we’d have all the time we needed to talk. "To make sure we have all the time we need, I put Noah in charge of tonight’s patrol, and unless something really crazy happens, he shouldn’t need any help from me. During all this Dormio business lately, he's become one of the men I trust the most in recent days, which is crucially important to me.
“It’s always on my mind that there could be Dormio spies right within my ranks. They could be Everglen vampires that I’ve known for decades that have somehow been lured over to the Dormio cause by John. I wouldn’t put something like that past him at all…to try to turn some of my own fighters against me. Lord only knows John is planning even worse things than that.”
"Well, what exactly is he planning to do?"
Turned toward me with his side against the back of the couch and one of his long, muscular legs bent, Nick sighed. "I think he may be planning to try to abduct you at some point. After I refused to hand you over to him in exchange for peace the other day, which I didn’t even consider doing, some of my elite coven members were able to trail some of his men back to Detroit, and my elite men were able to overhear some talk about John’s next move possibly being a kidnapping…which I’m sure you’ve had enough of lately, having just been taken by the government.”
Considering the wariness and mistrust toward John that I'd developed, I couldn't say I was exactly stunned by the things Nick had just told me, but I still didn't understand.
"But, why? Am I really that important to John just because I happen to have the were-gene? Is it really worth it to him to kidnap me?”
“It was worth it to the government.”
“Well, true. But I just can’t believe that John is willing to risk it all just to try to have a child with me. Surely he must know that he and all his fighters might be killed if they ever try to take me from here in Everglen.”
“No, John is too cocky to ever think that. He’s the type of man who can hardly stand to think that things might not go his way. Which is why I think he’ll try to launch some kind of a large-scale attack on the town while he tries to kidnap you at the same time. In his mind, I’m sure he thinks the outcome of the day will be him killing hundreds of our people, and then whisking you away before the dust even has a chance to settle.
“Then, as far as a long-term plan, he probably thinks that Everglen will be so weakened by that point that it will be nothing for him to simply soon return to finish off everyone else in the city. That’s just how he thinks. He thinks he’s invincible. I’ve known him for long enough to be certain about this. This is also why he seems to think that he can double-cross the government by taking you.
“No matter who his foe is, he has unshakable faith that he’ll always come out on top. This is a dangerous way for a man to think, especially when that man is surrounded by other men who think the same. All of the Dormios suffer from an extreme cockiness problem in my opinion. That’s why their fighters are constantly trying to kill their own leaders.”
"So, you think John’s second-in-command could be plotting to kill him even right now?”
"Oh, absolutely. Although even if John were killed tomorrow, it still wouldn’t change anything, I don’t think. His second-in-command is well aware that you possess the were-gene, and I think he’d try to follow the exact same plan that John has dreamed up. And if the second-in-command were killed by another Dormio, the same exact cycle would repeat itself until every last one of them is dead. I’d love to see that play out, but unfortunately, with their numbers, it would take thousands of years. Which is why it’s up to me and my fighters to take out the Dormios. It’s just that sometimes, it feels like an impossible task. Sometimes, it feels like a task that I’m not up to.”
Although I knew that Nick didn't want my pity, looking at him across from me on the couch, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. Or maybe the feeling was just one of profound sadness. Warm track lighting in the living room revealed the faintest of dark circles beneath his coal-gray eyes, something I'd never seen before. I thought about how he probably hadn't even been able to get his half-hour of rest a night considering all he had to worry about and think about. Not to mention the fact that I knew that he was constantly preoccupied worrying about my safety.
After looking into his eyes for a moment, I took one of Nick's hands. "I'm so sorry that the Dormios have put you in this position. I know all you’ve ever wanted is peace. The Dormios just can’t see fit to give it to you, though. It's really horrible what you have to continue dealing with on a daily basis."
Nick just shrugged, giving me the faintest hint of a smile. "I'd be lying if I said that I don’t get tired of it all sometimes. Tired of always having to be on guard, tired of constantly having to strategize, and tired of constantly feeling the weight of so much responsibility on my shoulders.
“More than tired, though, I just feel angry, and this feeling has only increased since John told me that he wants you for his own. All I want now is for him to be destroyed. He's too dangerous to let live, and he doesn't deserve to live, considering that I know for a fact that he'd snuff out your life without thinking if you ceased to become of value to him. That’s probably the only reason he didn’t try to kill you, too, when he killed your ex-boyfriend.
“He just wanted you to do his dirty work for him. Once you lost your powers in the car accident, I think he just kind of metaphorically shrugged. Now that he knows you have the were-gene, though, you’ve become valuable to him once again…just another commodity for him to desire. He even thinks that if he were able to kidnap you, you’d even fall in love with him, if you can believe that.”
“And how do you know that?”
Caressing the back of my hand with his thumb, Nick shrugged. "It was just one of the many bits and pieces I learned from my spies today, who've been working tirelessly for me, knowing what’s on the line. Not only is your safety on the line, but the future of our whole community here in Everglen.
“Nobody wants to lose what we have. We’ve all worked too hard for it.” Nick paused, surprising me with his next words. “I’ve told you that I love you for you, Tiffany, and I mean that with all my heart, but I’d be lying if I said that I don’t hope you become pregnant soon. The increase in my strength that would go along with that would be so helpful in me fighting John.”
I said I understood completely. “If that’s what you want, then I want that, too…although I can’t help but feel like a baby wouldn’t be the best thing for us right now. After all, our relationship is still so new, and we don’t know what could happen in the next few months.”
“I know that I hope with all my heart that we’ll still be together. I know that that’s what I want more than anything, even more than gaining increased strength. I just want you, Tiffany. More than anything else.”
Nick looked completely sincere, but suddenly, I found that I just had a little bit of doubt.
“You wouldn’t ever lie to me…would you, Nick?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No. I love you too much to do that. I didn’t lie to you about who really killed your coven, and I’m not lying to you now.”
For some reason, I found his mention of my coven kind of jarring, and instead of making me feel more assured that he’d never lie to me, it actually had the opposite effect. It actually made me wonder if he had indeed been telling me the truth about that.
Almost against my better judgment, I realized that I just had to ask him one more time. “Nick, you didn’t have anything to do with the murder of my coven family, did you?”
“I swear to you, Tiffany. I didn’t.�
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The sincerity in his eyes was unmistakable, and I sighed.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that when I first met you, I thought for sure that you had done it, or had at least allowed it, just because that's what I was told…but now I feel like a fool for thinking that about you again. When it really comes down to it, I know in my heart that you could never have had anything to do with it. But for some reason right now, I just needed to hear you say it again.”
Nick's expression became one of such clear pain and sympathy that it almost broke my heart.
"I understand, Tiffany…and I understand that it may be some time before you fully, completely believe me with all your heart. Please believe me, though…I had nothing to do with the murders of your coven members. Those murders were the work of the Dormios, and only done in an attempt to manipulate you. From what I've been able to gather, your boyfriend James at the time had an idea to try to get you to kill me, but he knew you'd never do it without a very good reason.
“So he convinced you that I had done the murders. But then, of course, the wheels fell off that plan when James himself was killed. Then, John decided that he'd only use you as some last-ditch resort, only after many years had passed without him being successful in killing me himself. And then you had your car accident anyway.”
I couldn't help but feel like a fool for the second time.
"So James just took advantage of my trust in him. I was an idiot to trust him in the first place. I was an idiot to think that he actually loved me at the time."
Nick gave my hand a light squeeze. "It seems like we both have trusted people we shouldn't have in the past, but that doesn't make us idiots. It just makes us humans with hearts that aren't black like James’ and John’s.”
I squeezed Nick’s hand in return, and the next words out of my mouth shocked me.
“I almost hope that I’m already pregnant with your baby.”
Smiling, Nick gave my hand another gentle squeeze. "I can’t deny that I want the same thing, simply because I've fallen in love with you, and I think it would be a beautiful thing." Frowning a bit, he paused, seemingly hesitating, maybe trying to phrase what he wanted to say next. "But I'd also be lying if I said that I'm not hoping to gain increased strength from impregnating you.
“And, in fact, I'm somewhat banking on that I already have, or soon will. If I can gain increased strength, which a vampire father does -- not very long at all after conception -- then I'll be able to deal with John quickly, freeing us to begin a life together.”
Pausing, Nick exhaled in a rush. "If you don’t get pregnant anytime soon, we’ll deal with it, but trying to thwart John’s takeover is going to get a whole lot harder. With him already being physically stronger than me right now, us going toe-to-toe again with him having the advantage is something I hardly want to think about.
“But even if that happens...please believe me, Tiffany, I will find a way to kill him. If he attacks sooner than I'd like, maybe the love I feel for you will help me to gain strength all by itself; I don't know. But I promise you that I won't be killed, and I promise you I'll do what I need to do to ensure that we can start a happy life together."
I didn't know what to say, or rather, I did, but I just didn't know how to say it. All I knew was that my heart was overflowing with love for Nick right then. My eyes were beginning to overflow as well.
I forced myself to remain looking into his eyes, "I need to tell you something. I would love to have a baby with you, and family is so, so crucially important to me, since I never had much of one growing up, at least not until I was adopted into my coven family. I just hope I’m pregnant with your baby right now,”
"I do, too, but I don't care if you become pregnant with my child before or after a battle with the Dormios. I hope to God you do before, but either way, we'll make things work. Either way, we'll eventually be a family. Just have faith that we'll get through this together.
“Please, just believe in me. Whether I gain strength and attack John, or whether he attacks me first, this will all be over soon, and then our family life can begin. If I can organize things in a way where there's a minimal risk of people in the city being hurt, like if I can get John outside of the city at the same time, I may even lead all my fighters in an attack against him and all the Dormios at once.
“But no matter what happens, just know that I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to allow myself to be killed."
“Promise me that, Nick.”
“I promise.”
I hoped with all my heart that this was a promise he could keep.
CHAPTER 18
Before I could say anything else to Nick, his cellular phone began ringing, and he yanked it out of his pocket.
"Sorry. One second. This could be Noah, wanting to keep me posted about John’s whereabouts." Nick answered the call, had a brief conversation, only saying a few words, one of them being dammit, and then hung up. "That was Noah. John has been spotted lurking around, but he was chased away by my fighters; but now we have another Dormio problem.
“Three of them were seen lurking around the home of one of our council members, right inside city limits, but they were able to escape. Another was found inside a warehouse west of downtown and was captured. I want to interrogate him right away, to see if I can get some information out of him, and this is going to take some work.
“So I need to go right away, but I'll be back to visit you as soon as I'm able." After rising from the couch, Nick took my face in his hands and gave me a hasty kiss. "Try to get some sleep."
He was flying out of my living room before I could say a word.
Getting some sleep proved nearly impossible that night. I just tossed and turned, trying to digest everything he had told me in between fits of anxiety and guilt over the fact that I still hadn’t told him that I was determined to take part in any big fight against John. By morning, all my fretting was manifesting itself in tears, and I took a shower, sniffling all the while. It was only afterward, when I'd dressed in jeans and a cozy, oversize t-shirt, that I began to feel more tired than wired, so I got back into bed and slept until noon.
After what Nick had told me, I expected some calamitous fight to break out in the city at any second, but strangely, the next week or so passed completely uneventfully. Nick came to visit me alone one night, just to talk, he said, and I almost told him what I’d decided about fighting.
However, he was called away by within a minute of arriving at my apartment. Two nights later, pretty much the same thing happened; this time resulted in him being called away after a half-hour by Noah, who said that there was some sort of an emergency with a captured spy getting free.
On this particular night when Nick was called away, I regretted even having wasted my precious seconds with him talking about things that were fairly unimportant because that was time I could have used to tell him the truth about what I’d decided. I’d been trying to screw up my courage.
Later that day, he called me, saying that he didn’t think it would be long before John attempted some sort of an attack. “In fact, I think it could be any day now. Please, just continue to trust in me, Tiffany, and continue to have faith that we’ll soon get our dream. We’ll be able to live happily, and in peace, together.”
Trusting Nick about all this was fairly easy to me now, of course, but continuing to have faith was a little harder. I did believe in him, and no matter how much longer things continued on the way they were, I was determined not to lose hope. The hope that at least one of us would kill John, anyway, even if Nick didn’t know that I wanted that person to be me. However, the hope of our happiness together once I finally revealed this to him was a little harder to muster.
The day after Nick called me with that news, he joined me at my apartment for a bedroom session. It took every ounce of my strength to act "normal" and not show any sign of anxiety about the Dormio situation, but I managed to do it. After all, my only other option was to show Nick that maybe I didn’t yet hav
e faith in our eventual happily-ever-after.
Over the course of that week, Dana asked me multiple times what Nick and I had discussed the night we'd had our long discussion, and I told her everything. Or at least everything except how I’d failed to tell Nick that I was determined to fight, no matter what. Several times, Dana said that she could sense that something was bothering me that I wasn’t telling her about, but I just kept putting her off. Eventually she stopped asking, though at times, she seemed a bit miffed. I figured this was a small price to pay when it came to keeping my plan a secret until I could finally tell Nick.
A few more days passed. Another bedroom visit from Nick. He had become far less jokey and decidedly more serious, and this night was no exception. After he'd brought us both to a mind-blowing climax, he just sat on the floor by the bed, seemingly off in his own little world. I wondered if he was having second thoughts about his decision to not hand me over to John. I wondered if he actually was regretting it. But then again, it seemed more likely that with a battle with John becoming imminent, he was just preoccupied with the details.
On the first day of June, Dana called me unusually early, being that she tended to sleep in. I asked her what was up, and she hesitated before saying just a single word, drawing out the vowel.
"So...."
"'So' what?"
Again, she hesitated. "So... maybe we should meet up in person to talk. How about breakfast at the cafe? I could meet you in the building lobby in five."
For some reason, I suddenly just knew that Dana knew. She knew that I hadn’t given up the idea to fight. It wasn't just what she'd said about wanting to meet up in person, it was something about the tone of her voice, too. I told her I'd meet her down in the lobby in three.
When I arrived, I found her already there, waiting by a large potted fern, and we began making our way out of the building, past small clusters of people waiting at the different elevator bays and other clusters of people milling about the lobby, talking to each other with foam cups of coffee in their hands.